Solera didn’t know when he had blacked out, but when he awoke, it was to the prodding of two Tornado sect channelers.
“Hey, man, you okay?” One of them, a sandy-haired boy not much older than him, extended his waterskin out to Solera.
Huh. So they didn’t know what he had just done.
“He looks like he got fucked too hard.” The girl next to him remarked as she looked Solera up and down. “Sorry about those acid burns. It wasn’t, uh, on purpose. Unless Jakovich or one of his friends is still pissed at you for the other day, haha.”
Solera immediately grabbed the waterskin and began chugging it all down. His heart, previously completely still, instantly began thumping heavily. He could feel the sweat on his hands. Did she suspect something? If she took that line of thought any further, then he was finished!
“Yo, bro.” The boy said as he looked at Solera. “Chill. Your friends are fine and so are you. Let’s get you back to the others.”
Solera was hoisted up onto his feet. As they supported his walk up the mountain trail, he looked over the side of the mountain. His mind was racing wildly, thinking about Jakovich.
Jakovich. A young man under twenty, younger than any other soldier Solera had killed. He had friends and a family who would mourn his death. He had emotions and feelings and motivations, just like everyone else. Like the others who had died. Pinot, Fischer, Guinness…
Names. Jakovich had a name. A name which all these people knew, and remembered him by. Solera would never know, nor remember the enemies he had slain because he had never known their names. The Airborne who had killed Pinot and come so close to killing him, the man who had tried to snap his neck at the attack on the Genbu. But he remembered Pinot and Fischer and Guinness and everyone else. Because they were on his side. Because he knew their names.
And just as he remembered Guinness’s name, these people would remember Jakovich! They would remember that he was a young man under twenty, just as Solera remembered Guinness was ten years old. They would remember him! Even if they didn’t know at this moment that Solera had killed Jakovich, they would remember him! They would go back and find Jakovich’s body, his eyeballs gouged into bloody detritus, his head scratched by Solera’s nails. Solera had destroyed Jakovich’s face to make it appear as if he had been crushed by a rock, yet even as he thought about it he realized what a lame attempt it had been. Even Guinness would be able to see through it! The scratch marks, the eyeballs, they couldn’t have been done by hyenas or rocks! They would know it was him who did it!
Solera’s eyes darted around. Maybe he would have to kill these two as well. Make a run for it. There simply was no way he could get away with this. To the other Tornado sect channelers, Solera had not slayed an enemy, nor protected himself in self-defense. To them, he had brutally murdered one of their own! Even if, to Solera, Jakovich had been a scumbag who had tried to rape a defenseless girl, they would probably think about Jakovich like Solera thought about Fischer: someone who was on their side, who was a friend of their friends! At the end of the day, he was a Tornado sect channeler, and at the end of the day he had been killed by a prisoner!
“Fuck bandits, man.” Seeing Solera look down the mountainside at all the rubble created by the avalanche, the boy glanced over as well. “Flunkies from school and criminals from outside, that’s all they are.”
Solera blinked in surprise. He silently began to steer them away from the mountainside. If they saw Jakovich’s body somewhere in the rubble, then who knows what might happen. He would assess the situation first, before deciding to run. Maybe the majority of the channelers had died. No, but this time was the best time to kill them. If he had to flee, then-
“They usually don’t touch the military, though. These guys had balls.” The boy continued speaking, completely unaware of Solera’s internal chaos. “I guess we’ll be sweeping them out when the Boss reports this to the brass.”
Before Solera could decide any further, a large cluster of people came into view. The prisoners and their guards. The wounded lay on the side of the road, with channelers next to them treating their wounds. When Solera looked at the injured, he saw that nearly all of them were in blue robes. His eyelids narrowed. Yes, these people really didn’t give a fuck about the prisoners! They had used them as human shields in the fight! If they found out Solera killed Jakovich, then it didn’t matter what rationale Solera had. He would die.
“It’s been half an hour since Boss and the crew appeared on the summit. They should be back by now.” The girl commented as she let go of Solera. “Let’s go check up on Otzvy.”
Solera ground his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t escape any more. There were too many eyes who would see him fleeing! He should have killed the two while he still had a chance. No, he should have never blacked out in the first place.
