Wren, Axel, and I formed a healing train. Whilst Axel hadn’t fallen into critical health, he was still quite low. He had numerous open wounds from the glaive, none of which seemed life threatening, but if left untreated could prove to be fatal. The scratches I’d taken from my assist were minor, but the extent of the burn had taken me by surprise even though it shouldn’t have.

It stretched from just below my right armpit to my bottom rib. The burn was angry and red, with whitened blisters and crusted darker brown areas seared deeper into my flesh. I couldn’t look at it without a profound sense of nausea filling me. That this damage was on my body and I couldn’t feel it disturbed me. Mostly it just felt tight. Even as Wren’s small hands, enmeshed in the glow of [Healing Hand], laid against my skin, I felt nothing.

I focused on the slash across Axel’s chest, borrowing Wren’s ability. It was probably the best one I’d used from my entire party. The skill gave off a pleasant airiness that bubbled through my veins. When it met the injury it was meant to heal, the bubbling would simmer into a cold boil. It reminded me of liquid oxygen.

“Thanks,” Axel said as I began healing him.

I wasn’t fully sure how to talk to him, considering how he’d just killed a person. And I’d helped him do it. As a matter of fact, I’d been the lynchpin that had assisted in the murder of three people.

“Yeah,” I replied.

That I’d not yet had one of my attacks was honestly shocking. For a variety of reasons. But I guess what tended to trigger them was thoughts of death, for myself and the people I loved. Of not being able to do anything to stop it. Rather than letting my mind consider that, I’d simply dived into combat. Maybe that was another strategy I could employ if I ever felt them creep back. Because you didn’t just cold turkey stop anxiety attacks. I’d learned that the hard way.

But now my worries rested on the consequences of our actions. Wren’s hands trembled as she healed the scratches along my arm. Without talking, the four standing adults in our party had relocated the camp away from the area we’d battled in. She’d calmed down once the bodies were out of sight.

What else could we even do? She was a child, yes, but she was also a valued member of our crew. We couldn’t shield her forever. Even if I wanted to protect her. She had to do her part. With her larger mana pool, and unique abilities, she’d have to take the brunt of the healing since I could only do so much.

Unsurprisingly, Tam came back without so much as a hair misplaced. With her, she’d brought the corpse of the archer and had remarked: “Look what the cat dragged in.” At any other time that quip might’ve been funny. Unfortunately, it did nothing to raise the mood of those with compromised morals.

I must’ve been lost in my thoughts because Axel settled a hand on top of my own, his head tilted. “You good?”

Was I good with having killed three people?

No.

I felt guilty that I didn’t feel guilty.

The three ambushers had been intent on taking us out. They hadn’t tried to talk to us. We’d given them the chance to surrender. Test Name had no issue with killing us. We had defended ourselves.

I felt sick at the senseless loss of life, at having caused it, but I didn’t feel guilty about it. Though I probably should’ve. These people were human. They all had loved ones, someone to return to, someone they were fighting for. But it was kill or be killed. I had prepared myself for this eventuality since the moment the Gates appeared.

We’d killed, but we had been forced to in order to survive.

The disgust and sickness inside me condensed into hate. Prior to this I’d been annoyed and alarmed and concerned and aghast by everything happening. I’d said that I’d only started choosing again when the Gates appeared, and that was true. I was thankful for that.

But being forced to kill someone or die wasn’t a choice.

There was no choice.

Whoever or whatever was playing with us, putting us through all of this, had pressed this fate on us. And the weight of those lives would sit on our shoulders for the rest of ours. I was sorry that they’d come across us, that we hadn’t been able to talk it out. That it had come down to what had happened. That we were all stuck in this same crazy fucking situation and just trying to come out on top.

Axel’s hand tightened around mine. It was strangely reassuring. Grounding.

He said, “You’re alive because of it. I’m alive. All of us.”

“Not all of us.” Unable to stop myself, I glanced in the direction of the three bodies we’d grouped together. We still weren’t sure what to do with them. “But you’re right.”

“Always am.” The blond smiled, though there was no joy behind it.

I attempted to return the expression, but I knew it probably closer resembled a grimace.

“You’re done, Lee,” Wren said. A yawn promptly followed her words.

Checking my status, I found it was the truth; I was back up at full health. The skin under my arm had returned to a healthier pink, but was clearly discoloured. I guess the level of awful I was feeling was all mental and emotional. Despite logically knowing we’d had no choice, it didn’t stop me from wondering if there was anything different we could’ve done. Any other path we could’ve taken.

“Thanks, kid.” With the hand that wasn’t currently in use, I dug into my pants pocket and retrieved the Warhead Axel had given me just a week ago. “Here. I’ve been saving this.”

She smiled and took it but paused. Her head tilted. “Are you sure you don’t need this still?”

It was a good question. The sour lollies were the quickest ways to stop my panic attacks. They always had been. Until the attacks had eventually faded away over time, I’d carried at least one on my person at all times.

I shook my head and curled her fingers over it.

“Don’t worry about that.”

