"... Are you alright?"
Her voice carried no emotion, no tone, no concern, and yet it was so much better, so much more soothing, so much more comforting than the fake smile and fabricated concern of the Goddess of Light.
"... Are you alright?", she repeated when I did not give an answer. Her face, too, though I couldn't see it properly, didn't carry any emotion.
"Ah, uh... Yes, I'm fine", I answered, trying to get up when I noticed there was a hole where my stomach should be.
"... Are you sure?", she asked, eyeing the hole.
"Heh... Guess not, huh?", I responded, scratching the back of my head. I felt no pain even though I had such a grievous wound: for only the second time in my months as a Hero, I felt grateful towards Lady Luciel.
"Your soul... She was not able to touch it", the white-haired girl said, looking at my chest with her emotionless gaze.
"My soul... She...? Lady Luciel?", I asked, roughly inferring what she was referring to.
"... Indeed", she said, "the Azalyth hasn't latched on properly. You've noticed, haven't you? She's been trying to brainwash you."
"She's already succeeded with my friends", I said, looking down, "and I won't live much longer, so I can't do anything."
"... Then", she said, looking directly into my eyes, "won't you join me? Your abilities are strong, so with you by my side, we could take her down."
"... You're not going to try to kill me? You're Lady Luciel's enemy, right?"
"... My enemy is the puppetmistress, not her puppets. If their strings can be cut without hurting them, then I will."
"Heh. For a Goddess of Darkness, you sure are kindhearted. Sure, I'll join you. I want revenge, and I want to liberate this world."
"... Then, not 'Goddess of Darkness'. Call me by name."
"Then, should I call you Entropy?"
"... Over-familiar. You, are you always like this?", she said, turning away her head. It was a gesture that implied she should've been blushing, or perhaps pouting, but her pure white skin did not change in colour, and her expression remained flat.
"Not 'you'. I'm Arthur- no, I suppose I don't deserve to have a legendary hero's name anymore, huh? Hmm... Then, I'm Astaroth."
"Astaroth, Astaroth", she said, rolling the name around her mouth a few times. "... Then, Astaroth, how long can you live with that wound?"
"Ah, right", I said. "Hm... Heroes have more vitality than a regular human, but even then, I'll bleed out within a minute. If I tried to move, faster."
"... Troubling", she said, reaching out into her black dress and seemingly searching around for something. After several seconds, she took out a piece of black chalk and a large book, with ebony cover and bound in gold. "... These are my scriptures", she explained, "and enchanted chalk. Don't move." She gripped the chalk in her hand, drawing a magic circle around me on the cold, hard ground, and stood on its edge. "... Your face will be the same after this", she explained, "but you might grow. You'll also gain new abilities, and a black eye." She then started to recite something in a language I didn't understand, and I blacked out...
I woke up in bed, under luxurious black covers and facing up, towards the roof of my four-poster bed. "A dream, huh...", I muttered. Looking to the side, I noticed the curtains on the right side of the bed had been opened, and locked eyes with an expressionless rainbow-coloured pair of eyes.
YOU ARE READING
Entropy's Servant
Fantasy"I see. If someone's wronged me, it's fine if I just take revenge, right?" After having presumably died, Arthur is reincarnated into a 'fantasy', almost game-like world by its Goddess of Light with only a few memories on set subjects, and, grateful...
