He knew that his wife was waiting for him upstairs, half-dead from the dreadful anticipation of uncertain news.
He had to tell her now, but was not brave enough to face her just yet.
Instead, Jest turned to the wall and leaned on it, breathing heavily.
The armored alloy felt cool against his forehead.
'Ah…'
His mind was empty.
'Ah...'
Some time later, his gaze focused on his wrist.
There, on the cuff of his expensive shirt…
The white fabric had turned vibrant red with blood.
Jest stared at it for a while, his eyes slowly growing less cloudy.
A crooked smile suddenly split his face apart.
He remembered another bloodied cuff, and a conversation that had happened a long time ago.
What was it that he had said?
'... A bit of collateral damage. Unfortunate, but inevitable. In any case, it went well.'
They had been so matter-of-fact about it. And why wouldn't they? How many of these unfortunate occurrences had there been? He had lost count. If Jest wasted energy caring about each of them — any of them — he would have spent his entire life spilling tears.
He was too busy spilling blood, though. One could not build a new world without mortar, after all, and definitely not without breaking a few bricks… a dozen or a thousand, it did not matter.
But those broken bricks had been someone's sons and daughters, too.
He grinned terribly.
"So… is this my punishment then?"
Was it?
Before Jest knew what he was doing, he brought his head back, and then hit it against the wall, as if wishing to crack his skull open.
But his skull did not crack, of course.
Instead, the armored alloy bent and cracked, and a deep indent was formed on its surface.
He was a Master, after all.
'Ah, ah…'
The world was bitter.
The gods had died, and were replaced by the Nightmare Spell.
And the Spell…
It was a wicked god.
The only kind of god he deserved, perhaps.