Immediately, she ripped open the small packet and popped it into her mouth. I didn’t even get to see the colour at the speed at which she ate it. Her lips puckered and she clenched her eyes closed in reaction to the quick burst of stringent sweetness. When she opened them again, they were watering.

“S’good,” she said, voice strained. She yawned again, revealing that her mouth was starting to green. “I think I need to have a nap.”

With that, she pushed herself up and wandered over to our haphazardly packed bedrolls. We’d moved everything in a flurry of panic, just eager to get Wren and our items far away from where we’d committed three counts of murder. She unrolled one of the sleeping bags, and collapsed onto it, her face still scrunched up from the sour lolly.

Axel chuckled and I realised I was grinning too. His hand had remained overlapping mine. A moment later, the dull throb of an almost empty mana pool alerted me to the fading power of my [Healing Hand]. I was nearly at my limit, so I deactivated the ability.

Seeing the glow disappear, Axel withdrew his hold.

“Let’s see how you’re doing.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me,” he replied, turning his head away and closing his eyes.

Just as he was a bit of a germaphobe, he also somehow managed to be the more squeamish out of our party.

I pulled back to check his chest wound. It was ugly and raised, but it’d scarred over. I worried it would never return back to its original unmarred form. And Axel was a vain creature. A permanent disfigurement could very well be another reason to send him over the deep end.

Though this wasn’t the first time he’d been hurt so seriously. Had the wooden stake injury healed properly?

His shirt was already quite tattered and the majority of his torso was visible. But the area he’d been stabbed in was still covered. Curious, I peeled back the ragged edge of his shirt to compare the two wounds. Beneath was unblemished skin. Unable to believe what I was seeing, I tested it, running the tips of my fingers over the expanse of muscle, feeling for any damage.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

There was nothing, though the muscles under my ministrations tensed for some reason. The last time I’d checked, the wound at my collarbone had left a faint scar, like a ghostly whisper of my near-death-experience. But for Axel, it was like he’d never been hurt in the first place.

His stats really must’ve been OP.

“I don’t even have to say anything,” Tam said, having appeared, her arms crossed.

Frowning in confusion, I looked to Axel for clarification. His cheeks were slightly red and he was not meeting my gaze. Ohhh. I removed my hands from his body, recalling just how much Axel wasn’t a fan of others touching him unless he instigated it. Now unsure where to put them, I dropped my hands into my lap, letting them sit there uselessly. For once I'd done something worth the unspoken anger the heat in his face indicated.

Feeling defensive, I explained, “I was checking his old wound. You know, the one we got fighting you.”

“Riiight.” She took a breath. “I guess my query is strangely relevant then. I wanted to ask what’s the go on the stiffs.”

Ignoring the innuendo, I said, “You can’t call them that.”

Tam rolled her eyes. “Cadavers, carcasses, carrion, corpses. Call ‘em what you want, we gotta deal with them.”

In her shadow walked Jye. “I don’t exactly like it, but the cat’s got a point. Even if we’re not sticking around, there’s only a day or two before the bodies’ll start to smell. Like smell bad, that is. The smell of dead things.”

“Why do you know that?” I asked.

Jye shrugged, their large traps bunching up and then loosening. “Yeah, so hardcore survival family camping was not just camping. We also hunted. Feral hogs and stuff like that. One time, we accidentally left a straggler in the back of the spare ute. Forgot about it for just one day. When we got back, the stench was absolutely rancid. Wished I didn’t have a nose.”

I thought about the carvings we’d done on the crystalline floors the day before. There was no way we’d be able to dig deep enough into them to bury the corpses. But we couldn’t just leave them unceremoniously there. We were murderers, not savages. I tested the ground beneath my feet since we were currently in the shrine biome. It was no prospect either, the dirt so hard-packed that we’d struggle to even get an inch deep.

“Cremation?” I suggested.

“You wanna light dead bodies on fire?” Tam said with the kind of tone that added “you sick fuck” at the end of her words.

“Want is a strong word.”

Axel shook his head. “We can’t cremate them. The amount of fuel needed for a fire to completely burn three adult bodies to ash is not something we just have on hand.”

“Why do you know that?” I asked.

“I read.”

“Read what?”

“As cute as this is, it doesn’t solve our problem,” Tam said, interrupting Axel and me.

Jye, ever the concerning one, began their suggestion. “I’m going to throw something out there. You can’t judge me for this. But what about, as a warning sign, we hang their bod–”

In the corner of my eye, I noticed Gigi, absent xir unique coat, dragging something along the ground towards us. I’d been wondering where xe was.

“What do you have there?”

The rest of the party swung around at my question, turning to look in the direction I was frowning.

Xe’d stripped off xir coat and had used it to bundle up something and, unable to pick it all up, had resorted to letting it trail on the floor behind xem. Gigi said nothing, but when xe reached us, xe spread the coat open to reveal what was inside.

It looked like gear, supplies, and weapons.

Immediately I recognised one item, its blade tipped with Axel’s dried blood, and the realisation of what Gigi had done had hit me.

“You looted their bodies?!”

The small stranger nodded xir head enthusiastically. “Yes. They had a lot of food.”

