Asher the Insane

48 - Aebshem the Humouring

"Oh, boohoo Orochimaru. Wait, that was supposed to be sad, right? You're sad? You're the boy and the man in the story, right? Like the new person, slash, creature, which came from the union of two beings, blah, blah, blah. Or have I got this wrong?" an old voice rang.

"Who is that?" I looked around.

There was a small, gray-haired woman, standing in the middle of the dimly lit room.

"Hello," she waved with her old hand, "name's Asher, but you can call me Miss Burell. Sadly, I was never married, so no Misses Burell, which I think sounds better."

"And how did you get here, Miss Burell?" I humored her. This may be the last day of her old life.

"A priest send me, or rather, I sent myself to save these assholes."

"...The priest sent you?" After hearing that, I laughed heartily while shedding happy tears.

She started over, "I then reflected, 'Well, they don't necessarily have to fail simply because they don't have the five-man party exactly right or the anime trio.' Maybe it's a young, horny adolescent who is dense yet powerful with his equally horny waifus. But this wasn't how things ended out, was it? Lemme see...," she turned to the captives, "let's play a game."

From a void ripped in the air, a few items were spewed out, but before they could crash onto the ground, the old woman reached out a hand and they floated slowly and ever so gently, landing on the ground with a quiet clank.

"I have a few items here. Let me guess which belongs to who. First the easy one."

Without a strain in her muscle, she lifted a great axe with one hand. "I guess this belongs to the orc, no? Tell me, are you the big, noble kind or the bigger, stupid kind? - Don't respond. With this big guy in tow, it's no surprise you guys were discovered and captured so quickly.

Next, a staff. This belongs to the elf girl. I don't know exactly which variety she is, but I want to say... dark elf? Either you're a healer or have proficiency in elemental magic, am I right?"

She then lifted two bags from the pile. "I have two bags, pretty obvious," she rattled both of them. "From the outside, it may be hard to differentiate between these two. Bag A is full of random junk. Bag B, on the other hand, is full of actually useful stuff. I guess that the useless stuff belongs to the goblin. I've heard that they love to collect junk. The other one belongs to the dwarf. Bombs and engineering stuff seem pretty dwarf-y. Could have belonged to a goblin too, to be honest. But who else is going to be the junk owner? Lastly, a sword and shield. By means of elimination, they must belong to the older human gentleman. Compared to me, you don't seem that old but are a bit advanced in age. Usually, these types of characters are mages or monks, but still. There would be a sword and shield left.

Am I correct with these guesses?"

They all nodded, but this situation confused them.

Why an old woman was here? Why I didn't just kill her immediately or why did I let her play this stupid game?

It was all because I didn't really care. She was unimportant. To me, to our cause, to the very world itself.

"And you-" she approached me.

The children began to move, in an obvious attempt to restrain her, but I commanded them to stop and told them, "Let her."

"Let's be clear about this. You had the boy's body and the man's abilities, but both of them seemed to have been 'erased'? That their personalities, memories, and other things have vanished?"

"Oh, you make it sound so crude, Miss Burell."

"I feel as though I've heard that before, but I'm not sure where. Simply put, don't you think it seems so unoriginal? Still, it's kind of sad to hear something like that, but it lessens the impact if I think it's a rip-off from something."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can agree." I sat down on a stone bench in the main hall and waved for her to sit next to me.

She sat there, her bones groaning, and continued to ask: "What is the strategy here? You summon the goddess somehow, but then what?"

"That is for you to see, just like these so-called 'Heroes' will see. Everyone will."

With piercing eyes, I asked, "Are you going to try to stop us?"

"Nah."