Absolute Shopping Addict 31 Chapter 31

The chains returned, and Emmanuel dropped in several pieces onto the town square, having been cut in two from shoulder to hip and his head lopped off.

He never had a chance to scream.

"What the h.e.l.l?" an awakener closest to Jake asked; the rest of them who weren't overwhelmed by the surprise were thinking of the same thing.

Emmanuel's dismembered head bounced and rolled to a stop, and his dead eyes were frozen in surprise, echoing the same feeling the gathered awakeners had when Jake put another awakener to the sword.

The man blocking Jake was the first to say something.

"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to sound indignant despite the moonlight showing his face turning green. "How can you do this?"

"He's a murderer," Jake calmly explained. "He just tried to cut my throat moments ago. Why should I spare him?"

The man was rendered speechless, to the point where his face was an interesting mix of colors. Flushed from anger, and green from disgust, raw emotion was playing on his face, but his mouth refused to provide a sound.

The gathered awakeners began murmuring to themselves and to each other, unconvinced by Jake's admission.

The tone of the murmuring made it clear that they didn't want to be convinced, and Jake could feel the hostility rising from the crowd of awakeners, all of it being directed at him.

It was the sound of someone emerging from the crowd that stilled the awakeners; and this one carried another awakener across his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The cloaked man dumped the freshly-deceased corpse of the awakener named Jay onto the town square, causing more of the awakeners gathered to gasp.

"Jake's telling the truth," the cloaked man declared. "Emmanuel is the actual murderer. Take a look at this."

"Do you see now?" the cloaked man asked, showing the gathered awakeners the wound in Jay's neck. "This guy had his throat cut, too; just like what Emmanuel tried to pull with Jake earlier. The wounds match Emmanuel's weapon. I saw those wounds before: whoever killed Seamus and his team tried to hide it. The other killings after that also had the same type of wounds, but a lot cleaner, like someone was starting to get used to killing other awakeners.

For what purpose, I don't know. All I know is that the killing strike is a slit throat; the rest are educated guesses."

The voice was familiar, and when the hood went down, the face of Liam was revealed.

"I apologize for having to hide my findings," he continued, turning first to Jake then to the other awakeners. "Jake never had any motive to kill Seamus and his group. Still, I apologize for putting you under scrutiny."

He turned to Jake again, and bowed. "I was trying to catch him too… but you've already taken care of business, I see. Still, my apologies."

He apologized to Jake and bowed his head.

"Where are Jay's friends?" another awakener asked, and Liam simply closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I was also conducting my investigation into who the real killer was," Liam continued. "When I talked to Jake, something told me that he didn't have something to kill for. I should have at least tried to help his reputation, but finding the killer came first, so I focused on looking for suspects or people who had a motive to murder their fellow awakeners."

He continued his explanation, but it didn't look like he was getting to his fellow awakeners.

"When the skeleton army came here, I couldn't find Emmanuel anywhere, which I found suspicious. As soon as we escaped Brino, I started looking around the outskirts of Brino, which led me to Jay here. I wish I found them sooner, but I couldn't bring them because I couldn't move them here all by myself."

Liam's explanation was well-made, but looking at the stiff expressions on the other awakeners, it was clear that this was not a situation they liked to be in.

He'd made his case, but the awakeners paying him no heed led to his frustration, and soon after, despondency.

'Well, what was I expecting?' Liam asked himself, feeling that the awakeners had already dispensed judgment and weren't interested in anything that contradicted who they deemed to be the murderer of awakeners in this town.

He turned to Jake, who was sporting a rather disinterested sneer at the proceedings, and at that moment, he felt like he could understand Jake's situation.

'This is going nowhere,' Liam thought miserably, and found Jake's expression to be somewhat unfit for someone who'd already been judged though he already caught the culprit and dispensed his own brand of justice right then and there.

"What are you smiling like that for?" Liam asked, and Jake's expression answered him.

'I stand here to laugh at you.'

'This is kind of disturbing,' Liam thought as Jake's sneer turned to a sarcastic laugh. 'This is the kind of laugh that happens before a fight breaks out.'

Despite Jake's display, his thoughts about what was going on wasn't too far off the mark: Jake was feeling really annoyed; almost as if a snake was wriggling around unpleasantly in his gut.

Who wouldn't, as this was the first time Jake willfully and deliberately took a life.

There would be many other awakeners – mostly evil ones who preyed on others – he'd have to kill; it didn't mean he had to feel good about it.

The fact that other awakeners were there and judging him for it was just heightening his annoyance and discomfort.

Liam noticed the eyes, though.

It was a resigned stare, almost like he was already used to people looking at him that way.

Which was correct, because Jake knows better than anyone about how difficult it is to sort out a matter like this without logically and rationally going out the window.