“Solera!” Lem shouted from somewhere. Just a few meters away, sitting next to some prisoner girl. “You’re alive, thank kismet. Are you all right? Those wounds don’t look too great, but I really can’t tell. Pers-”
“Yes.” Solera muttered as he sat down. Even though he hurt all over, the injuries really weren’t anything new. The power crystal would fix it, just like it had the last five times he had been “heavily” injured. Indeed, his wounds had already stopped bleeding. That wasn’t the problem, though. He was all right physically, but he really wasn’t all right at all.
“This is the guy I’m telling you about! Solera is really strong!” A grin appeared on Lem’s face as he heard Solera’s response. “He killed the hyena biting me, just like that!” Lem mimicked Solera’s crushing motion as he spoke. “Solera, you’re really powerful! Are you from some noble family? I wouldn’t know how else you could have such a cultivation!”
Lem was talking out of his ass again. Solera, powerful? If he was powerful, then he wouldn’t be worrying about his impending death right now! If he was powerful, then Guinness wouldn’t have died! If he was powerful, then his father would not be terminally ill because he would have been able to cross over enemy lines months ago and returned to the Grove!
“I’m not that strong. I’m not from a noble family, either.” Solera snapped. Fuck Lem so much. Naive, horny kid.
“Not strong? Of course you’re strong! How are you not strong?” Lem’s eyebrows raised up, as if he was amazed by the very thought.
“Just stop.” Solera cradled his forehead bitterly. “I’m not powerful at all. Not now, not ever. I can’t save anyone. Not my friends, not my family. Not even me.”
Jakovich’s face appeared again in Solera’s mind, causing him to gnash his teeth. When they found the body, when they realized it was him, there was nothing, absolutely nothing he would be able to do! No matter how badly he wanted to flee from these guards, he couldn’t escape from them now. If they wanted Solera dead, then he could only roll over and die. Him, powerful. It would be funny if he wasn’t screwed.
“Uh…” Lem blinked confusedly. “You saved me. Am I nothing?”
Solera glared at Lem. “Yeah, I killed a couple hyenas. What does that even mean? I can’t beat a battalion of channelers! I... I can’t kill the immortals who forced us to surrender!”
“Well, no.” The girl next to Lem said. “But that’s a pretty high bar to set.”
“Yeah.” Lem folded his arms. “Who cares if you can’t kill an immortal? They’re immortals! It’s not like it’s up to you to do that. That’s not your job, that’s somebody else’s job. And they failed, not you. Solera, with your bare hands,” Lem lifted up both hands, “you killed monsters that could have killed me easily! Tell me that’s not powerful. That’s pretty powerful.”
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“I bet you’re strong enough to beat any one of the guards in a one-on-one.” The girl scrunched up her face as she smiled at Solera.
Solera looked away. “Just stop.”
“You don’t have to kill immortals to be strong.” Lem said. “Just focus on what’s in front of you. Right now, you’re a kid who can fight off monsters. And since it’s monsters we’re fighting, not immortals, then that’s all that matters, right?”
Lem would be so right, if it wasn’t for the fact that-
CLANG!
The clatter of metal hitting the floor interrupted Solera as he gathered his thoughts. He twisted his neck around to find that it was Rasmurnov, his helmet sandwiched between his arm and torso. Behind him stood four channelers, their robes dusty and dirty.
“Save your power.” He drawled as he looked at the channelers who were healing the wounded prisoners. “We might need it for our own.”
The things he had thrown on the ground were black masks. Five of them. So they had killed the summoners. So the next thing they would do is make sure everyone was accounted for. And when-
“What happened, Boss? You guys didn’t get all of them?” One of the channelers called out from amidst the crowd.
Wait, what?
“All of them?” Rasmurnov snorted. “Five people cannot dominate several hundred hyenas. Not everyone is the Lynx. There are many other summoners in the area. The nearby villages may be in danger.”
Solera’s eyes widened. More summoners in the area? Did that mean some of them had fled? Or that they couldn’t do a full check, for fear of getting ambushed? Maybe if so, he could get away with it!
“Everyone knows what to do, then.” Rasmurnov’s eyes swept the crowd. “Before we go, who is unaccounted for? Ponsa?”
