Chapter 51.- Unstable
January/16th/2024
Forty Seventh Floor of Aincrad – Forest of Giant Flowers
Aeri
"You should be more careful, at least try to keep a low profile…" the maid says, "I mean, there haven't been any comments from our guildmates, but it doesn't take a genius to notice your outings."
"You see, I like the maid, but I always thought she was the servant. Why the hell is she barking orders at us?" Mirai mumbles.
Her condescending tone is uncalled for; I have been careful, more than she has. Just what the hell is more suspicious? That the girl that has always come and gone from the house to keep sneaking out? Or for the ever so diligent house dog to suddenly start disappearing for extended periods of time?
"I like her support, and she's reliable, but god damn is she annoying," Mirai complains.
"I've been careful, but you certainly haven't," I reply.
"I've taken the utmost of care in all of this," she snaps back.
"Of course you have!" I say sarcastically, "You've been so careful, you've forgotten to make food a couple of times. It is not at all suspicious how suddenly you go missing from the house."
"Point taken…" she exhales, "geez…"
"Well yeah, fucking think before you speak next time…" I mutter under my breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," I answer with a smile, "Now, come on, I want to get back and take a shower."
My attention is suddenly fixated on my feet. As I place one foot in front of the other, practically dragging me across this damn forest.
Flowers as tall as trees, what a dumb idea.
I try to roll my eyes, but they can only go so far, otherwise I would be looking right at the back of my skull. I would rather be doing this with Al; he keeps his mouth shut and only talks if necessary. Or at the very least, he tries to.
"Well, aren't you having fun, huh?" Mirai teases.
I ignore her; obviously, I can't really speak directly to her with Al's lap dog at my side. She would have something to say on the matter, meaning that she would have to open her mouth. Out of which would come out words, annoying words, words that would criticize me, words I don't want to hear. I close my eyes tightly as we keep walking through the dumb forest.
"Why don't you tell her?" Mirai suggests, "Tell her that you hate every single thing about her, tell her that you hate how smart she is, tell her that you hate how close she is to Al, tell her everything! Out with it now, what good will it do if you keep it bottled up inside?"
It wouldn't work, if I were to do that, things would get weird, I can't handle more weird stuff. I would break, I'm already pushing the limits but somehow I manage to find ways to keep making the ceiling higher. Ignoring Mirai, trying to keep myself busy, I even started doing yoga in the mornings. It's hard to empty my mind lately, I just want to be left alone, but I can't seem to catch a break.
We stop for a brief second right in front of a very large bush. Not only does this forest have large flowers but a lot of regular flora is oversized as well. A big bush is just the perfect place to take cover in. You can see hundreds of stiff branches blocking the way to its center, the perfect place to hide something.
Esra takes point and pushes past the leaves of the oversized bush. I follow her closely, jumping over branches and watching out not to trip over anything. This bush hides a really small shack, a place where we've been keeping someone.
Someone who refuses to cooperate.
"I wonder if she'll talk today, I mean, with the maid here I'm not so sure," Mirai says, "You should ask her to let you do it our way."
Esra seems to have taken more than a few steps ahead so I finally feel safe enough to whisper a few things without looking insane.
"She won't let me," I say softly, "Al strictly said to not torture her anymore…"
"Screw them; we only cut her legs off once!" Mirai complains, "Do you even remember what you we did to those snakes back when Regi was alive?"
A clear and almost too vivid memory comes to mind, I shake my head, trying to ignore it but Mirai decides to keep talking.
"That guy we slowly chopped into pieces as his friend watched," she laughs, "That was one way to get them talking!"
"Shut up…" I mutter.
"Oh come on, you know it works, I know it works, why not show the maid?" she says.
I make a conscious attempt to get closer to Esra, that way I will have an excuse to ignore that damned shadowy figure. I see Esra stop in front of a small door. I stop myself and place myself just next to her.
We stare for a few seconds at the well hidden structure. Anything other than the door is hardly visible, the walls and roof lay hidden behind thick leaves and branches, truly a safe house in the middle of a rather dangerous area.
"Alright…" the maid mumbles, "Let's get this over with."
She pushes the door in, and the door makes a creaky sound as it swings ajar. The inside is shrouded in thick darkness. My eyes can only make out a vague silhouette inside, I know too well who is in here but I keep my mouth shut and sheepishly follow Esra as I'm anxious to see her reaction.
"Master and I agreed to at least keep her with a small light source," Esra complains as she looks around for a lantern in her inventory.
