Return of the Woodcutter

"We can't continue like this," Sheyla said, sitting next to him. "We'll be overwhelmed soon. Challengers are barely holding the barricades. Our numbers are dwindling by the passing minutes. Hobs are coming from every corner of the cathedral. The earth wall you've placed at the main entrance will be broken soon enough. Even the belltower's stairs are flooded. If we don't do anything in the next ten minutes, we'll—hey, are you listening?"

Cries of help. 

Screams of pain. 

Pleadings for salvation.

Aito heard them all.. He had never seen such scenery before. While fighting, he remained oblivious to this grim scene. In fact, he had always done so. Drunk on the battle, Aito had never truly paid attention to the bloody consequences of a fight. 

During his time fighting the sect members. In the tunnels with the slaves. He had grown accustomed to death, but still tried to avoid thinking about such misery.

Why? Because it wasn't pleasant. Because of the negativity. 

Now that he was sitting amongst all of them, corpses, wounded and dying, there was no escaping the despair that emanated from everyone present here. 

'Damn it…'

Amidst the casualties were adults, elderly, teenagers, and even one kid. Gods only knew how the kid had made it to the fifth floor or even how she had survived the first trial. 

'So much… death,' said the man who had already killed hundreds of challengers. 

He didn't have a particular attachment to those dead people, but just being here, imagining that one of those corpses could be him or Haley or Olivia or… his dad, it made him reconsider the value of a human life. 

'Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. To take a life is to deny a possible future…,' Aito thought, thinking back on Sleon's words.

He still couldn't agree with the moderator's beliefs. 

However, he did feel a connection to it when he stared at the kid's corpse, a little girl with a red cloak, deadpan eyes, lying in the crowd for what would be her eternal rest.

What could that little girl have become later on? 

Nobody knew.

Nobody knows.

Nobody will ever know.

'Is there truly no way out of this mess?'

The hobs probably wouldn't stop until CD was over and that would only happen in a few hours. All of them would be dead by then. 

There could be a thousand outside just waiting to come in. Tired challengers did not have the strength to stop them all. 

Even Aito was starting to run on fumes. Considering his stamina was at level 3, and he could use Pneuma to somewhat last longer, he dared not imagine how the others were faring—well he had also undeniably fought for a longer period of time than most challengers here that rested from time to time behind defensive lines. 

His mana was at its lowest point, and his soul force could use some more time to refill itself. All in all, he was deep in shit. 

He had counted on the ring to cast a realistic illusion to save his and his teammates lives from the hobs, but it was now impossible. 

Moreover, Ogoro would have probably refused to let all the others die. 

Now that Aito thought about it, he could have also cast a realistic illusion at the beginning, using all his aura to shield every challenger from the hobs, but hadn't considered it. 

On one hand, it also was because he wanted to take this opportunity to kill the ninja and he didn't know if he had enough aura to cast a huge spell covering three hundred people. 

On the other hand, it was because he usually cared little about what happened to others, to people he didn't know.

But knowing he could have prevented a carnage, this desolation, and the death of a kid, it somewhat felt wrong.

'I am still lacking….' 

Not that he cared about them, but he wasn't insensitive to lives in general.

He had previously sworn to himself on the fourth floor to never save challengers again. It had been in a feat of anger, thinking all of them were betrayers. Now that felt childish and narrow-minded, though. 

How about those who weren't betrayers? Didn't they deserve to be saved?

Not all of them were the same. Human nature made it so that humans were all different from one another. 

Like him, all humans weren't born good, nor bad. In the first place, the classification of what is good or what is bad is subjective in itself. 

This meant that depending on one's point of view, some random guy could be seen as evil while someone else would in fact see that random guy as good. 

And in Aito's mind, right now, all those who had died weren't betrayers but brave people who fought for a slimmer of hope, for the chance to see a new dawn. 

To him, all those who had died deserved saving but, unfortunately, couldn't be saved anymore. 

'However…'

He clenched his fist, sighed, then opened it. In his palm was the ninja soul core. It shone of a denser yellow than normal, reflecting the bloody event taking place all around him. 

'There are people still breathing that can be saved,' he thought. There was one thing he could do. There was one course of action he could take to save them all. 

But… why should he do it? Even if they deserved to be saved, did it necessarily had to come from him? Unless he truly had something to gain from it, there was no point in doing so. 

