"That night was the start of so many things in our journey. At the time, we knew next to nothing about the problem, but I'd decided long ago to help any summoned placed on my path, with the caveat that my priority was always the world at large." I sighed at the thought of the multitudes who lost to base desires and greed in my time. "So, when told that the goal was as vague as helping people, I wouldn't have expected such difficulties. That night proved me wrong in so many ways."

I saw the grasslands on either side of me rush past faster than my eyes could keep track of.

I'd long gotten directions from the man on my shoulder; I knew where I was going. Whoever this man was, he was a professional. The distance covered by him and his companion was leagues beyond what our group had traversed in the same time.

I felt the stones of the road beneath my feet cracking at my passing. Durable bricks of reinforced stone shattered at the force needed to keep this pace.

If The Hero had tried to get here tonight, she'd have collapsed before ever seeing the edge of her goal. It wasn't a question of skill at this point, but one of time. The Hero was still weak, new to the world; she wasn't yet a natural disaster in human form.

The air pushed against me, demanding I slow my pace and adhere to its presence. Alone I'd have simply forced it out of my path, but the man on my shoulders needed the air while he slept.

With each step I took, the weight on my shoulders grew. I hadn't the time to find out why the madness was leaking in at times. After leaving the group, I'd hoped to get that chance, but the absurd distance to the goal wouldn't allow for that. I had to focus too much on not tripping over my fake limb, keeping the man on my shoulders safe, as well as many others. I didn't have the luxury of self-analysis, not if I was going to fulfill The Hero's wish.

I’ve already been running for over two hours. The setting sun's light had already faded to show the stars above. Still, I felt I was too far from the town. I felt too slow.

I was livid, at myself, at this problem, at the air for impeding my path. I could feel the madness in the rage infecting my mind, convincing me to do something reckless and violent. But the closer I got to my goal, the less I cared, the more I let that violent urge in and let it fuel me.

The moon was past its peak when I saw the first glimpse of the hoard. It was the first sign I was anywhere near the victimized town. In the dull moonlight, the sea of bodies was barely indiscernible from the grass they trampled. But in the center of the shuffling mass of darkness, I saw the lights of life. Fires, lanterns, and glowing crystals dotted all over, showing a wall still held by exhausted men.

Before I got to work on any of the monsters, I had to prepare. I couldn't fight with a man on my shoulders. I could leave him somewhere, but then he'd assuredly die. If I took him into town unconscious, I'd waste time explaining to panicked townsfolk why I was here. So I'd use him, wake him up and have him clarify while I left to get to work clearing the hoard. It wasn't much of a plan. In fact, it wasn't one. But my mind was swimming, and I couldn't care to come up with anything better.

It didn't take much to wake the man on my shoulders. Mostly because his sleeping state had been induced by myself, not his own choice.

"Where are we?!" He said, slightly too loud for comfort.

I held a finger to his lips to signify he should keep his mouth shut before answering his question. "Outside your town," I replied while turning him to see the sea of monsters.

"AH!-" He shouted in surprise before my hand clamped around his mouth to keep him from drawing the hoard to us.

"Keep silent!" I wrote. I kept my hand in place until he nodded in compliance. "I'm going to get you into town. When I do, I need a few things from you." I started and waited for him to nod again. "I need people to use as many skills as possible, clear the tainted energy. When I begin killing those things, the local density will go up before it goes down." I wrote.

It didn't take him more than a second to read through my request before he looked at me in askance for the rest.

"You can also let them know that The Hero is with your friend. They'll be bringing a more significant force from the capital as soon as possible." Even though I didn't know if it was true, I told him to tell the town anyways.

The look of relief on his face at my statement lasted only an instant. It was quickly replaced with one of blatant concern. I could tell in his eyes; that he was unsure how much assistance I'd be able to provide, especially alone.

Under better circumstances, I'd assuage his concern. But at the moment, I didn't have that luxury. Time was not my limiting factor. My own mind was. I was barely keeping myself together at the moment, the madness edging away at my psyche with every instant. The air felt thick to me, and I had a hunch it had to do with the monsters. But I couldn't explain that to him, so all I did was turn from him to the monsters in order to clear a path to the wall.

The mana housed behind my mask flowed readily into my hand. It took my will with ease, lapping up my desire to form the spell I wanted. I could feel the gem emptying rapidly, the mana within barely enough to fuel this particular spell. But I didn't care how much mana I used. I'd simply rip more from around me if I needed it later. With this many monsters, no one would notice anyway.

