Reasons of Evil

by Dennis Jode

  REASONS OF EVIL

  WRITTEN BY DENNIS JODE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  Copyrights Page

  Disclaimer: The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. To the extent any real names of individuals, locations, or organizations are included in the book, they are used fictitiously and not intended to be taken otherwise.

  Copyright © 2019 by Dennis Jode

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher and author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the copyright holder or publisher.

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  CHAPTER 1

  “You… you’ve made a grave mistake…”

  Those were the last words that the Demon Lord said. At the time, Grimmere had no idea what he meant. He took it as the rambling of a dying man.

  When he returned to the Kingdom of Gallohall, the capital of Gladmont, to report the Demon Lord’s passing, the world celebrated the news. The monsters that plagued the land of Gladmont were no more. All of the suffering that humanity has endured throughout the ages has been put to a stop. Grimmere was proud of his achievements. As the hero who defeated the Demon Lord, he was very well respected by everyone.

  His family and friends were all proud of him. Wherever he went, people revered him.

  Grimmere traveled all over Gladmont to celebrate. But the celebrations didn’t last long.

  Weeks after the defeat of the Demon Lord, multiple kingdoms started to form armies.

  Hearing this, Grimmere thought that more monsters were appearing and rushed back to the Kingdom of Gallohall, where an army was about to be deployed.

  “Ahh, our hero! Have you come to aid us?”, the King of Gallohall happily asked Grimmere.

  “What’s happening? Why did you deploy the kingdom’s army?”, Grimmere curiously asked. He had no idea what was happening. The king smiled in an unpleasant way. Grimmere could see that the king was up to no good. His greed was written all over his face.

  “You see, Gallohall is in need of more land, as well as resources.” the king said while keeping his disgusting smile. “So we decided to conquer the neighboring kingdoms, starting from Petgett!”, the king continued.

  The officials around him started clapping, as if to say that what they just heard was thought of by a genius. As Grimmere looked at the officials, he could see the same thing written all over their faces. Greed. Grimmere angrily looked at the king, which made the king fall back on his throne out of surprise.

  “Withdraw the army.” Grimmere glared at the king.

  “Are you threatening me?!”, the king angrily responded. “I am the King of Gallohall! You do not have the authority to order me around!”, the king continued.

  Gallohall drew his sword and pointed it towards the king. “Withdraw the army. NOW!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. His anger could be felt by everyone in the room, which made them all feel fear.

  “G-guards! Arrest him!”, the king commanded the guards with a shaky voice.

  Grimmere glared at the guards, which made them tremble. They were unable to move. How could they just charge towards the man who defeated the Demon Lord?

  Grimmere sheathed his sword, but his anger was still unappeased.

  “I will give you three days. If you will not withdraw your army, I will come for your head.” Grimmere threatened the king as he left the room. As Grimmere started walking away, he could hear the king throwing a fit. “You cannot do this to me! I am the King of Gallohall! Soon to be the king of all of Gladmont! You will regret the day you decided to oppose me!”

  Gallohall waited outside the kingdom. The very next day after he threatened the king, the army started to move out. Behind the army, the king was sitting comfortably in a carriage. Around him were the kingdom’s officials.

  He stood in front of tens of thousands of soldiers. As soon as the soldiers spotted him, they all drew their weapons and pointed it towards Grimmere. The magicians behind them started preparing their spells.

  The king was notified of Grimmere’s appearance. He immediately went out to see Grimmere. “I thought I told you to withdraw your army.” Grimmere asked the king.

  The king simply smiled at him.

  “You are in no position to make your terms.” the king smugly replied as he signaled the army to attack Grimmere. “I didn’t want to do this but… you forced my hand.” Grimmere said while drawing his sword. He didn’t want to kill a fellow human being, but in order to protect the people from neighboring countries, he has to.

  The army charged towards Grimmere, but Grimmere stood his ground.

  Spears and swords were pointed towards him. All sorts of spells, from curses to offensive magic, were in the air, all flying towards him.

  As he was about to get hit by the spells, he opened the book which was strapped on to his belt. He started chanting in a language that everyone around him couldn’t understand. When he finished chanting, all the spells that were flying towards him started to disperse.

  Despite all of this happening, the soldiers in the front did not stop charging towards him.

