A Villain's POV
Chapter 31: Don’t dig deep

Chapter 31: Don’t dig deep

Joel reached Raze. He stared at the beast on the ground and the blood oozing out of it. He looked at Raze, who was also looking at the beast. There was no light in Raze’s eyes, no emotions, just emptiness.

Raze noticed Joel’s gaze, so he turned to meet it. Joel flinched when Raze suddenly looked at him.

"What is it?" Raze asked.

"It’s nothing," Joel said.

"Okay." Raze said, not bothering with Joel. He pulled out his knife and bent down.

"I’ll be cutting some parts of this beast. Our strips don’t have enough room to carry a lot. I’m guessing they gave us rank one strips that can carry up to three square meters.

We will have to force most of it in, but it should fit, or we can just not take the whole thing," Raze said. He used the knife and started cutting out the meat of the beast.

"You know quite a bit about the strip," Joel said.

"That’s to be expected. I am a space-type mage, and storage space has been something space mages have been doing.

It makes sense for me to try and learn about it as well," Raze lied with ease. He didn’t have any knowledge of the strips from reading. He knew about them only because of the story, but Joel didn’t need to know that.

Raze continued to cut through the beast. He cut it into several parts. Though he had very little knowledge of butchering, he managed to keep it clean.

"How do we store this inside the strip? Won’t the blood stain the other things inside?" Joel asked.

"You really don’t know anything about the strips, do you?" Raze asked. Joel shook his head to confirm.

"Fine. It’s a separate suspended space, I think. So whatever you put inside there stays in a suspended state. It won’t get spoiled, neither will it stain anything, I think," Raze said, a slight sound of uncertainty in his voice.

He focused back on the beast and cut it down, but Joel was still looking at him.

"What do you really want? Looking at me like that doesn’t solve anything now, does it?" Raze asked.

"Sorry, it’s just that... you killed the beast so easily. You fought it without hesitation. Have you done something like that before?" Joel finally asked.

"No, that was my first time facing off against a beast," Raze replied.

"Then how? How were you able to keep calm knowing that thing could have killed you?" Joel asked.

"How? That’s a funny question, but I get where you are coming from with it. There is no real way for me to be calm. All I needed to know is that I have found myself in this fight. I can either choose to overreact and be scared or something, or I could just win this thing.

When you face difficult situations, it has been proven that panicking and making rushed decisions do absolutely nothing to help at all. They rather set you up for failure.

So now my question is, why panic, though? I’m sure there might be dire situations where you can’t control it and you have to panic. For instance, if a rank two beast should mysteriously pop up here.

Then I would also panic, but it would only be for a bit before I still tried to find a solution, no matter how inevitable our deaths are," Raze explained.

Joel went silent for a while. He looked at the beast and then looked at Raze again.

"I have something else to say. When you looked at the dead beast, there was no emotion in your eyes. It was vacant, empty.

It’s like the fact that you took a life didn’t even matter to you, like it was just another day. I know it was just a beast, but still, I know I would have had some subconscious sadness show as I saw the blood," Joel said.

"And that’s why you are not me and can’t be me. This beast is a means to an end, a path to survival. For me, that’s all that matters right now. When you know what’s important to you, you don’t get distracted by the what-ifs and other bullshit," Raze responded.

"No, that’s only part of it. I’ve been with you a while, and I know the former you would do crazy things but still have fear for what he was doing. But all of a sudden, you changed. It’s like your emotions died," Joel said.

As Joel said that, Raze shot him a cold look. It caused Joel to jerk back and fall to the ground. Raze got up on his feet, both hands covered in the beast’s blood, and a knife in his hand. He walked closer to Joel, who was struggling to get away.

"You see, Joel, there is a saying that goes like this: curiosity killed the cat. The way to know more is a dangerous path, so unless you are sure of your survival at the end of the journey, you shouldn’t attempt it.

It would be in your best interest if you try not to find anything out about me. Because as it stands now, you might have a chance to actually be free from me one day and live a happy life. But the more you know, the more impossible that dream becomes.

When you are around me, the less you know, the better for you. Ask the questions you want to ask with care, because next time, I might have to do what I did to this beast to you," Raze said.

Joel was down there, shivering in fear. He thought that Raze would kill him here.

Raze suddenly switched back to a smile. He stretched out his hand to help Joel up. Joel was hesitant to take the hand, but after a bit, he took it, and Raze pulled him up.

"Alright, let’s finish this thing up and look for where we set camp," Raze said. He walked back to the beast like nothing had just happened.