“Look, I just don't think I can find a way to agree with what you did,” Thomas said. He seemed more disappointed with Karolina than angry. “I mean, no one’s denying that the man was a dangerous problem, but an extrajudicial execution in the middle of the woods wasn’t the solution.”

“What other option did I have?” Karolina asked, starting to get frustrated. This conversation was quickly spiraling into an argument. At least Thomas was focusing his efforts on her instead of Ada. Even though Ada was the one who had actually killed Weber, the responsibility still lay with Karolina. Ada had only done it under her direction, after all. “He would have broken out of the cell, and even if he didn’t he would have just been unleashed on the world in a few months.”

“You don’t know that, not for sure. He should have stood trial for his crimes,” Thomas said.

“How? You pointed this out yourself, when you were pushing for us to go after him. There are no police here, no judges, and no legal system. We all just have to do what we think is right, and that is what Ada and I did,” Karolina said.

Thomas sighed. “I still don’t agree, but I guess I can understand your reasoning. Please don’t do something like this again without talking to me first.”

“We won’t,” Karolina said. “I’m sorry for not getting your input. I was afraid I would lose my nerve.”

“You ended up losing your nerve anyway,” Ada commented laconically. “I had to take care of him.”

Karolina stopped herself from glaring at Ada, even though she wasn’t being very helpful right now. “Anyway, Thomas, I would be ecstatic if we didn’t have to do this again. Once we're out of the tutorial, hopefully society will still exist in some form. Right now, though, there are no laws. We all just have to do what we think is right," Karolina said.

“Look, I get that you thought killing a man with absolutely no due process was the right thing to do, somehow. I just don’t agree, and you’re going to have to deal with that,” Thomas said firmly.

"Are you still going to fight alongside us?" Ada asked directly.

"Of course!" Thomas said, looking surprised. "You're still my friends. I'm not going to abandon you again."

“Then that’s all that matters. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this, because it’s going nowhere and I have places to be,” Ada said.

“Places to be? What are you talking about?” Karolina asked, confused.

“Anywhere but here,” Ada responded with a cheeky grin, before sauntering off towards the rest of the group. The three of them were standing some distance from everyone else outside the walls of the camp so they could have some privacy. Karolina stared after her, speechless.

“I guess she has a point. I don’t think either of us is going to convince the other that they’re right,” Thomas said.

“I guess not. We’re still friends, and we’ll still be fighting together. We’ll just have to find a way to get past this,” Karolina said.

“I’m sure we’ll manage it,” Thomas said. “Just… I’m worried about you. Try not to become someone your parents wouldn't recognize.”

Karolina was floored. When was the last time she even thought about her parents?

Before Karolina could come up with a proper response to that, Ada came back into the lodge, followed by Selena, Natalia, and Aaron. It seemed that they had another conversation ahead of them.

Karolina expected Aaron to speak first, or maybe Selena, but Natalia surprised her. The redhead quickly marched over to Karolina and gave her a hug.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I never need to worry about him again," she said.

"You're welcome," Karolina said. She felt vindicated. Natalia, at least, understood that she had done the right thing.

“Natalia’s healed now, by the way,” Ada said with a smirk. Everyone ignored her unhelpful interjection.

“Yes, thank you for causing such a huge problem for our camp,” Aaron said.

“Huge problem?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? You killed the leader of another camp, and then just let all of his supporters hole up in a fortified position. I’d be surprised if they weren’t currently making plans to attack us, and then our camp. At least you didn’t get anyone from our camp killed,” Aaron said.

Despite his harsh words, Aaron seemed more ambivalent than anything. Even though they had to deal with a brewing problem, he trusted that they could all handle it.

“So let’s go in and defuse the situation,” Karolina said. “The only reason we’re still out here was that we wanted to wait for Ada to get you and Selena. Let’s go in there and convince them that we don’t want to fight, and we don’t need to anymore.”

“What about Weber’s supporters? I know you killed him, but what are we going to do with the people that helped him? I don’t know if George was the only one who killed people at his behest,” Natalia said.

Karolina noticed Thomas staring at her, obviously curious to see how she would answer.

“We’ll deal with them on a case-by-case basis. Weber was the one ultimately at fault, so hopefully the people who listened to him are still salvageable. I certainly don’t want anyone else to end up dead. We need everyone we can muster to complete this tutorial,” Karolina said.

Selena smiled. “I’m sure everything will be fine. Once you explain to them how bad Weber was, I’m sure they’ll see the error of their ways.”

“Hopefully,” Karolina said with a weak smile. She still didn’t know how to deal with Selena’s ditz persona.

“Anyway, I’m not comfortable leaving our camp without leadership. Ada, lead Ms. Lewis back to camp,” Aaron ordered.

Ada looked at Karolina, and after she nodded, set off to grab Jasmine. It was a little inconvenient that Ada was the only person who knew the route well enough, but other people would hopefully learn it soon enough.

“Let’s head in. Natalia, I’ll need your help here,” Aaron said. Natalia nodded, and then they were off.

