So, as it turns out, Denard was strong. Denard was very, strong.

I now knew this from personal experience. Because I was airborne. What? Me? In the How nifty! Had I somehow gained flight magic? Could this humble axe now traverse the skies, free forevermore from the chains of gravity? Was I now a free bird, much like the titular character of my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd song, , which I’d always assumed was about some sort of bird who was very free? Possibly Jonathan Livingston Seagal?

No. Not at all. Denard had simply punched me was all. And as I had just mentioned, Denard was very strong.

I don’t think I’m going to get along with this guy. I don’t think we’re going to click at all. Nope!

For one thing, he’d smashed me through a wall. Being punched so hard that you fly soar through the air and smash through a wall is very unsettling. Walls aren’t supposed to be smashed through. They exist to mark the ending of a room, and to hang pictures on. Sometimes they’re loadbearing too. This wall had been!

Now I had a bunch of stuff from the ceiling caving in and landing on me. Also, my jaw hurts. Or it would hurt, if I could feel pain. This is a meat puppet after all, so it’s not as if he’s actually beating up. But if that were really my jaw, my jaw would hurt.

Denard was being a bully. Why do big men always feel compelled to throw their weight around?

It didn’t take long to claw my way out of the rubble. But I had barely gotten to my feet when Denard was on me again, launching a nasty little left right combo. When his punches connected with my face, it sounded like two glass plates clacking together hard, just shy of breaking. Not exactly the sort of sound effect you want being piped into your ears!

“I’m starting to think you have a problem with me, man,” I managed to get out before he brought his hands together and clubbed me to my knees. While I was down there, stunned, he lashed out with a booted foot and kicked me under my chin. He kicked me so flipping hard, I did an involuntary backwards somersault!

Okay, I actually that one. And let me tell you, I don’t enjoy things. I’m not masochistic in the slightest! I much prefer inflicting pain over experiencing it. Not that this brute seemed to care! As I lay there on my back, he reached down and lifted me into the air by the neck.

Son of a He was vadering me! This stupid bald basta— Celtics fan was me! You know, the classic onehanded neck lift and squeeze? He was doing that to me! always wanted to do that to someone else! And here he was, not only beating me to the punch, but using it as a means by which to keep punching me in the face! What a jerk!

Denard: I do not like you, sir!

“Why’d you do it?” he asked. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you do it?”

“Why’d I do what?” I asked him back.

“Why’d you kill my men, you fucking bastard!”

“Am I under arrest? Have I been mirandized?”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about!”

“Your language is abusive! I have rights!”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” he screamed as he shook me.

“I thought you wanted me to talk! Pick a lane! Grow some hair, it’ll keep your brain warm!”

“Is this a fucking to you?” Denard bellowed.

“Why do you do that?” I asked him.

“Why do I do what?”

“All that cursing. It seems so forced! It really doesn’t match your voice at all.”magic

“Huh?”

“I think you’re code switching, man. That’s so class conscious! Hey, did you go to a nice school?”

“Uh--“

“You did, didn’t you? Don’t be embarrassed by it! Your parents worked hard for their money. Making yourself sound working class disrespects their efforts! You shouldn’t be embarrassed by where you came from, Denard!”

“Shut up!” he yelled, and then lawn darted me through another wall.

It really makes you wonder, right? Was he punishing me, or punishing ?

Food for thought.

__

When Denard came stomping through the hole he’d made using my face, I caught him in the belly with a good swing from my axe. He stopped and looked at his waist, stunned by the sudden appearance of this fine-looking piece of indestructible magic steel now embedded in his gut.

“Hullo!” I said brightly. Then I dragged the blade across his waist to open the wound even wider, before I pulled it free. Then I elbowed him in the gut as hard as I could! It made a sound like And Denard screamed like a man who’d just had his stomach opened with an axe, which coincidentally was the effect I was going for, so, yay me! I did it! Hurrah for disembowelment and the heroes who work hard to make it happen!