>A Living Flame of Hunger and Rage.< The spell's name uttered silently was all the mana needed to leap from my hand out into the sea of bodies.

Luna stared at the rider ahead of her, barely registering their presence. She'd seen the bags under her eyes this morning. They weren't from exhaustion, just stress. At first, it was manageable. The day they returned to the city to ask for help, she was stressed but still hopeful. That hope kept her going while the military in the town attained a truthteller to verify Dahr’s story. That's when reality came crashing in and slashed Luna's hope.

Dahr's town was almost two days away, even using the fastest mounts the military kept here. Luna had no idea how Dahr and Hern had covered that distance in less than a day, but the officer she'd spoken to confessed that they couldn't move a force in the same way.

The fastest thing they had to move a large force was a creature they called a Skandher. Luna could best describe it as a six-legged horse mixed with a lizard and a spider. Its body was mainly shaped like a horse if longer to accommodate the extra legs. But its skin was scaly instead of furry, and it had a much more aggressive-looking jaw, akin to an alligator. The spider part came from it having six eyes on the front of its head. While the creature was fast compared to walking, it was nowhere near the speed of what the man talking to her about them had called a runner.

Riding those, they could get there on the second day of travel. But that was still nearly two days before they could reach the town to help them.

On the first day, Luna tried to hold onto the hope that they'd make it in time to help the town. She'd desperately grasped onto that light on the horizon that things would work out. But the soldiers around her knew better.

They muttered among each other what they thought. And even if they didn't say it to her directly, Luna heard what they said to each other. This wasn't a rescue operation. There wouldn't be anyone left to save when they got there. This was a cleanup operation. When they got to the scene, they'd clear the hoard of monsters, assess the number of dead, and investigate why this happened. The only reason to rush was to prevent the issue from spreading, and this town was already a lost cause. Luna had even heard one of the officers mutter about how they'd have a ceremony to issue posthumous honors to the entire town for sacrificing themselves to alert the king to the danger.

On the second day of riding, Luna hadn't even registered what the soldiers were saying. She remembered a conversation with Roxy and Shu-Na, but the details evaded her. Luna kept spotting Emilia praying atop her mount and repeatedly saw the dead look in Deven's eyes, but Luna didn't have the heart to call out to them.

The worst was when someone let slip amongst the company that one of Luna's party had run ahead to help with the town. Once again, no one said anything to her directly, but she heard the whispering from afar.

"Why'd she let them do that? Didn't she know it was a death sentence?"

>I didn't know. "I bet they didn't want to go, and she made them. Gods, I hope they ran off instead of listening to her."

>I didn't make him do anything. "Maybe it was spite."

"How much do you have to hate someone to send them into that out of spite?"

>I don't hate him. "Well, if they listened to her, they're either long dead or haven't reached the town yet."

>God, I hope he's okay. "What do you think the rest of them think of her, her party, I mean?"

>Please don't. "They probably hate her right about now. I would if I saw her order someone to their death."

>I didn't order anyone.<

And so the day went. Occasionally the voices in Luna's head tried to take her mind off everything, to reassure her it would work out. But she couldn't bear to listen to them; they'd told her to let Mask go alone. The weight of the guilt got so bad that when the call came that they'd reached the spot where they'd make camp, Luna almost missed it.

Luna remembered the plan was to make camp a ways from town as a base of operations. They'd send some scouts out to assess the situation while everyone else made camp. But from the look in everyone's eyes, it was just a formality. The soldier knew what the scouts would find.

Or at least, everyone thought they knew what the scouts would find.

"WHERE'S THE CAPTAIN?" One of the scouts rode back into camp aggressively. Following the quick directions of another soldier, he rode across the barely set up base, calling out for the name of who Luna assumed was the captain.

Looking where he'd come from, Luna saw the entire scouting group riding back. With looks of shock written on their faces, they dismounted and started talking to those around them. It didn't take long before even more muttering voices started coming from the area, like a wave in a pond.

"How's that possible?"

"I dunno."

"———"

"What are we —————to do?"

"Wait for orders?"

"————

"Maybe, I don't wanna rush —————, and it ends up being a trap."

"You think it's a ———?"

"————"

"—————————"

"Might be."

"What if..."

"Don't even ————— it."

"————————"

"———————————————"

"But it could be ———"

"They'd have been ———— for days. It can't ————."

"————"

"He might be right."

Luna couldn't hear everything they said. But from what she did catch, something the scouts saw was outside of expectation. But before she could go over to ask them about it, a similar ruckus started where the first scout went.

