Chapter 85: Powerless Over Life

Adonis ran.

Through the gates, or whatever was left of it.

There’s no wall either, there’s nothing.

He slowed down without meaning to.

’...Where is everyone?’

He’d seen so many dead bodies by now, far too many.

On the road, in the carriage, in the burned-out remains of the places he’d walked through.

He had expected to see more of them.

In a twisted way, he’d even hoped to.

Because a body meant a person had been here.

A body could be found, and a person who could be found might still be breathing.

But the deeper he went, the less of that there was.

At some point there were no corpses, no pools of blood, none for his eyes to hold onto.

The more he looked, the less he wanted to see.

His stomach turned and he wants to stop to breathe but that felt worse than walking through this slaughter.

"Are you well, my master!"

Something small and fast hit him square in the chest.

"Oof—!"

Alpis had jumped out from behind a half-fallen wall and hugged him tightly by his waist. Her horns poked his collarbone and her tail was wagging behind her.

"I’m fine, Alpis..." Adonis said quietly.

He rubbed the top of her head.

She made a happy sounds and snuggled deeper against his chest with her eyes closed.

Sometimes Alpis is more like a dog than a lizard.

He kept patting her. It helped. It really did.

But he couldn’t take his eyes off the ruins.

"Alpis. What happened here?"

She let go and fell into step beside him, tail low. Her voice was softer than he’d ever heard it.

She told him everything she could. How they’d stayed with the people of Rensfell, just like he’d asked, then a mercenary guild called Shadow Wolf attacking the village.

Adonis stopped listening somewhere in the middle.

His legs stopped listening first.

He stopped walking, his legs can’t move.

His head was a mess, he can’t think straight.

...Or maybe he’d never been thinking straight. If he had, he’d have seen this coming from the very start.

Status boards, item boxes, skills, that doesn’t mean this world is some game to be played.

The consequences were visceral yet he acted with the urgency that everything can be fixed with a [restart] button.

Put the orphanage here, put the nuns there, bait the Count, grab the trade route, collect the reward.

’I thought I won.’

These people had hopes and dreams.

...Families

They weren’t pages he could flip past anymore.

They have stories and names; Litha, Sofera, Father Rill...

This town WAS their home.

And his foolishness had destroyed all that.

His greed, pride, hunger to survive, cost them their lives.

He went down on one knee and grabbed a fistful of earth and let them pour between his fingers.

"Master...?" Alpis crouched beside him. "Are you okay?"

"...No."

"Master, this isn’t your fault. It’s ours. We should have protected the village better, we should have—"

"Stop it."

"But—"

"Just stop it. Please."

He looked at the remaining sand in his hand.

"I traded their lives... for salt."

He felt extreme regret and bottomless anger well-up within his aching heart.

Rather than say anything, Alpis went down and hugged her master as tightly as she could.

Meanwhile, at the orphanage, it was very quiet.

The nuns had been herded into the main hall. The children were pressed against the back wall, and Father Rill stood in front of them with his arms spread wide, as if an old man’s body could stop anything.

Prussia lay on the floor a few steps away.

She couldn’t move anything, not even her fingers. Every muscle she had felt like it would burst if she asked it for one more inch.

Boreas clapped cheerfully.

"Okay, everyone! We’re going to play a game!"

"..."

"Children over here. Nuns over there. Come on, don’t be shy."

He waited and they did so.

"I don’t want to hurt precious nuns, yunno. I heard you Melcius fuckers have the most beautiful ones, so I’ll be kind. I’ll only take three with me. Everyone else here dies. Is that clear?"

Instant panic, nuns clutched their rosaries and prayed while the children screamed and cried.

The crying got so loud Boreas winced and rubbed his ear.

"Ugh. So noisy."

He flicked a hand at the nearest one.

...Pop, the boy’s head exploded like a ballon full of red paint then little drops and pieces landed on the faces of children in the front row, and the crying got even louder.

"Maybe I should start with these ones..."

Boreas studied them closely.

"They’re orphans, after all. No one’s gonna miss ’em."

Some of the nuns rushed forward and threw their arms around the children.