When they got to the gate, it was closed. Karolina knocked on the gate loudly, making a loud crashing sound. After a few knocks, someone poked their head above the gate.

“Natalia? You’re still alive?” the dark-haired man asked.

“Yes, but Weber isn’t. Don’t worry, my friends are just here to establish diplomatic relations with our camp. Weber attacked them and tried to kill me, though, so they had to defend themselves,” Natalia said. Karolina thought that was a lot to admit to when they were first opening a dialogue.

The man didn’t seem to have heard anything past the first sentence, though. “Weber is dead?” he asked.

“Yes, he’s dead, Will,” Natalia confirmed.

“I didn’t want to—I mean, working with him was the best option. You get where I’m coming from, right?” Will asked. He looked very nervous.

“Let us in, Will,” Natalia said. She didn’t look sympathetic at all.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Okay. Okay. Just give me a second,” he replied, then disappeared below the wall. It took more than a second, but eventually the gate was pulled open.

“How do you know him?” Karolina asked.

“He’s the gate guard, but more importantly, he told George I was escaping the day we met,” Natalia said.

“Ah,” Karolina said. She gave the man an unfriendly stare as they walked past him into the camp.

They continued walking through the camp, passing more people than she had expected. Most people seemed to be hiding inside of cabins, but a few people were out and about. Everyone stared at them as they walked towards the center of camp.

They finally encountered the resistance she had expected when they reached the center of camp. A group of fourteen people, most of whom Karolina recognized from this morning, were ready and waiting for them. They all looked ready for a fight: warriors had drawn their swords, magicians had mana bolts ready to go, and archers had arrows in their bows.

Before Karolina had the chance, Selena stepped forward, smiling widely.

“Please, let’s all put the weapons down. Nobody here wants to fight,” she said, still smiling widely. The group shifted awkwardly, obviously not excited to attack a healer.

“Where’s Weber?” a warrior asked as she stepped out of the group.

“He… had an unfortunate accident,” Selena said sadly. “But don’t worry, no one else is going to get hurt today. We come in peace.”

“Peace? Give me a break. The first thing you did when you got here was try to imprison our leader,” the woman replied, staring accusingly at Karolina.

“Come on. Weber killed people. No decent person would let him stay in charge,” Selena said, looking each person in the eyes. A few of them shifted, looking guilty, but the warrior remained unmoved.

“I didn’t agree with all of his decisions, but he helped keep everyone safe. He didn’t deserve to be attacked for that,” she replied.

“Let’s not start talking about what people deserve. I mean, none of us deserve to be stuck here in a forest full of monsters, do we?” Selena asked rhetorically.

Karolina watched the crowd, and they all seemed to be listening intently to Selena. A few of them were even lowering their weapons.

“Let’s start over. My name’s Selena. What’s yours?” Selena asked, still calm and friendly.

“My name’s Olivia,” the woman replied. She seemed off-balance by how politely Selena was responding to her group’s aggression.

“It’s nice to meet you, Olivia. I look forward to getting to know all of you, soon enough. Listen, this situation we’re in is terrible, but Weber made it worse. I know he made it seem like he was protecting you, but all he was really doing was securing his own power,” Selena said.

“That’s not true! He—” Olivia started.

“He killed people from your camp, and then rejected an alliance with our camp because he refused to give up control. Even though working with us is the best path forward, he rejected it because he cared more about himself than your camp,” Selena said. She had fully shed the ditzy act.

The group behind Olivia had fully disarmed by this point. The situation was still tense, but it no longer felt like a fight could break out at any moment.

“What do you people even want? We were surviving well enough on our own before you showed up,” Olivia said.

“All we want is for everyone in this tutorial to work together. We’ve had enough of everyone hiding away in separate camps, desperately hoping to survive the tutorial. If we all work together, we won’t need to hide away anymore,” Selena said.

“All I want is to keep the people in our camp safe,” Olivia said.

“Look, everyone will be safer if we all work together. If nothing else, our camp has learned a lot about this new world that we’d love to share with you. Knowledge is power, right? All you have to do is not attack the people who are trying to help you,” Selena said.

“I… okay. Welcome to our camp, I guess,” Olivia said.

“Are you all fine with this as well?” Selena asked, addressing the rest of the group. “I know that all of you are important to this camp. I don’t want to ignore anyone’s concerns.”

After a few seconds where no one spoke up, Selena regained her beaming smile. “Wonderful. I’m so glad that you’re all on board with working together. Could you gather everyone in your camp here, so Aaron can explain the situation to them? Aaron here is the leader of our camp.”

After standing around for a second, the group of Weber loyalists scattered throughout the camp, presumably to gather everyone together. While they were waiting for more people to arrive Karolina walked over to Aaron.

“Why’s Selena the one talking people down?” she asked, curious. As far as she knew, Aaron still didn’t know Selena’s true character, so he should be pretty confused right now.