He'd been in situations like this before; most of them were people who were jealous, envious, or just plain insecure by his mere presence alone.

These are the types of people he doesn't bother with, because no matter his explanation, no answer will satisfy them: they've already made their judgment, and have closed their eyes and ears to anything that will change that.

Liam had his hand gripping his own sword when Jake finally made a move, but it was only him shouting at the group of awakeners before him, stopping them from turning into a vengeance-filled mob.

"All of you!" Jake declared loudly. "You falsely accuse an innocent man and now don't listen to him?Even though someone already revealed who the real murderer is? So what? Do you have a problem with it? Because it doesn't fit your story that the weirdo is the killer? All right, if you have anything to say about it, get a d.a.m.n number, fall in d.a.m.n line, and walk up to me and say it to my face!"

***

Before he ended up in Nohas, Liam was what you'd call the "ace" of his school. Smart, charismatic, athletic, with a natural apt.i.tude towards sports: he had been on nearly every team while he was in high school.

Contracts and endors.e.m.e.nts followed him during his stay in high school, but he turned all of them down in favor of his childhood dream: to become a police officer.

He had spoken about it as a child enough that his neighbors all expected him to go to the most prestigious criminology academy and join the police force after graduating: not only did his physical gifts help him here, he also made good use of his quick wits and creative thinking while in the academy.

Liam was just that kind of person: he worked hard and used his natural gifts together to achieve his dreams, and as an up-and-coming junior detective, he was still doing his best.

It wasn't that he didn't have any compet.i.tion, it was that he competed against himself – to be better than who he was yesterday.

All of his life experiences ended up helping him when he found himself summoned to Nohas – gifted with an exceptionally powerful skill, he quickly took up the mantle of leaders.h.i.+p to a few awakeners and led them in fighting the monsters.

However, it was in Nohas that Liam ran into the first person who exceeded him, though he did not yet know it, and that man was the eccentric Jake Smithson.

Without armor, and with only a stone he picked up, he began to fight the monsters, and as they both started on the defense of Brino, Liam found out that Jake grew at a different rate than other awakeners.

Even Liam – for all his gifts and apt.i.tude – couldn't keep up with Jake.

For the first time in his life, he felt it: jealousy.

He ignored the feeling, knowing that it would not help if they were in a life-or-death situation, but in his own way, he had succ.u.mbed to it: he made a ridiculous request of Jake – for him to stay close to Brino.

Despite things unfolding the way they had, he still knew he made a mistake, and had to apologize to Jake in the way he only knew how: find the real murderer.

He was just a few months removed from receiving his criminology degree and a job offer from the police, and he spent his on-the-job training helping detectives catalog information.

This was the matter that fit his talents exactly: he'd spend his time doing the legwork the actual detectives told him was part and parcel of the job.

The search wasn't easy; a lack of technology in Nohas was the prime cause, but there was something that all successful detectives had: plodding and patience.

He had intended to continue the pursuit, but the skeleton army forced him to fight in, and later evacuate, the town of Brino.

It was pure serendipity that he ran into Jay and his friends in a copse of trees close to the outskirts of Brino, with smiles carved onto their throats and gla.s.sed eyes still in disbelief, flies beginning to find their way into gaping mouths and slashed throats.

He checked the wounds.

'Throats slit. They never had a chance to fight back. Whoever did this is getting comfortable with killing.'

Apparently, the murderer was in a hurry and couldn't find the time to dispose of the bodies – that was when he heard the shouts from Brino, seeing the other awakeners try to return to their town.

'The murderer's going to take this opportunity to kill Jake: he won't think it's a problem whether he gets revealed as the murderer or not.'

'It's why he's in a hurry to go back. This is his only shot at Jake.'

He could only manage to hastily bury Jay's party mates before saying a prayer and making his way back to town.

Accompanying that prayer was an apology – he couldn't intervene in time to save them, after all.

When he put out the fire and followed one of the awakener groups while carrying a huge bundle on his shoulder, he found out that someone had tried to take back the town.

Jay's corpse was the reason he only made it back to Brino's town when the fighting had finished, in time to see Emmanuel appear from nowhere and try to carve a new smile onto Jake's throat.
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Except he didn't.

Nearly everyone in Brino was stunned by this turn of events, so Liam decided to look for the perfect chance to step up and show who the murderer was… right after Jake used those chains to cut the murderer into many pieces.

He thought he timed his reveal perfectly, as well as showing Jay's corpse to everyone.

He also thought that this would settle things easily, and ensure that Jake and the other awakeners would at least start working together.

'I never thought it would turn out like this,' Liam told himself as the situation went in the completely opposite direction of his expectations.

