The Sword Saint’s Second Life As a Fox Girl
6-9 Past grievance

As if the inn wasn’t fancy enough, there was even a balcony, one for each side of the room that encompassed the entire floor. There were even chairs and tables laid out, along with refreshments that came in ornate jugs and meticulously crafted glass cups. One would kill for such a luxurious experience but for Erin, none of these things interested her. They weren’t in her sight at all. She didn’t come out to the balcony for these exorbitant indulgences but to clear her head and mind.

The moon was shy tonight. It showed barely a tenth of its body despite the absence of clouds. A bleak darkness. On the bright side, this spelled the unlikelihood of rain. A pity, Erin thought. She could use some rain about now. The sound of rain had always been pleasing to her ears, so long as she was now directly under it. Perhaps the rain would also help mask her dour mood.

Her garments were light as it was supposed to be the hour of slumber. Her robe was thin. She could feel the breeze grazing her skin ever so slightly. It would be freezing but the cold was just what she needed now. It helped take her mind off of things.

The face of the man kept appearing in her mind. The man was William Marsh, allegedly. The one who rose through the ranks of noble at an absurd pace. The one who was suspected to be behind the abductions of the villagers. While Marsh’s face rang no bells for everyone else, Erin had a tangled impression of it. She knew the man, his face, to be precise.

With a blank stare that gazed out in the town before her, Erin sighed. “I know you’re there.”

“I’m aware,” Aedan said as he stepped out of the shadows. “Everyone’s worried.”

“I’m aware,” Erin retorted. “Why are you here?”

“I just told you?”

“I mean, why you? Did you volunteer to come talk to me?”

“I was chosen, actually. We took a vote and they all voted for me to come talk to you.”

“Including Nivia and Lyra?”

“Including them. They’re not idiots. They’re not children. They know I’m special, in the same way that you are.”

Erin chuckled wryly. “Was it that obvious?”

“It is if one knows about your… history. Obviously, he’s someone from the past. And your past is… well, from a whole other world. So, who is he?” Aedan joined Erin by her side, leaning forward on the railing. “An old flame?”

“I had no such preferences when I was still… Argon Raze. And I still don’t.”

“Oh? Either I’m special or you don’t see me as a man. Which one?”

Erin rolled her eyes and neglected the question. 

“Okay, end of that joke. Back to the serious question at hand. Who is he?”

“Ivan Soze.”

“And who is Ivan Soze?”

“...A friend. He was, at least. It was a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

Erin’s expression darkened and there was a frown that looked painful to bear. “I killed his lover. She studied the sword as meticulously and fervently as I had. We share the same passion and goal, the title of the strongest, the Sword Saint. There can only be one. I was a very different person back then. Though I consider him a friend, I wasn’t very sympathetic to the concept of friends. The sword was my mistress and lover, and my destiny. I cared little for anything else, not even the life of a friend’s lover…”

“Ah…” Aedan muttered. He could roughly guess what happened afterwards but interrupting Erin now would be boorish.

“I killed her and I didn’t feel terrible about it. I just went about my day and routine like it was normal… like nothing terrible happened.”

Aedan stayed silent. He waited for Erin to finish her story. 

However, Erin was silent for a long while. She was simply staring into the distance with a gaze that was on the verge of tears.

“Erin?”

“I killed him too… He wanted revenge… for the death of his lover and my betrayal of our friendship. He challenged me to an official duel. Of course, I won. The massacre didn’t stop there… He had friends… and his friends had friends. They kept coming to me. To challenge me. It was truly a massacre now that I think about it… but to me of the past, it was just another string of challenges like any other day.” 

“...”

Erin narrowed her gaze and glared at Aedan. “You’re being uncharacteristically silent.”

“I was being respectful.”

Erin snorted. “If all you intend to do is to just stand there and listen, you might as well make yourself scarce.”

Aedan raised his brows, dazed by Erin’s words. His stupefaction lasted briefly. He returned to his senses along with an understanding. He was no friend of Erin— He was her lover and he did what a lover would and should. He came behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Better?” he asked.

“Awful.” Erin finally smiled, a small smile fraught with bitter memories, but a smile nonetheless. “But it’s better than nothing.”

“I will do better. Well, what happened? You grew a conscience one day?”

“...Something like that. It didn’t just appear out of nowhere. I always had it, but it was buried because of my pursuit in honing my swordsmanship. As I reached the top, as the challenges stopped coming, I had nothing else to look forward to. I ended up looking back on myself… my life, my past. They ain’t pretty. I have done so many wrongs. I have killed so many… I tried not to think about it. They weren’t murderers, I kept telling myself.”

“Must be suffocating.”

“By coming to this world…, I thought I could start anew and forget about everything. I was in a different world, after all. In a different body, no less. This was my second chance. I couldn’t do right by so many people… I could repent for my sins, I told myself. But now… my past has caught up to me. I thought I had left everything behind… Karma’s a bitch, is that how you say it?”

“Yes, but not quite. We do not know if William Marsh is indeed Ivan Soze. It could be just someone who looks like him.”

“It’s him, Aedan. I know it.”

