Chapter 213: Grief
“So how will this Day of Judgment Spell not kill me?” Sylvie asked Erani.
“It’s a weird Spell,” Erani responded. “It only deals damage to you based on the things you’ve done. I assume you haven’t done those things, so you should be fine. Or, if you have, it won’t be enough to deal that much damage.”
“How do you know? What if I’m a secret aficionado of whatever thing you’re talking about?”
“You aren’t.”
I frowned at the conversation. What was she talking about? Secretly, I sent a message to Ainash asking her to get Erani to send a message back to me regarding what, exactly, she was talking about. Presumably it was something she didn’t want Sylvie knowing about.
Sylvie was clearly getting frustrated at this point. “Just tell me!”
Erani glanced at me, and I got a message from Ainash. “Mother says there is no way to avoid telling other Human if want her help, and we need her help. So she will tell all of us at same time, that way your reaction is realistic.”
I frowned and nodded slowly to Erani. Whatever this thing was, it was definitely true that Sylvie wouldn’t help without knowing what it was. And if Erani said we needed her help, I was inclined to agree. Both she and I had the capability to at least tank one 1000-damage attack—with my Dark Plate and her Upgraded Angelic Shield—but if Jon could cast it more than a single time—
“He can,” Index said idly.
—Right. So it’d be a problem.
“So,” Erani said, taking a breath, “I’ll tell you, Sylvie. But you have to promise to hear us out, alright?”
Sylvie looked between Erani and me suspiciously.
I shrugged. “I know as much as you do.”
Eventually, Sylvie nodded. “Sure. As long as you don’t say anything too crazy.”
“...So, basically…”
Erani paused.
Sylvie leaned forward. “Well? Spit it out!”
“...The Spell deals an amount of damage to a target equal to 25 times the, er,” she paused for a second, then continued, “...the number of Humans one has contributed to killing.”
Silence fell through the air, Erani’s words hanging in it for several seconds.
I was the first to break the silence, quietly putting my face in my hands and muttering to myself, “Fuck.”
Sylvie frowned with wide eyes, then eventually said, “25 damage for each. It dealt 1075 damage to you. So you’ve killed…forty-three people?!”
“It’s everyone you’ve ever contributed to killing, with a damage cap set at a point depending on the Spell’s Rank,” Erani hastily said. “But, that is to say, it’s not just counting pure murder. Any contribution counts. We-we told you, we came here fleeing from the kingdom. There were some…choices. Not all of our fellow Humans looked kindly on deserters.”
“And you had to make that choice forty-three times?”
“Gods damn this shit,” I muttered. I was just as shocked as Sylvie was. Forty-three. I supposed it made complete sense; if I’d ever taken the time to count, I was sure I’d have arrived at a similar number. But, well, I hadn’t ever counted. With the explosion I caused at that barricade they’d made during the forest fire, and the plenty of people I’d fought in between…It added up.
Part of me felt like a horrible person for the number being so large. The other part felt like a horrible person for not even knowing the number was so large to begin with. Had I just forgotten? Did I never care to begin with?
And, of course, a third part of myself chastised the first two. What’s wrong with you, it said, feeling this bad over what was necessary. What, would you have just let those people kill you? It was either you or them, every time. And every time, that choice was forced on you, not something you took on yourself. None of those deaths are on your hands; they had nothing to do with you. Those are forty-three people the Demons killed, and you had to do their dirty work.
And the other two parts of me argued back, saying that I was terrible for having the third part within myself in the first place. This is why the number got so large, they told me. Because you allow those excuses to exist in your mind. This is why we never even stopped to consider, because you were too occupied deflecting your own guilt onto others.
“Arlan,” a voice said, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I looked up to see Erani and Sylvie speaking with each other. Or, rather, it was mostly Erani telling Sylvie how extensively that none of this was our fault, and how we were forced into each killing. Her words were so organized, like she’d had this discussion with herself about a hundred times already.
“Arlan,” the voice spoke again. It was Index. “You’re spiraling. Stop that.”
I blinked. What?
“It’s not good to argue with yourself like that.” Index paused, sighing. I still had no idea if it did that just for dramatic effect, or if it somehow needed to breathe when speaking to me, despite not being a living person. “Listen. I know I’m not exactly a champion of morality, or whatever. In fact, I don’t quite care either way whether you’re a good person, or whether you help others, or whatever. Really, I’d highly prefer it if you didn’t do that. But I can tell that this is bothering you, so I’m going to try and help.”
What, are you just going to tell me that I did nothing wrong?
“First off, you barely even think you did anything wrong. I can tell. Your stress, anger, sadness, guilt, all of those values were already really high the moment you got back from this loop. You’d seen some messed-up stuff back there, and then you got killed in a single hit, and part of it was due to a small mistake with your timing with activating Regenerate. You were already upset—at a lot of things. And now, you get this news. Want me to tell you something? Those values barely spiked. I mean, the small spikes they did have pushed them up to some absolutely massive levels, but that’s only because they were already high. Give yourself some time. I mean, you’re right. You pretty much already knew all of this. It shouldn’t be affecting you this much. You got unlucky with the timing, and the feeling will subside. Don’t go beating yourself up over it.”
