A Journey Unwanted-Chapter 411 - 400: Fear

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: The Great Forest]

"Hm," Puck murmured.

Her face was caught in an expression of genuine contemplation mixed with confusion. Her eyes weren’t on Grimm, nor were they on the lion.

They were locked onto the thing hovering above her. A golden orb, larger than her small form, floated in the air as if it had its own will. It radiated with a steady light, it almost seemed serene.

Here, in the bleak forest, it looked wrong.

The "spell" that had been placed inside the lion’s system had been simple enough for Puck to extract. The act itself hadn’t been difficult, not for her. It wasn’t like ripping out a curse fused to a being. It was more akin to pulling out a charm or enhancement threaded through the creature’s system.

Only the application was far more advanced than its simplicity suggested. Something that needed to be implemented with care.

But Puck’s confusion didn’t truly come from the orb.

It came from the lion.

The same lion whose ribs were broken. The same lion whose bones had been shattered so thoroughly it shouldn’t have been capable of anything but wheezing and dying. The same lion who had been snarling, roaring and baring teeth with murderous pride only moments ago.

It was in front of Grimm now.

Its massive head bowed low until it touched its forepaws.

It was bowing.

Puck’s brows furrowed.

("Sudden advanced healing or what?") she wondered, eyes turning over the lion’s trembling shoulders, the way its muscles twitched as if it was fighting against pain no longer there.

Then the lion spoke.

And the sound that came out of it was so wrong that Puck’s eyes widened slightly.

"PLEASE DO NOT KILL ME!" the lion cried out.

Its voice was shrill and high. Almost panicked to the point of cracking. It sounded nothing like it had moments ago—nothing like the furious and prideful beast that had been trying to tear Grimm apart.

"I DO NOT WANT TO DIE!" it screamed, the words tumbling out like it had been holding them back for years.

Grimm’s posture did not change. His sword remained in his hand, held low. His helmeted head turned slightly downward, and the silence that followed felt more apparent than the lion’s pleading.

The General’s hidden gaze watched the shivering lion.

"With the spell extracted," Grimm merely stated, "you’ve little use."

The lion’s breath hitched.

It didn’t even look up at him.

"P-PLEASE DON’T!" the lion still exclaimed, its eyes wide and wet, frightful gaze refusing to meet Grimm’s ominous form. It pressed its head lower, as if lowering itself enough might make the blade pass over it. "PLEASE—PLEASE, I— I DON’T WANT—!"

"Hm." Grimm’s helmet turned slightly, and his attention slid to Puck instead, as if the lion’s begging was no more important than the wind. "Is this change in personality due to that?"

He gestured with the chin of his helmet toward the golden orb.

Puck blinked, then looked back at the orb as if she’d forgotten she was holding something that important.

"Ah," Puck murmured, still studying it. "It’s an advanced spell, yeah, but..." Her mouth twisted. "Pretty underwhelming, honestly." She rotated slightly in the air, as if viewing the orb from different angles would reveal a hidden layer. "Inducing a personal change in reality," she continued, voice thoughtful. "So to speak. It’s like... it rewrites how someone feels themselves. How they interpret the world. It’s not changing the world around them, it’s changing the lens. But at the end of the day?"

Puck sighed.

"It’s a glorified personality alterer."

Grimm went still for half a second.

Then, as if the last sliver of interest in him snapped like a thread—

"Is that all?" Grimm stated.

His tone was blank but the disappointment inside it was unmistakable.

Puck’s shoulders slumped.

"Unfortunately, yes," Puck said, dragging out the words like she was annoyed at reality. "But—"

"Y-you have to give that back!"

The lion suddenly shouted.

It was abrupt enough that Puck’s form jolted slightly in the air. The lion lifted its gaze just enough to look at Puck, and the desperation in its eyes was so potent it almost looked like a different creature entirely.

"I-it was given to me!" it pleaded. "You can’t just— you can’t take it! You can’t—!"

Puck stared at it.

Then her eyes narrowed, unimpressed.

"You really have to stop shouting like that," Puck stated dryly, her tone almost bored now. "It’s not helping you. And no, I’m not giving it back."

The lion froze.

"What...?" it breathed, confusion flickering across its face. "W-why not?"

Puck’s expression hardened.

"This spell’s been corrupted."

"Huh?" the lion suddenly looked genuinely confused, as if the word didn’t make sense.

Puck held up the orb slightly, and its glow painted her face in gold.

"The spell’s default," Puck informed, voice stern, "seems to be inducing a sense of courage into an individual." The lion’s ears twitched. Puck continued, her words measured. "Courage and resolve. A kind of stabilizing effect. Like it was meant to help you hold your ground. Someone wanted you to be brave." Her eyes turned to the lion, and the next words landed heavily. "However an outside force altered it slightly."

The lion’s breath stuttered.

"Adding malice," Puck said, "pride... and resentment."

The lion’s pupils shrank.

Puck ignored the look as she closed her tiny armored fist, the golden orb burst into particles of light. It didn’t explode violently or shatter like glass, it simply came apart. The lion’s eyes widened in horror at the sight, and the sound it made was closer to a whimper than anything else.

"W-why would you do that!" it cried, voice breaking. "WHY—?!"

Puck waved a hand dismissively, her patience gone.

"You don’t get to whine," Puck said, unphased by its emotion now. "Not after what you did."

The lion flinched.

Puck’s gaze sharpened.