“Well, even if it’s him… he doesn’t know you, at least not in your current appearance.”

“That doesn’t make things better, Aedan. I killed his lover. I killed him. And I killed his friends, which he didn’t even know about, because he’s dead. I shudder to imagine if he did find out.”

“He doesn’t need to know.”

Erin broke free of Aedan’s arm and turned around. “I can’t do that. He needs to know the truth. I owe him that much.”

“Some debts are not meant to be paid.”

Erin stared at Aedan, unamused.

“Alright, bad analogy. But those are all in the past. And it’s not like you slaughtered them for some twisted sense of pleasure. They were duels.”

“If I die in an official duel, will you not want revenge on the one who killed me?”

“That’s…”

“That’s?”

Aedan sighed. “That’s not fair.”

Erin snickered and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Everything’s fair in love and war.”

“I’m terrible at things like this. Maybe Nivia or Lyra would be better at this.”

“Perhaps, but you’re here now. I’ll make do with what I have.”

“Now you’re making me feel bad.”

“And I’m feeling better already.” Erin giggled and plunged herself into Aedan’s embrace. 

Aedan wanted to say something but he relented and resigned himself to Erin’s tight embrace that seemed to be getting tighter and tighter by the second.

“Say… how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You have done a lot of bad too. More than anyone had, I would confidently assume.” 

Aedan chuckled wryly. “More than enough to last a thousand lifetimes.”

“How do you deal with it? The guilt and all the nightmares… Does it get easier with time?”

“It does get easier. You learn to live with it even when something appears out of nowhere to remind you of your horrible past… You can off yourself and be done with it but… that’s not possible for me and you. Heck of a coincidence, now that I think about it.”

“Or it’s just a cruel joke by the gods.”

“I used to believe that too… But it’s not. Gods don’t believe in jokes. Most of them don’t, at least. For people like us, we make our own choices. We make our own fate. We make our own luck.”

“And we have to pay for the consequences.”

“That would be the right thing to do…”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming.”

“But I don’t want you to do the right thing. I don’t want to lose you. I have lost so many and I don’t intend to face any more losses.”

“I’m not going to die and I don’t intend to die. I can’t die even if I want to. I just… I just need to tell Ivan the truth and… I need to apologise.”

“Bad idea,” Aedan scoffed. “If your murderer tries the same thing, I would not even listen to a single word he said. I would cripple him and torture for months before giving him a slow, painful, and gruesome death.”

“Even if the murderer was under the same circumstances?”

“If the murderer’s a friend, I would kill them quickly.”

“You think he would kill me if I tell him everything?”

Aedan shrugged. “I would.”

Erin sighed. “I see… Still, I won’t have a good night's sleep if I don’t tell him.”

“One step at a time. We have to ascertain whether he’s truly Ivan Souls.”

“Soze.”

“Soze, whatever. Next, even if he is indeed Ivan Soze, he is still under suspicion for the recent disappearances. If he is the one behind it all, I don’t think he deserves to know the truth or your apology. What do you think, Lilian?”

There was only silence, for a brief moment. But then, a Dryad stepped out of the shadows in the same manner as Aedan had.

“There’s no escaping the senses of you two, is there?” Lilian tittered. She was dressed in night garments that were just as light and thin as the ones Erin was wearing.

“There are ways but clearly, you didn’t find them yet,” Aedan retorted. “So, what’s your opinion?”

“Do I have to give one?”

“It’s the least you could do for eavesdropping on us.”

“I was doing no such thing. We were merely worried. We didn’t think Aedan was enough, so I was sent.”

Erin raised an eyebrow. “You?”

“You wound me with that look, my dear Erin. Do you think me so unreliable?”

“We shall find out. Back to the question at hand, what is your outlook on all this?”

Smiling, Lilian walked up beside them, leaning sideways against the railing. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, as they tend to say.”

“Whose they?” Erin asked.

“People. Even if Marsh, or Soze, is responsible for the disappearances, he deserves to know.”

“You’re unexpectedly clement,” Aedan remarked.

“I am merely taking various factors into consideration. If he is wicked, it might be the result of a lover’s death.” Lilian’s smile turned into a smirk as her gaze wandered to Erin.

“That’s a huge leap.”

“Is it? Aedan, sweetheart, I’m sure you have heard about the rumours regarding the temptation of the dark arts.”

“Hmm… That is a very likely possibility.”

“What am I missing here?” Erin questioned.

“The Dark Arts, or Dark Magic, are versatile in ways that are only limited by one’s imagination. The biggest temptation of the Dark Arts is the ability to control life and death.”

“Necromancy…” Erin realised. “N—no. That’s not possible. Katya didn’t die in this world.”

“Neither did Soze, but here he is,” Aedan said. “Well, that’s only if he’s actually Soze. It’s all just guesswork now, so try not to think too hard about it.”

“Does he need so many lives for one?”

“It depends on who he is trying to revive. It would be tragically funny if his lover were reincarnated in another world and all this necromancy stuff would be in absolute vain.”

Erin glared. 

So did Lilian. “That’s in poor taste.”

“...I suppose it is. My bad.”