Free Web NovelChapter 2: The Scoreboard
She tried a war hammer on day two.
Not a normal war hammer. A demon-forged, two-handed, obsidian-headed instrument of destruction that weighed more than most men could lift and hit harder than most walls could survive. She’d taken it from the estate armory at four in the morning. Swung it forty times to warm up. Her arms were warm. Her mind was clear. Her plan was simple.
Hit him very hard with a very large object.
She waited by the kitchen door like a predator in tall grass. Patient. Still. The kind of stillness that centuries of hunting had made natural. The kind of patience that said I have killed things older than your civilization and I can wait five minutes for breakfast.
He walked in at seven. Saw the hammer. Didn’t slow down.
"Morning."
She swung.
The obsidian head screamed through the air. The force of the swing cracked the doorframe she’d been standing beside. The kind of force that would have turned a normal human into a red stain on the kitchen wall.
He caught the handle. One hand. The obsidian head stopped three inches from his face. His hair didn’t move. His expression didn’t change. He was holding a war hammer that could crater a wall with the same energy he’d use to hold a shopping bag.
"Pancakes are on the table," he said. "I made extra."
He released the handle. Turned to the stove. Poured coffee. Like the five-foot-ten demon princess behind him wasn’t holding a weapon that could reshape architecture.
She swung again. He sidestepped without looking. The hammer hit the counter. Granite cracked. A chunk the size of a fist fell to the floor.
"New counter," he said. "I’ll talk to the dwarf."
She swung again. He ducked. The hammer embedded in the cabinet. The same cabinet she’d hit with the moon blade yesterday. The wood was developing a personal grudge.
"Table’s getting cold," he said.
She left the hammer in the cabinet and sat down because the pancakes smelled good and her arms were tired from the forty warm-up swings and she refused to acknowledge either of these facts.
"These are acceptable," she said.
"You said that yesterday."
"They’re less acceptable today."
"You’re on your second plate."
"Quality assessment has multiple stages."
He poured her coffee without being asked. She didn’t thank him. She drank it. It was perfect. She didn’t acknowledge that either.
[System Log: Day 2]
[ATTEMPT COUNT: 2]
[PANCAKE COUNT: 2]
[METHOD: WAR HAMMER]
[RESULT: COUNTER DESTROYED. CABINET DAMAGED. HUSBAND UNHARMED. PANCAKES CONSUMED.]
[SCORE: EVEN]
[THE WIFE CLAIMS THE PANCAKES ARE "LESS ACCEPTABLE" TODAY]
[SHE IS ON HER SECOND PLATE]
[I AM A SYSTEM OF LOGIC AND EVEN I CAN SEE THROUGH THIS]
The day passed the way days passed in the estate. Quietly on the surface. Underneath, two people orbiting each other like planets that hadn’t decided whether to collide or coexist.
Selene explored the estate. Tested the walls. Assessed the defenses. Found them adequate. Found the bedroom adequate. Found everything about this arrangement adequate in the way that a prison cell is adequate. Functional. Unpleasant. Hers.
Ryuji sat in the study reading a book about Avarthos geography. Three hundred pages. He finished it by noon. Started another on political structures. Then another on military formations. His mind was processing. Building a framework. The machinery constructing a map of a world he didn’t understand from books he’d found on someone else’s shelf.
She watched him from the doorway. Not obviously. The way a predator watches something it can’t classify. He sat in the chair. Legs crossed. Book in hand. Scarred fingers turning pages. The most boring human alive.
Except he’d caught a war hammer one-handed without looking.
She walked away. Her jaw tight. Her mind refusing to reconcile the image of a man reading geography with the image of a man stopping a demon-forged weapon with his fingers.
That night she tried a crossbow.
Demon-forged. Armor-piercing bolts. She set it up in the bedroom. Aimed at the door. When he walked in, the bolt would hit center mass. No one survives a demon-forged armor-piercing bolt to the chest.
She waited behind the bed. Crossbow aimed. Trigger ready. Her breathing controlled. Her pulse steady. She’d done this before. Not crossbows. But kills. The method didn’t matter. The result did.
The door opened.
The bolt fired.
He caught it.
In the air. One hand. The bolt stopped an inch from his palm. He looked at the tip. Turned it. Examined the craftsmanship with the same expression a jeweler uses to evaluate a stone.
"Demon-forged," he said. "Nice weight. Where’d you get the bolts?"
She stared at him.
"The crossbow’s sighted slightly left," he said. "You’ll want to adjust." He set the bolt on the nightstand. Walked to his wall. Took his position. "Goodnight, wife."
"Goodnight..." She stopped herself. "I’m not saying goodnight to you."
"Then don’t."
She didn’t.
She lay in bed. Staring at the ceiling. The crossbow was still warm from the bolt discharge. Her husband was standing against the wall breathing like a man who’d just caught an armor-piercing bolt and found it mildly interesting.
"Ryuji," she said.
Silence.
"Ryuji."
"What."
"How did you catch that?"
"I saw it."
"No one sees a demon-forged bolt."
"I did."
"How?"
Long silence. The kind that meant the answer was either too complicated or too simple for words.
"Practice," he said.
Outside. 2am. The estate garden. Dark.
Ryuji moved through the shadows. Silent. The kind of silent that came from years of moving through places where noise meant death. His body knew darkness the way other people knew daylight. Comfortable. Familiar. The environment he’d grown up in.
Three figures by the south wall.
Not Selene’s assassination attempts. Real threats. Professional. They’d been watching the estate since the wedding. Waiting for an opening. Studying guard rotations. Mapping approach vectors.
