A small room with a simple wooden bed with a mattress made of straw and raw wool, a small dresser made of solid wood but worn out over time, and a window with wooden shutters that give a good view of the busy street. Sitting in bed looking out the window, Manila, enjoying moments of calm that permeate the city.
The siege of the stronghold was a success; there were only some soldiers wounded on both units, and all the bandits were executed, the hostages were released, and among them were two more members of the Aurora squad; they all received medical care. After a few days, they will be released to return to their normal lives. However, Manila was found in a warehouse not far from the stronghold. She was on her knees in the middle of a real carnage to those who witnessed the scene, they were scarred forever.
Without offering any resistance or reaction, she was taken to the village of Maarum and awaited the commander's decision on what would happen to her. A room was rented in the village's main inn and allocated for her to be detained until called.
Four days have passed since then, but those have not been peaceful for her. The first night she spent in the room, nightmares took over her mind, scenes of people running from her and dying one by one with a rain of blood falling, covering her entire body, but she didn't feel fear or disgust, only pleasure in seeing those people die.
Except for times when she received her meals, no contact with other people was allowed. She missed Elzen at that moment, and sadness was consuming her alive. Every night, the nightmares returned, and the images became more vivid, as if she could touch and feel the blood of her victims running through her body. At the beginning of the third day, she started listening to her inner voice again.
"I told you you'd feel good, and you did."
"It wasn't me at that moment, it was you..." A laugh echoes inside her head.
"Who do you think I am? I am nothing more than what keeps you alive. I am that desire that you fight to hide, and at the moment you need it most, I will appear."
"What did you do to me?"
"Nothing, I saved you. You passed out when that brute hit you, so I just did what every good person would do: I took care of your body."
"I do not remember anything..."
"Of course not, you were unconscious, so this is nothing more than a dream for you."
"Dream? I was told that I killed over sixty people that day."
"You were going to kill them anyway, you forgot that your mission was to annihilate them all?"
Manila remains silent, looking at her hands. Death is not a foreign concept to her, it was not the first time she had taken someone's life to achieve a goal, however she never lost control of her consciousness. The idea that it could happen again terrified her; her voice fell silent, leaving her alone with thoughts and fears.
At the beginning of the fifth day, early in the morning, someone knocks on the door, and a female with a slightly thick voice announces herself.
"Squire Manila of Blindfold Squadron, your presence is requested by the commander. You have ten minutes to prepare and follow me to the commander's tent."
Without responding, Manila wears her service clothes and leaves the room. Two soldiers escorted her to the camp, and inside, she noticed that some people were beginning to murmur.
"Was she the one who killed all those bandits?"
"Yes, a friend of mine who took part in the attack said they found her covered in blood."
"Damn!"
"Shhhhh! Do you want her to hear you?"
She was already used to people talking behind her back; this was quite common during the days at the mansion, and she was slightly disappointed. Upon entering the commander's tent, she sees Boltu behind his desk and six other people equally divided on both sides, one of whom she recognizes as Captain Bartholomeo due to the details on his armor.
The soldiers escorting her salute the commander respectfully and leave the tent. She then makes the same gesture.
"Squire Manila reporting as ordained commander."
"Come closer and sit down, soldier." Boltu said in a serious voice, she readily obeys.
"Very well. First, I want to say the reason for your confinement and the objective of this meeting coincide, but before anything more is said here, I want to congratulate you on the result of the mission, now Captain Bartholomeo, please." The captain takes two steps forward; this time, he is not wearing his helmet, revealing him to be a man in his forties, with a large, well-groomed mustache, brown eyes, and a horizontal scar that runs almost across the entire area of his forehead.
"Squire Manila, according to your squadmate Julienne Caratii, you came across a tall man of extraordinary strength. During the battle, she received a blow that threw her against one of the walls of the structure, and she lost consciousness. When she finally woke up, she was alone in the room and found the body of the man who had attacked you both. How did you defeat this opponent?"
"I don't know, sir..." She said in an emotionless voice.
"How come you don't know, squire? Did you receive help from anyone?"
"No, sir. I don't know, after the squire Julienne was defeated, I continued the fight, but it didn't take long for me to be defeated by the enormous strength of my enemy."
"What do you mean defeated? You were found in a warehouse three hundred meters from the Stronghold. How would you get there if you had been defeated?"