  Grimmere read a few short lines and started chanting. He could feel his strength growing, and his body started feeling lighter.

  He rushed forward towards the soldiers and started cutting them down one by one. He was able to swing freely, but the soldiers did not have as much freedom. They had to be careful when using their weapons, since they could hit their fellow comrades.

  Grimmere was surrounded by soldiers, but he did not yield. All of the soldiers that set foot inside the range of his sword were immediately met with their death. When Grimmere felt tired, he would start chanting while continuing to swing his sword. When he finishes chanting, the fatigue he feels goes away.

  This went on for almost an hour. The soldiers stopped charging towards him.

  Grimmere stood in the middle of a sea of bodies. He was covered In the blood of all the soldiers he killed. He looked like he was still ready to fight.

  “What are you all doing?!”, the king angrily shouted at the soldiers.

  Grimmere slowly started walking towards the king. The soldiers backed off in fear. They knew that if they were close to him, they would immediately get cut down.

  Seeing the soldiers all back off, the king started feeling fear.

  “Everyone! Attack him! What are you waiting for?!”, the king kept shouting at the soldiers, but none of them obeyed.

  Moments later, Grimmere stood in front of the king. The king felt his heart pounding violently. His entire body was trembling. He could also smell the stench of blood coming from Grimmere, which made him throw up.

  As soon as he finished vomiting, he turned around to start running, but before he could take a step forward, he fell down to the ground. A sharp pain came from behind his legs.

  Grimmere swung his sword, hitting the king’s legs. The king started crawling backwards.

  “P-please! I will give you anything! I will withdraw the army! I swear on my name!”, the king started shamelessly pleading, but Grimmere saw the look in his eyes. It wasn’t the eyes of one wh
o had surrendered. It was still the same eyes that the greedy king had.

  Grimmere raised his sword.

  “N-no! Please! I will withdra-”

  Before he could finish speaking, his head came lopping down the ground.

  Grimmere mercilessly looked at the king’s dead body.

  “Know that the same will happen to you if you ever try to incite a war.”, Grimmere announced. His words were pointed towards the officials that were cowering in fear behind the soldiers.

  Grimmere turned around and started walking away. He thought that it was over by then.

  But he was wrong.

  For the next few years, history repeated itself. Different kingdoms started waging war with each other. It came to the point where Grimmere couldn’t stop all of them. The kings had also spread bad news about Grimmere, which made people everywhere shun him.

  As he kept trying to stop wars all over the land, he would only kill a few soldiers and then kill the king that waged the war, but then he heard something from one of the kings, which made him lose control.

  “Because of your stubbornness, your entire family has been executed!”, the king told Grimmere as he laughed at him.

  Moments after saying this sentence, the king’s head started flying across the battlefield.

  The soldiers around him weren’t even able to react as they all started falling one by one.

  That was the first time that Grimmere had completely killed an entire army.

  As Grimmere cut down the last remaining soldiers, he looked around him. The pile of bodies covered the ground for several kilometers. Before, he felt regret for having to kill fellow humans, but after that, he no longer felt any regret. In fact, he felt even more anger.

  His family had been caught up with the greed of the kings. He could not forgive the people that killed them, even though they were dead. But most of all, he could not forgive himself.

  It was there that the final words of the Demon Lord kept repeating in his head.

  “You’ve made a grave mistake.”

  These words haunted him. It finally made sense.

  Under the threat of monsters, the humans were united, but as soon as the threat disappeared, the evil that hid in the hearts of humans took over. People’s greed and their lust for power destroyed the peace that lasted for only a few weeks.

  After this realization, he stopped his attempts to stop the wars. He secluded himself on a mountain far from any kingdom.

  He lost any motivation he had to do anything. All he did was sit down and eat. When he tried to sleep, he would be met with nightmares about his family and all of the people he had killed in order to stop wars from happening. And it would always end with the Demon Lord’s last words.

  This went on for almost a year.

  Grimmere sat on a small house he built on the mountain where he lived and just sat there. His body was very thin, since he always had no appetite. His appearance was ragged. He was still bothered by everything that had happened, and it was clearly reflected in his overall appearance.

  He was still living, while wallowing in regret. He wanted to atone for his sins.

  As soon as he said that, there was a knock on the door.

  He stood up in surprise. This was the first time that someone had appeared.

