Her gaze flickered to the lifeless form of her master, then to the notification hovering in front of her. A complicated expression crossed her face as she stared at the crushed state of his head and the blood that spurted out of her master’s head and flowed into the sandstone brick cracks.

  One more thing stood out - the black tattoo encircling her neck, which had glowed whenever the half-elf issued a command, was now gone.

  Seeing her staring at him with both her weapons still drawn, Archie raised his arms back up ready to continue the fight, the giant hole in both his thigh and lower right abdomen was now fully healed from Vital Metabolism

  The room around them continued to crumble with chunks of sandstone smashing across the cracked floor and the numerous statues around them, further deforming and destroying their statues.

  After what felt like an eternity, the woman’s dead eyes widened, and her cybernetic arms twitched, and Archie surged forward.

  However, unlike Archie, who had charged forward, she fell to her knees as her weapons retracted back into her arms.

  Confused, Archie skidded to a halt, stopping four meters away from where she had collapsed. His confusion only deepened as her sparking right hand slowly reached for her throat. For the first time, a spark of emotion flickered within her dead eyes—disbelief.

  Archie stared as she softly rubbed the base of her throat, her gaze locked onto the corpse of the half-elf. Her mouth hung slightly open.

  “Uh, are you okay?” Archie asked, still staring at her. Just seconds ago, they had been fighting. Hell, he had barely avoided death when his armor nearly caved in from one of her shield bashes. “We were, uh, in the middle of something here.”

  Slowly, her eyes shifted from the half-elf’s lifeless body to meet Archie, the one who killed her master, his right boot leaving splatters of blood with every step he took, her master's blood.

  “Master is dead,” she muttered, her voice hoarse.

  "Master Laer is... dead," she muttered once more under her breath in disbelief.

  , Archie pieced together. And judging by the way he treated her—and the tattoo on her neck that always flared red whenever he yelled at her- it made sense.

  But now, that tattoo was gone, erased from her neck as though it were never there.

  “Isn’t that a good thing, though?” Archie asked.

  She continued staring at him, eyes still wide with disbelief.

  “You’re free from his control. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “My only purpose for living is gone,” she whispered, her gaze flickering back to the half-elf’s corpse. A complicated expression crossed her face before she looked back at Archie. “H-How is this good?”

  Why wouldn’t that be a good thing? Why would anyone want to be controlled? What could she possibly gain from serving someone like that?

  “Then… what is my purpose?” she asked. “From the moment I could walk, hold my lance… everything I’ve done was for Master Laer.”

  “…What do I do?” she whispered. Emotion seeped into her voice, and for the first time, her normally lifeless eyes were filled with uncertainty.

  Archie opened his mouth, then closed it. Slowly, he deactivated his active skills and let go of his fighting stance.

  Walking toward her, he let out a quiet sigh before sitting down on the cracked sandstone floor in front of her.

  “You do what you want,” he said softly. “As you always should’ve.”

  “…How do I know what I want?” she asked Archie, lost in her own rush of emotions that flooded her.

  “Do you have any hobbies or things you’ve done when not around Laer?” Archie fished.

  She glanced at Laer’s corpse before glancing down at her cybernetic arms and legs. They were already damaged prior to meeting Archie from the multitude of insectoids her master and her slave fellows and after fighting him, she was genuinely shocked at how they were still functional.

  Normally, one would just activate the Self-Repair rune on their cybernetics, but her model was good enough for a slave like her. Unless it broke and was completely unusable, she dared not ask for another model.

  “…Training,” she answered while tracing her slightly sparking right arm with her finger.

  “Do you like training?” Archie pushed.

  “… I don’t know,” she replied despondently, staring at her arms before glancing back towards Archie in concern. “…I don’t know.”

  Archie slowly nodded before closing his eyes and kissing his teeth, “I see.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The ex-slave looked back down in her cybernetics in disappointment, lost in the hundreds of thoughts that flooded both her heart and head with growing uncertainty, self-disgust, confusion, and a multitude of other dark emotions and thoughts.

  “I guess it’s pretty simple then,” Archie said with a small smile, snapping her from her dark thoughts and grabbing her attention.

  “We just gotta keep on trying everything and anything we can until we know what you want to do,” Archie continued.

  “W-What?” she muttered in complete befuddlement. “W-Why would you…?”

  “Why not?” Archie smiled, taking out two sandwiches from his spatial storage and passing her one before taking a bite out of his own.

  She hesitantly took the sandwich from Archie and stared at it with confusion. Just moments ago, she caved in her master’s latest ire’s chest, and now she was being offered food by him.

  “It’s pretty good,” Archie said in between bites. “I’m not sure exactly what they put in it, but I think that was from some type of sheep or lamb, I’m not really sure which.”

