It had been just 2 days after the party left Northwind that they had encountered bandits yet again. This time, with there being 8 bandits, no one had clean hands by the end of it. It was difficult for Johan, as he had spent the last week repressing his memories of the first time he had to kill another person, and then had to repeat such an action. Anne was also visibly upset.

Jen seemed to be fine. Moreover, even though Johan had worried about her slightly, she had proven rather efficient with her daggers. It seemed like she had used them in fights before. Pat was less chill about it, but that might also be because unlike the rest of them, Pat didn't have a real weapon. She had grabbed the nearest thing, which at the point in time had been Adv. Adv wasn't too appreciative of being used as a bludgeoning tool, but said it was fine so long as he was washed off. Markus didn't even bat an eye, as expected of an ex-mercenary.

Johan could feel his stomach churn at the mess of the chest of the man he had killed. Due to fights being so quick, Johan had to act fast, and thus, when he went to strike, he stabbed the man several times. Probably around 7 or 8 in total, but due to how the blade of his spear was shaped, being a diamond shaped wedge, the wounds were somewhat wide, resulting in a somewhat mince meat look for the man.

Anne had cut the throat of one man, and then slammed the edge of her shield into another mans throat, crushing the second mans windpipe with a crunch that Johan could hear from a few feet away. It almost sounded like she had just popped his neck for him, but in reality, she had more or less crushed it.

Regardless to say, Anne was not doing great. Pat was also not in the most optimal state of mind, nor was Johan. Pat had literally crushed a mans head into paste. It wasn't a pleasant sight from anyone's perspective.

"Yikes." Markus said. "Wipe your weapons, blood can cause rust, and get ready to move camp, monsters will soon arrive. Good job by the way. All of you." Markus started to clean up his own things.

Johan walked over to one of the men Anne killed, and wiped his spear onto the shirt the man wore, taking Anne's sword to do the same with it while she was throwing up. It wasn't that he was used to it, but rather he was forcing himself to do the actions so that things could get done. Similar to how a supervisor might have to fire someone if they were in the way of day to day operations. Johan had detached himself emotionally.

An hour later they were setting up a new camp. They laid their thick blankets out under the vast night sky that they could see past the tall trees, and could see the various bright dots that speckled the sky. Johan looked up at the moons, there were 2 of them, one was much farther away than the other and occasionally they would overlap, making it look like one moon was eating the other.

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As Johan was staring at the sky thinking about what he had to do in the last couple hours, he felt someone nudge him with a foot. It was Anne. She had some tears on her face, and he could vaguely see her.

"I... I wanna talk to someone... No, actually, I need to talk to someone." Anne sat next to Johan as the young man sat up.

"Alright. Let's talk then. I assume it revolves around earlier?" Johan asked.

"Yeah. I didn't understand entirely what had upset you when you had to kill that man a while back, but now... I think I get it a bit more."

"Mmhm. It's different from an animal, killing another human is strange. It feels wrong, but also necessary. It's terrible to see a man dying on the ground from wounds you've inflicted." Johan said.

"Exactly... Thanks for trying to keep this feeling away from me. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, or at least I don't think I will."

"That's fair. I didn't sleep that night either, I worked on magic during that time, and kinda just forced it out with work and studying. Though, now I've had enough time to think about it and understand my feelings on it." He agreed with his sister. It was tough to rationalize the death of another. Sure, if he hadn't killed them, he would die, but on the other hand, it didn't make it easy for him to kill anyways. that was a person, a living breathing human... So Johan decided something while he had struggled to come to terms with what he had to do. It was easy enough. He just tried to dehumanize those who attacked him.

"So it isn't just me? How did you decide to deal with it?" Anne looked at her brother.

"Well... It doesn't sound great when you say it out loud, but I try to dehumanize them. I think of them as monsters the moment they decide to attack us. Pretty messed up, but it helps me."

"Dehumanize? like treating them as less than human? Less than a person?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh... Ok." Anne stayed silent for a few more minutes, then she talked again. "I watched that man die while he struggled for breath. It was scary to look into the eyes of someone you killed. The worst part is that... He didn't seem to be angry or unhappy with me. He seemed to just accept that he was going to die. He even looked a bit relieved..." Anne trailed off.

"Well, he probably was a bit relieved. It's tough out here, if you have family you will do anything to protect and feed them, even if you have to kill to do so. People usually don't actually want to kill others, but in scenarios like that... It puts immense stress on them and they will do so. I imagine that death is a bit of a relief in that sense."

Anne and Johan sat in silence again for a while, then Anne stood up.

"Alright. Talking seems to have helped a lot, I think. I'm going to try to sleep." Anne said.

"Good luck. Good night, Anne."

Johan stayed sitting up for a while. He thought of the men he had killed to survive. He knew that he would have to kill more than that to survive this journey. It was sad to him, but at the same time, he was like those men, after all, he just wanted to protect Anne.