Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil
“Aaaaaaargh…!”
An ear-piercing cry echoed through an untamed wilderness, away from the touches of civilization. “Just bite my head off you dumb beast and end my damn life. Why are you chewing on my reaped arm where the least amount of meat is?” Eren complained to his killer because he was dying slowly. The least this stupid beast could do was kill him first before making a buffet out of him. But Eren was used to having the shittiest of lucks his entire life anyway. This didn’t come as a shock to him.
Eren could have easily handled a D Rank beast. But that was in the past when he was young. He had attended a prestigious academy famous for giving stellar hunters and adventurers to the kingdom, after all.
But between his over-indulgent life and his lack of will to take risks, Eren couldn’t grow further beyond a minor D Rank berserker. When he realized his past mistakes, his joints were creaking and his hair had receded further back, almost making him bald.
And now due to the curse of old age, a pathetic D-Rank beast had turned into his grim-reaper.
Eren didn’t want to come to this damn place and meet his eventual slayer but he didn’t have a choice.
He was injured due to his last hunt. But he was running low on cash and there was no other source of income for him other than hunting the beasts and selling them in the city’s market.
The old adventurer was going to get kicked out of the city if he couldn’t find money to pay the monthly city tax for next month. The situation had forced him to come here, only to die by the beast’s maw.
Eren observed that the wolf-like beast was not chewing his ripped hand anymore when he was done reflecting on his past life. It was all bones now. It had moved his attention to the rest of Eren’s body.
Eren only wished for a swift death at this point. That’s why he had raised his head upwards, hoping the beast would target it first.
But the beast didn’t like to be led by the nose it seems. It completely ignored Eren’s head and attacked his prey’s most vulnerable spot: his groin.
Eren was first shocked, then scared before finally feeling unrestricted wrath towards this beast. It could have enjoyed eating its prey in silence. But it had to just mess with him before finally killing him.
Eren tried his hardest to make the beast change its target but it was of no avail. It was like the beast had found some kind of elixir at the place of his groins.
And finally, the unthinkable happened. The beast had bitten off Eren’s little beast. He was chewing on it and Eren was sure it was laughing at it.
Eren couldn’t control the pain. He just took an old gem necklace he was wearing at the time and bit on it to control the pain.
Eren had bought that necklace on a whim while he was drunk, from a pawn shop. Part of the reason he ran out of money was this uncalled-for purchase.
When he realized his mistake after getting sobered up, Eren had gone to the pawnshop to return the necklace. But unsurprisingly, the shop wouldn’t buy back the item they had already sold. It was obvious they had succeeded in making a fool out of Eren that day.
Eren could only start wearing the seemingly-useless necklace. And now the same necklace was being used as a silencer and pain reliever by its wearer.
Eren’s mouth was now filled with the taste of iron. The area around it had been painted red by Eren’s blood. And he could feel his consciousness fading, which he welcomed with opening the only remaining arm.
The almost-dead adventurer cursed at the beast in his head. With his drowsy and dying thoughts, he was talking about revenge on the beast and its kind if he survives this ordeal. If he is given a second chance, he’ll kill every beast of its kind by first targeting their groins, busting their cojones before chopping their things into pieces.
Eren started indulging in a lot of fantasies, thinking he would make sure to fulfil them provided he somehow ‘makes it back’. He wanted to complete his chain of thought, stating ‘if he makes it back to the city’ but he was interrupted by the beast’s next set of actions.
The beast had finally taken notice of the shiny thing its prey was biting on. Its primal instincts told the beast to have it. Therefore, it aimed to snatch the necklace from Eren’s mouth. But Eren somehow understood the beast’s mindset.
As a final form of revenge, Eren took off his necklace and gulped it down his throat. Then he laughed at the beast-like he had finally achieved something to be proud of.
The beast didn’t like Eren’s actions. It growled at him before jumping on him at full force. Eren knew his end had come, but he had gotten fearless by now.
