Asher the Insane

14 - Asher the Clichéd

“For who doth thou think thou art to disrupt a venerated battle such as this?” The old mage asked.

Of course, the first powerful person I meet in a world like this is an old man.

He does look pretty fly, with a silky robe and a pointy hat. I wonder, does he have muscle under his robe?

He was a mage, that usually meant that, physically, he was weak but anime logic demanded that he was buff.

“The King has delivered you into mine hand to strike you down and I will send your head into his bosom. I will do this thing before all of the kingdoms and beneath the heavens. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandments of the king to do evil right before his sight? Thou hast stricken and killed in unlawful fury and hast taken up sword against the kingdom for thoued own.

Now for the sword shall never depart from thine house.”

Jeez, this guy was pretty intense.

I imagined more of a kooky kind of old man mage.

Right this moment, I couldn't think of any examples of specifically kooky old man mages in anime, but who I did thought of were Gandalf and Dumbledoor, who were both kind of strange and weird mages at the beginning of their respective stories, only to get more serious the further the book, or movies, went along.

But not this guy, he was serious from the get go.

“I get it. Enough quoting scripture. Tell me, Mage-Man, you really like your king, don’t you? Your kingdom too, I hope. I don't have anything against neither of them, so tell your king to absolve me from my 'crimes'," I air-quoted again, "and then I’ll just leave. Also, I don’t think I’ve killed anyone, yet, or that's what I really hoped for. Please, I beg of you, don't go all out on me, you may die from a heart attack or something the like. I don't know exactly how old you are but a man your age shouldn't be see much action.”

“I will raise up evil from beneath thine own feet and will take thine heart and give it over to mine king and he shalt take your gods and has them for his own this sun.

Who has givens thou the commandments to rise in evil against all the people that stand before you?”

I had to think a bit, I didn’t really know what I was getting into.

“I do this of my own accord. Rest assured, there's no one standing behind me, pulling some sort of strings for a higher, maybe more evil, cause,” I told him plainly.

I think that was the right thing to say.

“I'm the only one in this world-” I remembered that Faye was with me, “myself and that girl over there," I clearly pointed her out so that everyone could see, "are the only two people I kind of hold in high regard in this world.”

“Then why art thou, being as the right and left hand of thine own, here holding the sword against us?”

“Hey, you can end this at any time. I don't want to spend my free time being hunted by you guys or some kind of bounty hunter who thinks I'm their next jackpot,” I shrugged my shoulders at him.

"I advise you to turn and depart this field, just like prey would do if it were being pursued by a predator," he said.

“I feel more like a predator and you are like an alien to me…” I felt embarrassed and cringed at myself the second I said that.

“My heart is deeply saddened for thou hast not hearken onto the voice of my king nor mine own.

I am Leoren, son of Kaelmar, son of Lutumal. Proclaim your name before me.”

“My name is Asher, Asher Burell. Remember that name, it's going to be important in the future. Here's a bit about myself: I am a enthusiast of many things, mostly, to my shame, it's consuming garbage shows, literature and games then complaining about their quality on online forums but still going ahead and not stop consuming them or change anything at all. I just watch the decline of everything I actually like. I don't work in the industry so there's not much to do. I also hated the idea of paying for them, so I pirated everything from these industries, to not give them a single cent to discourage them releasing that shit.”

“This day shall be the last you spent on this world.

Behold for the righteous might the lord has given onto me.”