"You’re the one who directed the Deseruit Beasts after the porcelain city, yeah?"

The lion recoiled like she’d struck it.

"W-what?" it stammered. "N-no! No, I didn’t! I didn’t—!"

Puck’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"Hm," she hummed, skepticism dripping from the sound. "I don’t really see any other wannabe lords here."

Her gaze traveled across the forest—across the ice pillars, the crushed bodies, the blood-stained ground and splintered trunks—as if expecting another ruler to step forward and claim responsibility.

Nothing.

Just the lion still bowing and trembling. Puck’s voice lowered, and for the first time there was something almost reluctant in her tone.

"Though," she admitted, "I guess you’re not totally at fault. Or at least... not fully."

The lion blinked, confused and desperate, clinging to that tiny thread.

Puck sighed.

"Considering the corruption in that spell," she finished. "It didn’t just make you brave. It pushed you and fed the ugliest parts of you. It made you think cruelty was strength."

The lion’s mouth opened, then closed.

It looked lost.

Like without the spell, it didn’t even know what it was supposed to be anymore.

Grimm spoke again, and his cold voice dragged the moment back.

"Then our objective is finished," Grimm stated.

He didn’t sound relieved or satisfied, as ever he sounded bored.

"Though I am curious as to how it healed so quickly to move," Grimm added, almost idly, "I am no longer that invested."

His sword raised slightly.

The lion’s eyes shut, its entire body tensed, trembling harder as it waited for the inevitable—waiting for the end it had begged against, but could not escape.

Death, however, never came.

The lion’s body remained locked in place, muscles trembling as it waited for the blade to descend. For several heartbeats, it did not even dare breathe. It simply listened—waiting for the sound of steel, waiting for the sensation of its own existence being severed.

Then, cautiously it opened its eyes.

Grimm was not moving forward.

Instead, the General dismissed his blade in a burst of black fog. It dissolved into that unnatural darkness, like the weapon was never there at all.

The lion stared.

Confusion was a strange thing. It arrived late, after terror, shame or despair. It crept into the hollow space where death had been expected.

Puck hovered beside Grimm, her small armored form drifting slightly lower in the air as she watched him turn away. Her tone was blunt—almost carelessly so.

"You’re not going to kill it?" Puck questioned.

The lion flinched at how casually she said it, as if she were asking whether Grimm planned to step on an insect or not. The fairy clearly had no regard for whether it lived or died. However there was no cruelty in her voice, only indifference.

Grimm didn’t even look back at the lion at first.

"No," he said simply. Then, as if clarifying something obvious to a child, he continued in that same blunt tone. "It is all but harmless without that spell. Whatever courage, whatever aggression and whatever delusion of strength it carried... that has been stripped from it."

His helmet turned slightly, not enough to acknowledge the lion as a person, but enough to acknowledge it as a thing that still existed.

"It will most likely die within this forest," Grimm added idly. "If not from stupidity, then perhaps misfortune. Or fear. Or the countless other beasts that will sense weakness and tear it apart."

The lion’s eyes widened at that.

Grimm’s gaze shifted away again, already moving on.

"For now," he said, "let us wipe out the rest. Make certain they never attack the porcelain city again."

The lion’s breath hitched.

It was spared, but this wasn’t mercy. It was the dismissal of something worthless. A fate worse than being slain with dignity—being left behind as something no longer worth killing.

Puck drifted backward in the air, idly floating as if the entire scene bored her now that the excitement had passed. Yet her eyes stayed on Grimm.

"You’re oddly thorough, huh?" Puck questioned.

Grimm began to walk.

"In my experience," Grimm said, "it is best to never leave a job unfinished."

Puck hummed softly.

"Guess you’re right," she said, her voice lighter than the moment deserved. "And... whatever keeps the porcelain people safe for a time." She lingered in the air, then added, almost as if she were testing the words in her mouth. "You know... maybe you’re not that bad."

Grimm did not react.

Puck, however, kept going, because she always did.

"You’re pretty serious about helping them," she said, more quietly. "Even though you don’t even find them interesting. You’re pretty genuine, huh." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "That’s kinda of rare."

Grimm said nothing.

He merely continued walking.

Puck followed behind him, hovering, she stared at the back of his helmet for a long moment.

Then she huffed.

"Don’t ignore me," Puck stated dryly, irritation returning.

Grimm’s head turned slightly.

"Is a fly buzzing around me or something?" he questioned, voice flat.

Puck’s mouth dropped open.

"Oi!" she snapped, her tiny armored arms jerking outward in outrage. "Did you just call me a fly?"

Grimm didn’t stop walking.

Puck floated forward faster, circling to his side like a fly that refused to be left behind.

"I’m not a fly!" she barked. "I’m your guide! I’m the reason you’re not wandering around this realm like some lost fool with no idea on what he’s doing!"

Grimm’s voice didn’t change.

"And yet you buzz," he replied.

Puck looked like she wanted to scream.

She clenched her fists so tightly her tiny gauntlets creaked.

"You are insufferable," she declared.

Grimm offered no argument.

He simply continued onward, and somehow that made it worse.

Behind them, the cowardly lion remained collapsed in the ruined ground, blood drying at its mouth as it stared.

It watched them leave.

It watched the General’s back disappear between the broken trees. It watched the fairy’s small form hover after him, still complaining.

And the lion—who had once charged with ferocity, who had once roared like the world belonged to it—could only stare.

Utterly confused.