Chapter 15: The One who shouldn’t Be
Instead of going blank or freezing in fear, Morden did something else; he started asking questions in his head. He had gotten a tiny bit more accustomed to being oblivious of things in this trial at this point, so now he has developed a little bit of a coping mechanism.
’Kill me? How? Why? Wasn’t the red ghost controlling her body? how did the part with the status screen enter into all of this?’
One by one questions kept popping up in his mind, but he had no answers for all of them, so he could only turn back to Layla, who was still in pain.
"You will have to give me more information," Morden said with a gentle, weird smile.
Despite the pain still in her head, Layla still hardly responded to Morden, almost as if she were being compelled to do so by something.
"Technically... the text didn’t say to kill you in particular, but it did say to kill... to kill," she started stuttering towards the end of her words.
"To kill what?" Morden urged.
"To kill.... The one who shouldn’t be," she finally managed to let out after a long struggle.
Hearing the final part of that statement immediately raised even more questions in Morden’s mind.
’The One who shouldn’t be? I don’t think that’s me, right? And even if I am the one, how did she know?"
He turned back to look at Layla with the intention of asking more questions, just like he had done not too long ago, but after noticing the look on her face, he decided to step back.
He stood up from his crouching pose and walked towards the cave wall on the other side.
BAM!
He hit the wall with all of his strength, but it was only enough to cause some loose particles to fall and nothing else.
"Why does it always have to be her?" he said out loud without anybody in sight.
Layla always seemed to be the one that had some information, always the one that was in pain from that red ghost.
"Why always her," he said again.
"This mission is too weird and creepy; this needs to end as soon as possible."
’How much time do I even have left?’ he thought before pulling up his status screen.
[Name: Morden Tales]
[Race: Human]
[Innate Ability: Gene Evolution]
[Genetic shards: 1]
[Status: Emotionally Depressed and Confused]
[Total Genetic Slots: 1]
[Occupied Genetic Slots: 1]
[Ability obtained: Boost (Uncommon grade)]
[Strength: 15]
[Speed: 17]
[Durability: 22]
[Stat Points: 10]
[Assigned Mission: Stop the Mountain Lord’s Reign of Terror]
[Temporary Mission: Completed]
[Time Remaining: 10 hours, 5 minutes]
[In Inventory: Uncommon-grade Genetic Weapon]
’I have less than 10 hours left.’
’I need to move it; it doesn’t matter if I don’t have everything figured out yet. I just need to end the Mountain Lord, which will in turn stop that ritual, and the villagers don’t have to be scared anymore.’
’Yeah yeah, that seems like a plan.’
’Head back to the village, kill the Mountain Lord, and then everything is solved; those questions be damned.’
According to his previous plans, he had planned to head back to the village in the daylight because it seemed those well-read ghosts don’t operate in the daylight, but after returning and being attacked by possessed Layla, everything was scrambled up.
"I will follow the old plan, attacking by daylight; ghosts aren’t active by daylight." He said with a nod, but he seems to have forgotten one very important piece of information Layla gave him not long ago.
Having come to a conclusion, Morden left the middle of the cave and moved closer to the exit, but he met Layla, a cradled-up figure.
Her head in between her crossed legs while her legs served as support, allowing her blonde hair to fall freely and scatter all around.
Seeing her like that, Morden wanted to open his mouth to console her or at least say some nice words since he could testify that she had suffered a great deal in a short period of time.
’Her life has completely turned upside down in just a night,’ he said to himself.
"Uhmm, Layla, you—" only after starting did he realize he actually had nothing to tell her at that point, so instead of some weird empty consolation, he would tell her his plans to end the source of her problems.
Morden watched as Layla remained unresponsive to his call; she instead remained in that pose.
"Layla, I will be heading back to the Village soon and I am only going back for one single thing. I will be going to kill the Mountain Lord."
"The source of all your pain and anguish,"
"In a few hours, he will be no more."
With those final words, Morden didn’t look back anymore; he continued his steps towards the exit with a fully determined gaze, there was nothing that would stop him anymore.
With the time he spent talking to Layla and getting ready, the sun had already started rising from the west, but Morden was too distracted to even notice such an anomaly.
But that wasn’t the only thing he failed to notice; Morden didn’t notice Layla raising her head from her hands to look at his vanishing figure while continuously muttering something.
"The One who shouldn’t be must die. The one who shouldn’t be must die. The one who shouldn’t be must die. The one who shouldn’t be must die"
Layla wasn’t the only one showing an anomalous reaction; at the Mountain Lord’s house, something else was also going on.
"Yes, yes, he will, he will die, he must die," the mountain Lord continued muttering while kneeling on the ground facing nothing except the white cat patiently lying in the corner.
Morden’s plan seemed to have worked, as the Mountain Lord’s condition appeared to be nothing short of terrible. The gaping wound Morden had seen on his chest last night was now mostly closed, but there was a very big flaw to it.
At this point, Morden had already arrived at his infiltration site, his gaze still fierce and firm while he stared at the time remaining.
[Time Remaining: 8 hours, 45 minutes]