Using the flat of my blade, I pounded my axe-head against the top of Denard’s skull, then kicked him in the face as hard as I could. I don’t know the exact limits of my meat puppet’s physical strength, but [Troll Regeneration] was a skill I had that constantly healed my injuries at a superhuman rate of speed. Thanks to it, I could use my muscles without them ever fatiguing, or tearing if I tried to lift something that would ordinarily be too heavy for them. That basically meant I was strong as heck!Now it was Denard’s turn to go flying back. Ha! See how much you like it, Baldy! Aww, I couldn’t get him through a wall, though. I guess I’m taking home the silver. As a consolation price, I decided to also take home his head!

Laughing as merrily as a child at play, I ran at Denard and swung for his neck! But instead of feeling the warm, welcoming splash of fountaining blood, I heard a meaty thud and saw that he had caught my blade in the palm of his hand!

Okay, now I was starting to get ticked! Was this guy some kind of a freak or something? Honestly, what the heck! Now I had neck balls! Which was like blue balls, but you only get them when you can’t cut through someone’s neck and decapitate them!

Denard was being a jerk! And you know what? I wasn’t afraid to tell him so!

“What’s your deal, Baldy? You’re really dragging this out!” I said through gritted teeth.

“You haven’t… yet!” he snapped back in response.

“You stupid neanderthal! I’m the main character! I don’t have to pay for

“The fuck you don’t!” he yelled. Then he rose to his feet, and backhanded me! Slapped me like I was some punk nobody! If my axe wasn’t attached to my meat puppet’s hand, that slap would have made me lose my grip! Speaking of grips, he then reached over, grabbed me by my scalp and slammed me face first into this mansion’s stupid marble floor. A moment later, I felt his boot come down directly on the back of my head.

His foot kept coming down. He was using my head to turn the floor into a Jackson Pollack painting! Gore splattered everywhere, brains, bone, and blood. But he still didn’t stop, not until my skull was as flat as a pancake. No kill like overkill, I guess?

I was beginning to feel disrespected!

After about ten minutes had passed, he finally stopped stomping on me. I guess he thought I was finally dead. How nice! How awfully sporting of him! So high-minded, so genteel! You’re a heck of a guy, Denard! You’re definitely the sort of fellow I could drink a pint with! Because you’re that cool. You’re a bro, Denard. You’re a real bro!

As he walked away,I swung my axe deeply into his right shoulder and laughed maniacally at his scream of pain.

“I won’t fucking stop!” I screamed at him. “I won’t fucking stop!”

And I’m sorry guys, I know I let you down with this one, but I’d been pushed beyond my limits. Even someone as conscientious of his language as I try to be can crack if he’s been abused enough. And Denard’s bullying antics had sent me over the edge!

So, I started , as my toddler niece would have put it.

“Kill your whole fucking family, big guy!” I yelled to him. “Won’t stop with you! Everyone you know! Everybody you ever met! ALL FUCKING DEAD! Gonna tell them it’s fault too! Stupid fucking Denard! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Like HELL you will!” Denard screamed in response. Before I could get another swing at in at him, he grabbed my torso, gripped it tightly in each hand and…well, have you ever seen that strongman technique on television, where someone rips a telephone book in half?

Yeah. He did that to me.

Denard, you’re such a prick.

When I came to a little while later, I saw that my body had already started mending itself back together. But for some reason, it was going much slower than usual. I didn’t understand! I thought I had unlimited mana or something to that effect. That’s what Libby told me! So why was I healing so slowly?

Oh. That might explain it. Denard was holding my axe in a death grip.

He’d ripped my arm off and pulled the thing out of its grasp. How he was holding it in a manner which I found very discomforting as he glared at me with what I can only describe as

“What the fuck are you?” he asked me. I couldn’t help but notice that all the wounds I’d dealt to were now nearly healed. Oh, what the heck, man! That’s cheating! You’re not supposed to be able to heal as well!

Denard, you suck so much!

“I think that’s line, Baldy,” I rasped to him. “Cheesus Rice, you sure can take a beating, can’t you?”

“Better than most,” he agreed. “Now answer my question. Are you even human?”

“Are ?”

He slammed my axe directly into my chest and OH MY GOD, that was the most pain I have ever experienced in my life! It was even worse than the slime attack had been! FUCK, was that was it felt like when I did that to other people? Was this how much they suffered?

HAHAHAHAH! That’s pretty cool, actually!

“Answer my question!” Denard roared, bringing the axe up for another swing.

“Wait! Wait, please! It’s not me! It’s the axe!” I wept. “Oh, thank the gods! Thank the gods for you, I’m free!”