Finding it quickly she lights it up to reveal the girl we captured a few days ago. The member from the Laughing Coffin is hanging from the ceiling by her left leg, thanks to a rope I tightly secured to one of the beams of the small shack yesterday.
The girl breathes rapidly through the sack I placed on her head and tightly secured with another rope around her neck. The fabric of the sack quickly pulls in around her mouth and then away as her breathing becomes more and more ragged.
"What is this?" the maid asks surprised, "Aeri, why did you leave her like this?"
"Well, I didn't really like not getting any information from her in the past days, so I had to improvise," I explain.
"This is inhumane!" she complains.
I laugh bit and get closer to her to the point her my own nose is a mere inch or so away from hers.
"That is rich," I huff, "Do I need to remind you that the decision to keep her alive and captured was yours? You've submitted this girl to this; I just made a few adjustments to her accommodations."
She stares at me with unwavering eyes. She swallows uncomfortably and then turns away, avoiding meeting my eyes. That's right, she understands, she won't complain anymore now. I wish I could just tell her. Tell her that there is no humane way to get her to talk. The only way this girl will talk is if we make her suffer, if we humiliate her and hurt her beyond reason.
"What are you going do to her?" she asks, but then shakes her head, "What are we going do to her?"
"As I said, she is reliable, just try not to give her any reason to talk," Mirai says.
I smile a bit and turn towards the upside-down girl.
"Well, for starters," I chuckle and take a step back, "Let's make sure she is awake."
I take one big step forwards and kick the girl's face as I move forward. I can hear her grunt in a bit of pain as my boot connects to what is probably her jaw. I really can't tell with that sack covering her head.
"Yeah, that's right!" Mirai yells.
"Wakey, wakey!" I exclaim.
I bend a knee and pull the sack off of her face. Once I do she gasps for air as she tries to desperately look around the room.
"Please put me down!" she begs.
I walk behind her suspended body and trace my hand along her back; she quivers as I pull my fingers along her body. I set my hands over her wrists which are bound tightly with more rope behind her back. Tightly grabbing her wrist I turn my body slightly and stare for a few seconds at the lovely maid.
"I have something in mind to make her talk," I say, "However…I need you to shut up while I do it and to not try and stop me and to not tell Al at all."
"What do you have in mind?"
"It's a yes or no thing," I answer.
"Please put me down!" the girl begs again.
Esra looks at the girl for a few seconds, then her sight diverts to me. Her eyes linger but after another set of straining seconds she nods.
I extend my hand to her and place the other on the girl's ankle.
"Give me your dagger," I demand.
Barely processing my request she reaches behind her back and places the dagger on my hand. Gripping it tightly I bring it up to my face. The serrated edge is a nice touch, certainly something I never expected from the ever so diligent maid. I guess back in her prime this blade had an alternate purpose.
"Please! Please let me down!" the girl says once more.
"Alright then," I huff.
I place the serrated edge of the small dagger on her ankle and start sawing away.
"Just cut the rope!" she screams in discomfort.
I ignore her and keep slowly but surely digging the blade deeper into her ankle. I keep my hand doing the fluid motion of pulling away and pushing back in for a short few seconds before I completely manage to detach her leg from her ankle. The girl's body drops to the ground, she hits her head against the hard wooden floor and the rest of her body limply falls over.
"Aeri…" Esra whimpers.
She covers her mouth and then takes a few steps back. The maid finds no more room behind her and completely presses her back against the wall not too far from the door. She widens her eyes at the black-clad girl complain on the floor.
"Why are you such a hypocrite?" I ask, Mirai's voice synching perfectly with mine, "You killed her friend the other day. So you don't get to chicken out now!"
"You're crazy!" the girl screams.
Her words feel like a stinging blow in the back of my head, grinding my teeth I turn quickly and deliver a kick to her gut. As my boot makes contact with her stomach she gasps for air and curls into a fetal position.
"Shut up!" I yell, "I'm sick and tired of coming back here every to see if you want to talk or not! So today we are doing it my way! You either talk or you die!"
The girl laughs a bit and she finds the nerve to look at me right in the eye.
"If I'm so valuable to you, you will never kill me!" she says, "I'm your one and only source of information right now! You couldn't kill me even if you wanted to!"
I bring down my menu and throw the dagger at the ground as I do. I equip my gauntlets and hear Mirai softly whispering into my ear.
"Prove her wrong."
My hands slowly raise themselves to my neck and my fingers dig slowly into the side of it. Esra makes a lousy attempt at stopping me but before she even takes a step forward she takes two back and forces herself to stay with her back against the wall.
