253 The Devil

"Correct!" Knucker admitted, "Feel free to think of me as the one who has all the spoilers for how our little story will end!"

Evlin was having trouble forming her words, "You... You could see... You could see everything..."

"Sure did!" he replied while making a 'V' sign with his fingers, "All I had to do was imagine as many situations as I could create as a result of my actions, and pretty much any possible future is mine to create! One time I saw a future where I pretended to be your friend and learned a lot about you from our many conversations!"

"You knew what was going to happen to me!! What I would go through!! And yet you still summoned me here!!!"

"Hey, come on... It wasn't all bad... Didn't you had fun watching Dalla die, getting chased by monsters, beat up by demons, terrorized by mobs, putting you family in danger, and watching Mia cry while she faded away begging for you to save her only to realize that there was nothing you could have do- You know... I'm starting to see your point..."

"Wraghhh!!!!" Evlin screamed as she attempted to jump on the man who was just smirking at her, only to be held down by Ashley.

"Evlin!! Evlin, please! Calm down!!"

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!! YOU HEAR ME!!?? I WILL FIND YOUR REAL BODY AND TEAR YOU TO PIECES WITH MY TEETH IF I HAVE TO!!!"

Knucker just grabbed his glass and took another drink while watching the girl glaring at him.

"Yeah... No, you won't... You are going home and forget about all this... Now, be a good girl and pack your bags!"

"You little piece of..."

"Wait!" Ashley shouted, "Why are you doing all this?? Why did you bring Evlin here?? Why did you destroy the temples? Why do you hate us so much??"

"Oh! I don't hate you, Ashley! I'm honestly your biggest fan!" he replied.

"What!!??"

"Yeah! You are honestly a greater evil to Evlin than me!"

"W- What do you mean??"

"Have you never noticed how many times your sister wanted to give up on her mission and just try to get used to life in this world? But every time she would, you would show up and say 'Don't give up Evie!! I believe in you!! Go get 'em girl!!' which in return would motivate her and force her to continue trying to find a way back... Which of course resulted in her constantly falling into more and more dangerous situations as a result..."

"T- That's not true!!"

"Really? Evlin lived in this world for two years with Dalla and the biggest threat she ever dealt with was some random ogre that she met on a mission... Then she meets you, and next thing we know, you guys are fighting a demon leader in the middle of a war on a city taken over by beasts!"

"T- That's not..."

"That... That's not..." Ashley was about to talk back to him, but she then was reminded that she played a big part in convincing Evlin to help Hana deal with Knucker.

Ashley always assumed that Evlin was some invincible girl that could deal with everything and anyone, and never actually stopped to properly look at how much she was truly hurting her, all because she just admired her so much to believe she could even be hurt.

"Why did you bring me here if you wanted me gone so bad!!??" Evlin asked while interrupting Ashley's thoughts.

"I didn't want to bring you here... But I had to if I wanted to avoid the death that I saw with my eyes..." Knucker admitted, "The goddess of the East back then that you call 'Detra', which by the way, killer naming sense... She was going to summon you three years after the day you actually arrived and make you be the partner of Marcus..."

"... What...?" Evlin whispered.

"You always were going to come here... Except I saw this happening, and instead of letting you join that kid's side and become his partner, I disguised myself as a mage under the prince's service so I could bring you earlier and kill you!"

"I... I was going to be partners with Marcus??"

"Indeed... Not only that... You two were going to fall in love and grow up together... And then..."

Knucker broke his glass of water.

"You two would have a baby... And that baby would grow up... And kill me..."

Evlin didn't know what to say. She felt the rage leaving her body and dropped back on the sofa as she allowed the information to sink in.

"So I needed to separate you two... But sadly... Summoning a person with a fake body like this is actually really freaking hard... Who would have imagined..." Knucker continued, "So when you arrived, I barely had any power left to move...

Once I got my strength back, I went after you again... But by that point, you had already mastered that really, really annoying healing magic ability... I tried to hire bandits to assault you, but you just wiped the floor with them... I tried to poison your food, but your magic just healed you in seconds... I tried to lead you into dangerous quests, hide as a teammate, and shoot you in the back when you looked away... But you always, always, ALWAYS survived... "

Evlin started to recall her memories. Many moments she was put in danger for one reason or another. She was now starting to wonder how many of those were natural occurrences and which ones were his doing.

"You are so goddamn hard to kill, it's not even funny..." Knucker went on, "I tried to use my ability to stare into the future and find out how I could finally get rid of you for good... And then I saw something that terrified me even more...

I saw you falling in love for some young man, marrying him, and creating a family... And just like before, you would have a kid, a girl this time, and this one would also somehow learn terminal energy one day and kill me...

So to avoid that, I searched for that guy, and strangled him while he was sleeping... So when the day came where you would live the city, you would have nothing holding you back..."

"..."

"Then... I saw you getting captured by a group of demons slayers and forced to join their side... And then, you would go on a journey by their side to the southern kingdom, where you would meet Marcus and form an alliance with him... Luckily I managed to avoid that by placing a piece of the channeling tree on their hideout which allowed you to escape..."

"..."

"And then... I saw something glorious... I saw a vision of Marcus finding your location and piercing your heart with an arrow... Oh, it was so beautiful, I almost cried, sniff, sniff... To make sure that would happen I leaked some information to that Mia girl so the two could find out where you were...

