Reasons of Evil

by Dennis Jode

  “I have to cleanse this world.”

  Grimmere took a sword from the pile which was lying near the knights’ suits of armor.

  He approached the women that were tied up and cut their restraints.

  “Run away. Look for a safe place to stay. The kingdom is not safe.” Grimmere told them.

  As the women started running away, the noise woke up some of the knights. “Hey! They’re escaping!”, one of them angrily exclaimed.

  The knights immediately stood up and started chasing the women. They took their swords from the pile near the armors and ran outside.

  Suddenly, the head of the knight that was in front of them started flying. His body fell to the ground.

  A young man caught the head and held it by its hair. The knights pointed their swords towards the young man.

  “Who are you?!”, one of the knights angrily asked.

  The young man swung his sword he held swiftly, removing the stain from the blood of the knight that he had just beheaded from the sword’s blade.

  The young man in front of them had a look of hopelessness.

  But he wasn’t feeling hopeless because of the fight before him.

  He felt hopeless because humanity was already beyond saving.

  The young man opened his mouth.

  “I’m here to purge trash like you from this world.” he said as he waved his hand and chose a spell. The spell only took a moment to cast, and the young man felt his body become lighter. With the sword in hand, he dashed towards the group of knights who were pointing their swords at him.

  In the blink of an eye, the heads of all the knights in the room were cleanly separated from their bodies. Their headless bodies fell down one by one.

  The young man stood there with the same hopeless look in his eyes.

  He had once again taken the lives of others, but this time, he didn’t feel regret.

  In fact, he felt that it was lacking.

  The men he killed were just mere lackeys after all. If he wanted to purge evil, he had to pull it out from its roots.

  And so, he turned around and started making his way towards Gallohall.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Defend the king!”

  The kingdom of Gallohall was thrown into chaos. The knights that guarded the entrance to Gallohall were all lying down on the ground, completely lifeless.

  In front of the castle, a young man was fighting multiple knights. He was covered in blood.

  “Grimmere! Why are you doing this?!”, one of the kingdom’s officers exclaimed.

  They tried to talk to Grimmere, but he didn’t seem to listen. As soon as they were within the reach of his sword, they were already as good as dead. More and more knights were starting to fall by the hands of Grimmere. Every time a knight would stand in his way, he would immediately cut down the knight.

  Despite the gruesome scene, all of the dead bodies that were littering the kingdom belonged to the kingdom’s knights and officials. None of them were from the commoners.

  Grimmere continued walking towards the castle. The knights that tried to subdue him all end up dead in the blink of an eye. Shortly after, he has finally arrived within arm’s reach of the castle’s large entrance.

  He waved his hand and rested his palm on the large wooden door. Moments after, a huge explosion occurred. The entire castle shook from the sheer impact.

  “What are you all doing?! You can’t even stop a single boy?!”, the king angrily reprimanded the knights. The knights couldn’t respond.Even the best of the best within their ranks were easily cut down by the young man.

  The king started rubbing his temples. His head was aching. He couldn’t understand what was happening. Why did the young man suddenly start attacking them?

  Finally, the king made a decision.

  “Alright. Stop trying to subdue him. Just kill him.” the king finally gave up on thinking of a solution.

  “But remember to bring back the book that he has.” he continued.

  The knights immediately went out to follow their orders.

  Grimmere noticed the change in the knights’ attacks. Before, they would only try to knock him out, but now, they were going in with the intent to kill.

  From afar, archers and magicians started shooting deadly projectiles towards him.

  He waved his hand, and all of the projectiles dissipated in the air just like a cloud of smoke.

  He dashed towards them and killed them, ignoring all of the infantry that stood in his way.

  The young man looked unstoppable. Even though they weren’t holding back anymore, the knights couldn’t see any way of defeating him, even though they had a huge number advantage.

  The army of Gallohall was almost depleted in less than a day. And it wasn’t even because of an attack by the monsters. They were just trying to stop a young boy from rampaging in the castle.

  The king had lost almost lost all hope. He knew that even if they were able to kill Grimmere, the forces that the kingdom had would not even be enough to defend against monsters anymore.

  A knight ran towards the throne room. “Y-Your Highness! W-we can’t stop him! He’s a monste-“ Before he could finish his sentence, a sword pierced right through his chest. His body fell down as the young man behind him retracted his sword.

  “G-Grimmere…” the king said.

  “Greetings, Your Majesty.” the young man said while he smiled at the king.

