Seeing the bright red beam fill up my sight, I can’t help but regret.

Why didn’t I close my eyes? They say time moves slowly when you’re about to die, and that seems to be true. And whilst I feel the world crawl slowly, I can’t help but feel the unscratchable itch in my eyes. This beam has completely dried them, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I’m in agony right now.

Oh how I wish I could rub my eyes right now. Oh the agony~!

The AGOOONNNNYY!

Hmm? Actually, I managed to move my hands to my eyes. Holy shite! I can rub my eyes!

Thus, I do so. Mm, and for an added bonus, it seems I’m not dead.

Nice~!

Compelling myself to look toward the red beam once more, I find something strange blocking the entirety of the beam.

It’s a single playing card. Standard deck size. Though imprinted on the face is a peculiar symbol. Twin arrows which snaked around each other, pointing in opposite directions, enthralled by a white oval which separates it from the black template. It kept the bloody beam at bay, despite having no more than a millimetre of girth.

“Phew, can’t believe this actually worked. Not gonna lie, kinda thought the bastard scammed me,”

To the shocked face of the opera duet Laffer cracks a coprophagous grin.

I don’t whether to be jump in joy and sigh in sadness.

To think Laffer had a trump card. It makes me wonder why he didn’t use it at the start of this whole thrash.

The man in question spares a glance toward me, “Well, that’s because this is expensive,”

“Wh-What did you do?” Bloody Lady stutters. Red tears streak down her pallid face, her hands shiver, grasping tight Stray Bloody Cat’s cold cold cadaver.

And like that, all the red light was gone. The slim card sucked it all up like a null void. Returning to Laffer’s hands he struts forward, leaning downward at the prone Blood Lady.

She’s stock still. Stiff as if she were the one suffering from rigour mortis.

“No u,”

Uttering an absolutely inane, oafish phrase whilst inching the strange card between his index and third finger, I’m surprised at the red light that beams off it. As if regurgitating the previous force back at the Blood Lady.

Her face widened with shock as red filled my vision. Again.

Is it a good time to say that red is my least favourite colour? Personally, I just don’t like warm colours in general but red especially! It's just such a strong colour. Not nice on the eyes at all.

Locked in my glorious musing, a sharp screech pricks at my mind. Damn, I’m surprised she still has it in her to shriek even as she gets eviscerated.

Her final throes continue to jab at me but with decreasing strength as the red dies out and the card crinkles and shrivels up. It turns to ashes and from ashes to quarks that blink out of this realm, like the duo of the blood cult.

Very strange. What is? All this is strange.

And even stranger is the man — tentative — applauding from beside me.

He wears a black cloak, draped over a white garment, outfitted with a black top hat, with a purple band. The paradigmatic of a mysterious travelling peddler. However, what gave him away was his lack of a face. He had no face! Well, it was not that he had no face, but rather he was covered by a sort of ethereal black smoke, all I could see was a white plastered smile and two white dots, which presumably served as eyes.

Very strange indeed. Also very déjà vu.

And now that I’m in this guys presence, he smells off. He smells of something not of this realm. Nonetheless, I rub my eyes to try and rid that simply execrated bourbon tint plaguing me.

Oh, no need to rub your eyes, little fallen. What thou see is very much reality.

He speaks— no. He doesn’t speak. I just know he says it. It’s a sticky sensation, like the diction is attaching itself to my thoughts. I know what it is, but I simply cannot comprehend it. It’s not within my realm of understanding and this fact sends me into an instinctual frenzy.

Little fallen, do be careful. I implore of thee. I do not believe that is a healthy action to undertake.

Tssss. I totally didn’t just stab myself just then. Looks like the searing pain in my thigh is very much real, which means that this situation is also, in the same vein. Very much real.

Now I wish I didn’t freaking ram half the machete through my leg.

Huuuuuuuu, But no matter. I don’t feel high anymore so that's a plus.

I’m calm. Tranquil. The epitome of the word. I embody every characteristic that calm could be. Who’s about to start killing children? Couldn’t be me.

It really couldn’t!

I mean, even Lily and Lazari aren’t that affected by this guy, the two simply drawing stickmen in the blood. So how could I be? That’s preposterous.

Speaking of blood, looking back at where the blood lady once stood, there isn’t even a puddle left behind.

Tssss. Haha, isn’t that scary~.

I drily humour myself, but the delusions don’t last.

Sniff, I wanna go home.

“Yo, Traveller, you’re late,” Laffer waves, ignoring my plight, “You gonna pay me back? I basically had to do everything myself,”

He turns to face Laffer.

A certain issue cropped up. It was… unavoidable. None the lesser, it seemed that my intervention was unnecessary.

“You jest? I wouldn’t have even come here if I knew you were gonna noshow on me,”

It’s very strange to see the two of them have a leisure chat in this bloody corridor and frankly I don’t know why we aren’t going back to base.

Yes, it’s nice to know that Laffer had an assurance when he forcefully barged into the den of the blood cult with just me and two children but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to stay here any longer.

“I didn’t know you were so eager to get beat,”

What? “Explain,”

“You lost Lacer’s shotgun so of course you're gonna get beat,” He speaks like it's obvious.

“Shot… gun?”

“Rifle! Who cares!? You’re still getting beat!”

That was what he had said, but the truth of the time looks a bit different.

“Wait, why am I the one getting punished?!” Laffer yells, stupendous.

“You were the superior in command, were you not?”

We’re back! I thought we’d have to limp back to the boozer, but Traveller got us here in a real dandy. Fast Travelling, he called it.

As expected of a man named Traveller. He knows all them movement techniques.

“Y-Yes, b—” His face drained of colour, Laffer stutters his words.

“You were,” Lacer states, giving no room for rebut. He narrows his eyes, circling around Laffer like a predator waiting for the jump.

“Jeff’s the one who lost it!” He makes a vain attempt to throw me under the carriage, but I know it's futile.

It looks like Laffer hasn’t experienced the issue that all commanding officers always have to deal with. This issue was also the sole reason I refused to be promoted back in the day despite being offered one time. With the great authority that comes as being a superior also has its grave downsides. Not only are you responsible for yourself, but also for your subordinates.

And I already have a hard time being responsible for myself let alone others, so I always stayed in the bottom rungs of the civil servants.

“Comrade Laffer,” He intones, “I believe you were the one who dragged comrade Jeffrey into the fray, yes? According to the accounts, you were also the one who contributed the least during the commission and not to mention that you even used a demonic artifact on top of contacting a Traveller in clandestine nature,” He eyes the Traveller in the room.

Salutations. Traveller replies with a tip of their hat.

I don’t know what Traveller is, but considering this conversation so far I’ll retract my assumption that they travel as their name would suggest.

“That’s not quite right my good sir,” Dok informs me while Lacer drags the other away, “They are called Traveller, for the sole reason of travelling. They travel and thus we call them Traveller,”

Hmm, that actually makes sense. “So why is contact with Traveller bad?”

“Association with demons tends to be bad… Oh wait, you have a devil progeny following you so I guess you would think differently,”

Wow. Rude. I casually flip the bird as I shield him from Lazari’s gaze.

…

“GODSDAMNED IT!” Sticking her head from a pile of rubble Marriele, like the five year old — mentally — she is, starts wailing.

“Sigh, even in death I still have to hear your gods awful voice,” The mega sourpuss, Hayley Brigers sighs, his left leg crippled and right arm torn.

Well, they weren’t quite dead, but Hayley sure wished he was…

Poor guy.