It was raining.I stood at the edge of the cemetary, watching listlessly as the procession carried Troy King"s coffin into the mould designated to be his grave. They didn"t put it underground yet, but placed it in the open where everyone could pay respects.
Everyone was dressed in black suits or school uniforms, their heads lowered forlornly. Many students from Jing Tian Academy had come to pay their respects, but nnot as many as I thought there would be. Despite his fame and legend, Troy rarely hung out with any students in school, often running off somewhere for missions. Consequently, he hardly interacted with his cla.s.smates and schoolmates, and wasn"t close to anyone except me and a select group of friends.
"May his soul find peace again… he has sought shelter with our Lord in Heaven. His sacrifice has saved countless innocent lives, and despite his youth, he has diligently endeavored to work for the betterment of mankind and heroically rescued those in need of his help, much more than most people twice his age. His example shall serve as a beacon of hope, his memory a bastion of strength and reminder to all those of whom are endowed with power that it is our duty to serve. After dedicating his entire life to helping those weaker than him, may Troy find eternal rest in Heaven, where he sits at the right hand of our Father in Heaven, glory to His Name, and watch over the Kingdom that will be sure to arrive for all of humanity one day."
The priest was delivering some speech, and while there were strong Christian motifs in it, it sounded extremely different from the prayers I was used to. It was only natural. A thousand years had pa.s.sed, minus a hundred here or a decade there. Of course the prayers or last rites would have undergone vast changes throughout the years.
I allowed the raindrops to hit me and slide off my hair and skin, still numb to the loss of my friend. Even though I had hollowly resumed my daily routine and gone about my usual life activities, it wasn"t as if I had accepted Troy"s death. It still had yet to sink in, that was all.
Funerals were meant more for the living than the dead. At that moment, I was reminded of that sentiment. Troy probably couldn"t care less about this, and he would laugh the whole thing off, saying it was a total waste of money. Spending so much on his funeral and gathering everyone like this…it was of no use to him, not when he was no longer in this world.
However, it was meant more for the people who loved him…who treasured him. His friends. His relatives – what few of them there were, given that his late brother was the one who murdered him and his father, his mother was abandoned by his callous father, and no one knew who his cousins were. Troy had been an orphan for quite a while now, and he never talked about his extended family…if he had any to begin with.
The priest continued muttering some religious lines that were lost to my memory, probably because I was still too numb to pay attention to anything. He wrapped up the final few lines, and then politely stepped away from the podium, his head lowered humbly.
Then came the moment where everyone would walk up to his coffin and pay their last respects. Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I strode toward Troy"s coffin. I could feel dozens, if not over a hundred pairs of eyes on me. I was the one who brought Troy"s body back, after all. Thanks to me ferrying his body away from the crater after I obliterated the nefarious Tyrant King, we were able to hold a proper funeral for Troy, his body lying peacefully inside the coffin.
Stopping next to the coffin, I placed a hand on the smooth, wooden surface, and peered through the gla.s.s screen where Troy"s face could be seen. Even in death, his expression was peaceful. It looked as if he was sleeping.
A small window popped up in the center of the lenses of my gla.s.ses. I blinked as I read the message.
"Press F to pay respects."
…what the f.u.c.k?
Never mind the random message that obviously came out from the Call of Duty game, but why did it emerge after I already placed my hand on the coffin? Shouldn"t it be before I did that, to serve as the prompt for me to put my hand on the wooden surface?
Closing my eyes, I exhaled wearily before I clicked F with a single thought. Nothing happened. Well, what exactly were you expecting? A cutscene or something? A quicktime event? This was real life, not a game.
Stepping away, I allowed Dong Fang Yue Chu to follow suit. Harvey Deng was also present, as was Harrison Reed and a bunch of other friends from Jing Tian Academy. The majority of them were Black Rose members, such as Jin Hao and Mizuno Aoi. I nodded at them as they came up. Come to think of it, I was still technically a Black Rose Society member, along with Harvey.
But that whole Society thing never came much into play for quite a long while now. At least not on screen. Off screen, Harvey and I benefited from training rooms, resources and other society benefits, so it wasn"t a waste of time. Not to mention, we were able to maintain a cordial friends.h.i.+p with Jin Hao, Aoi and the others.
But other than the Black Roses Society, there weren"t many Jing Tian Academy students who showed up. As I said before, Troy wasn"t that…famous or sociable. He hated interacting with people most of the time, and was more of a lone wolf.
And that lone wolf trait was ultimately what led to his death. Maybe. I wasn"t sure. I didn"t know.
While I stood off to the corner, waiting for my friends to press F to pay respects, Antonia approached me. It was obvious that she had been crying the whole time. Her eyes were still red and puffy, and streaks of tears still hadn"t dried on her cheeks. Even with the rain splas.h.i.+ng onto her face, it was pretty easy to tell apart tears from raindrops.
I said nothing. I knew that Troy"s girlfriend would be the one most devastated by his death. Nothing I said could comfort her. I bowed my head instead.
"I"m sorry."
"It"s not your fault." Antonia sniffled, and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I know you made that promise…but it"s not your fault. I"m glad that you arrived home. I was naïve…too naïve. I knew how dangerous Tyrant was, how powerful he was, and I was praying that everyone would survive…but…"
She almost broke down, but she forced a smile.
"I"m glad that you were able to return alive, at least. Troy would have been pleased. That"s why he fought so hard…to ensure no one died at the hands of his brother."
"Yeah, but I…"
I knew it wasn"t my fault…not really, but it was precisely because of that knowledge that I felt guilty. As if, I should be blaming myself, but I wuldn"t know what I could have done to change the outcome.
"Shut up! You pathetic MC! Useless MC!"