I frowned, taking a few deep breaths. Well, maybe this was the wake-up call I needed. The barricade, with all of those people lined up around the explosives, I didn’t technically need to cause such a massive explosion. I could have—
“You could have snuck past them, left without getting those several, extremely-needed Level-ups, and then died in the wasteland when you fought the Mountain Troll. Or when you fought the Drakes. Or when you almost died during the battle with Astintash and the wall the Demons set up. Or you wouldn’t have had enough Health to survive against Xhag’duul. That was needed. The XP was needed to keep you alive.”
Well, maybe that Jon guy was right with what he said to me. Maybe, if it takes this many deaths to keep me alive, it’s just not worth it. I should just turn myself in, and end all of that suffering.
“You are being ridiculous. How are you going to let what he said get to you like that? He was obviously just saying whatever he could to get into your head, and now you’re letting him win. Don’t do that. Don’t let them beat you like that.”
You know what, Index?I’m tired of your shit. Your fucking manipulations, and your little sneaky wordings trying to get me to do what you say, everything. You don’t have any fucking idea why he said that, no more than I do. Maybe he said it because he fucking hates me, because he thinks I’m a terrible person. Because he thinks I’m evil. And maybe he’s right. And you don’t have any idea about any of that shit, because you aren’t a Human being. I mean, aren’t you supposed to just sit around and say nothing until I have something actually System-related to ask you? Keep to your fucking area of expertise. You aren’t a Human, you don’t understand Humans, and you certainly will never understand morality. So shut the fuck up, get the fuck out of my head, and stop acting like you know shit about stuff you are not capable of understanding.
There was a moment of silence once again. My ears rang in anger.
Sylvie’s voice faded in, the conversation I’d been ignoring seeming to have somewhat resolved. “—sorry you went through that. I, I’m sorry, I’m kinda shit at this emotional stuff, but, uh, if you ever wanna talk about it, I guess? I’m still kind of processing everything, y’know, so maybe if you catch me in, like, an hour, I’d be able to say something more meaningful.”
Erani glanced over at me. I’d looked up some, meeting her eyes, and her face morphed into a worried expression.
“Father,” Ainash said, “I told mother you feeling very angry. You seemed like you wanted to not talk right now. But she says she is sorry if she was not supposed to tell other Human about the bad guys you killed. She thought she could make sure other Human did not get mad at you, so that is why she told her. Would not have done it if she was not confident.”
“It’s, uh, tell her it’s okay,” I responded. I wasn’t upset with Erani for telling Sylvie, or anything—she seemed like she had it all under control. Wasn’t like her to make a decision like that without having come up with a plan beforehand, at least, so I knew there was basically no chance of failure if she was confident she could make sure it all went well with Sylvie.
But Ainash was right about one thing. I really did not want to be talked to right now.
I laid on my back in the grass, looking up at the sky. I could faintly hear Sylvie ask, “Uh, is he okay?” and Erani respond with something reassuring, followed by the beginnings of a plan she’d obviously already started to cook up about how they could use Sylvie’s status of not having killed anyone to beat Jon.
I just stared at the moon, faintly visible in the afternoon sky.
Some time passed as Erani and Sylvie continued speaking. I didn’t often hear Erani talk so much with our allies from town, but it seemed like she’d taken up the role of leader for now. I just tried to close my eyes and sleep. I really, really did not want to be conscious at the moment.
Eventually, I heard something.
“Annor?”
A hand shook my arm.
“A-Annor?”
I opened my eyes to see Erani looking down at me. “Oh. Hi.”
“Um, hi,” she said. “I just wanted to…go over our plan. The one we just made.”
“Uh, yeah, right, plan,” I said groggily. I hadn’t even managed to fall asleep, but I was exhausted like I’d just had a very rude awakening.
“Did you…hear us talking about the plan?” Erani asked.
“No.”
She blinked. “Are you okay?”
I just sighed.
“Hey,” Sylvie said, “I’m gonna go and, uh, look at some trees. Or whatever. You two discuss your plan and stuff.”
Erani glanced back for a moment with an expression that I recognized to mean she was silently communicating with Ainash, and shortly after, I saw Ainash stand from my view lying on the grass, and start walking away, presumably going to tail Sylvie as she wandered off.
Erani looked back down at me and whispered, “What’s going on? Is there something I need to know about? Did you use Loop again?”
“What?” I looked up at her concerned face. “N-no. Nothing like that.”
“So what’s up, then? Something’s obviously wrong.”
I took another breath. “...Forty-three.”
Erani’s face softened, and her shoulders sagged. She slowly lowered herself from her kneeling position so she was lying beside me. “Ah. So it’s that kind of something’s wrong.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “That kind.”
“...So, what about it is bothering you?”
I raised my head, looked at her. “How can you say that?”
“What?”
“You’re wondering which part is bothering me? All of it! The part where I killed forty-three people! Do you not even understand what I’m talking about?”
“Of course I do.”
