The fire spirit spinned around in what seemed like excitement. Soon, it stopped, descending to face Alvaro as he gave another yawn.
It's quite unfortunate I can't have a good rest. I wonder when was the last time I actually sleep normally?
"Tired already?"
"Nope, I can be awake for longer periods of time since I'm used to having insomnia."
"Okay, if you say so," the spirit sarcastically said, not believing him.
"Haah, what will I do with you," they continued.
"...?" Alvaro gave a confused head tilt at those words.
"Hmmm? Is there something wrong with what I said?"
"Not really, it's just that you're acting as if we're made a contract," he pointed out.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but why is the spirit convinced? Seems it bit strange not going to lie.
"Am I hearing that you don't want to from a contract?"
"That's not what I meant—-"
"Huuuh, I see."
"Huh?"
"You know, I was unsure about forming a contract with someone, but now I find that you might be the perfect person for someone like me."
I'm even more confused about the behavior of this spirit. I guess the only thing I can do now is to hear the reasoning.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"Come on, don't make me say it! I'm a young maiden after all."
Qué?
"You're a floating circle, what the fuck are you on?" retorted Alvaro at the comment.
"Wait a...minute...? What?" question Alvaro.
"Is there a problem with my gender?"
"No, it's just surprising."
Maybe it's my lack of sleep that is bringing my intelligence down. Well, not that I had any to begin with. But still, I never would have thought that they would have genders. Perhaps because I thought it would be different due to being in another world.
"You wound me, but not as much as when I saw you crying like a little lonely child."
"—!?"
A panicked expression quickly found its way onto Alvaro's face. He cursed himself for showing a moment of weakness, biting his lip.
Shit, I messed up again! How can I be so fucking stupid to not learn a lesson from what happened that time?!
Due to his own incompetence, he needs to remind himself to not show such possible strong emotions unless he wants to get taken advantage of. Luckily for him, this spirit isn't the type to do that, or that's what he hopes
"Aw, don't be so heartbroken. After all, that is what led me to choose you."
"I don't even care anymore," he chuckled.
I understand her less and less. At least she should be useful in the future.
"Okaay, now to the important stuff. We'll be forming a contract."
"Yeah, I'm sure I don't need to warn you about me being a witch cultist, right?"
"Yup, I don't care about that as long as you're still yourself I'm fine if you're a witch cultist or a knight."
"Ha, as if I'll ever be something like that," scoffed Alvaro, his mood getting slightly worse.
"Oh my! Why could that be?"
Alvaro rapidly found out that this particular spirit loved being sarcastic. He didn't know whether he liked it or not.
"I barely know about the country's situation. I would rather be a mercenary than being tied down to one country."
"That's my opinion on my matter for now. It could change depending on the circumstances," Alvaro explained.
Not to mention I'm not particularly fond of knighthood or chivalry. It's obvious, but there isn't any of that sort back in my world though when I heard of it, I didn't like it for some reason. Maybe I'm just bitter about something.
"Ok ok, let's cut the chat short as I want to form a contract."
He noticed that the spirit was awfully in a hurry. Since the spirit movements also signified forms of eagerness, Alvaro let go of the thought.
After forming the contract, Alvaro waited for the last spirit to appear. Alvaro didn't know if it was due to his lack of sleep, but his body felt worse every time he finished making a contract with a spirit. The first time he brushed it off as being tired, but with it getting worse he couldn't ignore it.
I only read books about the country and a bit of magic. It might be that this is related to spirit arts?
Unfortunately, he didn't have many options, so he opted to dissmiss the problems as he would only form a contract with one more spirit. Nothing can go wrong. Right?
"Ah, there you are," commented Alvaro, seeing the Yang spirit happily circling around him.
Even though it's been only a week before I met this particular spirit, I greatly appreciate its company.
"There really isn't much to talk about regarding the situation as you've been here since the beginning," said Alvaro.
"That's right, the only thing left to do is form the contract."
There really wasn't much to say after that. However, after the formation of the contract Alvaro collapsed on the rock-hard ground. The fatigue had finally caught up to him, or that's what he believed at first.
Not again....
Regrettably for him, he wasn't given the chance to check as his consciousness slowly drifted farther away until he lost it, falling asleep with a pained expression.
At least I'll be able to sleep.
Opening his eyes, his view was filled with the ground. A dark shade of grey was all he saw. He stood up, feeling better than before. Then he began stretching, yawning between stretches. His contracted spirits materialized from nowhere, surprising him a little. Although he had seen it a couple of times, he still couldn't get used to it.
Such a beautiful sight if I say so myself.
"Good evening," greeted the fire spirit.
"Damn, it's already evening?" Alvaro muttered, sort of disappointed in himself.
There goes my plans for the morning.
"Yes, since you were sleeping peacefully we didn't want to disturb you," said the yang spirit.
"Kind of strange that someone like you could sleep that peacefully," added the yin spirit.
"I'm going to ignore the fact that you watched me sleep. More importantly, I'll give you names to all of you," explained Alvaro.
After asking them, they told him that all of them were female which Alvaro found quite weird, but nothing too important.
Alright, I should give them names that have meaning behind them. I don't want to name them after a star cluster like me. Yes, I should name them after goddesses. Though only two out of the three will be from the same place.
"I'll name you Sol," he pointed towards the fire spirit.
"You can be Metzi," he then moved his finger to the yin spirit.
"Lastly, your name will be Citlali. Although that may be a shorter version of another name, it's also considered a different name."
"Your sense of naming is strange," all of them said in unison.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," dismissed Alvaro, staring straight at the spirit.