A few of the people who attended the funeral jostled to the front, jabbing fingers at me. Despite their attire, I recognized them as intruders from beyond the fourth wall, those who enjoyed polluting the comment section with their edgy insults.
"What…?" Antonia stuttered, taken aback.
"You could have done a lot of things to help! Of course it"s your fault! Why didn"t you shoot at Tyrant when you had the chance? You had ranged spells and arrows, right?!"
I sighed heavily. "I already explained it in the chapter itself. I don"t have Aimbot, and contrary to what you might think, my accuracy is pretty terrible. Plus my arrows have a wide radius and area of effect – there"s a reason why I sometimes call them nukes. If I fired them at Tyrant, I would have accidentally hit Troy as well. This isn"t a game – there is no option to turn off Friendly Fire. What, you think it was better if I killed Troy with my own hands rather than the enemy doing it?"
"YES!"
These readers and commenters were definitely insane.
"Then what about your summons?!" another reader shouted. "You could have summoned a Soul Beast and set it on Tyrant! You"re a summoner, aren"t you?!"
"Same reason as above. My Soul Beasts are so big and their attacks so ma.s.sive that they would have accidentally injured Troy as well when attacking Tyrant. Not to mention, Tyrant is so powerful that he would probably have obliterated my Constellation spirits in an instant anyway."
"Then why didn"t you just charge in? You have those swords, right? You should have double-teamed Tyrant and worked together with Troy!"
"You think I didn"t want to?!" I flared up irritably. "But haven"t you been reading the past few chapters!? Every time I got near, the shockwaves and impacts from their exchanges were so powerful that they blasted me off my feet and prevented me from getting close! By the way, that"s the exact same reason why I couldn"t send my Constellation spirits in either! They would have been blown away by the extreme forces that resulted from the clash between Troy and Tyrant! It"s not that I didn"t want to help, but I literally couldn"t! I wasn"t even able to stand within a few hundred meters within range of their fight!"
As mortified as I was to admit it, Troy and Tyrant were so much stronger than me. If I tried to interfere, I would only get in the way. Troy would be forced to cover for me and protect me, and he would have just gotten killed sooner. If that happened, Tyrant wouldn"t be weakened to the point where I could easily chop off his head.
"You suck."
"What a weak and pathetic and useless MC."
"Why can"t the author make you overpowered?"
Antonia slapped them before I could retort, the thunderous crack echoing through the graveyard and drowning out the raindrops.
"Get lost, the lot of you."
"Who are you to hit us?!" the readers raged. "You"re just a background character…"
They never got to finish their sentences. A torrent of flames washed over them, incinerating them and reducing them into ash.
"Sorry for taking so long." Dong Fang Yue Chu stared at them in disgust, and shook his head. "I managed to banish those edgelords back to the fourth dimension where they belong. I don"t know why they love to invade the comments section."
"Isn"t this filler? Won"t you have other readers complaining that this is filler and demand that you focus on the story?" Harvey asked, glancing at the sky, as if worrying that the existences from beyond the fourth wall would erupt into our reality again.
"Screw them. The problem is that you will have readers and commenters complaining and insulting me as stupid, pathetic, useless or weak, and demanding to know why I didn"t do this or that to save Troy. Instead of wasting an inane amount of time replying to each and every comment, I might as well explain it in the main story itself." I sighed. "As much as I wished I could save Troy, I really don"t know what I would have done differently. All other scenarios in my head just point to me accidentally nuking Troy and killing him with friendly fire instead. And as much as I am ashamed to admit it, I"m too weak to jump in, not with those colossal forces and shockwaves erupting every time they clashed. I would only have dragged him down even if I managed to withstand those shockwaves and get close."
"There"s no need to think too much," Antonia a.s.sured me. "Troy would just tell you to show those haters and commenters the middle finger and yell at them to f.u.c.k off. You"re alive. That"s more than enough. And you"re not weak…" she smiled dryly. "Troy is just in a league of his own. He"s pretty much a monster…there"s a reason why they call him the Invincible Superman."
And the only one able to fight on par with Superman or kill him was a fellow Kryptonian. In other words, his brother. I shuddered involuntarily. If I had tried to engage Tyrant in close combat, chances were I would have been slaughtered in less than a minute. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was that strong.
"What has happened has happened. We can"t change the past, and there"s no use feeling regret or guilt." Harrison approached us, having just paid his respects. He nodded at us. "Troy"s death is a great emotional blow, as well as…a blow to our tournament hopes, but…even then, we have to stand strong. We have to do our best, and win…for Troy. He will definitely want that." he glanced at the coffin, and at the portrait of a grinning Troy. "He will tell us to…well, stop f.u.c.king around, and get s.h.i.+t done."
"That"s exactly what he will say," I agreed, smiling bleakly.
"Yeah, he"ll also tell us not to depend on him." Dong Fang Yue Chu nodded. "He"s not egoistical to the point where he thinks that the entire team is built around him. Knowing him, he would find some excuse to skip the tournament."
"Especially if his brother is still at large," Antonia agreed. She turned to me. "Thank you for avenging Troy"s death and putting an end to Tyrant"s reign of terror."
"If Troy hadn"t kicked his a.s.s so badly, I never would have been able to," I replied honestly. It was only because Tyrant didn"t have much mana left that I was able to decapitate him before he realized what was happening.
"It"s a promise." Harrison raised his hand and smiled, his usual charisma returning. "We will do our best to win the national tournament…for Troy. Then we"ll come back here with the trophy and brag to him about how we were somehow able to pull it off even without him."
"He"ll just laugh at us and say that he always knew that we could do it." I was also grinning, despite my grief.
"All right then." Harrison reached out to slap my shoulder. "We should get ready then. We"ll all be heading to Southampton City in a couple of days…to attend the opening ceremony of the tournament."