"I don't know, sir. I lost consciousness during my fight against that man, and when I regained consciousness, in an unknown location, covered in blood and surrounded by bodies..." Her voice became lower and trembling. "I really… don't know..."
"How do you not know?!" Bartholomeo shouts, irritated by the situation. "You're telling me it wasn't you?! That it was something mystical?!"
"I just don't know..." With her head down and slowly shrinking, anxiously.
"Bartholomeo, that's enough." Boltu interrupts. "Is there anything else you can talk about?"
"Since I came back from the mission, every night...I have nightmares. I see people running...and each one of them...dies...a rain of blood begins to bathe me with each death...and it never ends."
"During these nightmares of yours, what else do you feel or see?" Asked one of the captains.
"I can only see people running, I am killing them, and a rain of blood completely covering me and..." She pauses for a moment. "I feel happy...for some reason."
For a few minutes, no one said anything else; there was no need, the expression on each captain's face was unmistakable: fear. Commander Boltu was the only one who remained neutral.
"Thank you very much for your honest answers, Squire Manila. From this moment on, you are released from your confinement and can return to your squadron's tent."
She salutes the commander and captains before leaving the tent, and after leaving, one of the captains begins to speak.
"She is a berserker...we need to get her out of the regiment."
"Get her out of here? We need to execute her, you don't know when this type of monster will turn against us!"
Punching the table hard, creating a noise loud enough to scare the captains, Boltu looks at everyone with indignation.
"How do you consider yourselves captains of a regiment if you can barely contain your emotions at a time like this!? You are already condemning one of our soldiers just because of rumors and superstitions!"
"Sir, with all due respect, the bodies we found were not products of superstition; they were practically torn to pieces, and the cuts were not clean," Bartholomeo said.
"The hostages that were questioned said that a monster had killed the prison guards and almost attacked them; if other bandits hadn't appeared through a secret passage, they probably would have died. This type of behavior is from a Berserker."
"I will observe her to determine whether she will be a risk to our regiment, and I want to warn everyone present here. Do not allow any harassment against her, we cannot let chaos be created in our midst."
"Yes, sir!" All captains respond at the same time.
The murmurs didn't stop on the way to the Blindfold squad's tent; the tent was empty at this moment, and probably the other members were doing patrol or security missions in the village.
Lying down on her bed, she stared at the roof, thinking about everything that had happened and the meeting with the commander. The expression of fear on the captain's faces when she finished speaking marked her deeply.
"What is wrong with me?" She said, sadly. "Maybe...he was right all along."
She closes her eyes and lets her mind wander in thoughts, but as if for an instant, she is interrupted by a voice coming from the entrance.
"Squire Manila, the commander wants to see you again."
The soldier leaves her alone, she heads to the commander's tent again. Inside the tent, Boltu was sitting in the center. He pointed to a second chair in front of him and started talking after she sat down.
"Are you okay, Manila? I understand that you may be stressed and tired from detention for so long, but I needed to do this to calm things down." Boltu calmly and gently said.
"I can't say how I feel. In part, I'm happy because I survived that encounter, but I don't know if it was a good thing."
"Don't say that, it would be a great sadness for me and many others in our regiment if you had died."
"I don't know if that's true now, they're whispering about my 'deeds', the captains were scared of me after I told them about my dreams, and I don't know how my squadmates reacted."
"I'm afraid..." Continued Manila. "I'm afraid that this will happen again, scared that what I felt in these dreams is true, and I would like to kill all these people, or maybe others in the future! Covering her face with her hands, hiding the tears and despair she feels.
Without saying any words, Boltu kneels next to Manila and affectionately hugs her. She returns the gesture by hugging him tightly and letting the tears flow.
"We all have a dark side, we all as mortals tend to be violent when the situation allows us to be, for years you lived under a lot of pressure and abuse, it created something inside you." Boltu's calm voice tries to reassure the young woman that he has always cared about her, but he could never do anything for her; now it's different, he knows what he has to do.
"My dear Manila, you have great potential, which will bring good things to this decadent kingdom. I'm not just talking about your potential to become a soldier, but about everything you've done."
For a while, that hug was all she needed, the comfort she wanted so much to bring her peace. Boltu moved away a little, still with his hands on Manila's shoulders, and smiled gently.
"Manila, would you like to abandon the Felnatus house and become part of my family?"