"Bloodlust," I say gently.
The gauntlets extend to my shoulders and I dig my right hand into the girl's thigh. She winces slightly and jerks her body away which only makes my fingertips drags along her skin.
"It burns!" she shouts as her body recoils.
"Where can I find more of your guild?" I ask.
"It burns, it burns! Stop!"
"Wrong answer, " I growl.
Placing my other hand just above the one embedded into her skin I pull with all my strength and rip apart the rest of her leg. She screams in pain and her body shakes involuntarily.
"I'm going to ask again," I say, "Where can we find more members of the Laughing Coffin?!"
"I'm not telling you anything!" she replies, clearly in agony.
"Wrong again!" I seethe.
This time I harshly turn her on her belly and dig my fingers into her back. Making sure I do so as slowly as possible I drag my hand down her back. The shining damage effect I leave across her back is almost blinding but at the same time satisfying.
I can hear how the girl bites down on her lips to not scream or complain. It's too obvious. She will be easy to break; I only regret I was not allowed to do this sooner.
"You can walk out of this," I say softly.
"Oh, that's a classic," Mirai chuckles.
"You just have to tell me what I want: where your friends are," we both say in synch.
"You are going to have to try harder!" she answers.
A soft laugh escapes my lips as I stand up. I raise my right leg a bit and start stepping in the girl's head. I drop my foot on the back of her head and the raise it back again to continue. One hit after another I feel my sole pushing her head into the ground.
"Come, on just tell us!" Esra interjects.
"Keep quiet," I snap at Esra.
She covers her mouth and no longer being able to look at the scene, her eyes start focusing on her on the floor.
"I will kill you if you don't answer me this time," I say.
"You won't kill me!" she says.
I place my left knee over her back and bring both of my hands to her neck. I dig both of my hands into her neck and slowly start pulling away in opposite directions.
"Last chance!" I yell.
I know the volume of my voice is quite loud but somehow her screaming overpowers my own. Not gauging my strength, I'm able to see for a split second how her head detaches from the base of her neck. Her body stops moving and seconds later her stiffened corpse disappears below me.
"Nice one," Mirai comments.
"Aeri…" Esra gasps.
"Shit…I…" I stammer and stand up.
I look down at my hands and deactivate bloodlust. I feel the gauntlets slowly retracting their reach over my body and in a small moment of panic I take things off, dropping them on the floor.
"I didn't mean to…" I mumble.
"We are lying again?" Mirai mutters.
I feel a horrible feeling coursing through my being, I wasn't careful enough; I really wasn't meaning to kill her. I was supposed to get information out of her. We no longer know or will have a chance of knowing of other Laughing Coffin operations. Dammit, I messed it up. I will have to contact Argo for new information, but even she is growing weary of me.
"What do we do now?" Esra asks.
I feel a little comfort in her use of the "we" pronoun. She might think I'm insane or just a murderous crazy girl but at the very least she is willing to stick along for a while longer.
Her question rolls around for more than a few seconds in my mind. What do we do now? We no longer have any valid sources of information and to hastily move and try to get another group from the Laughing Coffin might be very counterproductive.
"We have to tell Al about this…" I sigh and bring my menu down.
"Write a lovely message dear," Mirai says, "Be sure to include the part where you were able to see the floor below the broad as you disconnected her head from her body. I think that was the best part."
Moving over to messages tab I click the icon to start writing a new message when the bell indicating I have new mail rings loudly. A message from Asuna.
-From: Asuna
-To: Aeri
-Subject: Good news!
-Message: I've passed along the last update on your Guild Member's level to the clearing parties. They are willing to have a meeting with your guild leader and someone he trusts (I assume that would be you). Oh right, some of them mentioned not being completely ok with the levels of the players you informed about, their names Sinna and Elina. So tell Alshep to get in contact with me and I'll give him the information about the meeting place. Bring your best attitude girlfriend; the leaders of both the Aincrad Liberation Force and even those guys from the DDA will be there.
I guess this is as good time as any; probably not the best of timing, but this will definitely get Al preoccupied on something else other than the fact that I killed our prisoner.
"We might have a spot with the clearing parties," I comment.
"I see, but what do we do about our current situation?" she asks.
"Dammit, I already told you, just tell Al, we'll figure things out later," I sigh, "…we have a floor to clear now."
Seventeenth Floor of Aincrad – Steel & Swords Guild House – City of Barrowdell
Al's fist finds a quick way to the nearby wall, his hands shines slightly as he does so. As his closed hand makes contact with the surface a purple grid appears below it, stating the obvious fact that you can't hurt a building.