Alvaro was about to get up to start his day when he faintly heard the sound of multiple footsteps. Now, he would normally assume this was his fellow witch cultists, but he also recognized the sound of metal.
Is it—
His thoughts were abruptly cut off.
"Ah—!"
Immense pain was felt throughout his whole body, the feeling of being pierced countless times by unknown sharp objects.
Over and over.
Feeling as though all of the blood in his body had spilled out of him, Alvaro didn't even have the energy to scream.
In desperation, he scanned to see the source but to his confusion he couldn't see a single scratch on his body..
How? How? What is going on? Am I going to die? Or I'm already dead? But why isn't there any damage on my body? Magic?
Why? Huh? I—
A sharp slash cut through his throat, ending his suffering.
Huh?
But why was he still conscious?
More importantly, why is he still alive?
There was no trace of the once present pain, he checked once again, only to find no evidence indicating what he experienced. The torment he went through was soon gone as if he never experienced it in the first place.
Alvaro stood there, dumbfounded at everything that was occurring to him. His spirits asked what was all about, concerned about him.
Unfortunately, Alvaro was paralyzed in shock.
What was that...?
Suddenly a scene played through his mind, only the voice could be heard.
"I'm telling you people you have things wrong!"
"As if, a witch cults like you has no right to say anything. Consider yourself lucky that we haven't killed you at sight," an unknown person spat in disgust.
He had no idea of the surroundings, but he could infer it was in the same cave he was currently at as he could feel the ground.
I can hear everything, but I cannot see my surroundings.
"That's why I hate the concept of knighthood."
Those were his last thoughts as the distant memory came to an end, leaving nothing other than more confusion.
I—
Leaving him no time to gather his thoughts, the sound got significantly closer, showing various people in armor and uniforms. They looked at him with a bit of pity.
"Are you okay?" asked one, worried after seeing his pained expression.
"Yeah, I'm better," grunted Alvaro, as he slowly got up.
Due to this action, the gospel fell onto the floor. The sound echoed through the cave as the book fell, opening to the latest page. To them it was unreadable, but Alvaro saw something new written. He didn't know how, but the moment the gospel fell, it got updated.
"One, two, two, one."
Huh?
What cryptic bullshit is this?
Something, everything is wrong.
All of them raised their swords and charged at Alvaro, in a coordinated attack. Reacting quickly, he took out his sword, barely blocking one swing even with using Ryuuhou at the maximum of his ability.
He called his spirits, summoning them all in front of them. This caused them to slightly panic and began rushing to immediately kill him.
Let this work.
"Shamak!" he said, using the help of his yin spirit, Metzi, to help him not use all of his mana.
Although it worked, it only made him able to move a tiny bit. Alvaro had wasted too much mana due to a lack of practice.
Perhaps he would have been able to do better in another timeline... He sprinted as fast as he could to the exit.
"El Fura," said one of the many people there.
The smoke-like substance got dispelled as it relieved Alvaro running away.
While running to the assumed exit, tremendous agony filled his right side, he staggered as the amount was unbearable for him to ignore. The sound of metal was heard as Alvaro dropped his weapon.
The same wind that dispelled Shamak was the very same one that sliced Alvaro's entire right arm. Massive amount of blood gushed out of the missing limb.
"Ghk—" Alvaro gritted his teeth, holding his shoulder with his existing hand.
Sol tried her best to minimize the pain by burning the spot, making the intense torment increase ten folds.
"SHIT!" he screamed.
While the wound stopped bleeding, there still was that nagging pain throbbing throughout his body. Holding his missing limb, Alvaro stumbled into a nearby wall, using it as a resting place.
However, they weren't going to stop their assault, quite the opposite in fact. He didn't have anything to protect himself with as his weapon was dropped when his arm got cut off.
In a last ditch effort to protect himself, Alvaro purposely blocked the sword with his bare hand, delaying the outcome. In this time Citlali fired many heat rays, which Alvaro recognized as Jiwald, which went right through the knight's face, creating many holes through his face. The knight's body dropped with some of his blood spattering onto the ground and Alvaro. Before he could guard against the next attack a burning sensation overwhelmed him.
Looking down, his stomach was sliced through. His body had confused his pain as heat. He collapsed as his intestines fell out during the fall, spilling onto the ground. The knights watched in disgust as his body was losing its body heat.
As this was happening he could hear the conversation they were having.
"Once again one of our comrades was killed by a cultist," said one with a tone of regret.
"Did you find anything?" called another, ignoring his fellow knight sorrowful words.
"Other than his unreadable gospel, no."
"It seems like he was the only one here."
"A stray witch cultist, huh?"
"Damn those slum dwellers, they can't even properly report something."
"Now, there's nothing we can do about it. Let's go, we still have other things to do."
His body's heat got colder, bit by bit. The process was practically torture.
If I had only died instead of my parents. But weren't they the ones the reason for this? Should I hate everything they did? But why? Is it really necessary to hold grudges? There is no reason. After all, I have no worth.
They just wanted the best for us?
Really?
I...don't remember?
Ah...
What a fitting end.
With his last thought, Àlvaro Juàrez-Montero's life came to an end.
A/N
May the plot begin!
Like I said in the previous chapter he will have a ability similar like return by death, but with extra steps.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to tell you
for now as it is part of the mystery.
I'm sorry I haven't updated, I was focusing on my other fanfic.
Also I thank have to thank a reader for helping me coming up with one of the names.
Anyways as always I'll be answering questions you might have.
Thank you for reading!