'So, I'm gone for three hundred years and all of a sudden the world becomes a miniature purge movie.' Why do I know what the purge is? Let's just say, little four-year-old Arthur was introduced to horror unintentionally by his mother and let's leave it at that.
"You'll have to explain that one to me," I told her, tapping my temple. "Amnesiac over here."
She looked at me for a moment, before glancing away.
"What is there to explain? It is our way of life. If you are not strong enough to protect yourself, then you do not deserve to breathe, your only right is to die."
"Huh…and does this apply for the whole world or…?"
Veya sneered at my words, an ugly snarl on her otherwise pretty face that tugged on the fresh wound on her cheek. Some of the fire from before appearing again.
"Of course, someone like you would ask that!" She spoke with such aggression and vitriol, that some spit came flying out of her mouth "Typical! To you high born bastards we are nothing but brutes and savages in mercury linked chains!"
'Well then, consider that nerve touched.' I thought, nearly rolling my eyes. Honestly, what part of me being an 'amnesiac' did she not understand?
"Are you done?" I asked, raising an unimpressed brow as she wordlessly bared her fangs at me. This time, I actually did roll my eyes at her. "Evidently not…"
Without any prompt, I surged forward. So consumed by her own anger she was, Veya wasn't prepared for my sudden movement, and as such, didn't have enough time to react.
I lunged for her throat, wrapping my left hand around it—avoiding her fresh wound—and with my momentum and Strength stat, picked her up and pushed her, forcing her to fall onto her back before slamming her into the ground.
She wheezed from the impact, her eyes widening purely out of instinct as a dull thud echoed from her head slamming into the dirt path. My grip on her neck increased slightly, putting just enough pressure on her to make her begin feeling uncomfortable.
I bared my own pointed fangs then, feeling my throat ignite as tongues of orange and red fire seeped out of the corners of my mouth. My crimson hair fell as I leaned over her, creating a curtain that surrounded us and blocked the outside world from view.
"Keep acting like a rabid animal, and I will put you down as if you are one." I growled, seeing the fear in her eyes appear once again. I let the fire in my mouth build a little more, cascading her face in an orange glow before roughly throwing her back and pushing myself up.
I breathed the fire out into the air before her eyes, creating a small heat haze, and pointedly ignored a notification from the System that announced another level up for the Aspect.
"In your own words, this is your last chance. Get it through that thick skull of yours, that I do notknow anything. If you value your life, you will act like the human being you are and talk to me, or so help me…"
I didn't finish my threat, instead, letting it hang wordlessly over her.
She would make up her own interpretation of the threat, one that would end up being far worse than anything I said anyways.
Veya didn't need to know that I didn't have the guts to kill her. I had morales, and no matter how much [Omphalos Mind] numbed me to them, murdering another human was a sin I wasn't willing to commit.
Putting the fear of death in her though, that I could live with.
I said I had morales, I never said that they were very good ones, so give me a break here, I was working with all that I had available to me.
"Let's try this again, Veya." She pushed herself up on unsteady arms, moving to hold her neck with a visible grimace. "What do the metals have to do with this?"
She coughed before answering me. "It's a label, one that's put on every person by The Society. It's determined at birth usually. If you're born from two Mercury's, you become a Mercury. If you're born from two Silvers, you become a Silver."
"Is there a reason for this?" I asked, crossing my arms and watching her. My mind was already running a mile a minute to begin understanding this new information.
"Yes…" She coughed again, rubbing her neck and sitting on her knees again. "…There are many reasons, but the most prevalent is social status. The higher one is born, the easier their life is, and the longer they live."
I hummed, thinking back to her earlier words.
"Before, you mentioned something about mercury linked chains…what did you mean exactly?"
She smirked at me, as if my question brought her some hidden amusement. Yet, I could see the festering anger and hatred in her eyes as she spoke.
"When the Collapse happened, only sixty percent of the world's population were blessed to become Risen. All chosen to fight against the forces of Tartarus," She began, watching me intently. "The remaining forty percent remained powerless. Unable to fight and unable to fuck and birth more Risen into the world. They missed that divine spark that made you high born lot so-"
A brief flicker of fire appeared on my arms, and she quickly pulled herself back together, changing what she was about to say.
"-So special. As such, when humanity was beginning to adopt these new labels onto itself, we were seen as the slackers, the lazy. The useless dregs of society."
She spat at the ground beside her, as if the words rolling off her tongue were a vile poison that she couldn't contain.
"You asked me what I meant earlier, this is it. We Mercury's are not seen as humans, but as stains. Mistakes that the Gods left around for those above us to utilize as free labor." She smirked at me again, her lips parting slightly to show the fangs amongst her teeth.
"We are slaves, made to keep the world running in the background and rewarded for our work with the chance to keep breathing and a mortality rate of a medieval peasant!" She cackled, an insane laugh that made me begin feeling weary not of her, but for her.
"Then, when that isn't enough for them, we get sent off to the front lines to die. All in the name of some noble cause." Veya snorted at her own words again, a delirious look entering her eyes. "Ha! A noble cause, honestly, what a joke."
I stayed quiet as she madly laughed like a broken record. My mind churning with the information I had just learnt.
In the end, I came to a simple conclusion that summarized everything quite nicely, I think.
'This world needs to go through a factory reset. Forget the creatures, the real monsters seem to be the people.' Unfortunately, it was a fact I had learnt long ago. A fact that I was only beginning to fully grasp and understand now.
'I am not at all prepared for this new world, am I?'
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|| [For making a logical conclusion, you have gained a [+1] to your [INT] stat] ||
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'Thank you for nothing.' I thought with a sigh, preparing myself to bring Veya back to reality.