"Please! Please, don’t kill them! You can do anything you want with us, anything, just spare the children!"

...Hmm, Boreas scratched his cheek.

"The thing is, my orders were to kill everyone. If I let you live, I don’t get my full pay. But since you’re all so adamant, maybe I should rough you guys up a little first!"

His eyes flashed red.

Before he could move, Father Rill threw himself at the man’s feet, forehead against the floor.

"Please! Have mercy! We’re sorry, so sorry! If it’s the salt, we’ll return it all! I know people like us don’t deserve it. We’ll do whatever you say, just please... have mercy!"

...Sigh.

Boreas shook his head and kicked the old man aside.

"Mercy? That’s no fun."

He raised his hand again.

This time something grabbed his leg from behind.

"Eh?"

Boreas looked down with bored eyes.

Prussia had crawled across the floor. She was covered in blood and bruises, twitching like a worm in salt, and still, somehow, she was holding onto his ankle.

"Ahh, you’re really something..."

His eyes were half-lidded.

"How can anyone be so annoyingly persistent? You know, there’s no pleasure in helping people. There’s always a consequence. If the Fifth Prince hadn’t helped these bastards, they’d still be alive. These orphans even... a few of ’em will grow up to be thieves and killers just like me. See?"

He spread his arms.

"There’s no reward for being good to others. Be good to yourself. Humanity is an ugly beast!"

He lifted his hand and the wind exploded.

Boom, Prussia slammed into the wall.

Boom, she went through it.

"Do you understand now?!"

Boreas shouted, following her out, laughing.

"I enjoy everything I love! Malice! Destruction! Vanity! And you’re suffering because you help people! Pleasure is everything! Not some worthless act of selflessness!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

He kept crushing her with wind, again and again.

But her bones refused to break.

The children watched through the broken wall.

Litha had both hands over her mouth.

Sofera’s lip was trembling. "...She really is a hero."

"Pleasure! Pleasure! PLEASUUUREEEE!"

Thud.

Prussia’s body finally flopped onto the ground, and nobody could tell if she was still alive.

There’s more blood on her than skin now. Her golden-brown skin the children always called pretty was hardly visible.

Boreas put his boot on her head.

"Well? Do you understand now? Hah, I wonder where that fiancé of yours is, huh?"

Prussia coughed.

She picked up a few pebbles with fingers that barely worked and tossed them harmlessly at him.

Boreas sighed. "Ahh. She’s learned nothing."

She coughed again, and this time blood came out with the words.

"Ah... Anyone who... refuses to lend a hand... because they’re scared... that’s okay. It’s o... okay. But if you have the power to help... and you don’t... that’s the biggest sin there is. It’s the same as spitting in their face. Worse. It means... y... you were blessed with strength... to be better. To do better. And you chose... to be scum."

Her eyes could barely open, swollen from repeated beatings.

"In my eyes... a power that can’t help others... is powerless."

Even in this pain, she must smile at Sofera, her and every other child holding back their tears.

Boreas cackled and raised his hand to crush her with one last burst of wind.

Then the sky cracked.

A holy light split the heavens open, the way a prayer is answered when someone finally screams it loud enough.

...Gasp, everyone looked up.

A giant cloud hung over the village, wide and dark and terrifyingly like a supercell.

A moment ago the sky had been clear.

Now it was black, and lightning crawled through it, and heavy rain began to fall.

Boreas’s grin froze.

"...What is that magic power?"

It was dense... absurdly dense.

BOOOOOM!

A pillar of lightning as thick as a tower came down on him and swallowed him whole.

Then it kept falling.

Bolt after bolt, spreading outward in rings, wiping out ruins, rubble, and whatever was left of the village. The people hiding in it were lifted gently off their feet and carried away inside harmless nets of electricity.

When the lightning finally died, the center of Rensfell had been torn open into a massive crater, unfathomably deep, smoking, and burning at its core like a miniature sun.

Somewhere inside it were the scorched remains of Boreas.

And far above all of it, wings spread wide like a holy wonder, glowing brilliantly in his dragon form, floated Adonis with Strom King Spear Indra pointed down at the scorching earth.

"...Is that pleasurable enough for you?"