Isekai Terry TOD: Chapter 10 – Murderhobo? (Patreon)

In movies, manga, and comic books, someone yelling at a main character that way always resulted in them stopping to turn around and have a confrontation. This was especially true if there was a damsel in distress or child in distress. Terry didn’t know if there was an official name for that, but he had dubbed it the Idiot Pause. He knew as soon as he heard the creepy asshat screaming that there was going to be violence. But he was two steps away from getting Harena out of the alley, where she could run inside to invoke Safety in Muggles. It wasn’t lost on Terry that this jackhole had pulled his creepy stalker moment in a dark alley at night where there weren’t likely to be any witnesses. The why and how of Harena getting into the situation were questions for later. Or never, thought Terry. However, if the D-Bag really was a priest, odds were good that he wasn’t going to want to break the illusion that he was a “good guy.” Given all of that, Terry couldn’t think of one good reason not to take those last two steps. Then, he could worry about what came next.

He felt the slight resistance against his hand as Harena tried to turn around. Does she have some kind of death wish? Terry jerked her forward and all but threw her out into the slightly better lit street. He fixed her with what he hoped was a serious expression.

“Get the fuck inside,” he commanded.

Harena’s startled, confused expression started to turn into one of outrage when the alley behind Terry lit up with an otherworldly glow. That finally seemed to be enough to convince her that this was a bad scene that she was better off not having any part of. She turned an uncertain look on Terry, as if the full consequences of events were finally starting to become clear to her.

“Go,” he said.

The last of Harena’s resistance broke. She dashed toward to the inn’s door, while Terry turned around to look at the creepy douchebag, who he was forced to upgrade to glowing creepy douchebag. On the one hand, that glow did look a little intimidating. On the other hand, the guy wasn’t doing anything with it. In fact, Terry could see the sweat beading on the guy’s forehead, like pulling off this little stunt was some kind of extreme effort. Who knew? Maybe it was. Aside from the obvious strain in the priest’s demeanor, though, there was fury in his eyes. He lifted a hand and pointed at Terry.

“I will destroy you for this inconvenience.”

Inconvenience? Really? Is that a good enough reason to kill people in this world? That train of thought was derailed when the glow around the priest’s hand started to intensify. That other knowledge stirred again and a much more intense warmth spread out from Terry’s stomach. A glowing comet of some damn kind of power or another launched from the man’s hand. As if he’d done it a million times before, Terry smoothly drew one of the swords at his hips. Some of that warmth passed out of him and into the blade, which took on a dull glow that was a shade of red that Terry probably would have found alarming if he’d had time to think about. The sword swept up in front of him and the flat of the blade intercepted the glowing comet of, what Terry supposed must be divine magic of some kind, and sent it rocketing back at the priest. The man was so stunned by the turnabout that he didn’t move. The comet crashed into the creepy D-bag’s hand.

Terry had never seen anything quite like what happened next. The glow seemed to sink into the flesh of that hand. It went briefly translucent, exposing the bones beneath, before flesh and bone alike simply vanished, as though it had been sucked away into another universe. A possibility that Terry found far more plausible than he might once have. There was a brief moment where all of reality seemed to hold its breath. The priest stared at the stump where his hand had once been with a look of stunned incomprehension. Terry considered what that might have done to his own body if it had made contact. Part of him thought that something truly terrible would have happened, while the other-knowledge seemed a lot more sanguine about their chances of survival. Then, the moment broke. The world breathed, blood geysered from the stump, and the priest started screaming. If the man kept shrieking like a banshee, it was inevitable that people would come to see what had happened.

The other-knowledge seemed to flex inside his head and a coolly indifferent feeling overwhelmed Terry’s hesitation. He was a stranger, and that guy was a priest. There was no version of people finding out about all of this that didn’t end badly for him. Before regular-Terry could offer any feedback on the decision, his body was hurtling down the alley at speeds he’d previously considered purely in the realm of superheroes. The sword in his hand slid into the priest’s chest smoothly, as if it had encountered no resistance. The shrieking cut off and was replaced by gurgling. Terry drew the blade back out and watched with icy disregard as the other man sank to his knees. The priest stared up at Terry with almost childlike confusion. Rule number two, regular-Terry reminded himself. This man had tried to kill him for nothing more than interrupting whatever his plan had been. Something that no doubt would have been bad for Harena.

“Why?” asked the priest, blood dribbling over his bottom lip.

“Do I need a reason?” asked what regular-Terry was starting to think of as other-Terry. “Fine. Let’s say it’s because no means no.”