Solera’s heart sank. So they would be checking after all. Maybe they wouldn’t go hunting for the body, then. A woman was clearing her throat now. Maybe she would count wrong.
“Uh… let me check.” The woman smiled weakly before calling out the names of the channelers, while another channeler counted the prisoners. Ah, so prisoners were counted while channelers were named. So no luck there. Maybe he could say something when she called for Jakovich. No, he would never get away with it. He still had friends. Doing so would only bring huge suspicion onto himself.
“Jakovich?” The woman called out. A still, deathly silence fell down upon the group. Solera looked at the ground emptily. He still had hope. They could still just not look for the body, right?
Several minutes later, Rasmurnov’s face was dark. Solera sighed to himself. He really was just deluding himself. What kind of military leader wouldn’t look for the bodies? Once they found them, it was only a matter of figuring out who did it. Maybe a fleeing summoner did it. Maybe if Solera cleaned the gore out of his fingernails, they wouldn’t know it was him. Yes, he could do that. Solera began to scrape the insides of his fingernails out. Little, black specks of what he could only describe as dried blood and detritus started falling on the floor. He would have to get rid of that, too.
“Thirty prisoners and two guards. Hmph.” Rasmurnov turned and began walking back up the mountain trail. “Let us leave. There is no time to lose.”
Solera stared at Rasmurnov’s back. No… no way! They actually weren’t going to look for Jakovich’s body? Could some villages that might or might not already be smoking piles of ash actually be important enough to not warrant a more thorough checkup on the personnel?
He almost couldn’t believe his eyes. What he had been telling himself before, was just half-hearted attempts to convince himself that he was not going to die! He had been resigned to, if not his death, then at least a lengthy process of denying his way out of death. Yet Rasmurnov was walking away, just like that!
“What the…” The girl looked annoyed. As she struggled to stand up, Solera realized her leg was injured. “If he rushes us, please don’t leave me behind.”
“Aw, that’ll never happen!” Lem laughed as he helped her up. “Solera, help me. I’m not strong like you are.”
Solera’s channels were screaming with the pain of overpowering, but it didn’t inhibit him from walking. As Solera put her arm around the girl’s arm around his neck, she said her name was Camela, but he wasn’t really listening.
They were leaving! They really were leaving! It seemed like Rasmurnov felt the urgent need to pay the local villages, wherever they were, a visit. Ha ha ha ha, YES! A crushing weight on his heart he didn’t even know had existed disappeared. Disappeared!
Wait. Jakovich’s friends… Solera looked around for them as Camela and Lem made conversation. Jakovich’s friends were in the back, pained looks on their faces. But they weren’t looking for Jakovich.
Heh. Heh heh haha HAHA HA! Solera was laughing with pure joy inside his mind, but on the outside, only the corners of his lips lifted up slightly. He was safe. He really was safe. He let out a long sigh of relief.
“Hey, Solera, what are you huffing for?” Camela looked at him, her large eyes filled with curiosity. She was a pretty girl, with wavy brown hair that, as someone, Solera could not remember exactly who, once said, really needed to be cut. Judging from her light skin, she had probably done very little physical training outside and was probably not a cultivator.
Solera looked away, his smirk turning into a smile. “Nothing, nothing!” She had actually noticed his sigh. Well, he definitely wasn’t going to tell her why.
The more Solera thought about how he wasn’t going to die, the more his smile widened. Then, he blinked.
“Oh, Lem, how’s your arm?” Solera asked, his smile by this time a huge grin. “I can channel healforce. Not a lot of it, but some.” He had a little bit to spare by this time, especially if Lem was seriously wounded.
“What, you could?” Lem gaped at him. “And you’re saying you’re not powerful! What the heck!” He immediately extended out his arm to Solera.
“Hey, what about my leg?” Camela complained, looking at Solera with her doe eyes. Solera stared at her for a moment. She seemed to like him. Well, she didn’t look too bad. Maybe when they reached the prisoner camp or whatever, he could relax a little bit. Actually, that Letvia from the other day wasn’t bad either. No, no girl was bad at all. Chianti was the best, obviously, but really, no girl was bad at all, and he needed to take what he could get in case another stupid situation like today popped up again.
“Mhm, mhm.” Smiling, Solera reached over with his left arm to grab Lem’s, and gripped Camela’s right arm with his right.