"God dammit Aeri," he remarks, "Why do you always have to take things over the line?"
"Master, if I may," Esra butts in, "I should've stopped it, I was the-"
"No!" Al fumes, "This was her fault."
I find myself holding my left arm, embracing myself at Al's harsh words. They are not misplaced, but I don't like it when he gets angry with me. I pout a little and refuse to look at him.
"Dammit," he says, "Answer this, did you mean to kill her?"
"I didn't mean to, I swear…" I answer softly.
"Well, let's agree to disagree on that," Mirai huffs.
"Alright…" he sighs, "What's done is done I guess…get ready then we need to leave soon for that meeting."
I nod at him and he promptly leaves my room along with his damned lap dog. Once Esra closes the door behind her I throw myself over my bed and press my face against the pillow. I scream with all my might into the fluffy object. My discomfort only becoming apparent as set of muffled sounds. I get a little too confortable in bed and managing to block out Mirai's presence. I find my way to a peaceful little nap. My eyes close down like heavy curtains and I start breathing in and out harmoniously.
My peace is interrupted as the door slams into my room. I jerk my body up and sit up, at my door stands Al, he doesn't have the happiest of faces. I probably slept for ten minutes or so.
"I told you to get ready," he scolds.
"I'm sorry," I whimper and stand up.
I take a few steps and he turns away to head for the stairs. I follow him, keeping a close distance but not as close as I would if we were not mad at me. We quietly make our way out of the house. Al just stops by the door to kiss Elina goodbye. I wave her goodbye and we step out into the crowded street. Al ignores me all the way to the teleport gate where he only turns my way in order to tell me the floor I need to teleport to.
"They said they wanted to meet in a restaurant in Coral," he says, "But you can't exactly be there, so I convinced them to change the location."
"Thanks…where are we going then?"
"We are going to a café in Starting City," he replies.
I sigh at his tone and let my shoulders droop a little. To think all of this could've been avoided, probably he wouldn't be mad then.
"Listen…I'm a bit mad that we lost our only possibly chance at some information…" he admits, "but Aeri…I'm more worried about you."
"Worried?"
"We'll discuss that later, we really should get going," he says and disappears from the teleport gate.
Using the menu I select the first floor and teleport myself to the main plaza of Starting City. The system sets me just a few feet away from Al who I can see heading to one of the side streets that draws a straight line to the center for the plaza. On a building not far from said street I can see a familiar figure.
A red and white uniformed figure takes a few steps forward and raising her hand in the air she starts to wave at us enthusiastically.
"You guys made it," Asuna exclaims.
I wave at her as well and trot a little to meet her. She hugs me briefly and shakes hands with Al. I find it a bit funny how stiff and proper they seem to be around each other.
"Everyone else is waiting, please come in," she says.
Taking us into the street she then makes a sharp right and pushes the door of a small establishment open. A small bell chimes as the door swings open and we make our way in.
"Welcome to Aria Café!" the NPC sings happily.
The place is completely empty except for a table right in the middle where three other players sit at. A woman with long silver hair, which she elegantly fixes into a ponytail, her face just screams seriousness and she seems to be one of those people that you can tell are smart by just looking at their expression. Next to her is a man with disheveled red hair, a weird bandana keeps it in place. He easily leans back to get a good look at us when he notices our arrival. He shoots a warm smile in our direction. Last in the table is a man with blue-ish hair and a sour expression, he seems annoyed as he sits with his arms crossed over his shiny silver armor.
"These are the people representing of the current clearing parties," Asuna says.
The woman with the beautiful hair stands up and makes a little bow at us. I react accordingly and level my head a little to return the gesture.
"My name is Yulier," she says, "I'm here representing the Aincrad Liberation Force, our leader Thinker could not make it, so apologies for the time being. For today I will speak on his behalf."
Al and I nod at the woman, once she is done introducing herself the man with red hair stands up from his seat. I can see clearly now that he wears a samurai-like armor, it must have some amazing attack buffs. He knocks his closed fist against his chest plate and smiles again.
"The name's Klein, I'm the leader of the guild called Fuurinkazan!" he announces proudly, "Nice to meet you."
The last man in the table sighs deeply and turns his gaze towards us. Unlike the people he shares the table with he refuses to stand up and merely gives us an annoyed look.
"My name is Lind, I'm here representing the Divine Dragon Alliance," he states.
