EV B2 Chapter 42:

"Fucking self-righteous pricks blocking the alley, walking so slow. And you people—watch where the fuck you're going!" I shouted at them.

"Hey!" The priest next to Brother Peter yelled. "A follower of Thor is as brainless as I expect. You're the one looking over your own goddamn shoulder!"

Brother Peter laid a hand on his arm. "Brother, it's okay. You can just apologize and move on. Our honor does not call for a fight here."

The man seemed to start to listen, but that wasn't really what I was looking for.

"Oh, I don't think an apology is going to be enough," I said as I stormed towards Brother Peter.

But the man pushed my target out of the way and stepped forward. "If you don't want to be a part of it, Peter," he said, "you can go run and hide. Always too busy talking about peace and progress and not enough of the respect we deserve! Why is that?"

Before the discussion could continue further, I punched the man in the face, but he didn't go down. He was in the level twenty range as well, and I wasn't exactly a strength-focused build. The man roared and charged at me. I used my greater speed and stepped out of the way, slipping under his arm. But my bigger size meant that I had to play it a lot differently than I normally would, and the move felt awkward and clumsy.

Brother Peter was backing away, and I realized it would be hard to get him into the fight when I was already dealing with the other guy—and he clearly didn't want any part of this.

Looking at the unnamed priest as he turned around and charged at me again, I grimaced, hoping to leave this guy alive. But I wasn't sure that was going to be possible. If he couldn't tell people who had killed Brother Peter, it wasn't going to be obvious. It wasn't like there was a crowd or anything.

I tripped the man as he ran past, and he stumbled into Brother Peter, and they both went tumbling down. I winced as the collision of our shins sent shockwaves up my leg.

With my foot mostly dead, I limped toward the pair of downed opponents as they struggled to their feet—Brother Peter pushing the other man off him and stepping back to disengage. Luckily, though, he was on his feet first, and I took the opportunity to take a swing at him and get him into the fight. He simply swayed out of the way of my wild haymaker as I tried to imitate the fighting style I thought a fellow follower of Thor would use.

The other priest hopped up and punched me in the ribs, but neither of us seemed heavily invested in strength. At least not enough to outdo the other's constitution with a single punch.

The blow didn't hurt that badly, just causing me to wince slightly as I rolled with the punches. This was not at all going the way I had envisioned. Maybe it was time for a little trickery. After all, I wasn't a melee brawler. I was… well, I wasn't sure how to define my skill set, but I had a decent amount of utility. Utility with my magic. But I just wasn't sure how it could work here without giving me away.

My foot was already back to normal, and my Fool's Constitution was fixing that. Still, I didn't think my movement spell would be very useful—not without revealing that I also knew how to use mana. And I didn't really have any skills. Also, escalating to a blade felt wrong, and my hammer wouldn't use Liar's Gambit as it didn't have a blade.

Actually, though... I slung the borrowed hammer off my belt and spun it so that the rear point faced forward. That escalated things, and finally, Brother Peter seemed to take this fight seriously. He drew a sword, and the other priest shrugged a dane ax from his back.

"Brother," Brother Peter said, "it doesn't have to be this way. Fists are one thing, but—"

I didn't give him a chance to continue. I rushed forward, slashing the spike awkwardly at the ax-wielding priest. He dodged out of the way, the tip barely grazing his skin, but the effect of my spell took hold. He yelped, swatting at his arm as if it were burning. This got him out of the fight just long enough for me to engage Brother Peter.

The hammerhead swung around, smashing through the attempted sword block and into the priest's ribs. He let out a woof of air, the exhale ending in sputters as something in his lungs gave way. Still, he didn't go down easily. Curling one arm protectively around his broken ribs, he stumbled backward, narrowly avoiding the couple of follow-up blows I threw at him. My lack of proficiency with a hammer was starting to become a real issue.

When he finally hit the wall of the building in the street, his friend came to his aid, launching himself at me, ax first. I turned and deflected, managing to make a parry that smashed the head of the hammer into the priest's hands. He screamed as his fingers shattered and the ax fell out of his hand.

I heard a cheer, and for the first time since the fight started, I looked around, finding a crowd gathered in the street. Oh, good. I didn't have to leave either of them alive, but I would have to escape this afterward.

Spinning, now that my restraints were gone, I buried the spike at the rear of the hammer in a reverse blow into the disarmed priest's neck before ripping it free and whirling the other direction to smash the head of the hammer into the bricks—right where Peter's face had been.

He had dropped low to one knee, apparently the wound to his ribs worse than I guessed. I stepped forward, bringing my knee up into his face, sending his head rocking back against the stones as he fell to the ground.

Except he wasn't dead, and there was a crowd watching. I'd clearly won the fight, and killing him in cold blood probably wouldn't go over well. I struggled to think of some excuse to just smash down the hammer and finish the job rather than have to hope that this fight had killed him—because, judging by every rule of assassination, he likely wasn't dead. That would be counting on luck too much.

Mentally, I just said, "Fuck it," and dropped to a knee, pulled out my knife, and slit his throat. The crowd had surprisingly little reaction, and they started to disperse as they realized the entertainment was over. I watched as Brother Peter stopped breathing, the pool of blood expanding toward my feet. No one came up to say anything or yelled at me for cruelty. If anything, what I'd done was a mercy. And my job was done.

Looking up at the few people still watching, I spat on the ground in front of them and turned to walk away. I just kept walking. My heart was racing, and I expected to hear the sound of sirens or something. I had just killed two men in cold blood, unprovoked. And I didn't even need to, just for money. It was sickening in some ways, but I kept my throat clenched tight, and the disruption in my gut only bothered me a little. My conscience was tugging at me, but it was less than I thought it would be—and significantly less than I felt it ought to be. Would my wife even recognize me if she saw me now?

At first, the fighting had been because I had no choice, and then because I wanted to get stronger or protect someone. But this... well, it was for nothing so noble.

Somehow, though, Alana didn't seem to care. Maybe it was because she came from a place where assassination was normal, and life was cheaper than it had been back in my old world. Maybe it was because she was crazy. There was definitely a little bit of crazy with her. But I almost stumbled as I half-stepped, realizing that I hadn't even bothered to take anything from the bodies. If anything, that was good, though. It made it seem more like the actual fight it was rather than some robbery—though I suppose that also would have been a viable excuse, one I hadn't thought of before. I really wasn't cut out for this intrigue or subterfuge business. It was not my style, not my strength. It made me sick, and I regretted even having considered taking this job. I'd have to tell Loki I was done. I didn't think I would be able to do this again.

I paused my walking. Was that really what I was feeling, or was that just what I felt like I should be feeling? Because when I stopped, I realized that things had been getting worse as I thought about it more, but the actual bad feeling hadn't really been terrible. Was I just working myself up, or did I actually feel bad about it? And if I did feel bad about it, why? It wasn't like they weren't already dead. It wasn't like it cost them anything—just some time. It wasn't any different than a rough business deal. The fact that it was bloody and violent, maybe. But I did bloody and violent things all the time.

I was torn. But I was far enough away now, and no one was even looking at me. Strange. I didn't even have any blood on me. So I turned down a random alleyway that was dark, and I couldn't sense anything in there. I dropped the hammer and a few of the other things I didn't need anymore, then changed my face back to who I was—back to someone else—before repeating the wandering a few more times over the course of a couple of hours. Eventually, I returned to my own face and headed back.

It was time to tell Alana this was taken care of, and then Loki and Jorg. Then, I had to figure out what to do next. I was pretty sure that my next course of action would be to find Astrid—though she really shouldn't have been gone this long. Loki had some questions to answer.