Eren just moved his hands and targeted the beast’s eyes with the dagger in his remaining hand. He had stored that dagger inside his boots and taken it out a while ago.
The dagger wasn’t something special. Just a simple weapon used for skinning the beasts after the hunters killed them. Therefore Eren wasn’t expecting a one-hit kill with it. He just wanted the beast to suffer the consequences of killing him.
The beast had finally targeted Eren’s unprotected neck. But the moment it had bit Eren, Eren’s dagger had pierced the beast’s eyes, drove through it, past the skull, and lodged itself inside the brain matter.
Eren’s last-ditch effort had paid off. The one-hit-kill he wasn’t expecting had been added to his list of achievements.
The beast died immediately, leaving Eren to die slowly and excruciatingly. Now Eren had to experience the beast’s dead body weighing on him with his dying breaths.
Eren cursed at the beast even more. Then he just closed his eyes and indulged in his fantasies about what he would do if he could survive this death trap.
Eren had died. He died as an old, alone man who had no friends and the money required to make friends. He died so pathetically that he couldn’t even save his dick from being chewed on by the same beast that had killed him.
But at least Eren had taken revenge for his Lil bro. He had also succeeded in not letting the beast have its way with the necklace he had been wearing and owning so begrudgingly.
Eren had gulped down the necklace and all the content stored within it. That included the big gem that served as the centre of attraction for that jewellery.
What Eren didn’t know was that there’d be no necklace to be found inside his corpse anymore, even if someone comes looking for it. It had vanished into thin air after Eren gulped it down.
But all that couldn’t change the fact that Eren had died here. It was a tragic end. Although Eren was overindulgent, he had not harmed anybody unnecessarily.
The now-di*kless dead guy had always kept things to himself. But troubles would just come to find him at his doorstep. Therefore, before he died, Eren had decided to change that side about him the most. if and when he survives this ordeal.
With thoughts of regrets and reveries running through his head, the final chapter on Eren Idril’s life was concluded with his last breath.
Or so he thought!
Chapter 2: Aunt Nina.
When Eren regained his conciousness after what seemed like a long time and short span at the same time, he found himself inside in a small room. He felt like he had seen this place before.
Eren got up and sat upright on the bed. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel like his joints were giving him trouble like they would at the start of every morning.
The pitch-black darkness had made its presence dominant in the room. But it couldn’t spread its dominion in one corner of the room where a slightly closed window was letting some light in. It looked like the first light of the morning was soon going to break.
Eren rubbed his eyes a little and tried to remember what had happened to him last night. He remembered being attacked by that dumb beast.
That rage-evoking beast had first reaped off his arm. But that wasn’t enough. It had the mood to have a sausage fest. And only after chewing on his Lil bro, the beast had an epiphany of killing its prey. It killed him off.
‘It killed me, right?’
Eren asked the question to no one in particular while checking up on his neck.
His neck was intact. That was strange. He also felt something weird when he touched his neck.
That’s right!
The lack of beard. Eren had an overgrown beard. Not because he wanted to keep it. But because he simply found it troublesome to trim it.
Eren then noticed his skin is more smooth and suppler than he remembered. Eren felt confused. Then he realized he was using the same right arm that had been reaped off by the beast.
‘What’s going on in here? Am I in a dream or something? A few nice moments before I die for good?’
Eren felt like this was the most logical conclusion. He didn’t feel like he was in a dream but that itself won’t be enough as a piece of evidence.
Eren then checked his groins. The thing he was worried about the most had accompanied him in his last dream.
Now if he could just live this last dream to its fullest, that’d be a great way to call it quits.
Eren got up from his bed and decided to head out of the room. When he did, he noticed another familiar setting.
‘That’s right. This is Aunt Nina’s house. Wait a minute, why are things looking so much bigger in height?’
Only then Eren realized that things hadn’t gotten big like he thought they did. Instead, he was in a smaller body.
