Chapter 308: Chapter 292 – Know Yourself

“The first time you killed someone would usually be the hardest. Later on it would usually get easier for some, or get even worse for others. Different individuals react differently to killing others, and where some managed to get used to it, it remained a grueling experience for others no matter what.

 

Now, if you had not felt *anything* when you kill someone else, or even had fun with it, that’s when I’d say to get some professional help with it.” - Gloria Ediona, Psychiatrist and therapist, circa 529 FP.

To say that Celia was nervous was an understatement. The girl had lived as a slightly well-off farmer’s child her whole life, and the closest thing she had gotten to violence in the past was hitting a snake that had slithered into the little shack they called home one day with a broom to drive it off. Things had greatly changed since those days, though.

 

Just two days before, the girl had killed someone for the first time in her life, with her own hands, and now, her traveling companion had just nonchalantly told her to do it again if she had to. And she indeed had little option in the matter. The world was not a nice enough place to roll over and treat you kindly just because you had no stomach for violence. It was something that would instead get you mugged and murdered instead.

 

Even so, it was impossible for her not to be nervous with around twenty men on horseback, most of them fully armored and armed - though the landlord wore his usual luxurious riding wear instead of armor - headed for them at full gallop, with likely no kind intention whatsoever in their hearts to boot. Even as a peasant, Celia had heard the rumors about how the landlord spoiled his only son greatly, which was part of why the younger noble was so out of control and did as he liked in the lands under his father’s rule.

 

There was no way such a man would have taken the death of his beloved son quietly, much less understand and accept that his son had basically caused his own death with his excessive behavior. Behavior that his own spoiling had indirectly promoted to begin with.

 

As the horsemen saw they both stand on the road with weapons in hand, they stopped a safe distance away, their eyes trained on the two women. Celia could not help but to shake a bit with nervousness and worry, although Aideen stood in front of her with her chest held out and eyes looking straight at the horsemen, with not the slightest sign of nervousness on her posture.

 

Celia watched as the landlord moved his mount a bit forward, a bit ahead of his guards - the ones he liked to call his knights - but still well outside the weapon range for either woman. He had a condescending, arrogant look on his face, and a sizable potbelly only those who had enough to eat in excess coil even have, and he looked at them with questioning eyes, probably comparing their features with the descriptions he received.

 

“If you’re looking to ask whether we ran into a stuck-up, pompous, spoiled brat abusing his status near the east gate of Lavinja two days ago and did the world a favor by getting rid of him, you’ve come to the right place,” said Aideen with a tone that was filled with both mocking and ridicule at the same time. “Little bastard even cried for his daddy and begged for his life before he croaked.”

 

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“... Seize them!” yelled the landlord after a moment of silence that involved his face contorting between surprise, dismay, then furious anger at Aideen’s words. At his command, the rest of the riders spurred their horses forward, and they quickly closed the distance to the two women. Celia had just begun to wonder how Aideen would deal with the situation when the unliving woman acted.

 

Aideen hurled a small glass orb with what looked like liquid inside - Celia only caught sight of it for a brief moment so she could hardly tell for certain - to the ground ahead of the onrushing riders, and the tiny orb, barely as large as the last joint of her little finger, really, exploded with a violence that seemed entirely exaggerated for its size, sending a dust cloud into the air and causing the horses to rear up and whinny in fear.

 

From the curses she could faintly hear, Celia guessed that many of the riders must have fallen off their horses. Aideen had charged in mere moments after the explosion, and used the dust cloud as cover while she closed in with the riders. Some of the riderless horses ran every which way, and Celia had to avoid a couple that ran towards her as well.

 

The curses and surprise soon turned into alerted yells and cries of pain, as Aideen descended upon the unhorsed riders. The dust cloud still made visibility poor from where Celia was, but she could tell that there was some fighting going on from the sounds she heard. Before too long, two men in armor stumbled backwards out of the dust cloud, straight towards where Celia was. One of them even lost his balance and fell backwards, at which point his eyes met with hers.

 

While she had been jittery and nervous before, seeing the two “knights” stumbling around pitifully after that was likely a blow from Aideen - one of the knights still clutched a broken sword in his hands - helped relieve most of the tension the younger, inexperienced girl felt.

 

As such, she took firm steps towards the two men, one of whom discarded his broken weapon and pulled out a wicked looking dagger from his belt, while the other hefted a vicious looking mace that had some of its flanges bent in his hands. She leveled her staff-sword towards them, and beckoned for them to come, with a strangely serene feeling compared to all the nervous worry she had before.

 

After all, as Aideen had said, she had already died. What was the worst that could happen?

 

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