End of Yesterday, Back to Today

John blinked rapidly as the world around him seemed to spin. From where he had been hit, a throbbing, hot pain was already spreading around the rest of his head and down to his neck. More blood dripped out from his left ear, while he could only hear a high-pitched ringing from his right one. He was on the edge of consciousness, it wouldn’t take much for him to fully pass out. In his current state, John could hardly piece together a coherent thought, much less do anything else.

Ganzac approached John, his footsteps thumped against the ground. The redness in his gloves was slowly disappearing and they were returning to their previous white color. He rolled his shoulders as he stopped, now directly in front of John. Meanwhile, Gamer’s Body had already begun its job of repairing all physical damage. The flow of blood from his ear and forehead came to a stop, and the ringing faded away as his hearing returned to normal.

Ughhh, shit. What in the Hell just happened? John managed to ask himself as he tried to blink the blurriness out of his eyes. He still had little feeling in parts of his body; his legs, in particular, were completely numb and unresponsive to his commands. When his vision finally focused, it was only then that his brain fully registered the older demon standing before him.

“Well then, John, may I call you John?’ Ganzac asked, but didn’t bother to wait for a reply before he continued. “Now that you seem to be at least semi-awake, let us continue on with the proposed scenario. There are a few common options that you can pick from: A is to try fighting back, B is running away, and C is giving up and begging for mercy. Of course, there’s what you just picked, which is D, doing nothing. That option generally won’t work out well for you in most situations. So, assuming that your attacker isn’t feeling merciful today, will you run or fight?” Ganzac asked as he took out a cigar and lit it.

John staggered up to his feet and wiped the blood off his forehead. He took a step back and knew that he had little breathing room. From Ganzac in front of him and the Barrier wall behind him. He essentially had two choices: cast Soul Weapon and try to go on the offensive or cast Escape Barrier. With the sheer difference between their levels, however, it might have been more appropriate to call the former a suicide charge. But on the other hand, Ganzac’s mana pool was more than double John’s. He used Observe on the smoking demon before him, and as he did so, hoped he got lucky enough to discover that Ganzac’s attack had just happened to consume a lot of mana.

600/610 MP

But as it turned out, reality was a fickle mistress. Nonetheless, he still had to give it a try, even if the chance of success was likely only a fraction of a fraction. John raised his hand into the air, and attempted to cast Escape Barrier. The air seemed to shimmer and move around him as he watched his mana level plummet. Until eventually…

Warning!
You have run out of mana!

And unfortunately, the air around him had stopped shimmering, and John was still trapped inside the Barrier with Ganzac. He had placed everything on a gamble, and it had failed to pay off. Ganzac removed the cigar from his mouth and flicked it into the air, where it almost immediately crumbled into ash.

“Well, I’ll give credit where credit’s due. Both of your options had abysmally low chances of actually working. But between running and standing your ground, the former was slightly more likely to succeed. Let’s see… if it was any other old, grumpy demon, this is the part where you would have just been killed,” he flatly said. John blinked, and suddenly, the older demon was standing right next to him. Ganzac pressed his finger into the left side of John’s neck, and quickly traced across his body down to his right shoulder.

“Did you know that most demons consider the chest and neck as their favorite body parts to eat? The brain itself is mushy and has a poor taste, but the heart, lungs, and all the arteries that go to the brain are quite delicious. Though I personally prefer the small intestine in your lower torso. There’s a piece of it called the duodenum, it plays a large part in how the human body processes ****,” Ganzac finished, and then proceeded to take a step back from John.

“You see, John, in the Abyss, especially when concerning Hell, you would be surprised by how… let’s say brutal, it can truly be. I just want to make that abundantly clear now before you meet someone who genuinely does want you dead. After all, you’ve only been a part of this world for what was it? Two or three days now?” As Ganzac went on, his body began to revert to its casual form. His hair became neat and orderly, and his horns retracted back out of sight. The now once again human-like demon began to walk towards the white gloves he had left on the ground as he continued to talk.

“Anyway, consider that as a lesson from me to you. You won’t always have someone like Blair or myself holding your hand 24/7, so be fully aware at all times that you could be killed at any moment like a bug on the sidewalk. My advice: hide in the cracks, and don’t let anything capable of squashing you even become aware of your existence. Just live a quiet and peaceful life in the dark, and don’t worry about a single thing,” Ganzac said as he finished refitting his gloves. And with that, the walls of the Barrier began to crack, and soon, they were both back in the mundane world. Afterward, Ganzac simply left John standing on the grass, and went back inside.

“Wait, wait, wait. Pause. So, let me get this straight,” Blair began as she set her empty teacup down onto the floor. “First, Ganzac directly goes against what I asked, and knocks you around. Where he could have easily killed you if he’d let his self-control slip. And then he goes on a whole spiel about hiding in place when he is always out and about doing only Gaia knows what!” She paused, took a deep breath, and then slowly blew it back out through her nose. “Okay, did he do anything else after that?” Blair asked.

“Not really, no,” John replied. “He left the door open, so I kinda just stood outside for a bit trying to get my bearings and then went back in. After that… neither of us really did or said anything for a while. And then, maybe half an hour before you came back, well, it’s like I told you earlier, I noticed the deck of cards on the table, Ganzac mentioned that there was a popular card game in Hell called Toref, and that was that."

From there, the conversation dwindled down. As the night dragged on, they both eventually felt like it would be better to go back to bed soon and catch up on sleep until morning. Especially John, who still needed to be up early enough to get to school. Thankfully, as John mentioned this, Blair assured him that either she or Ganzac could drive him so he wouldn’t have to worry about missing the bus and needing to pay for a taxi or Bluber ride. With that resolved, they both left the Barrier, and John insisted that he go back to the guest room so that Blair could have her own bed all to herself.