Chapter 97: Two Sides Of A Coin

It was the day of his own death and the very moment of him throwing himself to it. The axe from the minotaur sliced his head clean, and in those last moments, he felt more betrayed than he ever did. The scene replayed in his head again and again, was nothing compared to what came next. The sight of Amedith's head held within his arms the cowardice of his own would've led to such a result.

"Would you've preferred him dead?" Asked the horror, and Raven replied without a moment of pause.

"No."

"And yet you hate him for what he did, but alas your dream would come true soon enough.

Leave him to me, and I'll slowly choke the life out of his eyes, and when you return to the rest nobody will know what happened and the blame will fall onto me, a monster!" Not for a moment did the offer sound tempting to the mage, instead, holding the head of a friend in his hands, all he felt was an unbristled rage.

"I'll turn you to dust if you so much as touch any of them," for as much of an egoistic bastard he was, Raven couldn't fathom a world where he wouldn't sunder any and all for their safety.

Hearing the voice of the monster laughing in the darkness, his resolve remained unshaken even though he didn't have a clue as to how he was supposed to get out. But then, there was a flicker–a gap in the monster's control, and seizing that moment he put every bit of his mana into breaking out of the mind prison.

The next thing he knew, there was a flash of white light, and then his mind fell victim to exhaustion. Slipping from an illusion to a dream, the mage was free from the prison, but before he would wake up, his companions had a lot more anxiety-ridden hours to deal with.

"What happened to them?" Quickly after bringing the unconscious bodies of their friends inside the tent, Aria turned over to Helga with the question. "Why are they not waking up?!"

Ignoring the elf for a moment, Helga's eyes kept glaring at something on the unconscious bodies. Noticing her stern gaze, both she and Erika followed it to Mel's fingers. Like the branches of a tree, her fingers had turned to wood. Struck with the realization of the changes, their eyes scanned through the rest and found something similar on Amedith's back.

"H-his spine..." Running her finger up his spine, Erika couldn't believe what was happening. The flesh and bones on Amedith were slowly turning into solid stone. Shifting quickly back to Raven whom she'd already checked, she couldn't find any changes in him, but that especially didn't set well.

"Yes!" It didn't take him a moment to respond.

"What about Erika and the dark elf?" The voice pursued further.

"I already said yes! I will die fo–"

"What about Raven?" The voice interjected, and Amedith fell silent.

Somehow, despite knowing his answer should've been the same, he didn't know if he would die for Raven. And in that moment of realization, his heart bled like a river pouring everything into the ocean. The horror, of course, relished in the sweet taste of his agony, yet his joy was short-lived.

"I'm an idiot," looking around himself idolized at the very center of the city, he finally realized his problem. "I'm a hypocrite..."

"Wait–"

"I should've sought his help, he's a better leader but..." With a sigh, he peered into his jealous heart. "I wanted the glory, and so I ended up marching us to our deaths in that cave filled with minotaurs." Realizing what Helga had once said to him in the Boartooth, Amedith finally came to accept that he wasn't the best option at everything. "You're right.

I'm no hero; just another adventurer in a party like any other. I think that should've been enough, but I kept trying to reach for some greatness that was never there."

'The right piece of the puzzle, without it you would never finish the whole thing.' With the realization that he wasn't capable of leading his group, the monster's grip on him quickly loosened. The next thing he knew, he'd also slipped into a dream.

Its control now completely gone, it was only a matter of time until everyone woke up, and then the horror would be forced out of their mind. Making matters worse for the mind parasite, the greatest adventurer in all of Athenia was waiting outside to burn it down the moment he was forced outside.