In a game, it was an obvious thing to do. You keep what you kill. Very Furian. I knew it didn’t make sense, but taking their stuff felt worse than killing them. Like desecrating corpses. It was on par with grave robbery or tomb raiding.

Gigi considered me for a moment. “Should I not have done this?”

One of Axel’s hands found itself on my shoulder. “Hey, come on. It’s not like they’re going to need any of it anymore.”

I sighed and rubbed at my face, stretching taunt my cheeks.

“No, Gigi. I guess this is just something we do now.”

Xe gave me a large thumbs up and began divvying up the goods between the rest of us. Jye ended up taking the archer’s bow and quiver. Whatever food was equally shared, and spare clothes went to whoever they’d likely fit. Luckily, the archer had a smaller figure; the one I’d worried was a child. It was almost as bad, but they’d seemed to be a man in their later years, shrunken from age. Much of their clothing had been shared between Gigi and the pile we’d put aside for Wren.

At the end of the loot division, the only thing left was the glaive.

“If no one else is gonna take this…” I said, picking it up. I was the only one who used anything like it.

The polearm was heavy and cool in my hands, but knowing it’d been held only moments before by a dead person made me feel some sort of way. I immediately stored it in my system inventory, followed by the food I’d received. Jye and Tam looked on in shock. Looks like Mumma hadn’t been feeding Tam everything after all.

“Oh, right. I was going to tell you about this and then… Well, and then we killed three people, so forgive me my lapse of memory.”

I went over adding non-Dungeon items into our inventories and watched as the rest of the party followed suit. We discussed whether or not we should add our backpacks to the inventory, and eventually agreed not to since it was possible we might be cut off from them and lose access. In our bags we kept emergency rations and immediately necessary items.

Even though we’d all separately added quite a lot to our inventories, it looked as though they weren’t going to fill up any time soon. In fact, it didn’t seem they had a limit on storage.

An idea occurred to me.

It was a bad one.

I shared it with the others.

They all gave me a look worse than the one Jye’d started receiving before Gigi’s appearance.

“You want to what?” Axel queried, eyes wide.

“I knew it. I knew it! You’re a whole nother level of messed up, sunshine.”

Jye nodded in acceptance. “I think it’s smart.”

Having the redhead of all people say that didn’t fill me with much reassurance, but I didn’t let that show on my face.

“I will do it,” Gigi said.

Gently rebuffing him, I replied, “It might be better to share this burden, but thanks for offering to shoulder it all.”

I addressed the others. “So Gigi volunteered, and it was my idea, so I’m involved.” I held out my hands, palms up, as if waiting for someone to place an object within them. “Hands up who else wants a body in their inventory.”

Eventually, I needled Axel into accepting the position. In hindsight, I’d probably guilted him into it. Still, I found myself thinking this was the best option. Handling dead bodies wasn’t the most hygienic thing, but if we cleared the Dungeon and brought them back to the real world perhaps we could hold a real funeral for them. Or hand them back to people who loved them. We’d deal with the slings and arrows of retribution then too, if that happened.

The idea of being able to put them to rest gave me the strength to commit to this plan, despite how my body was reacting. My skin felt clammy and my stomach churned.

With solemn expressions, the three of us, Axel, Gigi and I, walked quietly to the location where we’d gathered all three corpses. Thankfully, Gigi had the decency to leave them the clothes on their backs. From a distance, they looked like they were simply sleeping.

I forced myself to look as I crouched next to the spellcaster.

We’d laid the three of them out on their backs, in a neat row. They stared emptily up into the air. Unable to take the weight of their dead gaze, I closed the magic user’s eyes. Other than moving them, this hadn’t been the first time I’d touched a dead body. I’d kissed Chrissie on the cheek in the funeral home all those years ago. Much like hers, their face was cold.

The spellcaster’s facial muscles were stiff and their skin tacky with blood. There was no life left here. I swallowed back the sick that wanted to rush up my throat and took a deep breath. That had been the wrong move. The irony scent of blood filled my nostrils and made the nausea in my stomach clench harder.

Pushing all this down, I imagined the same thing I normally did when adding something to the inventory. The system reacted as expected. One moment the husk of the person I'd helped kill was there, the next I saw its icon in my window.

I exhaled and nodded to the others.

Grimly, they began the same process.

Once all bodies had been stored, we returned to the others. Both of them were watching over Wren. If I didn’t know better, I might’ve thought the expression on Tam's face depicted affection. As soon as she noticed us, her smile flipped into a frown. That was more like the Tam I’d begun to know.

I let out a short sigh. “Once everyone’s at full mana and stamina, we need to move on. We can’t risk something like this happening again.”

“I’m almost back to full,” Jye said.

Axel, Tam, and Gigi shared their statuses; a mix of half restored and half not. Both my metres were quite low.

I looked down at the sleeping form of Wren and my determination wavered. Some green drool was leaking out of her snoring mouth.

She really was being a trooper. And maybe we were asking too much of a ten-year-old girl. However, it was better for her to be with us than not be with us right now. Perhaps once we got out of here, I’d try to get answers about her family and we’d reunite them. Actually, yeah. I’d make it a priority.

For now, though, we could indulge in letting her nap a little more.