“You all are not reality defenders! You all are reality devils!” the old lady shouts. She tries to chase us, but moves like a turtle.

Damn it! How did I mess up this bad?!

It's not like I can fix this by going back in time, either.

Vacinay wakes up from the shouting, and turns to me as she is being carried by Hessien.

She asks, “Umm… Why are they trying to hit us with stones?”

The crowd is trying their best, but they are just a tiny bit too weak.

I reply, “It’s complicated.”

Hessien replies, “Lumine carelessly threw a fireball here and burned down the village.”

Her eyebrow furrows with concern. “The village was empty, right?”

“No!”

Her jaw drops. “Holy shit! You are going to jail!”

I scream, “Shut up! It was an accident, not murder!”

“Manslaughter? 'Uhhh, I am sorry Jury, I accidentally burned the village down…' Anyway, so… want to remove the evidence?”

I look at her, blocking out the noise in the background.

“What?”

“Want to…” she acts like her finger is a pistol. “Want to do some witness removal? Like the cartel? Or Yakuza?”

“No! No, I don’t!”

“Damn…”

Then in front of us, a puddle forms.

I turn back. There is nothing I can really say…

I dash forward, leaving behind Hessien and the other three. I have super speed for crying out loud.

But, I do shout, “I am sorry!”

It doesn’t take long for us to get them off our tails and return to the jungle part of the forest.

I sit on a thick green root and lean forward. “I am a goddamn murderer…”

“Yep,” Ghomas says, lying down, limbs spread. “Can’t you go back in time to fix it?”

“How? I can’t go that far back in time.”

Hessien is thinking. He suddenly says, “It’s weird, though. Why would the half-men who went to kidnap people in that village leave people behind? And if they were invaded and had mass kidnappings, why wouldn’t they have evacuated in fear of those half-men coming back?”

I quickly snap towards him. “There is a way I am innocent?!”

He looks down at Fairy Tanya, waiting to see if she has any input.

She thinks deeply before saying, “Possibly. When you looked at the past, what exactly did you see? Like any details visual and sound wise that may have been strange?”

I cross my legs as I think about it. They were just outside, looking up…

I don’t think I had the EP to go back that far to see something weird too. Not after waiting this long.

Vacinay, who is hitting her chin against Hessien's head constantly, starts to talk, “There was the old and young to be sacrificed. Possibly they sold them to spare themselves?”

“I don’t know. Damn it!” I complain.

Then someone arrives in the middle of us, Yamanda.

She cracks her neck before looking at each one of us, even Tanya, which causes her to scowl.

I look away, trying to pretend to be normal.

She says, “I heard it all.”

“It was an accident!” I shout.

She shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter. I was aware of the fireball at the last second and saved them, barely.”

I shoot up, hands spread wide. “I am truly not a killer.”

“Well… Since I was in a rush, I didn’t realize those in the houses, but it seemed they were just… in really bad states already.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Oh. So, I just killed the sick…? That’s still…”

She nods slowly, “Yup… Anyway, you all did a great job!”

Then suddenly, I feel light shining on my face, and all the trees that towered over us are gone.

We are outside of the Reality Defenders' summoning/living quarters building. I didn’t notice it before, but there was a D.R huge sign on the top of it… and the building was quite tall, maybe about 4 stories tall.

Yamanda yawns and says, “I am going to take a rest. If the president or his royal guards ask where am I, tell them you don’t know, cause you quite literally wouldn’t know.”

You know, it's a bit weird that they are called royal knights since there isn't any royal family or the likes.

She is about to teleport away but stops to ask us, “What are your levels by the way so I can make a report.”

I just stare at her.

She sighs and puts a hand on her hip. “Come on, you guys are natural-born murderous child soldiers. You guys were tearing apart that half-man apart without mercy. You can't be that down hearted because of an accident.”

“Well… it’s different when you kill people who look like people. Okay, it sounds kinda racist, but! Wait a second, no I mean, those half-men were evil. They were basically monsters cause of their morals and ethics so it didn’t feel bad to kill them.”

She stares at me before saying, “Don’t get too worked up about it. Trust me.”

Vacinay then asks, “So, where are the guys you saved?”

… There is silence.

Then Yamanda waves, “Got to go, bye!”

And like that, she is gone.

She lied, didn’t she...?

Ghomas slowly nods. “One thing is for sure, you can’t say that she doesn’t care about your feelings.”

“Ugh…” I moan in distress.

Hessien moves to comfort me. With his arms over my shoulder, he says, “Don’t worry. When they start demanding your head for your crimes, I will claim you are innocent.”

I slowly turn towards him like a robot. “Funny thing, how the fuck can you claim I am innocent, if I am not? I literally did it!”

Vacinay smirks as she announces, “We lie! Like lawyers! My client is guilty?! Where is the damn proof?!”