“I have no idea, I was planning on doing that. She does seem to have a real knack for it, surprisingly. Maybe we’ve all been underestimating her,” Aaron said.

“Maybe,” Karolina replied. She hurried over to Selena and grabbed her by the arm. “We need to talk,” she said, before taking her to a nearby empty cabin.

“So, what do you need to talk about, bestie?” Selena asked.

“What’s your plan here? Are you just completely dropping the act?” she asked.

“Well, more like transitioning to a new one. The people here have never met me before, so this is a great opportunity for reinvention. My new face will be much closer to my true one, though. I’ve been getting really tired of playing the idiot,” Selena said.

“Why make a new act at all?” Karolina asked.

Selena looked at her like she was an idiot. “Well, when you killed Weber, nice job by the way, you created something called a power vacuum. That means—”

“I know what a power vacuum is,” Karolina said, annoyed. “But how do you expect to take over? You aren’t even originally from here.”

“They’ll forget that soon enough. Especially if I put in enough face time with enough of Weber’s old cronies. They’re already accustomed to being dominated by a stronger personality; all I need to do is be that personality,” Selena said.

“And why would I let you do this? I know I said I wanted to move on, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to let you do whatever you want. I already prevented you from taking over one camp, and I’m sure I could do it again,” Karolina said.

Selena’s soul flared so brightly with anger that Karolina backed up a step. She’d forgotten what a hair-trigger the other woman’s temper was on. The healer paced around the room, taking deep breaths. After a minute or so, she had finally calmed down enough to speak.

“You’re going to ‘let me do this’ because it’s in everyone’s best interests. I mean, who would you prefer to be in charge of this camp: me, or one of Weber’s cronies? Look, you have a skill that can check if I’m telling the truth, right? Use it right now,” Selena said, then looked expectantly at Karolina.

Karolina stared into space for a moment, pretending to activate a skill, then nodded at Selena. She wasn’t going to tell Selena that said skill was always active, and she definitely didn’t trust Selena enough to tell her that the skill involved seeing souls.

Selena took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ve learned from my mistakes with you, and I don’t plan to repeat them. I know you were worried that I’d abuse my power, or try to force people to do stuff for me, but that carries an unacceptable risk of creating enemies. I’m not an idiot, and I truly want to run the camp well. Wanting power isn’t wrong, especially if you want to use it to make people’s lives better.”

Karolina watched her carefully during her whole explanation, and as far as she could tell Selena was telling the truth. That still didn’t mean the other woman could be trusted, though. “Look, as far as I can tell you’re telling the truth. That still doesn’t mean I can trust you with this, though. You’re a clever person. I’m sure you could fool me by just using technical truths.”

“You can be infuriating sometimes, you know? You’re right, I could be trying to trick you. I guess you’ll just have to take a leap of faith. I truly think we’ll work well together, but we can’t if you won’t trust me at all. So what are you going to do?” Selena asked challengingly.

Karolina considered the other woman for a moment. For all that the other woman kept calling her friend, she still didn’t really see the other woman that way. A relationship that started with extortion didn’t transition that quickly into friendship. Still, she felt that she had gotten a good enough handle on the other woman to make this decision.

Selena was an ambitious and ruthless woman, willing to do whatever it took to accomplish her goals. Karolina still didn’t know why being in charge was so important for the other woman, but it clearly was. The question that Karolina really had to ask herself was whether or not she could work with the other woman.

Karolina didn’t know if she could trust the woman, but she did trust her soulsight. As long as she kept a close eye on the other woman, she shouldn’t be able to slip anything past her. There were also lots of potential benefits to having an ally in charge of Weber’s camp, and she really believed that Selena could be a good ally.

“I’m going to take the leap of faith,” Karolina said. Selena let out a breath, obviously happy. “So, how can I help?”

“Excuse me?” Selena asked, but Karolina could see that the woman already understood.

“You’re right that I’m either going to have to trust you at some point or neutralize you as a threat. I’m choosing to try to trust you, so I might as well go all in. We both agree that beating the tutorial is our best way forward right now, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Selena said.

“So, I’ll help you take charge of this camp if you make sure that your primary focus is completing the tutorial. Too many people have died already. We all need to work together to conquer the forest and stay alive,” Karolina said.

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s clear this whole forest,” Selena said, smiling.

“Also, I wanted to make it clear that I’m not working for you. We’re working together to get through this tutorial,” Karolina said.

“Of course,” Selena quickly agreed. “You’re not my minion, as you put it earlier.”

Karolina remembered saying the same thing to Buckley, when the tutorial was just starting out. He hadn’t kept his promise, ordering her around the very next day, and she had just gone along with it.

If Selena broke her word, she wouldn’t just accept it. She had been through too much in this tutorial to meekly accept when she was treated badly. She got the feeling that Selena wasn’t stupid enough to treat her like Buckley did, though.

“So, what’s the first step?” Karolina asked. She wondered if she was making a deal with a devil. She believed that she had just made the right decision, but only time would tell.