The priest never lost that look of childlike confusion as the life drained from his eyes and he slumped over. After looking around to make sure there were no bystanders paying attention, other-Terry methodically searched the body and shamelessly took the man’s coin purse and anything else that looked like it might have value. Regular-Terry watched this from somewhere in the back of his own head, feeling more than a little sick to his stomach. That only got worse as he watched his own hands methodically strip the priest and shove the clothes beneath a pile of stinking rubbish that no one was likely to search. Then, in one final act of desecration, other-Terry found a heavy rock. With a precision that regular-Terry had never experienced in his old world, other-Terry threw the rock with crushing force. It struck the priest’s face and left the remains all but unrecognizable. If he could have, regular-Terry would have vomited. Other-Terry batted aside the feeling like it was nothing. There was still work to do.

Pulling the water skin out of his pack, he rinsed off his hands. He stood in the alley waving his hands back and forth to dry them off. Regular-Terry was in full-on panic mode. If he’d been in charge, he would have been running down the street toward the nearest gate. It was only after most of a minute of standing around and air drying his hands the hard way that regular-Terry even started to get his cool back. Running through the streets, desperately searching for a way out would have been both obvious as hell and supremely incriminating. While rule number two certainly applied in this world, a rule that almost certainly applied in every situation ever was that might makes right. And that big ass church that Terry had seen suggested a lot of might. They clearly had soldiers, and the church probably swung a big political dick. In other words, if they decided he was guilty of something, he was going to go down for it. Especially if his continued existence was walking talking evidence that the church made a habit of ordaining creepy D-bags. Getting rid of an embarrassment like that was a logic that Terry could appreciate, even if he didn’t ever want to participate in it. Especially not if that meant participating on the losing side of the equation.

No, the best thing he could do for himself at the moment was to feign normalcy and leave town in the morning along with the rest of the carts. First, he needed to get clear of the scene of the crime in a less obvious way. He made his way deeper into the alley and found that there was a makeshift walkway behind the buildings on the street. He stuck to the darkest shadows as much as he could until he got near to an actual street again. He waited there for almost ten minutes, straining his senses for to pick out any sound or motion. Then, he stepped out and walked headed toward the inn from the other direction. He took his time about it. No need to rush, he told himself. Rushing is suspicious. Not that it really mattered what regular-Terry thought. Other-Terry was firmly in the driver’s seat for the moment, and that bastard was so calm he probably had a resting heart rate of twelve beats per minute. That turned out to be a good thing. When he rounded the corner of the street, there were already some of those guys in tabards milling around, although he couldn’t tell if they’d gone down the alley yet. Regular-Terry would have jerked to stop or turned and run. Other-Terry didn’t even break stride.

When the tabard guys saw him, a couple of them split off and tried to, well, regular-Terry wasn’t sure exactly what they meant to do. They walked up wearing angry faces.

“Who are you?” demanded one of the pair.

“Terry Williams,” said other-Terry. “Is there a problem?”

“What are you doing out here?” demanded the other guy.

Other-Terry lifted a finger, pointed to the inn, and said, “Friend of mine recommended the place.”

“Why are you out so late?”

“Just got into town today. I was at the market until late. Got turned around finding my way here.”

“Who’s this friend of yours?” demanded the first guy.

“Remdell Trevane. He said he was going to be here tonight.”

“Oh,” said the tabard guys in unison before the first guy carried on. “Yeah, I know Remdell. How’d you meet him?”

While a lot of the hostility had drained out of the guys, they were still a little suspicious. Other-Terry didn’t blink an eye at it, and regular-Terry thought that was probably a good trait in guards or whatever these people were. Or it would be a good trait if he wasn’t trying to avoid getting caught.

“I traveled with him and his family on the road for a while. Safety in numbers.”

“Yeah, those boys of his are hard workers,” said the second guy.

“Boys? I mean, he did have the one son. Tovan. Then, there were the girls. Mira and Harena.”

Regular-Terry was having ready to have a heart attack just listening to this conversation. He’d have given himself away inside of five seconds. Other-Terry carried on like this was business as usual. As comforting as that was in the moment, it left regular-Terry very nervous about just what was contained in that pile of other-knowledge he worked so hard to avoid. The fact that there was something that felt like a whole other personality in there, one who didn’t seem to mind murderhoboing his way through life, didn’t help with those concerns. It was all working, though. After failing to trip him up, one of the tabard guys wandering away. The other one eventually went inside the inn with Terry. The man had a brief, private conversation with Remdell who, at one point, mimicked the motion of a slashing sword and pointed at Terry. That seemed to convince the man who went back outside. Terry paid for a room and flopped back onto the bed. With the crisis seemingly averted, other-Terry slipped back to wherever he’d come from and regular-Terry found himself abruptly in the driver’s seat again. He was just about to curl up and have himself a nice, long cry when someone knocked on his door.

“This day just refuses to end.”