"Captain says gather everyone up." Luna heard someone say to another before they split up to relay the message to others.

Again, before Luna could go and look into what was happening, something drew her attention away. This time, however, it was something directed at her.

"Luna!" Deven called out to her. "Captain Feht wants to speak with you." He said while making a motion asking her to follow.

"You sent a member of your party ahead, right?" The captain asked with a grave seriousness in his voice.

Captain Feht was a tall, burly man. Well, for Luna, he was tall. He was clearly aging, but not addled. His hair was gray, and so too was the neatly maintained beard that outlines his chin. His eyes were a dark blue, akin to storm clouds, with his brow set square. Luna noted several visible scars on the man, the least of which was on his left cheek, splitting across his ear.

"I did," Luna replied. "I wasn't aware how dang-"

The captain held a scarred hand up to stop her from giving her an explanation.

>He probably thinks it's just an excuse.< She thought to herself.

"Come with me. I’d prefer to give my thoughts while looking at the scene if you don't mind." He said in the same solemn tone.

>Well, I guess it's to be expected. He wants to show me how impossible of a task it was before yelling at me for sending Mask there. I don't blame him.< Luna's thoughts turned to the worst.

The walk from where they planned to make camp to town wasn't far. Luna guessed it was maybe a twenty-minute walk over a hill if you tried to stretch it out. With his larger frame and long legs, Captain Feht's pace was far faster. The distance from the camp to the top of the hill vanished in less than five minutes. Five minutes of silence led to what Luna felt would be a terrible sight.

"I must say, sending someone alone to deal with a monster flood… Well, it's reckless. But it's precisely what I expect from rookie explorers." Feht said sternly while looking out over what Luna assumed was the ruined town. She hadn't yet worked up the courage to look for herself. "Even with your status as a hero, that moniker is true for you." He grunted out.

"I know, I shouldn't have. I didn't realize how dangerous it was. I shouldn't have sent him. Whatever happened to Mask is on me." Luna said, doing her best to make sure Feht knew how guilty she felt for her actions.

"What are you talking about?" Feht asked curiously before seeing that Luna hadn't finished climbing the hill. "Get up here." He jutted a thumb toward the other view of the town.

"I'd rather not." She said while turning her eyes to the ground.

"Just come up here," Feht said with a hint of joviality in his voice. "It's an amazing thing to watch him work. Never seen someone fight like that."

"Huh?" Luna let out her confusion while turning her eyes back up to Feht.

"He's like a force of nature." Feht reiterated. "What'd you say his name is?" Feht asked.

"He goes by Mask," Luna said curiously while climbing up to see what Feht meant.

When her vision crested over the hill to see the town below, Luna could only stare in shock at what she saw.

"Expectation is not reality."

Luna remembered that Mask said that one day while clearing rubble in the capitol.

"What do you mean?" Luna asked at the time.

"When some make a goal to help others, be it as a healer, to mend the body, or a priest to mend the soul, they expect things. Some predict it will be wrought with hardship. Others believe they will fill it with happy moments and smiles." He lifted the burned remains of a picture of the rubble and carefully set it aside while writing. "But, the reality is not our expectations. Both are correct, but nowhere close to the degree either thought. You will get a mix of moments like this, bittersweet as you hand over damaged memories to someone with tears on a smiling face." He gestured to the family whose house they were helping with today. "And moments like yesterday, where someone screams at you for not doing enough. For them, it will never matter how much you did, only that the event occurred at all."

"Where are you going with this?" Luna had asked, unsure of what point Mask was trying to make.

"I cannot say what you'll get from it." He'd written. "The lesson I learned was to rejoice when I expected a disaster and found success and climb back out of ruined lands when my expectations of success came crashing in. What you take from this is not for me to decide. But remember-

Expectation is not reality."

It was odd having the memory of that day flash into her mind now. Luna still didn't know what lesson she'd learn from those words. But looking down on the town she'd come to save, she understood just a little better what Mask had meant that day.

Surrounded on all sides by hideous abominations, Mask fought. Luna watched him move from creature to creature with feral ease; ripping into them, ensuring they all focused on him and not the town.

Leaping onto the head of a creature that looked crafted from raw meat, Mask tore a set of footlong horns out of its skull. Blood sprayed across him, joining a rust-colored coating of dried viscera on his body. One of the horns was instantly turned around and shoved through the eye of the creature it came from sharply. Luna saw the horn stop, some resistance halting its progress before Mask let go of it and slammed an elbow against the back to drive it further into the monster's brain. The other horn was thrown as fast as a bullet at a monster near the edge. Before the horn slammed into its side, that one had started to wander toward the town. Now it turned angrily to face Mask once again.

