Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 33: A Promise of Honor Beyond Death

Joji dashed out of the dungeon. Behind him was only darkness, and the old marble floor was already giving way, crumbling into nothingness.

Curiosity tugged at him to look back, to see what lived in that black, but he could not afford it.

He jumped for the exit and broke through the veil. Stone met his shoulder.

Then his boots slipped and he plunged into the shallow water with a splash that stung cold through his clothes and armor.

Only Alaric waited there.

Walter had been tasked with talking to Mary Cathryn Lacrosse, keeping her from breaking apart in public.

Alaric stood in the water like a statue that had forgotten how to breathe.

When he looked at his arm, tears started to run down his face.

"My future as a knight is over," Alaric said, voice shaking. "My arm is crippled. It will need to be cut off soon."

"Don’t be so dramatic, let me see it," Joji said.

Alaric held it out like it belonged to someone else. The bruising was already turning purple, swelling ugly.

Joji’s fingers pressed gently along the bone and muscle, feeling the wrongness.

Alaric was slim, but his muscles were well made, trained for speed and precision.

Joji drew aura into his touch and let it sink through skin, reading structure the way he had read bodies in another life.

He checked again. Then again, stubborn, unwilling to miss the small detail that decided a man’s future.

After ten minutes, Joji nodded.

"It isn’t fully broken," Joji said. "It is a small displacement. Still fixable. I would even say it might grow stronger than before."

Alaric blinked hard. Hope hit him so fast it looked like anger.

"Really? There is such a thing? Tell me what we do."

"Shush," Joji said. "It can heal, but you cannot use that arm for a month, at best."

"Just a month? I’ll take it," Alaric said, breath rushing out of him. "What do we do?"

"Calm down. We go back to the barn," Joji said. "Then we talk."

They returned through the dark streets, keeping to the outskirts.

It was still dusk, and the town was fast asleep.

Walter was waiting, beckoning them in with a tight face.

"I did what I could, but," Walter said, and the rest of the sentence died in his throat.

"You did enough," Joji told him, and patted his shoulder once. "I’ll talk to her."

Inside, a small urn sat on the table, forgotten, like someone had set it down and never remembered why.

It was clearly Jaime.

Mary Cathryn sat across from Joji. Her eyes were red. Her voice was hoarse from crying.

"I want revenge," Mary said.

Joji did not flinch at the words. He had heard the same tone from men and women who had worn uniforms back on Earth.

"I won’t pretend I understand your grief," Joji said. "I will never be a mother. But I will be honest with you."

Mary’s jaw tightened.

"What you need right now is not rashness," Joji said. "You might uncover something, yes. You might even find the right hand to blame."

"But let’s say you kill Fourteen. Then what? Did you truly kill the culprit? Or did you only make it harder for all of us, because now they know you are hunting them?"

Mary opened her mouth.

Joji raised a hand, calm and firm.

"Listen." He leaned forward a little. "How about the other mothers after this? Is it fine for them to lose their sons for your vendetta?"

Mary’s face twisted and the tears returned.

Joji let her cry for a breath, then spoke again, softer.

"The Lacrosse family served Everhart beyond what was demanded. Proper papers. Proper duties. Proper restraint."

He watched her eyes, watched the guilt take shape.

"If you were the duchess, would you think this is fine?" Joji said.

Mary lowered her head and sobbed.

Joji rested his hand on the table, close to the urn, close enough to feel the small tremor in her arms as she shook.

"This is what I will do. We will bring your son’s body back to the Hall of Heroes. I will also send letters to your remaining children."

Mary looked up as if she had forgotten kindness still existed.

"Thank you. Thank you, knight Joji."

Joji nodded once.

"In my discretion, the dungeon was destroyed. It might have had value to the enemy. It did not look like a place used for only a few years."

Mary stared at the papers and the notes Walter had brought back. She did not argue.

"That dungeon could have been here since the town was built," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word.

Joji understood why she accepted it. If people learned her son had been turned into something so grotesque, condemnation would not stop at the dead.

It would reach for her, for her other children, for any name tied to Lacrosse.

They would call it treason. They would call it a curse. They would call for punishment even without condemning evidence, just to quell the crowd.

Joji kept his face calm, but his mind was already moving.

Duchess Rosalind could read between lines. If Mary was hiding something, Rosalind would sense it.

If Mary was only terrified, Rosalind would see that too.

"For now, we will need to leave," Joji said.

Mary Cathryn’s head lifted, eyes dull with exhaustion and anger both.

"Don’t you want to rest? Are you suspicious of me?"

Joji shook his head and gave her a neutral smile.

"It’s not that. We still have another mission after this. I hope you understand."

"Alright," Mary Cathryn said, and her gaze dropped to her lap. "Then I won’t impose any longer."

"I only wish to stay in the barn until noon," Joji said. "Then we’ll leave."

Mary Cathryn hummed and said nothing more. She was tired. Old tired, the kind that sat in the bones.

Right now she wanted only one thing, that the safety of her remaining children could be guaranteed.

Joji returned to the barn and Alaric almost leapt at him like a puppy.

"I told you, Alaric. I don’t swing that way," Joji said.

"It’s not the time to joke," Alaric snapped. "Come fix my arm."

"Get those planks," Joji told Kobto. Then he looked at Walter. "Get me a leather strap."

Joji checked the arm one last time, fingers pressing along the swelling, aura reading the line of the bone.

He was surprised the bone had not fragmented despite how close Alaric had been to the blast.

Joji had been strengthened by Sir Engine, but Alaric did not have such secrets.

"Alaric," Joji said, voice firm. "This will hurt like hell. Find something to bite."

Alaric grabbed a dirty stick off the floor.

"Hygiene." Joji said at once. "Find something clean. Cloth."

Alaric dug out a handkerchief and held it up. Joji nodded.

"Close your eyes and count to five," Joji said. "On five, I move it."

Alaric shut his eyes. "One. Two. Three..."

Joji did not let him finish. Click.

Alaric’s face twisted and tears sprang up, the sound he made half swallowed by the cloth.

Joji did not linger. He set the arm, then bound it with the plank and the leather strap, tight enough to hold, not tight enough to kill circulation.

"Use your other arm for now," Joji said. "And don’t try to be brave with this one. If you keep moving it, it won’t heal. You understand?"