They hadn’t mapped him.
The first one went down with a strike to the neck. Clean. Silent. The body crumpled before it could reach a weapon. Ryuji lowered it to the ground. No sound. No evidence. The movement of a man who had done this a hundred times in a world where the stakes were always life and death.
The second turned. Drew a blade. Fast. Trained. A demon operative with experience and reflexes honed by something that wasn’t human aging.
Ryuji disarmed him in three moves. The blade clattered on stone. A knee to the stomach doubled him over. A hand on the back of his head drove him into the wall. Once. The body went limp.
The third ran.
Made it four steps. Ryuji caught him from behind. One arm around the throat. The other pinning the wrist that reached for a weapon.
"Who sent you?" Ryuji asked. Quiet. Conversational. The tone of a man asking for directions.
The operative struggled. Couldn’t break free. The human holding him had no class. No level. No visible power. And the grip around his throat felt like iron wrapped in flesh.
"Zerathis," the operative gasped. "Lord Zerathis Kagenou. He wants the princess dead."
"Noted."
The grip tightened. The operative went limp. Unconscious. Not dead. Ryuji had questions. Dead men couldn’t answer them.
He searched the bodies. Found insignias. Letters. A payment contract with Zerathis’s seal. Evidence. He tucked it into his pocket.
Then he dragged the bodies to the garden’s edge. Behind the hedgerow. He dug with his hands. The soil was soft. The kind of soft that comes from land that hasn’t been disturbed in years suddenly receiving three bodies. He covered them. Removed the blood. Eliminated every trace.
He checked himself. A shallow cut on his left forearm. The second operative’s blade had caught him during the disarm. Small. He wrapped it with a strip of cloth from his undershirt. Tight. The bleeding stopped.
He walked back inside. Washed his hands. Checked his reflection. Clean. No blood. No evidence. The same dead face staring back.
He went to the bedroom. Took his position against the wall.
Selene was sleeping. Facing away. Her breathing slow. Her aura humming around her like a weapon on standby.
He closed his eyes.
Three down. He didn’t know how many more were coming.
But she was safe tonight.
That was enough.
Dawn.
She walked to the kitchen. He was at the stove. Pancakes. Coffee. Same as yesterday. His left arm moved slightly different when he reached for the syrup. A fraction. The kind of fraction that only someone paying very close attention would notice.
She noticed. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"Your arm," she said.
"What about it?"
"You’re moving it differently."
"Slept on it wrong."
"You were standing all night."
"I stood on it wrong."
She stared at him. The dead face. The flat eyes. The man who stood against walls all night and caught crossbow bolts and made pancakes in the morning and slept on his arm wrong despite not sleeping at all.
"You’re strange," she said.
"You said that yesterday."
"It’s becoming more accurate."
He set the syrup down. Sat across from her. The first time he’d sat with her instead of standing at the stove. His dark eyes met her violet ones across a table of pancakes and coffee and things neither of them would say.
"I spoke with the dwarf," he said. "Brokk. He’s repairing the counter. And the cabinet. He said to tell you that the war hammer was ’excessive for kitchen use.’" frёeωebɳovel.com
"I’ll use what I want."
"He also said if you break another counter, he’s charging double."
"I don’t care about the cost."
"I do. I’m on a budget."
"You have no money."
"I have a budget. There’s a difference."
The corner of her mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not even close. A muscle spasm. An involuntary response to something that shouldn’t have been funny and was.
She stood. Left the table. Walked to the doorway. Stopped. Didn’t turn around.
"The pancakes," she said.
"What about them."
"Make them again tomorrow."
She left.
He cleaned the table. Washed the plates. Stood at the sink and looked at the garden through the window. The hedgerow. The fresh soil beneath it. Three bodies buried in the dark while she slept.
His left arm throbbed. The cut was shallow but real. He’d need to keep it clean. He’d need to hide it under his sleeve. He’d need to make sure she never saw.
Because if she saw, she’d ask. And if she asked, he’d have to explain. And he didn’t have an explanation for why a man with no class and no level had just killed three demon operatives in the dark and buried them in her garden.
He didn’t have an explanation because he didn’t understand it himself.
He dried his hands. Looked at the garden one more time. The hedgerow. The soil. The place where three people who’d come to kill his wife were now buried under dirt and moonlight.
Tomorrow he’d make pancakes.
Tonight he’d bleed.
-----------------------------
[System Log: Day 2, Night]
[ATTEMPT COUNT: 3]
[PANCAKE COUNT: 2]
[WIFE’S REQUEST: "MAKE THEM AGAIN TOMORROW"]
[TRANSLATION: SHE LIKES THE PANCAKES]
[SHE WILL NEVER ADMIT THIS]
[NEITHER WILL HE]
[THREATS ELIMINATED TONIGHT: 3]
[TOTAL THREATS ELIMINATED SINCE MARRIAGE: 3]
[WOUND ON HUSBAND’S LEFT ARM: PRESENT]
[WIFE’S AWARENESS: SHE NOTICED SOMETHING]
[SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT]
[...]
[TOMORROW SHE WILL TRY TO KILL HIM AGAIN]
[TOMORROW HE WILL MAKE PANCAKES AGAIN]
[THE SCORE IS NOW: MURDER ATTEMPTS 3, PANCAKES 2]
[HE’S WINNING]
[BUT SHE DOESN’T KNOW THE REAL GAME]
[AND NEITHER DOES HE]
END OF Chapter 2
