The Gamer's POV-Chapter 250: Test [2]

The blonde-haired man kept walking absentmindedly when he suddenly felt a shadow loom behind him. His instincts flared, but just as he turned, a dagger gutted his side.

The man groaned, letting go of the deer over his shoulders as his knees buckled, causing him to fall heavily to the ground. He looked up, and then his eyes widened in fear as he saw Cedric standing over him with a dagger dripping with fresh, hot blood.

Groaning, the man clutched his side, then raised his other hand and trembled as he whispered, "Cedric? Wh-why... why are you...?"

He was shaken and could not even complete his sentence. The illusory Cedric, on the other hand, also seemed to be shaken for a different reason.

’What did I just do...’

He could not believe what he had just done. It was almost as if something had possessed him and guided his hand with a mind of its own. His heart began to thump against his ribs like a trapped bird, and he took a step back from the bleeding, groaning man on the ground.

"Please... don’t kill me," the man pleaded. "Why are you even doing this?"

’Why?’ Cedric thought as he stared at his own stained hands.

But just then, the familiar but strange voice in his head boomed once more, vibrating through the very marrow of his bones.

"Pride!"

When that word echoed through his mind, Cedric halted and his hands, which were trembling, stopped. Despite still feeling a bit of the lingering shock, he straightened his back and narrowed his eyes with a sudden, icy clarity.

"Why am I doing this?"

He took a step closer to the man, causing the man to shift backwards in the red-stained snow. Then he crouched, tilted his head, and muttered coldly.

"I am doing this because I can." He raised the dagger and pointed it menacingly at the man’s throat, then uttered through gritted teeth. "Because I am better than you, Elias. You have spent your life flaunting your luck in my face, assuming you were my better just because the Elder hailed you as a savior during the village war. Everyone cheered your name for holding the southern pass, yet they forgot that I was the one who scouted the path and bled to give you that opening. You walked away with all the glory and the respect while I was treated like a footnote in your story. You even got picked to be the next village chief, while I got nothing."

"Wh-what... what are you even saying?" The man gasped, his face pale as he clutched his bleeding side.

"I am saying that it should have been me who stood on that platform receiving the Elder’s blessing, not you," Cedric continued without remorse. "I should have been the one who got to marry the Elder’s daughter, not you! Me! You are nothing more than a parasite living the life that was meant for me. So today, I am simply taking back the world you stole from me."

"Please-please just wait a minute, Cedric..." Elias was still pleading but Cedric ignored him and suddenly plunged the blade into the man’s throat. Blood sprayed and the man gurgled, as he fell down on the snow, choking on his blood.

***

...

..

.

...Everything felt so real.

To the real Cedric, who was watching the entire scene, this made-up world felt so real that it looked almost as if he had been thrown into a dimension where another version of him existed and was living a life.

But that was not even the most terrifying part.

Cedric could feel exactly what this different version of him was feeling, but in an even more amplified way. It was as if he were this version and were the one acting, yet at the same time, it felt as if he were distinct from this shadow and was watching the scene as a connected outsider from where he knelt.

He could not understand fully what was happening. However, for some reason, the scene disgusted him, and since even his own emotions were amplified more than threefold, he felt a violent surge of nausea that threatened to tear through his chest.

Swallowing it down, he continued to watch as this strange version of him wiped the blood on the tattered wool of Elias’s tunic.

After that, he looked around again, before picking up the deer, after which he continued onward through the forest.

The minutes went by slowly. Then, when he was close to the village, he smiled and muttered to himself, "Little sister would really be happy. She’ll finally get to eat meat after a long time."

When the illusory Cedric said that, for some reason that he could not explain, the real Cedric felt really happy. He felt hopeful and could not wait to see this little sister of his.

A few minutes later, the small, old village finally came into view. It was a collection of low, huddling stone huts with thatched roofs, and narrow winding paths that cut through the center of the settlement. The paths were worn smooth by generations of sandals and the heavy wheels of ox carts, and faint plumes of gray smoke drifted from the soot-stained chimneys, carrying the scent of burning peat and dried heather into the crisp evening air.

After passing through the twisted willow branches that served as fences, the illusory Cedric seemed to notice that the village was rather noisy tonight, though he didn’t pay much attention to that and headed to his home.

When he finally reached his home, a wide smile crossed his face as he pushed the door open, but when he stepped in, his smile seemed to slowly vanish.

On the ground in the dimly lit room, an old woman was crying. By her side, a young girl was weeping as she tried to comfort her, while a small, malnourished boy of barely six rested his head on the girl’s lap.

"Mom? Tessa? What’s happening?" The illusory Cedric dropped the deer and rushed to both their sides. Then he looked to the young girl and asked again urgently. "What’s wrong?"

The young girl, Tessa, slowly turned to him. She hesitated for a moment before finally replying.

"It’s Juliana."

The illusory Cedric frowned and quickly asked. "What happened to Juli?"

The sobbing girl shook her head and remained silent until Cedric asked again. "Tell me!"

Tessa snapped out of it, and with fresh tears, she replied. "While you were away, she went to steal a loaf of bread for Sami from Daniel who lives at the house next door. But... he caught her and would not let her go. He..." Her voice broke and she struggled to find the words. "He tried to force himself on her. But she would not let him, and in an attempt to defend herself, she hit his head with a stone she had picked up from the ground. She did not know he would die from that."

At that moment, the eyes of the illusory Cedric widened.

Tessa continued, "You know what the punishment for murder in this village is..."

"Don’t tell me..."

Tessa nodded. "Someone saw her leave Daniel’s house with blood on her hands and clothes. That was how it was discovered. When the village found out, she was dragged out to the square where she was stoned by almost everyone in the village before she was finally beheaded at the center of the plaza."

The moment Tessa said those words, the hearts of both Cedrics sank. The illusory Cedric dropped to his knees, and his eyes went wide and vacant as his world shattered. The real Cedric, on the other hand, began to groan as he suddenly felt a pain that he had never felt before. He felt immense sorrow, betrayal, and a suffocating helplessness all at once. The three-fold intensity made the grief feel like his heart was going to explode. Hot tears flowed freely from his eyes, as the screams he could not release choked him from the inside.

"No, no... no..." Even the illusory Cedric broke down in tears and grabbed his own hair.

Then at that moment, the made-up world paused. It was as if time had simply stopped, and everything remained in the same position.

When that happened, the familiar but heavy voice that the real Cedric had been hearing right from the time the test began echoed:

"The Lord paused his story and turned to the scholar, who was looking at him with wide eyes. The scholar shook his head and said, ’Wow, that is... dark. Does that mean that this man called Cedric got instant karma for killing Elias?’

"The Lord chuckled and said, ’Karma, huh. You really are smart.’ He thought for a moment, then asked the scholar, ’By the way, what exactly do you think karma is?’

"The scholar thought about the question for a bit, then replied, ’Isn’t that the universal principle of cause and effect, suggesting that every action has a consequence that will eventually come back to the doer?’

"The Lord smiled and nodded. He looked away and said rhetorically, ’Why does karma exist? When someone who has his food stolen, or someone who has her loving husband killed, prays for karmic retribution... who do you think delivers that?

"’When you ask yourself, why do bad things happen to me, do you ask yourself how much evil karma have I accumulated? Do you ask yourself if the good karma I have accumulated is enough to cancel out the weight of my evil? Do you ask yourself how much good karma do I need to be able to hide from the effects of bad karma? Or do you just accumulate bad karma because you like it?

"’Karma always, "always" comes back to bite in the ass, because it is a debt that collects interest in the dark. If you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get absolute evil from the beings who deliver that.’