“We have reason to believe your village is being targeted by the monsters,” Zerith said.

The two civilians froze in shock for a moment, then Zaaka regained his composure and said, leaning forward aggressively, “Ridiculous, why would they target us?”

“I’m just the messenger,” Zerith said. “But to my understanding, it is related to your geography, or even food.”

“Food? We don’t have food, here!”

Zerith smirked. [Is this guy that clueless?] “No need to play dumb, geezer. You know exactly what I mean by food.”

Zaaka stumbled back a step with a conflicted expression. [He means...they’ll kill us for game...] “B-but we-”

“I think I’ve made my point clear,” Zerith said, losing his composed posture for a smugly causal lean to the side. “You can-”

“No, I will not play your games!” Zaaka suddenly roared, stepping into Zerith’s face furiously. The Hero’s expression didn’t even flinch. “We will simply move!”

The man beside him gaped at his leader with disbelief. “Sir, we can’t...”

“Steph,” Zaaka pleaded, looking back at him. “We can’t give in so easily! We can’t let him trick us like this.” [If we give in to their demands, they’ll just keep pushing us...]

I looked at him, confused and vaguely disgusted. This guy’s thought process was messed up in just one way; in the sheer hypocrisy. He hardly pushed back against our claims that monsters would attack, and now he was telling Steph to just abandon his home on the spot because he was being stubborn? Not to mention that ‘giving in’ bullshit. He was trying to make running away look heroic, and really failing.

“Now look at who’s ridiculous,” Zerith said with an amused scowl. “And here I thought your home was precious to you. All it is is spite.”

Zaaka growled at Zerith. “And just who do you think you are?! You know nothing about our history, or what is dear to us.”

He chuckled lowly. “Oh, yes, I don’t. But, evidently, I don’t need to if I want to scare you shitless. And, if you want to know who I am...You, Steph. Do you know what this badge is for?” Zerith asked, turning his attention to the other.

They squinted, hunching down to look closer to Zerith’s badge. “No, I don’t?” he said, confused at the digression.

“We use these to identify officials in The Hero’s nations. If you use the spell ‘Badgenment’ on me while I wear it, it will identify my name. How about you try it?” [This is going to be funny.]

Steph walked past his furious leader, then touched the badge. “Badgenment.” [What a neat trick. It says his name is...]

“So? Would you like to say my name?

Oh, this was going to be comedy gold.

“I’m not sure if this means anything to you,” Steph said, stepping back and locking eyes with Zaaka, “But it says his name is Zerith Matria.”

During the stunned silence that followed, Zerith slowly looked to Zaaka with a smug smile. “I don’t know, does that name mean anything to you?”

Zaaka’s breath caught in his throat as he stumbled back a step, his eyes and mouth open. “Y-you-you-Y-you’re t-the...why...” While he failed to utter any words, his mind was bursting into chaos. [Why is he here?! Just what is his plan? What in the purple’s name does this mean?]

Seeing that Steph seemed confounded by his leader’s reaction, Zerith cleared the air: “That means I’m The Hero.”

“The...The Hero?! Yo, I did not sign up for that when you walked in here!” Steph said.

“Yes,” Zerith said. “Sorry, I blatantly lied, but despite what the rumors say, I’m quite cautious.”

Suddenly, I noticed something change in the conditions outside. Three more flying individuals had entered my Recognition’s range and slowed as they approached the line of monsters.

“Zerith,” I said quickly. “More monsters are rallying.”

“How many?”

“Just three,” I said nervously. It wasn’t much, but it was worth reporting.

He angrily shook his head. “Damnit, they aren’t wasting time. We need to begin immediately, then.” [If we want anyone in this village to live, that is.] Zerith pointed to Steph. “You and her need to rally your people. The monsters are about to attack in full force, and if you don’t act quickly, this whole place is going to be nothing more than a burning pile of soot.”

The man clenched his teeth. “Do you think you can just order me around because you’re The damned Hero? This isn’t your vil-”

“Listen, bud,” Zerith interrupted, stumbling closer to Steph in a strangely disturbing slouch. “Do you want your friends and family to die? Do you want to see them eaten alive and tortured for information? Do you want to see what war is like? Because I’m going to guess you don’t. Every one of you will die if you can’t fight for the people you love.” Zerith suddenly shrugged and leaned back. “But please, do what you want. It really isn’t my problem if that happens.”