  He took his sword and opened the door. Outside, a man who was wearing a cloak stood before him. He was holding a wooden cane. A sword and a ragged looking book were hanging from his belt.

  “Who are you?”, Grimmere asked the man while pointing his sword at him.

  “Do you regret the actions you’ve done?” the man asked him.

  Grimmere was surprised, but he remained vigilant and continued to point his sword towards the man. “Who sent you?!”, Grimmere angrily asked.

  The man dropped his cane on the ground. He unbuckled the sword from his belt, which made it fall into the ground. “I don’t intend to cause any harm.” the man simply replied.

  Grimmere saw that his hands were wrinkled. The hooded man was an old person. He sheathed his sword. “Come in.” he said to the man as he walked in his house.

  They sat across from each other in front of a wooden table. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “I can help you.”, the hooded man broke the silence.

  “With what?”, Grimmere curiously asked.

  “I know that you are living while regretting the actions you have done that caused all of this mess.”, the hooded man responded.

  Grimmere was surprised. He had never talked to anyone about this. Before he could ask the man about how he knew about it, the man continued talking.

  “I can give you a chance to revert your actions.”, the hooded man continued.

  Grimmere could not help but doubt the man’s words. After all his time in seclusion, he has not figured out any way to fix everything that had happened. Even with his abundant knowledge, he still couldn’t find a solution.

  “How?”, Grimmere couldn’t help but ask.

  The man took the ragged book which was hanging from his waist and put it on the table. He opened it and tried to find a certain page before showing it to Grimmere.

  “I reckon you can read this.” the man said.

  Written on the book were characters that were familiar to him. After all, he was the one that discovered the texts, and was the only one who could utilize it. It was runes used to invoke ancient magic.

  As he started reading the ancient runes, he realized that it was a spell of a grand scale, but he couldn’t fully figure out what it was about. It was too complex for him.

  “What are these runes for?” he asked the man.

  “It’s a spell used to turn back time.” the man responded.

  As soon as he heard it, the parts of the spell that he couldn’t figure out was easily solved. He started connecting the dots and saw that the man was definitely not lying. The spell required tons of preparation to cast. He had to collect various items which were incredibly rare, but he didn’t think about it. The only thing in his head was that the chance to redeem himself has finally come. He was motivated enough to start collecting what he needed right away.

  As if the man read his thoughts, he took out a bag and placed it on the table.

  “Everything you need to cast this spell is inside here.”, he said.

  Grimmere was surprised. He opened the bag, and sure enough, all of the materials needed were there. He looked at the hooded man and curiously asked. “Who are you?”

  The man laughed.

  “You still haven’t realized who I am?”, he said as he took off his hood.

  The man under the hood was none other than Grimmere himself. But, he was old.

  “I’ve lived for many years trying to fix my mistake, but alas… I have grown too old to cast the magic that I have finished developing.” the old Grimmere said.

  Grimmere then realized that the book on the table was the same book that he had. He flipped through the pages and recognized some of the spells. They were the same ones that he had in his book, along with a few new spells that he did not recognize.

  He closed the book and looked at the leather cover. It was extremely ragged and there were plenty of tears everywhere, but when he looked closely, he realized that it was the same book that he had.

  Grimmere was still in a state of surprise as he looked at his future self.

  “I seem to have found peace after living for a while.” he told his future self.

  “It’s because I can finally fix my mistakes… albeit not directly.”, his future self responded.

  “Come, let us not wait any longer.”, his future self stood up and walked outside the house.

  Grimmere stood up. He brought the materials needed for the spell and followed his future self outside.

  They started preparing to cast the spell. By the time they had finished setting up everything, three days have already passed.

  “Are you ready?”, the future Grimmere asked the current Grimmere, who was sitting
in the middle of a magic circle with a diameter that was almost a kilometer wide.

  The current Grimmere nodded as he opened the ragged book and started chanting the spell.

  A beam of light erupted from the magic circle. The sky, which was dim before, immediately lit up as the light shone through the heavens.

  “I hope that your journey will be well worth it.” the old Grimmere said.

  The current Grimmere’s body was slowly disappearing. Before his body completely disappeared, he showed his appreciation towards his future self.

  “Thank you for giving me the chance.” Grimmere told his future self.