As the mass of flesh Mask stood on started its descent, he lept from it to another. This one didn't get special attention, as its skull shattered under the force of Mask, kicking off it to a larger foe. This one looked like a mess of thorny vines wound together to stand like a man. Mask ripped several of these vines off, exposing an eye in the creature's center. One hand plunged into the eye, a spray of clear goop erupting from the wound as the bundle of vines fell to the ground. Mask's other hand used the vines he'd torn away like a whip to strike against a wolf-headed thing to his left. The monster yelped as the vines sliced into its chest, a grotesque purple spreading from the gash they'd created.

Moving to another, Mask used the vines to wrap around the throat of something that looked like a giant mole. The moles flailed their limbs to grab at Mask, who pressed his feet against its back to pull the vines tighter. Its star-shaped nose flared, the tentacles that gave it its shape swelling like balloons. They burst open with a pussy yellow substance that looked to eat away at the ground on contact before the creature's limbs went limp. When they did, Mask let go of the vines and kicked the mole forward into the apparent acid to move on to the next monstrosity.

Mask grabbed the face of a zombie-like humanoid with overly long black clawed fingers. Slamming the thing backward, Mask bashed its skull against a jutted-out piece of stone in the ground. Struggling violently, the zombie struck at Mask's arm with its long claws, only to bounce off pointlessly. Again, Mask slammed it against the stone, a sickening pink and white substance scattered from the blow. But, still, the monster struggled, this time grabbing onto Mask's arm, trying to dig its claws in. Once more, Mask slammed it down, more pink matter coating the rock, but the thing held tight. A fourth-time mask slammed it down, the entire back of its skull turning to a pink and white mush; this time, its hand fell limp. Mask tossed its corpse aside aggressively, knocking several wandering creatures to the ground with the apparently heavy body.

Mask continued like this, going from monster to monster with brutal effectiveness, making sure none ventured to the town. But as Luna watched, she noticed that no matter how many he killed, the hoard never shrank. For every hideous thing Mask slaughtered, another seemed to crawl from the corpse of one he'd already killed.

"He's not winning," Luna said in shock.

"No." Captain Feht agreed. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it's getting worse, not better." He said gravely.

Around this point, Luna spotted a semi-familiar face making their way over from the town wall. With a look of panic and concern, Hern rushed over to where Luna and Captain Feht stood, careful not to draw the attention of any of the monsters as he did.

"Please, you have to help him." Hern started. "He's been fighting since he got here. He stopped responding to us," Hern said hoarsely as soon as he was within earshot of Luna.

"What do you mean? How long has he been fighting?" Luna asked, concerned.

"Almost three days," Hern said with tears in his eyes. "He can't keep taking hits like that." Hern almost cried.

Turning to face Mask once more, Luna saw that Hern was right.

It wasn't instantly apparent, but Mask wasn't taking each monster out unscathed when she looked closely. He'd slip on a puddle of blood while dodging and take a glancing blow to the head. Then he'd grab something sharp without thinking and lose his grip. Or he'd throw a creature to the side, only to take the fist of another to his back before he could move on. He was dealing far more damage than he was taking, but Luna now saw how much damage he was enduring.

"We tried to get him to stop when we saw you all riding over, but he didn't seem to hear us," Hern said hurriedly. "It's like he's possessed."

At this comment, Captain Feht turned to face Hern with anger in his eyes but concern on his face. "Three days of fighting like that, and it hasn't cleared up?" He asked.

"No, sir, the group is smaller, but each one is bigger than before," Hern said. "We were using our skills, and I thought it was helping, but everyone ran dry yesterday," Hern elaborated, his voice cracking.

"Damn it. DAMN IT." Feht yelled.

"What is it?" Luna asked, worried.

"Your friend down there probably has miasma poisoning. How he's still fighting like that, I don't know." Feht said while turning to walk back to the camp.

"What does that mean?" Luna asked, hurrying after him.

"He's all but gone mad. If we're unlucky, he'll see us the same way he sees the monsters." Feht said while picking up his pace.

"Is there anything we can do?" Luna asked, her anxiety from earlier returning worse than before.

"Not that I know of. The best we can do is end his pain." Feht said, his pace going beyond what Luna could keep up with.

With a heavy heart, Luna's feet slowly came to a halt.

>What do I do?< Luna begged the voices to respond.