My heart pounded as he described it. It was difficult to imagine any of it, let alone to process that I was part of the people trying to stop it from happening.

Steph’s expression quickly changed to horror. [If I do nothing...he’s...right.] He quickly ran out, and I followed him. As I did, Zerith thought, [Leave this all to me, and do whatever it takes to win.]

I hovered over the path down as I took stock of my surroundings. Steph cast Leap and was using to to leap down the path, yelling as he approached a house. In total, there were at least thirty houses, each with only one or two people inside. It would take a while to wake everyone up one by one.

Suddenly, there was one less person I could recognize. I struggled to scan the area and see who had left, but I quickly noticed another mind leave the area. Then, as I paid attention to the outskirts, I felt a third disappear.

They hadn’t left the area, they disappeared. And those minds were the ones that had been moving. They were the humans. One by one, the few people on watch for monsters died.

My heart skipped a beat as I pieced it together. Shit.

The monsters began quickly closing in, the three newcomers standing behind the rest. The monsters would arrive at the village’s edge in just a moment.

A way to wake up everyone, or just get them all outside? I needed to do this quickly!

Steph said, “Louden,” then yelled loudly, “MONSTERS! MONSTERS ARE HERE, WAKE UP!”

He wasn’t going to wake up the entire village like that.

Something that would…

A...an earthquake!

I flew upward, then looked around the mountain for rock I could use. I quickly looked up and down it, searching, and found a cliff. Then, I tore it apart with all my might, creating a fissure that sent it crashing to the ground. I quickly launched it into the forest, toward the monsters.

Like thunder, the hundred-thousand crashed to the ground over a kilometer away at half the speed of sound. The impact rattled and echoed through and against the mountain’s surface, the sheer force of the sound and the cliffs’ weight making the nearby earth visibly shake.

I felt three entities disappear, dead, while two others below it seemed to move instantaneously out of the cliffs’ path. More importantly, the sound seemed to have caused the people in the village to start moving a few moments afterward.

I quickly crashed to the ground in the middle of the village, where the girl I had spoken to previously was looking in the crash’s direction with shock. Others were dashing out of their homes to see what had happened outside.

As they did, Steph continued to roar the alarm, running toward the center of the village, but too far for the people near me to fully hear.

“U-umm...” I began to say to the girl, who stumbled back as my landing sent dirt spraying away from my barrier. I shook my head. I needed to take command, to make sure everyone I could tell knew what I was trying to say...

I really wished I had learned how to amplify my voice...

“Everyone!” I yelled. Most of their gazes were already pointed at me since I had crashed to the ground at the speed of sound. “MONSTERS ARE COMING!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, not really sure how I was meant to approach the subject to a massive crowd of panicked people.

Pandemonium broke out.

So many spells were cast one after another that my ears felt assaulted.

“Cold Wave” “Leap” “Needle Defendant” “Magic Barrier” “Fague Bubble” and more spells blasted into my ears like on loudspeakers.

Then people began arguing. Some people were determined to stay, and others insisted that they run.

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Meanwhile, the monsters continued to approach.

I couldn’t make these people leave, short of throwing them aside with wind...

I shook my head. Whatever! I quickly expanded my psychic barrier to envelop the whole crowd, then stomped my foot, accompanying it with a small earthquake to get people’s attention. They seemed to notice me by the crater left behind by my foot. “Everybody, you need to either run or fight...” I said. After a moment’s hesitation, I said, “The Hero and I are here to protect your village, but...” What did he even want them to do? Evacuate or fight? “You all need to evacuate and protect yourselves, because a...force of three-hundred monsters are already coming this-”

“Like fuck I’m going to do that!” someone said. He stormed toward me. He was furious, and probably thirty years old. A sparkling blue aura emanated from him, falling to the ground like cold air. “This is our only home! We will not leave its protection to you! I believe you when you say there’s monsters in our village...” he said, moving closer and closer toward me.

I backed up, away from him. I couldn’t defend myself without my barrier around me, and right now...he was making me nervous. I didn’t pull it back yet, though.

“Look,” I said. “You can fight as well if you-”

Wait, why couldn’t I read his mind?

“Yes,” he suddenly said, his pace increasing, and the aura growing larger. He briefly looked behind himself, then back at me with a slightly...different scowl. “we will. Against you.”