Jake was scoffing at the faces of the awakeners standing around him, and the awakeners were nursing their hostility towards Jake; they were just waiting for one person to step up, and the rest of them would follow.

'What a pathetic lot,' Liam thought, and with his course of action set, he finally made his decision.

"If any of you have a problem with Jake defending himself against a killer like that, step up and deal with me."

'I'm not going to stand idly by when an injustice is being done. It cost us the lives of good awakeners, who could be helping us against the monsters now.'

'Once is enough for me.'

Jake seemed surprised at his fellow's determined expression, and even more, was standing with Jake back-to-back in case the first foolish awakener decided to avenge their popular friend.

'You're a better guy than I thought. Don't worry about food. I'm putting you on my tab for meals from here on out.'

It was during this display that the awakeners' hostility was replaced with fear and confusion, because now, the two of the most powerful awakeners of Brino were standing together.

Liam with his skill, magic and leaders.h.i.+p, and Jake with his monstrous strength and brutality was a combination that none of the awakeners of Brino wanted a piece of.

Still, it rankled their pride, and some of them were thinking of their sheer numerical advantage.

There were, however, those who knew firsthand just how insane and brutal Jake was; they had their heads down while they were beginning to edge close to the back of the crowd, ready to run for it if things started to go badly.

'We have the numbers. But he's off his rocker.'

'It won't look good for us to go picking on the insane.'

They've seen him in action, and thus have the grudging respect for a madman like him.

The standoff continued for a few more moments, until the air in the town square looked like it began to thicken.

Slowly but surely, the awakeners gathered around Brino looked around, and they saw that yes, dust was beginning to fill the air.

An awakener nearly tripped over a skeleton's bone, only to see it gradually crumbling into dust, minutes after their leader had been felled.

Scouts began shouting the same as all around town and even beyond, the skeletons that lost their cohesion and clattered to the ground when the Skeleritter perished all began to erode away, particles being flown by an unknown wind back to town.

"Huh?!"

Jake, however, had a different idea entirely.

"What's happening? Fading away right now, are you? Why are you dying already? Give me my money! What the h.e.l.l is this?"

He was furious at this development. How would he gain points if the Skeleritter was already fading away after being slain by his own hands?

"You're not allowed to die like that yet! Not while I'm still unpaid!" Jake bellowed, confusing the gathered awakeners, making history as the first awakener to wish that monsters wouldn't die too quickly.

To everyone's surprise, that was exactly what happened.

The dust around the town square coalesced into a figure around Jake's size, the dark dust of the crumbled bones transforming into a humanoid shape.

The gathering dust gave it a black hue, and its vaguely human face contained two glowing eyes, whipcord musculature, and fingers that tapered off into sharp tips.

It clattered its teeth after it stood up, its formation now finished.

"What's that?" Jake asked as the figure looked at Jake, Liam, and then the other awakeners . "Is that a man-in-black or something?"

He had barely said the final word of his sentence when the figure flashed past his eye and singled out an awakener.

A scream pierced the night as the monster's hand had gone through an awakener's gut.

Everyone there was too stunned to react.

It was only when it withdrew its b.l.o.o.d.y arm that the other awakeners began to scream at the swiftness and brutality of the attack.

It turned towards another one, and in moments, left another awakener in the dirt with a hole in his abdomen.

The monster turned to the rest of the awakeners.

Screams followed.

The monster braced itself to give chase, but Jake was already in motion since the monster skewered the second awakener.

His sword was already on its way to slice off the monster's neck, speed and strength both enhanced by magic, and the monster was facing towards the fleeing awakeners, not towards him.

He had this new monster dead to rights.

Unfortunately, while the sword hit straight and true, it bounced off the monster's neck as if it was a foam bat.

The hit registered, though; the monster turned to Jake and gave him a rather indifferent look.

'I'm screwed. Look, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have wished you stuck around like that. I said something I shouldn't have.'

Glowing eyes set in a dark, vaguely human-shaped head brought a feeling Jake only knew back in the Isle of Deceit: fear.

'I seem to have miscalculated.'

But he did not despair.

No, what's more correct is that he couldn't afford to despair.

Jake gave the Swiftstone a brief look before holding it firmly, bracing for the monster's attack.

He barely had a moment before the monster's knifelike hands were all over him.

Attacks came from all directions, and it was all Jake could do to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of strikes heading towards him.

Mere moments later, Jake was stuck in a corner, the creature's vicious a.s.sault beginning to open up wounds all over his body, despite his armor and defense.

"s.h.i.+t!" Jake exclaimed, as he too was forced to fall back, as the monster's size gave it more speed without sacrificing its vicious power.

He was just about to turn and activate his haste skill when he saw a gash blossom on his side in the wake of the monster's razor-sharp hands swinging at him.

Jake screamed.