Chapter 18 – What Makes Us Human

Their stomping all at once was as the sound of thunder lacking in these clouded skies. It began remotely, already heard by JD, but only now that they were able to see him did he choose to give them any attention.

‘Captain-Captain!’ they shouted in desperation. ‘Stop! We beg of you!’

Although he halted, he was yet to be convinced. ‘Don’t interfere, brethren.’

If only they were brave enough to put themselves in between JD and Kuno, but they were mere men in the presence of legends. ‘Please! He’s carrying a second torch! One that might end this suffering once and for all!’ Hopper shouted.

‘You must spare him!’ Chompy continued. ‘He’s our hope for a better future…’

The dark shroud around JD dimmed. Kuno still lay there, unmoving, yet wished for death as the pain bloomed in his still intact brain. The air barely kept him conscious, and his bleeding had halted, all due to JD’s magic. The rabbitmen took glimpses at his face, but couldn’t bear to look for long. The fact that he managed to survive a single hit of Sha’Gult was already a wonder.

‘You must at least hear us out! Please!’ Chompy said, but when their captain spoke – no other did again.

‘No. This is where Kuno dies.’

The tension faded as JD lifted his finger, drawing a reverse triangle in the air. The triangle flashed a light green light with a darker green smoke emanating from within it. He pushed it forward, towards Kuno’s heart, where it entered and caused a shatter, like a glass plane had burst. Kuno widened his eyes, breathing out a blue smoke, until closing his eyes as all turned dark.

‘Good bye,’ he thought. ‘You had always been nice to me. I don’t blame you for anything. I lived a life worth living.’

As a koalaman got sliced into thin strips, gallons of blood falling on the floor, Xiuying’s party had cleared another camp – right before the rain began pouring down on them. Cara whipped her hair only once, but every drop of blood flew off, keeping her ginger hair sparkling clean even after killing fifteen koalamen.

Sarah tried to tackle her, but Cara intercepted her with her twenty feet long hair. ‘Let’s go!’ Sarah shouted. ‘That was epic!’

Cara blew out a short puff of air, placing her palms against each other to pray for the fallen, whilst still keeping Sarah at bay.

Xiuying was happy about her squad’s performances. ‘They’re steadily growing, even after already being this strong.’

Sarah left Cara to her prayer, tapping Xiuying on the shoulder – or at least, trying to, with Xiuying quickly grabbing her finger before she could. ‘Boss, yo, boss, bosswoman, ay. This is pretty easy, don’t you think?’ she asked.

‘It’s the quest. This is what the Kingdom ordered,’ she answered, but knew where her thoughts were heading – somewhere she wouldn’t allow her party to go.

‘How about we go more south? Just for the heck of it…’ Sarah said, leaning forward, a dangerous glare in her eyes as her mouth began to salivate. Maybe it was a good thing she was sent here. Sarah wouldn’t have lasted long on Earth – not without being confined in a windowless room.

‘I know you’re curious,’ Xiuying said. ‘I am too. But I already made that mistake before. If the Kingdom gives us a warning, we will heed it.’

Sarah pushed her bottom lip forward, quickly blinking her eyes and saying: ‘Pretty pleaseeee-.’

‘No.’

‘FUCK!’ she shouted, kicking the ground. ‘The Kingdom talks too much!’ she crouched down and hit the dirt with her fists with specks of earth flying to the left and right. ‘Stupid – stupid – stupid – stupid.’

Yuki walked up to Xiuying as well to ask her: ‘You already made that mistake before? What happened?’ she asked. And when Yuki asked a question, Xiuying would always give her the answer. Yuki didn’t speak much, so it meant that much more when she did – something Xiuying had respect for.

Xiuying sat down on a tree stump – Cara finished her prayer and Sarah her tantrum. All three of them sat across from Xiuying – ready for her story.

‘Half a year ago, when you girls were still living at home doing what-not. I was already here, with a different party,’ Xiuying said. ‘I liked my party… They were strong, like you. They were dependable… and caring.’

She gave all of them a look before tilting her head down, staring at the gliding blood on the floor. ‘My captain was an older man named Rocher. He had Yuki’s ability… an untouchable soldier, mowing through the enemy like a natural disaster… With him next to me, I had the feeling I could never be harmed. That not even a speck of dust could get in my eye without going through him.’

She moved her fingers through her short hair, her head feeling too heavy to lift at the moment. With a deep breath she continued, the others sensing it wasn’t a memory she wanted to bring back. ‘Because of that, it was especially shocking when he lost… when all of us lost. The only reason I survived was because of them… When I found them again, they were nothing but a pile of human dust…’

Her words touched Cara and Yuki, who weren’t eager to go south, anyway. But Sarah didn’t care as much, not liking the fact that Xiuying told her this story just to keep her away from danger. ‘I can deal with big groups, sis,’ she said. ‘I think I can kill a whole battalion of these animals.’

Cara bumped her arm. ‘Shut up,’ she said through her teeth.

‘Maybe…’ Xiuying said. ‘But it wasn’t a battalion that killed them all.’

‘Even more!?’ Sarah asked.

Xiuying shook her head. ‘No… it was just one soldier…’

Sarah’s eyes grew. ‘Huh?’ she said.

‘Apparently, he was one of the Five Pillars of the Soji Empire – something like a general… When I ran away, I could hear his laugh chase me. Sometimes I still hear it in my dreams…’ She squeezed her fist, knowing she was strong, but not yet strong enough to enact her vengeance.