My eyes widened in confusion as I tried to understand what he meant. Shit, shit what is he about to do?

The blue aura suddenly enveloped me. Without even thinking, completely in fear, I retracted my barrier.

Then, the aura spontaneously combusted, stressing my mind, and he flung himself at me.

I could hardly comprehend what happened next. His skin rippled, his eyes bulged, his hair disappeared, and his face turned into a drooping mess, his cheeks falling nearly a half-meter. Then, as he fell atop my barrier, through the distracting explosion, his clothes ripped and tore open, along with his belly, which erupted into a massive black mouth, which tried to swallow my whole barrier.

Then, I heard, a mortifying, deep, distorted voice say, “Melting Pot.”

He began to melt. I was frozen, terrified, and saw some white substance melting along with the monster’s body, which all began to glow red.

Then, the white substance exploded.

I didn’t bother floating up. I just stared at the settling dust, trying to understand what had just happened, trying to fathom the horror I’d just witnessed.

Then, through the smoke, I saw fire.

Screaming.

Explosions.

Yelling.

Too many spells for me to follow.

In just a moment, the monsters had suddenly approached, faster than I could have possibly anticipated.

I tried to stand.

My hands, my eyes, my heart, quaked.

Minds disappeared by the second, countless people slaughtered before I even considered moving again.

Black goo fell down my barrier, the remains of what I could only guess was a disguised monster.

No, no! I-I needed to do something!

But I couldn’t move. I had to process it, to work through what-what had just happened.

I hyperventilated, my vision shaking. I could still hear people screaming, calling for help, but I couldn’t move.

What was I meant to-

Something landed on my barrier.

“TAAHI!” it screamed.

It had eyes, barely visible under blood that swam in it. Its hair drooped over my barrier, char-black. Its mouth was agape, and its tounge -which could only be described as a long, fleshy rusty knife- tried to pierce my barrier. It clawed on the frictionless surface with its arms and legs, which looked as though half their skin had been burnt off.

It flew backward, its limbs falling limp as though it were hung by a noose as it did, then charged back at me, gaining enough speed to once more hit my barrier with its tounge.

My reflexes kicked in, and I impaled it with a rock. It flailed and screamed, and failed to die, even as black blood oozed from where its heart should have been.

My face contorted in horrified disgust as I impaled it with another rock, straight through the head. Black goo splattered across the rocks, its entire head eviscerated, but its tongue remained, flapping about on its bottom, unhinged jaw, along with its body.

It flung toward me relentlessly, like a magnet.

“JUST DIE!” I screeched in fear, turning my head away as I threw a boulder twice my size at it, crushing the creature entirely.

What the fuck was that? What did I just witness?

So this was the hell Zerith meant. This was why nobody feared death. Death wasn’t at their doorstep, it was on top of them, screeching for their soul.

I opened my eyes again, my vision double, my stomach curdling, only to see worse.

Countless people laid dead on the ground already. One fell from the sky, two dozen people flying in the air, screaming spells out at the top of their lungs. Fire, lightning, steel, rocks, and barriers flashed and thundered across the battlefield, people scattering as monsters flew toward them, some screeching unintelligibly, others with words and sentences, and others with laughter.

One person was blinded by a ball of fire shot by a monster with wings, and defended against it with a ray of ice, only for what seemed to be a chain with a sharp, serrated knife at the end to jut out from the ground beneath them, impale them in the back, then viciously drag them down, breaking their neck.

Steph was fighting three monsters at once in the sky, his cloak billowing as he dodged a supersonic rock thrown by one monster, which looked like a old man with a half-melted face and pin legs. Another monster, a person with the body of a dog, and meter-long claws for legs, somehow gurgled out, “Titanium String,” causing a thick wire of titanium to fling toward Steph’s neck. In response, Steph said, “Catch,” faster than he reasonably should have been capable of, and his hands magically became outstretched, poised to perfectly catch the wire. He pushed against it while flying backward with it for a dozen meters, before circling around and chucking it at the dog person as they flew toward him. “Fling, Arrow Volley.” The wire impaled their neck with surprising speed, then a volley of arrows shotgunned from Steph’s outstretched hand, turning the creature into a pincushion. Then suddenly, a ton of rocks appeared above him without any warning, sending him crashing to the ground with them. They suddenly burst into the sky as he said, “Repulse!” Steph then flew toward the nearest group of survivors for support.