Was there any reward he would receive from saving all their lives? He could have maybe prevented all this. However, Aito wasn't responsible for killing all those innocent lives. 

Protecting them wasn't his job. Even if he somehow decided to do so, it'd require him to do something incredibly stupid. 

'Why should I take the risk to save them? How would I benefit from such a foolish action?' Aito thought, pondering. 'They might be deserving of saving, but I have no attachment to those people that justify such a drastic, and downright stupid act. Nor do I want to.'

There was a higher chance of him escaping with his teammates, holing up somewhere, using his spell beads to keep hobs at bay by forming earth walls all around them. Challengers in the cathedral would turn into a distraction, leaving Aito and his teammates enough time to escape. 

'Nah... that probably wouldn't work. Considering Ogoro's exhaustion, he'd never be able to keep up with me and Sheyla would prefer to stay behind with her brother.'

Now that he thought about it, he could also leave all of them behind—his teammates included—and make a run for it on his own.

Aito was certain he'd be able to survive this way. Well, it at least increased his chances of survival by a large margin.

"Hey! Aito!" Sheyla shouted, placing a hand on his broad armored shoulder. "Can you hear me?" 

Jolted awake from his pondering, Aito lifted his head to see two frozen-blue eyes. He had an inexplicable urge to spout nonsense. Making a clumsy salute, he said, "Yes, ma'am, Private Walker reporting for duty!"

Sheyla frowned, "This is not funny! I thought you were in a state of shock! And how could you be spouting such a bad joke amidst all this mess!?"

Somehow, her serious, accusatory, beautiful face made him smile. That smile turned into an uncontrollable laugh. 

"What are you laughing at? Did you receive too many hits on your head?" Sheyla said, thinking Aito had gone mad. 

Her stone-cold face had changed much since he had first known her. There was even a hint of worry in those blue eyes. The same worry he had read in Ogoro's eyes. 

'We might not have known each other for long but… those guys sure care about me,' Aito thought, a warm feeling spreading in his chest. 'Since when did they become such good companions... friends?'

Guilt crept up his chest as he thought about how he had planned to abandon the siblings. 

"Sheyla…, thanks," he said. 

She looked at him, appearing flustered by those words coming out of nowhere. "Hum, eh, what for?" 

"For being here," he said, pausing before adding, "and for making such a damn cute face. Didn't know you could make one of those, ahahaha." 

"Bastard…," Sheyla said through her clenched teeth, yet she couldn't help but smile after that. The Aito in front of her right now looked quite different from before. More open to her. Less… gruffness, as if he had laid down a thick layer of wall, "*Sigh*, whatever. You welcome." 

Pondering, he stared at her intently, then his gaze traveled towards Ogoro, who was using the last of his aura to heal an injured challenger. Ogoro stumbled and finally fell, paralyzed, in a feeless state. 

Aito shook his head, thinking how restless that guy was. Certainly now, Ogoro would never be able to keep up with him. 

'I might not have an attachment to the others, but these two…, I can't let them die here. No, I don't want them to die here.' He reflected, then thought about something else, 'Also… isn't that an opportunity for me to achieve a new feat?' 

"That face…," Sheyla said, staring at him. She hadn't known him for that long, but by now she had seen that similar face on a few occasions. And it usually meant that he had something in mind. "What are you planning?" 

"Something foolish," Aito replied, closing his fist on the ninja's soul core. With the other hand, he took out four mana beads and started absorbing them one by one. 

Sheyla seemed to think, then said, "Anything I can do to help?" 

"Make sure the defenses hold until I'm done with my preparations." 

"Hum, I'll try my best. But I don't think we'll be able to last ten minutes before everything crumbles." 

"Just do what you can. I'll take care of the rest," he said, wanting to add a "hopefully."

She nodded and was about to go, but turned around at the last moment and threw something at him. "I picked it up on our way back. You'll need this if you want to survive." 

Aito caught his helmet and adorned it, opening the visor to breathe more comfortably, "Hmm… I forgot about it. Thanks." 

"Also, whatever you're planning…," she said with a serious face, "don't get yourself killed."

He smiled gently, "You too, Sheyla." 

Sheyla stared at him for a while longer, as if she wanted to say something, but then strode away to help prevent a breach in their defenses.

'*Sigh* What was that quote again? High risk, high rewards, right? I truly hope this quote lives up to its name.' 

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