Xiuying didn’t play games – she was a serious person, maybe because of what happened. Either way, Sarah was convinced. Everything about her captain was genuine. Sarah’s wisdom was enough to admit Xiuying was right. She nodded and said ‘okay,’ but Xiuying didn’t hear her. The laugh of that creature played in her mind as she remembered running away from the party she loved so much.

‘QUAHAHAHAHAHA! QUAHAHAHAHAHA!’

She snapped out of it when her EMA suddenly opened up with a flashing red and blue light – a direct message from the Kingdom. The others stood up, curious about the contents. The four of them read the message, with Sarah immediately saying: ‘wow, pathetic.’

‘I’ll pray for him tonight,’ Cara said.

‘Poor kid,’ Xiuying said with a sigh.

‘Attention! The Intestines user, Kuno, has been reported: DEAD.’

They stormed through the palace halls, shoving aside the guards like they were the sheep’s fodder. Resistance was expected, but the guards couldn’t bring themselves to fight back. Their infant dream had just dropped dead, leaving a void yearning to be filled.

‘KILROY!’ Don shouted at the top of his lungs, Walt and Sammy closely behind him, with a mob of guards following them, acting like they were trying to stop him. The deeper they went, the denser the air got, nearing the chamber of the council member Kilroy.

To demand answers from the council was insanity. It was madness, something only seen once before. It could’ve only come from Don, that was for sure.

‘A-Are you s-sure we should b-b…’ Sammy tried to say, but Don and Walt’s ears were mute to her voice. They were the troublemakers of Regnum, and trouble they would make.

Having reached the last door, they saw Colonel Grayson’s back. He quickly turned around, a look of frustration on his face, one similar to Don’s, yet less emotional.

‘Out of my way, Cooper,’ he said, warning him before he’d get stomped by this stampeding beast.

‘I’m not in your way, Don. I want the same answers you’re looking for,’ Cooper said, showing his allegiance to the party’s cause. ‘He’s not answering-,’ Cooper tried to say, but Don kicked the door open before he could finish his sentence.

He had revealed the unfazed Kilroy, in his dotted pajamas, sitting behind his desk. Next to him stood two statue like men with the symbol of Regnum on their chest, wearing a jet black uniform consisting of armor like plating over a dense long sleeved skin suit.

‘You got some nerve, Donovan Jackson…’ Kilroy said.

‘What’s the meaning of this!?’ Don shouted, a vein pulsing in his temple.

He sighed, laying the paperwork aside. ‘The boy, you mean?’

‘I mean Kuno!’ he said, with Cooper adding: ‘where and how did he die? The word had spread that a new Shitman was born, and suddenly he’s deceased?’

‘You had something to do with it, didn’t you?’ Don asked in a softer, yet equally violent, tone.

Sammy shook from the stress. This was the last place she wanted to be. Walt didn’t want to be anywhere else, barely holding himself back, about to stab Kilroy in the heart.

‘No,’ Kilroy said. ‘Neither did anyone else from the council. Too bad, but you can’t blame us. EMA shows he entered Soji land by his own volition and died at the hands of the enemy.’

Their expressions changed. Instead of anger, their eyes showed bewilderment. ‘Enter the Empire… all alone… Why?’ they all thought.

‘Couldn’t you have warned him?’ Cooper asked, the only one speaking now that the others were taken aback. ‘If he was approaching the border, you could’ve sent him a message.’

‘EMA doesn’t track the lower ranks like that, Colonel. They aren’t worth the magic,’ Kilroy said.

Don and Walt almost shattered their teeth, with Cooper placing his hand on Don’s shoulder, trying to warn him that if something goes down… they wouldn’t be the last ones standing.

‘Sir, with all due respect, he was the new Shitman. Doesn’t that mean anything?’ Cooper said.

Kilroy chuckled. ‘I mean, come on, Colonel. That his predecessor had achieved such great things doesn’t mean that he would have. He was his own person. What kind of council would we be if we blindly trusted a new Earthling like that?’

He had a point. He might’ve carried the same ability, but Kuno wasn’t the Shitman people had in mind. He was just Kuno, a young adult who gamed a lot. The party wasn’t satisfied, but they had no right to be here, and neither did they have anything else to say. At least, anything that didn’t include colorful words.

The party left with a shake in their step. They had definitely jumped the gun. The only reason they were unlikely to get punished for it was because of Don. He was too valuable and too respected. He was among those who had seen the only one who stood above the council. The one who made the Kingdom a kingdom, yet was almost a secret to people inhabiting it.

Cooper told them he would be here for them if they needed anything. The party went to Don’s house and sat down, silently staring at the table. None of them shed a tear, yet simply thought about why they cared so much for a guy they met so recently. Maybe because they genuinely saw him as a good man. Maybe they felt robbed, having wanted to know more about him. Either way, the world reminded them that dark days could always grow darker.

‘Quah, so I told her – If you don’t get your beak out of my pond, JD will inform the police for he is a gentleduck who would never physically harm a woman, with the exception of humans and geese,’ JD said, slapping his thigh as he laughed ‘QUAHAHAHA!’ the only one to do so.

The rabbitmen were on their way northeast, deeper into the Soji Empire, yet still in the dense forest. They carried a joyful mood, like they just got notified they had barely passed their exam due to a faulty question after already having accepted they’d failed it and it was finally time to drop out and take on the family business, because of course it would be – you’re just a simple rabbitman you could never go to university…

And the reason for that feeling finally woke up.

‘W-Where am I?’ he spoke in a raspy voice, like he’d been smoking shag for forty years.

All rabbitmen turned to him with a smile, with only JD still facing forward carrying a neutral look.

On the shoulders of Hopper and Chompy lay a green orb. Within it, none other than Kuno, alive, and his broken body slowly being restored by the very same man who destroyed it.