“No, like, imagine if someone walked up to you and told you the exact number of people you’d—”
“Twenty-eight.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’ve seen twenty-eight kill messages that read ‘Due to killing a member of your own species.’ I know it’s not as high as yours, but I certainly wish it was lower.”
“...You keep track?”
She nodded.
I laid my head back down, staring straight back up at the clouds moving lazily across the sky. “So, am I just, like, a horrible person?”
“Would you ever say that about me?”
“Of course not. You’re calculated. You know what you’re doing. I mean, you’re the one who at least kept track. I didn’t give a shit. Not once. Not until someone threw it in my face and made me look.”
She stared at me for a while. Eventually she spoke, “Didn’t you say once that your whole goal in all of this was to get to a point where nobody could force you to do anything?”
I looked at her, confused.
“Back when we were in Kingdom’s Edge, I think. I said I wanted to just get back to normal life, and you said you wanted more. To get to a point where you could finally just do what you wanted.”
“Yeah, I guess I remember that. What about it?”
“I think about it a lot. Well, I think about a lot of things you’ve said. But that…When you told me that you’d use all of this to make a new, better life—rebuild something stronger from the destruction—I was flabbergasted. When you told me you’d make sure I got my arm back,” Erani raised her left stump in the air, “I fully and completely did not believe you.”
“What, and now you do?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I never doubted. I may have thought it was impossible to ever get to a point where you actually could just ignore what other people want you to do. And I thought it was impossible to make a better life from the aftermath of this invasion. And that there was no way I’d ever be able to get that part of myself that was stolen away from me. But I never, ever thought you were lying. When you said you thought it was possible, you believed it. When you said you knew it was possible. I could see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice…You were one hundred percent convinced. It wasn’t just possible, it was going to happen. Like you’d seen the future.”
“So? What’s your point?”
“You said we’d not only make it out of this, but that we’d make it out of this better. And you knew it. So I simply refuse to believe you’re becoming worse.”
I laughed. “What? That’s it? I can’t be turning into a worse person because I promised I wouldn’t?”
“That’s exactly it. And I trust you.”
I looked at her for a while. Now she was staring up into the sky. Her red hair sprawled out across the grass, strands weaving between the blades like a fiery explosion.
“Okay,” I eventually said, “so I’m not getting worse. Who’s to say I didn’t start out bad?”
“You.”
I continued staring at her, a skeptical look on my face.
She glanced over at me and broke out into a smile, reaching her hand to place on my cheek, rubbing her thumb across my forehead. “Your eyebrows look good like that.”
“Explain,” I said.
“Oh, you see, when you raise your eyebrows, they get bent into this hooked shape that really compliments—”
“Okay, ha ha,” I mock-laughed with a roll of my eyes. “Explain your previous statement. I’m the one who said I didn’t start out bad?”
“Well, you said that you wanted to get to a point where you felt like nobody could force you to do anything anymore. So, then, the only reason you would want that is if you felt forced into your actions thus far. And I agree. You have been.”
“I could have given myself up. In fact, didn’t you suggest we do that, when the invasion first broke out?”
“I did,” she said with a nod. “Maybe I had a choice. I’m not convinced you did, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I like to think of my actions as though…Okay, imagine when you die, you don’t get taken to any normal afterlife. Instead, you go to this big black void, nothing around you, nobody to talk to, no god’s presence to bask in. Just a black void. And the only thing you can do is view your own life, repeated over and over. That’s how you spend eternity.”
“Is that what you think death is like?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is, if that were the case, and I had to watch all of my life, over and over again, playing in front of me forever, what would I regret? What would I see coming up, and I’d have to close my eyes and look away to avoid watching myself make that choice? What would I scream at myself for, telling myself not to do that, or not to go there, or not to say that thing?”
“What, like, your embarrassing moments?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe that’d bother me the first few times, but what, you really think you’d cringe at some awkward thing you said when you were fourteen after you’d already seen that memory replayed eighty thousand times over? Maybe it’s just me, but I can imagine myself getting used to that small stuff. It was a part of me, same as everything else was, contributing to what made my life into my life. No, I think the stuff that I’d never be able to get used to—the stuff that I would simply loathe to see repeated, no matter how many times I’d seen it—would be those times when I went against what I really believed in. When I wasn’t strong enough, or wasn’t brave enough, or whatever, and simply could not do what I absolutely knew I had to do. And I faced the consequences for that. I live my life to avoid those moments. I want to be able to watch my life replay in front of me and say, ‘Y’know what? I made my mistakes, I learned my lessons, but I did what I knew I needed to, every time.’”
I stayed silent as Erani paused to look at me for a moment.
“I think that if you turned yourself in, if you let yourself get killed by those Demons without fighting back for even a second, that would be the moment you could never bring yourself to watch. Honestly, I think that if you ever got killed by these guys—at any time, for any reason—you would never, ever forgive yourself. You wouldn’t be able to bear living in eternity with the knowledge you let them win.”
“How do you think I’ll be happy with my life?”
“I don’t know,” Erani said, frowning. “But I think it involves victory.”
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