  When the king saw this, all the hair in his body stood up. The young man looked completely psychotic in his eyes.

  “N-now… if I may ask…”, the king cleared his throat as he prepared to ask Grimmere a question. Grimmere’s face didn’t move one bit. He stayed silent.

  “What led you to do all of this?” the king asked. His voice clearly reeked of fear.

  Grimmere laughed maniacally. Despite the king trembling in fear, Grimmere could still see that he had the same look in his eyes from before he went back in time. The same greed and lust for power was there, but there was a hint of anger mixed in, together with fear.

  “I know everything.” Grimmere’s expression suddenly turned serious as he said this.

  “W-what are you talking about?”, the king’s expression stiffened.

  “The missing women. The goblin den. The kingdom’s knights.”, Grimmere started enumerating multiple things. Most of the knights had no idea what he was talking about, but some of them fully understood what he meant. The knights who understood started trembling even more.

  Grimmere took a look around and saw that not all of them were in on it.

  The look on the king’s face turned from a look of fear, to a look of utter disbelief. His brows furrowed as he started feeling anger burning up inside him. “W-what do you mean?”, the king tried to feign innocence, but his voice couldn’t mask his anger.

  Grimmere started laughing even more, which made the king even more angry. He waved his hand, and the knights that he saw earlier who understood what he meant were forcibly pulled by some mysterious force towards the center of the room, right in the middle of him and the king.

  “Why don’t you all explain to the king? His brain seems a little slow.” Grimmere told the knights that he pulled. They were kneeling down in front of the king. Everytime they tried to stand, they would feel an immense amount of pressure, which would make them unable to move.

  There was a moment of silence. The knights in the middle didn’t dare to speak.

  The king finally broke the silence. “Tell me. What is this young man talking about?”, the king asked the knights with a domineering look.

  The knights in the middle were suffering from the pressure from both the king and Grimmere. One of them finally caved in, but he was in the king’s favor.

  “Y-Your Highness, I believe Grimmere misunderstood.”, the knight shakily said.

  The king couldn’t hide a small smile. He felt a small sense of victory.

  Grimmere shook his head and walked towards the knight who just spoke. He swift
ly beheaded the knight.

  Everyone looked at the knight’s headless body in pure dread. Grimmere threw the knight’s head towards the king. It landed right on his feet, and looked at him with eyes of regret.

  “Now, if you don’t want to end up like him, talk.” Grimmere threatened the other knights while snickering.

  The king stood up and looked at all the knights that surrounded them.

  “Kill this bastard!”, the king exclaimed.

  The knights hesitated for a moment, but the king gave them all a look of anger. This stopped their hesitation, and they started charging towards Grimmere.

  Grimmere’s expression turned serious. He looked at them and simply said.

  “Do you not see the mountain of corpses behind me?”, he said with a serious voice. A sense of dread washed over all the knights in the room. The knights felt intimidated, but some of them were still brave enough to continue charging.

  Grimmere effortlessly moved around and killed all the knights in one hit, as if it was nothing. As soon as the first few knights fell, the rest stopped moving.

  The king fell silent after witnessing the massacre that just happened before him.

  “Now, talk.” Grimmere threatened the knights that were still kneeling down.

  All of them confessed their crimes. There were even more crimes that Grimmere hasn’t heard about. Human trafficking, drug distribution, and a lot more.

  “You people really do disgust me.” Grimmere’s expression turned sullen.

  “I do not recall playing a part in any of those acts.”, the king simply denied everything that the knights confessed.

  Grimmere slowly walked towards the king.

  “I-I said I had nothing to do with them!”, the king started panicking as he saw the young man that was covered in blood walking towards him.

  “Guards! Anyone! Stop him!”, he stood up and started calling out to the knights in desperation, but none of them would respond to his call.

  He started running away as fast as he could, but before he could get very far, he felt a hand clench the back of his head. Moments later, his face was planted on the castle’s stone floor.

  Grimmere repeatedly slammed the king’s head. After every slam he made, more teeth came out and his face turned more and more into a bloody pulp.

  “I’m not yet done with you.”, Grimmere waved his hand and chose another spell. He placed his other hand in front of the king’s face, and after a while, the king’s face turned back into normal, as if nothing had happened.

  He pulled the king’s hair and dragged him all the way outside the castle. The knights did not dare to stand in their way.

  The king was shouting and pleading to the knights for the first few minutes, but after that, his cries for help turned into screams of anger. He started cursing the knights around them for being spineless cowards.