  “Why do this… for me?” She softly muttered as a tear arced across her cheek as she looked up from the sandwich and back at Archie. “I tried to kill you…and I… I’m just a slave who couldn’t even protect my master.”

  “What’s your name?” Archie asked suddenly.

  The woman blinked in confusion, as tears continued to arc across her face against her attempts to stop them. “Aoife.”

  “That’s quite a name,” Archie smiled, thankful for the countless hours he spent researching and learning about different mythologies. “On Earth, my planet, a long time ago there was a warrior queen renowned for her incredible skills as a warrior and beauty, her name was Aoife.”

  “And as someone with firsthand experience fighting against you, I think you more than do her justice,” Archie continued. “So going back to what you said earlier; you aren’t a slave, you’re Aoife.”

  “I’m Aoife?” Aoife repeated back.

  “Yup,” Archie smiled at her shocked expression, finishing up his own sandwich.

  “And to answer you’re other question,” Archie continued as he rubbed his hands together, slightly embarrassed. “…You reminded me about myself when I went through a particularly rough patch in my life, and well, we all occasionally need a little bit of help in life; someone to pick us up off the ground when we fall down.”

  “I’m Archie,” Archie said before extending his hand to Aoife.

  Aoife stared at Archie’s outstretched hand for a few seconds before she slowly and hesitantly accepted Archie’s handshake, mumbling, “I’m Aoife.”

  “Well, I’ll be in your care,” Archie smiled. “And if you ever get hungry, just ask, I've got like ten crates of sandwiches, all different types stored away,” he joked.

  Aoife stared at Archie blankly before the tears that fell from her eyes came out in full, along with the snot that ran down her face.

  Archie fell quiet as he wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. He grew up with a brother, and the most he got to with a girl was second base. He’d never had experience with comforting a woman, hell he was pretty sure he pissed off quite a few with how many times he had to drag away Daniel to game or bike.

  “Uh,” Archie said as he scooted forward and awkwardly patted her back. “Are you okay?”

  , Archie thought to himself as he saw her shakily cover her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry, that was a stupid question, I’m sorry if I said anything that offended you, Aoife.”

  “No…I-I’m fine,” Aoife choked out in between sobs. “I’m… I don’t know why I’m crying.”

  “Thank you,” she quietly muttered in between her sobs, eating the sandwich Archie gave her, uncaring that it was covered in her tears and snot. To her, it was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten in her life.

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s a whole of nothing in this,” Archie muttered as he continued to take out the items from Laer’s spatial ring and dump them in his own spatial storage. He found quite a bit of Copper and Silver coins; he even found a couple of Gold coins with the same two insignias on their sides.

  Weirdly enough, they were the same size as the Silver and Copper coins. Archie wondered to himself.

  Helix Coin:

  A metal coin enchanted and created by the Helix Foundation to denote that of a singular Helix valued Gold Coin.

  , Archie chuckled before another thought came to mind. it probably would be kaputt.

  is still Initiate tier, Archie thought before looking up at the deformed and defaced marble statues that decorated the sandstone platforms around the room.

  “Do you know who these people are?” Archie asked as he stared at the statues above them, each one of them looking a different age and a different race. “From what I read on the temple walls, I think they might be the Handlers, but I’m not really sure.”

  “They are the guards of the temple,” Aoife answered. “They were… to guard the temple from intruders and enforce the laws within the temple.”

  “Then, who are the Handlers?” Archie asked, turning to face Aoife. “They mentioned them quite a lot, in a very fanatical sense too.”

  “I do not know,” Aoife replied. “I assume maybe Master Laer might have known, but I am unsure… I still do not know why we have traveled here and gone as far down as we did, especially with all the earthquakes around the temple.”

  “When did they start?” Archie questioned, mentally praying that they didn’t start whenever he arrived.

  “From what I’ve heard, they started around a few weeks ago,” Aoife answered while tinkering around with her scutum shield with her other hand, re-setting the gears that popped out of place. “But not as often as it has today.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why,” Archie calmly replied, while internally groaning.

  Suddenly, another violent tremor rocked the giga temple, this time far stronger than the previous ones.

  Archie found himself struggling to keep himself upright when Sixth SenseSixth Sense

  Without even thinking, Archie started to activate Thornscourge Expansion

  But before he could do anything,g he barely felt something shoot towards his mid-section before being yanked back to the hallway he came out from, hurtling through the air faster than what he could register before suddenly finding himself kissing the sandstone floor in the hallway.

  Quickly pushing himself up in surprise, Archie whipped his head toward Aoife who was only halfway into the hallway. Archie surged nature mana through the vines atop his wrist, making them shoot toward Aoife’s knocked-down form.

  During that moment, Archie’s ears picked up a very faint noise of mechanical whirring and muffled explosions.

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