But!!! AGAIN!! For some reason, you got an arrow to the chest, and still didn't die!! Not only that! You even formed an alliance with the West goddess and gained some shield power or whatever...

I was starting to lose hope... Nothing I tried was working on you... I tried to find another future and saw the only piece of hope that I had left... I saw you going home with the East goddess!!

But to reach that point... You needed to get more motivated, improve your powers... Get stronger, strong enough to even consider facing Marcus in a fight, otherwise you and your group would just get cold feet and run away... And who better to fuel your growth than Ashley over here?

You always come running when Ashy is in danger... So I placed her in the biggest danger of all... Inside of a demon's mind! All I had to do was lend one of my fake bodies for a group of dryads to feed on. Then, Ashy would find the body, Dria would convince her to stab it, which would terrorize her, and make the plant girl strong enough to eventually switch places with her!"

Ashley's eyes began to tremble.

"I was finally, FINALLY, gonna be rid of you!! I was so happy that I could almost dance... But I also saw many futures where you took another path, threw the goddess into a portal and decided to stay instead...

I used my power and realized that there were a couple of futures where you would meet someone and fall in love... And again... You would have kids... And these kids would grow and come after me after mastering terminal energy...

So while you kept going on your journey all happy go lucky... I spent every second using my ability to see the future to find and kill every single man you were ever going to fall for... Making sure you never had any reason strong enough to stay here..."

Evlin flinched a little. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"And them... Something happened... After you left... My future changed... Instead of your kid coming after me... The silver boy, his creepy old partner with ponytails, and some random girl that I've never seen before appeared instead...

All of them carrying terminal fire... And ending me... I was seeing my own death again...

I tried to see what was the cause of all this... And guess what? It was all good ol you all over again!!"

"..."

Knucker grabbed the jar of water and swallowed all that was remaining. It seemed like this conversation was putting a lot of stress on him.

"I felt I was going crazy... I mean... How is this possible? How can one girl keep ruining my life so goddamn much?? Hell, even Hana would show up from time to time to try to kill me and even HER wasn't this much of a pain in my ass!!"

"..."

"But whatever... A job is a job... I needed now to get rid of three kids instead of one... All who for some reason that just baffles me to no end, really looked up to you... Well... I say kids, but they were all adults by that point... But that's not important...

The point is... I needed to get rid of them... But, again... Fake body and all... There was no way I could beat these guys in a fight... So I needed to act early... I tried to send the dryad into the mind of the ponytailed girl to corrupt her... Make sure she was so despicable that you would never work with her and if lucky, you two could kill each other...

... It didn't work... Sadly... I don't know why but my vision showed me that you actually became friends with her?? Which at that moment I was like 'Are you freaking kidding me??' Is this woman a moron or something?? The kid is a mass murderer and you try to help her out??"

"I became friends with her...?" Evlin whispered, "Mia was going to stop and become one of us...? On her own?? She didn't need to be reset??"

Knucker didn't listen to her words and just continued his venting.

"I needed to spice things up, so I sent another copy of me to try and push her even further, which thankfully was enough and managed to get me just the best possible ending I could ever ask for!!

I mean, just look at where we are now!! The ponytailed girl no longer has any power nor does she even remember who you are, the silver boy began to develop feelings for the fire mage out there and now couldn't care less about you... And the girl with the diamonds is completely exhausted and can barely move! And any time she starts being able to move, I just send a demon and make her tire herself out again! It's wonderful!!"

Evlin and Ashley began to think about all the things that have been happening to them lately and how convenient it was that it seemed like they were always in a pinch.

"So..." Ashley tried to say, "The demons..."

"I needed to get rid of the gods... Make sure that nobody would summon another kid from your world and risk getting another super-powered freak that could blow up the moon with a sneeze or something just because your blood makes the energy here more powerful...

Yeah, no... These gods needed to go... And they needed to go bad... And since Everyone was so focused on these bloody demons, I figured I would help out and take them away for myself... And doing this right after everyone that could stop me was exhausted from a war was the best possible time I could get..."

"... Why... Are you telling us all this...?" Ashley asked.

Knucker took a deep breath to recover from his rant and smiled at her, "because of that look!"

Ashley glanced at the direction he was pointing and noticed that Evlin had an expression of defeat greater than anything she ever saw before. Her eyes looked like they had no light in them, her skin was pale, and her body was just leaning against the sofa with her mouth open. She looked like she was dead inside.

The mage couldn't stop thinking about all the things Knucker took from her. Kids that were never going to be born, lovers who she would never get to meet, peace, happiness, memories of joy... All gone because Knucker wanted her life in this place to be as miserable as possible to make sure she would never want to stay here.

Not only that, Mia, the only kid she never managed to help, Evlin just realized that there was a future where she did help her, and he took it from her. He took all these futures from her.

Knucker came closer and stood tall in front of her.

"This is me telling you... That you cannot beat me... Crossbow girl... I am the hell that follows you everywhere you go and taints every corner of your life to make sure that you never get a moment of joy as long as you stay here..."

He kneeled down and forced her to look into his orange eyes.

"And now... You are going out there and tell your friends that you are too afraid to face me and it's going to abandon them... Show them what a coward you are so that nobody can ever look up to you again...

It's time for you to go home..."