More correctly, it looked like he was in his younger days when he was just a teenager.
This last dream sure is convenient, Eren thought. It had brought him to his most comfortable days in life. Aunt Nina was one of his father’s party members when they were adventurers.
Eren’s father had gone MIA a few years back when Eren was just 10 years old. And his mother had left him soon after to Aunt Nina to search for him.
Later on, it was known that searching for his father was just a ruse his mother had made up to run away with her new lover. She had established a new family with him in a distant city. And had two more kids by now.
But aunt Nina had never mistreated him. She looked after him the way she always did even after knowing his mother was never coming back. She homeschooled him and trained him to be a good elementary potioneer.
Nina remained single all her life and died shortly after Eren turned 40 years old in his previous timeline. He just didn’t know the cause of her death because, by then, he had lost contact with her.
Eren’s life when he was a teenager was pretty laid-back, living with Nina. She had opened her apothecary and was used to working there from morning to late evening. She ran her business downstairs in her home while the only upper floor housed two bedrooms for both of them. Eren was used to helping her in her work by handling the manufacturing of all the elementary potions.
Aunt Nina’s house/apothecary was located at the far ends of the city of Osan, near the southern city wall. It was a typical one-story suburban abode of medium size. Although the population wasn’t that dense in this part of the city, aunt Nina’s business ran just fine.
That’s because she had contracts deals with the city’s various adventurer and mercenary guilds. There were also a few adventurers who’d come looking for her apothecary when they found out about her reasonable medicine and treatment prices.
Currently, Eren found himself in the same setting he had experienced long back. When he finally connected his memories from the past with his ‘current dream’, Eren self-explained to himself that this was to be expected.
His life after he left aunt Nina’s place would keep on getting more turbulent than before. His life in the academy wasn’t something he was fond of remembering. Eren was considered as the academy’s worst lot. And life after that only got tougher for him.
Eren didn’t blame anybody for that. He knew he was at fault for not taking hold of his life. He spent the days as easily and leisurely as he could without worrying about the future. And that had spiralled into something he couldn’t easily get out of.
So it was only natural that Eren was dreaming about his life with aunt Nina in his last moments. At least that’s what Eren had concluded.
He stepped downstairs. He didn’t feel like freshening up was a good idea when the dream could end anytime after he dies. He wanted to see aunt Nina before that happened.
To be honest, Eren had a crush on his Aunt Nina. She was a stunning beauty in his eyes. She had just crossed the 40s milestone but didn’t look her age at all. After all, she was a C Class healer. Aunt Nina looked like someone in her early 30s, with a mature look and curves at the right places. She was a tall, slim, yet buxom mademoiselle, with dark grey hair and violet eyes.
She could steal the hearts of men in mere seconds if she just interacted with them a little. But for some reason, she kept herself away from the company of men.
It was a self-imposed limitation that Nina couldn’t overcome all her life. Eren remembers she had a few flings when he was just dropped at the place by his mom. But that also had entirely stopped after a few years.
Eren felt like that was such a huge loss for the entire menfolk not to have a chance anymore to care about and treat this lady right like she deserved to be treated. She acted all friendly and cordial with her customers, but her blank face would soon resurface after they had left her establishment.
Eren finally laid eyes on a beautiful lady’s back he knew to be his aunt Nina’s. She too heard him stepping down and turned towards him. He saw her flash her signature faint smile at him that was saying ‘good morning’ to him.
Eren was left aghast!
Aunt Nina was even more beautiful in his dreams than he remembered.
No… that was not it.
All those years messing around with cheap w**res had made him drop his standards in women so much that aunt Nina was starting to almost look like a fairy-like existence to him. His skewed standards had been finally set straight after looking at aunt Nina.
‘This is exactly the kind of dream I need before I die. I couldn’t do it by then, but in this dream, nobody can stop me.’
Eren thought and launched himself towards Nina.
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