“What?”

“I’m just a woodcutter. A simple cutter of wood!” I moaned. “Oh, how I enjoyed the mossy feel of the morning woods as my fellow woodcutting chums and I would merrily wander about the woods, seeking wood to cut! Oh, so much wood! We were the masters of wood! Wood was all we knew! And cutting it was our passion in life!"But then that wicked axe did appear and soon my simple and quiet life of woodcutting became an endless nightmare of cutting wood, but rather, men!”

“Are you saying this is a cursed weapon?”

“It was! It is! Oh! Oh, no! It made me hurt all my friends! All my dear and precious friends! Johnny! Dicky! Antonio! Charlie Grum-Grum who had bad gum-gums! Sticky fingered Pete, who wasn’t allowed to be alone with any squirrels by order of the courts! Little Geordie! Even little Geordie! Lordy, Lordy, I killed Geordie! Oh, will the angels ever forgive me for taking those dear men from this world?”

The flat side of the axe slammed into my face, shattering my teeth and breaking my nose.

“Stop LYING!” Denard yelled.

“Whath? Buw how dith you know?”

Another slap from the axe. Oh, he was a canny one!

“You know what?” I told him a few minutes later, when some new teeth had grown in. “It doesn’t matter. Do what you have to do.”

“This is your last chance, asshole.”

“You think so? I don’t. I learn fast.” I lay my head against the floor and took a deep breath.

“You know something, Denard? I have way too much fun, and I think it occasionally gets in the way of making rational decisions. I mean, you’re strong as heck, buddy! Why was I fighting you head on? That’s dumb. That’s me not taking things seriously."

"But I can learn from this. I can! I had fun! This was a great learning experience for me. Also, your friends are still dead, and you’ll be able to avenge them, so choke on that for a while, okay?”

“You son of a—” he started to say as he lifted the axe up for a final strike. This guy! Always with the bad language! He'd even gotten me doing it for a little bit. I was so over this!

Before he finished me off, I activated [Earth Mastery] and used it to generate a powerful magnetic field that enveloped the axe. Then I inverted that field which caused it to repel the steel my axe was comprised of, which sent it far, far away. Railgun principal! Do you it? Say hey, if you love magnets!

“If we ever meet again, you’re , Denard. Grats on your win, though.

The further away the axe went, the harder it became to stay conscious. When the distance grew too great to maintain the connection, my meat puppet died.

And then, I was back in my axe body. And wow, I was

Hey, as it turns out I figured out a way to fly after all! Magnetic fields are awesome! This was traveling in style, guys! Seriously! It was so much fun, I wanted to sing!

Here I go! A magical axe! Flying through the sky, so fancy free~

Being an axe is

__

Denard yelled in frustration. His hands clenched so tightly into fists that he felt his tendons popping from the tension he was exerting.

“This isn’t over,” he promised himself. “This isn’t over, this isn’t over, this isn’t

That creature had claimed it was a fast learner. Well, so was Denard! He was more than mere muscle. He was a good listener too. That thing had claimed its power came from that strange axe. And in the crucial moment, it was the axe it had chosen to preserve over its own life.

That meant it hadn’t been lying!

“It must be like a Liche’s phylactery. His soul must return to it when his bodies die…”

He nodded to himself. That was certainly what the evidence suggested. And he had a feeling in his gut that he was right! The axe was everything! Get rid of the axe, get rid of the demon!

So be it. His men be avenged!

“Fly away as far as you like, you coward!” Denard yelled. “It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who’ll find you!”

“And when next we meet…THAT AXE DIE!”

__

“What was happening in there?” Nicollet asked with wide eyes, as she and Seras made their way through the woods, far from any open path. “Why didn’t we wait for my aunt?”

“She wasn’t there,” Seras said quietly. “And if we had stayed there any longer, we would have been caught up in the fight between those two monsters.”

“Hey, what did you see in there? Why are you so pale?”

That was what Seras had been tempted to say. Instead, she said: “Pray you never have occasion to learn, my lady.”

“So, what are we going to do now?” Nicollet asked her.

“We’ll have to head to Duskvale. To the last place your aunt was sighted before she vanished.”

“You don’t mean—

“Yes. The dungeon.”