But nobody fared as well as he did. When I averted my attention from that instant with Steph, I could already see a decapitated head and body falling to the ground.

Flames erupted during a skirmish on the ground, and a dozen people were blown back, some people catching on fire and trying their best to put the fire out.

Clearly, I did not know what a ‘skirmish’ was, and I most certainly did not understand the meaning of ‘pandemonium’.

Because this was supposedly the former.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think.

“Psychi,” a familiar voice said. “Get. Up.”

I looked to my side. Zerith was staring at me calmly, not even fazed by the destruction, chaos, and death.

“I...” I began.

I had told him I could handle it. I had told him he could rely on me.

I was a fucking fool. A pathetic idiot. I didn’t understand what it meant to endure.

What I had said was a bald-faced lie, a delusion I couldn’t have possibly noticed.

“I can’t do this,” I said, almost to myself, as though I had realized the truth. “I could never do this. This-this isn’t right. I-I wasn’t meant to be here.”

He continued to stare at me. Didn’t he care about what was right in front of us? Wasn’t he going to fight?

“Zerith,” I said pleadingly, my eyes wide and dilated with fear. He wouldn’t seriously ask me to fight against this, right? He couldn’t possibly expect me, just some seventeen-year-old girl, to fight against whatever the fuck was ‘a real war’.

“Stand up,” he said, as though it were a simple order.

I tried to, following his command as best I could, despite my hopelessness. Why did I even do it? This was clearly too much for me.

My legs trembled, they trembled so much, I could barely stand. Yet, somehow, I did it. My knees bent, my heart beat beyond measure, my eyes and body shook, my entire being told me to run and never look back, yet without reason, I managed to stand, halfway.

“What are you doing?” Zerith asked me.

“I don’t know,” I immediately responded, crying.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know!” I yelled, covering my face with my hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I-I lied to you, I-I can’t do this! I-”

“PSYCHI!” He yelled, causing me to stumble backward, yet somehow upright, and straight with fear. “What are you thinking?!” he asked me.

“I-I can’t-”

“No!” he said.

“But I-”

“No, Psychi, you can. You have the will.”

“No!” I screeched. “I wasn’t meant to-”

“Do you know what you were meant to do?” he asked.

“I-I should just be home. I should be enjoying my life!” I cried into my palms. “This isn’t what I-”

“No, it isn’t. You were meant to come here. You were meant to save people. You were not born with power just to squander it, you were born with power to be someone that others cannot be!”

“But I never wanted this responsibility!”

“Do you think the world gives a shit? If things were fair for everyone, if nobody had to work harder than another person-” He suddenly digressed, as though the sentence wasn’t worth finishing, “That was NEVER the world we live in. People like you and me, the strongest, most capable individuals, are those who will never rest until our deathbeds, or until paradise.”

“I CAN’T handle this!” I yelled straight at him, outstretching my hands, revealing my tears and fear and anger.

“You can.”

I paused, staring at his neutral, appraising expression.

“Listen to me, Psychi. You can. You see those bodies? Those monsters? Those people still alive? You can change this. Even if you made a million mistakes, there will always be hope for you, a chance to make a change. Nothing can get rid of that hope. Now close your eyes.”

I followed his instructions.

“Never think about the people you couldn’t save,” he said, before continuing,

“Never think about the people you didn’t save.”

“Never think about your mistakes, just the present.”

“Instead, think about what you can do, here, now, and in the future. Those you must save, what you must do.”

I slowly nodded.

“People are dying. I spent this long merely talking to you, and people died because I did. I don’t know if that was right, or wrong, but I don’t give a shit, because I made my choice.”

“But how...do I fight?” I asked.

“Just throw shit at monsters and hope they die. Don’t think about every little thing. It’s the only way either you or me can handle these things. “Super Fly.”

I watched briefly as Zerith immediately zipped across the battlefield, drawing his sword as he did. An instantaneous flash of three lightning bolts shot three monsters down from the sky, then countless other creatures converged on him.

He stared at faced them all down, no worry on his face as dozens of spells were cast, sent his way.

Could he even handle the sheer number of enemies?

I never learned that, because I never thought it. I simply flew to his side, and shuddered as pebbles, steel, arrows, and fire pelted my barrier.

“Good,” The Hero said. “Let’s begin this battle.”