"Would it kill him to be a little nicer?" I can hear Asuna mutter softly, "Well anyways! You know me, my name is Asuna and I will be representing the Knights of the Blood in this meeting. My guild leader has other matters to tend to, so I will tend to this one."
Al clears his throat and nods the players. We move over to take our seat in the table but before sitting down Al speaks.
"My name is Alshep, I'm the leader of Steel & Swords, thank you all for having us here today," he says.
"My, my, our dear leader. So proper, so manly," Mirai purrs.
"This is my second in command," he continues and places his hand on my shoulder.
"I'm Aeri, thank you for having us," I say gently.
"Great, now that we are done with the middle school introductions can we get to business?" Lind huffs.
"Calm down, we have all the time in the world," Klein says.
Lind chuckles at Klein's words as we take a seat. He smugly grins at the red haired player and then exaggeratedly shakes his head at him.
"I don't know how the Fuurinwhatever like to invest their time in, but the DDA likes to invest it's time in things that actually matter," he says.
"Bite me! Your guild is nothing but a band of psychos out for items!" Klein yells, "Should I remind you your guild viscously attacked mine just to try and get one of those?"
"The DDA is a large guild, many sub-leaders take small groups of men and lead them on their own accord," Lind says, trying to excuse himself.
"You were there!" Klein spits back.
"Gentlemen, let's keep this meeting civil," Yulier proposes, "We are not here to discuss our guild's previous actions. We are here to talk about whether or not we let Steel & Swords join the frontlines."
"Thank you, Julier…" Asuna sighs in relief, "I know all of our guilds have their differences but as Julier already said, we are not here to discuss that today."
"Right, I'm sorry," Klein says.
"Whatever…" Lind mutters.
"First and foremost I think we should explain why we've called you into gathering," Yulier says, "The front liners really don't have any say on who participates on the boss battles or not. However, security has been a growing concern recently and we at the very least feel a need to regulate what kind of people join us in these battles."
"Strategies are a must if you want to survives bosses and most people that just join into the battle without talking to us tend to do whatever they want and not follow our instructions," Klein adds, "By no means do we want to boss people around, but having players disrupting our tactics and mindlessly throwing themselves into danger is something we want to avoid."
"Well said," Asuna comments with a smile, "We have strategy meetings every now and then, the attendants are comprised of every guild that wishes to participate in the boss battle, that way everyone fighting is informed and thus chaos is less likely to arise once the attempt begins."
"If you are to join us in the front lines, your guild will have to constantly train and try to keep their levels as high as the front liners," Yulier continues, "It's no easy task but it's also not an impossible one."
"That's what leads us to our first topic of discussion here…" Lind mutters, "According to the information you've given us you have two guild members that are somewhat low leveled."
"We do, I suspect you wouldn't like these members participating in the boss battles?" Al asks.
"Correct, until they are a higher level and you as a guild leader deem they would be of use in combat," Yulier says, "We wouldn't want any players to die just because they weren't ready."
"That makes sense…" I mumble.
"I understand," Al says.
Lind stands up with a rather big grin on his face and Yulier's, Klein's and Asuna's expressions suddenly change into ones of annoyance.
"Jumping into topic number two," the man says, "Alshep, leader of Steel & Swords, care to tell us why someone such as yourself, with intentions as pure as you allegedly present. A guild with the goal of helping peop-"
"I don't like when people dancing around a point," Al bitterly interrupts him.
The man pauses and gives Al an even wider shit-eating grin.
"Why is your second in command a red player?"
Crysina here!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Update: 08/12/2015 - This chapter is now beta read by DragonofAnnoth!
How are you all doing? Aeri is going to a rougher patch lately and things are going from dark to absolutely grim if you ask me. As I said this will be a much darker arc and I think just by reading the last few chapters you can realize this. Either way, I apologize if this feels short or something but I'm just pacing myself. I'm very glad and surprised to see a couple of new follows and favorites this week. Waking up to the email notifications of people liking my story truly puts a smile in my face. My beta-reader is having a bit of a heavy month so I will be applying his revisions during the week as I did with the last one. (I like to think I've reduced silly mistakes with this chapter haha) There is no extra chapter this week again as I think I don't want to add anything else to this chapter, but next week do expect one.
devilparrot: Glad to se eyou are still around! Thank you so much for your support! IC0: Does this tickle your sadistic side? Haha I'm kidding but I figure this at least scratches that itch of yours with the last chapter.
As always, if you like what you read, please a review, I always enjoy reading what people have to say about my story be it good or bad. I will see you all next week! Also no teasers this week!