She then moves her hand forward and makes a rectangle symbol with her fingers. “What?! This is her in 4k?! Obstruction! How are you sure it wasn’t an illusion, or she wasn’t mind controlled?!”

Ghomas blurts. “Better hope those guys in the forest don't come to testify against you, 'cause your ass will be grass.”

I fall to my knees. “I can’t go to jail... Don’t you know what they do to frail, short girls like me?”

Hessien looks away. “You gonna be some big muscular lady lackey. And not in the good way. But in the, 'that's rape' kind of way."

Ghomas nods. "Better prepared to commit suic— Oh wait, you are semi-immortal… Damn, you are just gonna keep having horrid experiences...”

I grab my hair in stress. I can’t let that happen. I refuse it. What do I have to do…?

I think about what Vacinay said before. Remove the evidence… No no. I can’t do that…

But I really didn’t mean to…. UGH!

Tanya is bored with the disgusting antics. She says, “Worry about that stuff later. It's pointless to think about it now."

I take in a deep breath. “You are right. What happens, happens.”

I am obviously faking my calm.

Tanya then floats near Hessien before snapping her fingers a couple of times. “I want to rest now.”

With hesitation, he slowly opens his mouth.

She shoots into Hessien's mouth and disappears. With a disturbed expression, he gags.

Ghomas snickers.

Before he can say something, Hessien stares deep into his eyes. “Make a gag reflex joke, I dare you.”

He grins. “You got to start working on your throat gam—“

Hessien dashes after him, but Ghomas quickly runs away, managing to escape Hessien.

“I am going to kill you! You think everything is fun and games, huh?!” Hessien shouts.

And there I am left alone, watching Vacinay's hair flutter in the air as she keeps a tight grip on Hessien's head.

Hm…

What am I supposed to do now? Damn, it's so annoying how I messed up so damn bad with that fireball.

Oh well. I am still going to deny the exisn—

Suddenly, my anxious thoughts part away as a single thought loudly proclaims a solution. No no…

But… Yes.

I turn away from the Reality Defenders building and look far away. Because of the many buildings, I can’t see any forest.

But I have a solution, a perfect one at that. One that I can’t afford right now, but have to make one of my priorities.

MIND WIPE!

Yes! That is the solution! I will make the victims forget it all.

Hm… Is that a bad thing, yes. But… it is around 27 skill points. Maybe I am just going to have to accept my punishment—

Immediately, I remember what Ghomas said, and all the horror stories my father told me about prison.

My body shivers. Hell no! What if they lock me up with prisoners around my level and OP cards?

Damn it!

Now, I want to get out of the damn public.

I press my hands against the double door to open it, but it doesn’t budge. Instead, someone from inside responds, “Who is it?”

Oh god, it’s Yuen…

I respond, annoyed, “Lumine Markish, a reality defender.”

“Proof?”

“How am I supposed to show you proof?”

“You have to say, ‘lord yuen-“

“Can you just open the door? I am not in the mood.”

There is silence then a click and the doors open. Yuen stands aside as he looks at me up and down, confused.

He asks, “Those pants… Why are the ends burned? And why is your shirt so big?”

I look down. Oh right, I had to burn some of the pants off because Ghomas was so damn tall. I think it was stylish, kinda.

I respond with a shrug. “I don’t know. But uhhh… Thank you for opening the door instead of continuing with the nonsense.”

“Hphm. I know when to get serious, but sure. All the best.”

“Thanks.”

I go to the living quarters. We forgot to lock the doors…

Either way, I proceed to the bathroom and then stare at the toilet / shitter / cylinder, whatever.

Well, it’s not like I was ever planning to use it. Now that I have fire powers, there is another way to handle body waste.

Either way, I leap into the bathtub with abnormally tall walls. Thankfully, someone cleaned it after the mess.

I open the faucet and listen to the sounds of the purple water as it slowly fills the tub.

I throw the clothes I had out of the tub and finally lay down in the water when it has reached waist level.

There aren’t many thoughts going on. I just randomly kick in the water, feeling absolutely no resistance from it.

I raise my foot high just to see my toes poke out from the water.

With a sigh, I lean my head back, soaking my hair. At least the fire skin skill burned away all the blood and guts that were on me.

I then experiment with floating on the water but I fail a bunch of times. I give up and just sink to the floor of the tub, holding my breath.

I stay there for a while.

Maybe… I don't need to mine wipe to fix the issue. What if I gained a death skill?

I manifest a new skill card in my hand, but it is still pure white because I haven’t confirmed anything yet.

Yeah! A skill that can revive the dead, but not as zombies!

Give me a life skill card.

White cracks spread across my new card, revealing the image of an angel holding brown soil in their cupped hands.

“Genius!” Shit! I talked underwater.