Fractured God

Tibaut lay on the bed in his room. He had already finished cleaning the house and the mood he was in made it difficult to train. What was wrong with him at the moment? He was bored.

This whole adventurer situation was not quite what he had expected it to be. At this point he expected he'd be forced to fight dragons, dispatch bandits, bust a drug ring or something interesting.

At the current moment the housework he did was more difficult than that so-called "commission" he got. A few years ago living like this wouldn't have been too bad. He had a roof over his head, he didn't have to put his life in danger and he got to see two beauties every day.

Unfortunately, the him of a few years ago was a somewhat different person compared to the him of now. He acknowledged that made a few improvements here through the use of a magic textbook, but he felt that was the only thing the place had to offer.

In his eyes, if he left with the textbooks and went along his way it'd do him more good. Granted he still had to find information about his home nation but there was no need for him to do it here. After observing Elizabeth he felt fairly sure she wouldn't chase him down or anything if left.

"Well, I better just ask her outright," he said to himself on the comfy bed.

Elizabeth was outside like she usually was 99% time, training. Her training menu consisted mainly of training her swordsmanship and various exercises with weighted clothing (Well, it was more like metal plates attached to clothing). As she was going through her training she noticed Tibaut approaching.

"Hey, Elizabeth, can I ask you something?"

"What is it? If it's teaching you a technique, then that has to wait until I'm finished."

"Honestly I'm just curious about something. How long do you intend for me to work for you?" He said in a quite serious tone as he looked her in the eyes.

Elizabeth could tell by his demeanour that this was no time to joke with him. She scratched her head and responded

"Honestly, after observing you this much I can tell you're more of a danger to yourself than you are to others. I'm surprised you haven't tried to run away once since I brought you here."

The young man put his hands into his pockets and responded "I did kill you. It's not like I can change that. If I were to choose between repenting in this life or the next, I would rather choose now."

"And you think working for me was sufficient?"

"Hey it's what you chose, I'm just doing my part. If you decided you wanted to take a hand or leg I probably wouldn't have complained."

"Is that so? So why is it you're now asking how long you're going to have to work for me if you said you wanted to repent? Why does the length of time matter?"

"Honestly there's something I want to do in the next few years and I'm not sure I'll be able to do it if I stay here."

"What is it exactly?"

"..."

She sighed in response to his silence.

"Alright, you just have to serve me for one year counting when we first met." She said while doing some stretches.

"One year? Is that really alright?"

"You'd just leave anyway if I told you, you'd have to serve me for one hundred years or something along those lines. At least I have an idea of when you'll leave now instead of being surprised when it happens."

It was laughable. Back in the previous life if all he had to do was 1 year of labour for murdering someone, regardless of the circumstance, even he would call the judge presiding over him corrupt.

He breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Honestly I came here expecting you to be a little more hard-headed. Do I really hold so little value to you?"

"Pretty much."

"At least deny it, goddamnit. Am I really so useless to you that you can say that with a straight face? You know what screw you. I'm going to hang out with Vanessa to cheer myself up. At least she wouldn't call me useless (Although that might be because I'm a walking forge)." He said to her before storming off into the mansion.

She looked up to the sky and thought to herself. "(Maybe I should have been more greedy and asked for two years instead. No, even with a year alone, both of us might be able to springboard this guild into relevancy. There's no need for him to stay around for what would come next.)" A smile then briefly appeared on her face before she continued her training.

In a separate part of the parish, a woman was making her way towards a village. "Geez, do those bastards not know how to send a letter? And they're the ones who asked for someone to help."

The young woman was an adventurer part of Ezekiel's guild. Apparently, the village had asked for someone to help transport some milk. The pay wasn't good but it wasn't like they had anything more important to do.

The girl went because she had lost in rock paper scisso-, I mean had decided she could go for a walk. As soon as she reached the town she noticed something odd. There was no one outside. It was strange but she thought nothing. The sooner she got this over with, the longer she could lounge around at home.

However, as she kept walking around the village it felt more and more eerie. The lack of people was one thing but the lack of sound was a completely other thing. Eventually, she noticed an absolutely vile smell coming from somewhere.

She noticed it was coming from nearby and decided to follow it out of curiosity. Soon, she came upon a clearing in the forest. In this clearing, a large sheet covered a large mound.

Curious at this sight, the girl decided to check it. Under it were the rotting corpses of various men, women and children all neatly piled up. Upon seeing this the girl emptied her stomach contents on the forest floor and immediately started footing it to town.