  Outside the castle, tons of people were gathered, trying to see what the commotion was about. As soon as the castle gates were opened, the people were surprised at what they saw.

  The young man threw the king forward.

  “Confess your sins.”, the young man commanded the king, who was on the floor.

  “W-what sins? I have done nothing!”, the king put on an innocent face, trying to win the hearts of the onlookers around him.

  “Please! Help your king! Have I not been nice to people?”, the king started pleading towards the onlookers, but before he could say anymore, a sharp pain came from his left arm.

  “ARGH! MY HAND!”, the king rolled around in pain as he held the wrist of his left arm, which was now missing the hand. Blood poured out from the wound like a fountain.

  Grimmere stepped on his torso to stop him from moving around. He waved his hand and chose a spell. A flame erupted from Grimmere’s right hand.

  He forcefully grabbed the king’s left wrist and plunged the gaping wound into the flame.

  The king started screaming in agony. The pain was unbearable. Despite struggling with all his strength, he couldn’t move for even an inch.

  The people who were gathered around had a look of shock on their faces. Some of them shuddered from seeing the wound slowly being cauterized. Despite the scene being gruesome, they were still compelled to continue watching.

  After the wound had been fully cauterized, the king stopped struggling, but he was still shaking from the pain.

  “Do you feel like talking now? Or do you want me to do the same to your other hand.” Grimmere smugly asked the king.

  “N-no… p-please…”, the king begged. Tears and snot ran all over his face.

  Grimmere pulled him by his hair and raised him up.

  “Talk.”, Grimmere forced him.

  The king openly admitted all of his crimes. He didn’t care about anything anymore. He just wanted the pain to stop. As the king continued talking about his crimes, the looks of the people around them slowly turned from a look of shock to a look of anger.

  After the king finished talking, the people were outraged.They would never have thought that the king was the one behind all the crimes. They’ve always thought that the missing friends and relatives they had were due to the monsters.

  Grimmere threw the king towards the people.

  “Do as you like.” Grimmere told the people.

  The people, and even a few knights started walking towards the king. Grimmere could sense the bloodlust from everyone. The people started beating the king. The knights who had weapons used it and started stabbing and slicing the king everywhere.

  The king continued screaming in pain, but moments later, his cries could no longer be heard. The king was dead, but his lifeless body was still being beat up and cut by the people.

  Grimmere looked at the scene before him.

  The people’s anger were still far from quenched. He could feel some kind of pain coming from his heart.

  He was just like those people.

  His face was still full of grief. He didn’t know whether it was regret, or something else, but he knew that he had gone too far to go back. “Humans really are monsters.” he muttered to himself.

  The king’s lifeless body was being battered and passed around between the crowd of people, all waiting for their turn to vent their anger.

  Soon, not a single part of the king’s body could be recognized. All that was left was a chunk of flesh with a huge pool of blood around it.

  The people’s anger still wasn’t quelled. They started walking towards the castle, looking for someone with a high rank that they can vent their anger on.

  There were still a few officials inside. The royal family was also somewhere in the castle. They started hiding as soon as Grimmere had entered the castle.

  Grimmere simply stood there and watched as the crowd entered the castle.

  After a while, he was the only one left, standing outside the castle gates. He looked at the chunk of flesh that used to be the king and felt his stomach churn.

  The feelings that were suppressed by his grief when he watched the people kill the king started flowing, and he started vomiting.

  Despite having murdered thousands of people, he has never seen a scene more gruesome than what he just witnessed earlier. The king’s flesh was being torn and bits and pieces were slowly being removed from his body. His body was bleeding from all over, and it looked as if his body was being wrung to remove all of the blood.

  Grimmere continued vomiting as he continued to vividly recall the violent scene that he had just witnessed, but it didn’t take long for him to regain his composure.

  He made new clothing to replace the bloody ones he was wearing, and he started walking out to continue his journey.

  He looked back at the kingdom’s castle, and he could clearly see the chaos occurring inside. There was smoke coming from multiple places. There were multiple screams that he could clearly hear from outside as well.

  “This is just the start.” Grimmere mumbled to himself.

  Gallohall was only one of the many kingdom
s that he had to purge.

  As Grimmere exited the kingdom, he felt a strange presence. He waved his hand and used the magic that could sense the presence of living beings near him.

  Sweat ran down his face as he realized what was going on

  Tens of thousands of monsters were making their way towards Gallohall. They were attracted by the smell of blood.

  “I forgot that I had something else to deal with.” he drew his sword and prepared to face the horde of monsters.