Chapter 115: The cost of survival

How did he come so close?

This question immediately popped into my head when I realized that he had come almost within arm’s reach without me noticing.

The disappearance of the fourth stone and the terrible thoughts that followed certainly made me less reactive than before, but not to the point of missing him entirely. At the very least, I was sure that my magical senses were now too developed to make this kind of oversight.

No matter how I thought about it, it was as if he had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

Was it an aspect of an element I didn’t know?

Did he have another way unknown to me to bypass my magical sense?

Maybe it was something else entirely, but no matter the answer, this ability was deeply unsettling for someone like me used to constantly sensing the mana around to detect the position of my opponent.

His sudden appearance was more than unsettling, it also confirmed what I had immediately suspected when I first saw him.

This man was dangerous.

With this single certitude in mind, I focused once more. I didn’t know what ability or secret he was hiding, but I knew that I didn’t have the leisure of spending any more time pondering these questions.

I breathed out to once again control my heartbeats and forced my raging mana — that had surged in a reactive response — to calm down.

Sooreman observed everything I did, probably guessing every thought that went through my head with disturbing delight and amusement. His provocative smile was still fixed on his lips as I finally succeeded in calling back my mana, letting it just bubble under my skin; controlled and hidden but ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

“Sorry, did I scare you, boy wonder?” he sneered with mock shock while feigning an apology with his left hand to his chest.

I didn’t want to grace him with an immediate answer, but I had to find a way to distract him from what I was awkwardly holding into my clenched bloody left fist.

“What are you doing here? Everyone able to fight should be at the frontline defending the wall,” I exclaimed while trying to sound as accusatory as I could to make him oblivious to my attempt to hide my left hand and what it was holding.

“Then why aren’t you there yourself?” he asked back.

“I’m a child,” I answered defensively while taking a step back.

“You sure are,” he consented while giving me a gaze too deep and too insistent to ignore the hidden meaning behind it.

He knew I was different.

It was almost certain ever since my scene at his office; no normal child could have escaped from his giant henchman’s tackle after all. However, I had hoped that the city’s situation would have been enough to distract him from me and would have given me the time to leave him and this city behind forever. However, this single gaze didn’t leave any room for doubt anymore.

He knew.

Unwavering by the tension and the distant explosions, he smiled once more and took a leisurely look to his right, as if he was able to see beyond the line of buildings as if the distant fighting of the wall for this city’s survival was happening just in front of his eyes.

With detached eyes, he looked toward the battlefield beyond my sight and magic senses for long seconds in relative silence constantly disturbed by the not-so-distant explosions telling a tale of a violent and probably desperate fight for the survival of this city. A situation that didn’t seem to worry him that much. It was almost like all the bloodshed to protect the wall didn’t matter to him. It wasn’t surprising that this kind of man wouldn’t have any feelings for any of the inhabitants of this city even if his men were fighting on the frontline themselves.

However, it wasn’t just that.

For a few seconds, I had trouble putting my finger on what was truly disturbing me until another earthquake made the ground under my feet shake, not enough to make me fall, but enough to remind me of the urgency of the situation and more than enough to make me look harder than ever for a way to bring the elemental stones to the Lost magic powering the wall as quickly as possible.

That’s when I understood what was truly bothering me about him.

He was too calm.

However, how could such a thing be possible?

Even if he didn’t care about anyone besides himself, he was still trapped inside the town just like the rest of us, and his survival was also tied to the continued existence of this town.

Unless…

“Don’t look at me like that boy-wonder, you will hurt my feelings,” he laughed while turning back to look at me once more. “I sent Ravanor in my stead to defend the city so you can’t say I didn’t do anything,” he explained with the same insufferable calm expression on his face.

Ravanor.

The image of this foreign giant warrior battling madly on the frontline with a smile on his lips that crossed my mind at the mention of his name was both unsettling and reassuring at the same time considering the desperate state of the battle for the wall.

“I guess your Dwarven protector is fighting there too,” Sooreman asked with the same detachment as when he was looking toward the city wall. He was merely stating a fact, not fishing for an answer, but I would be a fool to miss the hidden meaning behind his words.

I was alone with him.

No one could help me.

I reflexively took a step back and didn’t miss his hungry gaze looking at my clenched hands. However, it wasn’t my bloody left hand awkwardly hiding the three remaining elemental stones, but my right one that attracted his full undivided attention.

For a second, I was almost relieved that he didn’t seem to have noticed what I was hiding until I realized what had attracted his gaze and what was fuelling the smile on his lips.

The ‘ring of calamity’ on my right thumb.

The priceless elven artefact Hirillë gave me that saved my life too many times to count across my journey and that was promised to him in exchange for Seth and Himara’s freedom was now just in front of his eyes, almost within arm’s reach.

I didn’t wear it when I entered his office, so it was the first time he saw it, but it was enough. He obviously only needed a single glance to understand that this artefact was the real deal and a single look at his round eyes and frozen face was enough to understand that he desired it deeply.

Too deeply.

This kind of hungry gaze made me uncomfortable and forced me to hide my right hand to escape it. Under my sleeve, the ring left his field of view, but his undisguised greed didn’t go away. It transformed and made his delicate features uglier than the scars on the left part of his face with a kind of hunger that didn’t go away like an everlasting fire ready to consume everything just to be satisfied for an instant.

Confronted with such eyes, my discomfort only got worse.

I always had trouble dealing with such men, maybe because I never truly understood their drive. I saw many vain men when I fought for my life in my old world. In a sense, I became one of them when I started risking my life for money. Despite this, I knew deep down that across my lives I never experienced the kind of hunger that drove men like him and constantly pushed them toward the abyss. Of course, there were many things I wanted, but I could say with absolute certainty that I never desired an object so deeply, so wholly, that I would do anything to get my hands on it.

That just wasn’t the kind of man I was.

However, Sooreman was.

He didn’t try to hide it. He simply let his emotions show on his face for as long as he wanted, as if nothing else mattered to him in this instant — neither this town’s nor his own survival — as long as he could get his hands on the artefact on my thumb.

“I guess it’s time to renegotiate,” he suddenly added with a satisfaction he didn’t try to hide.

“What do you mean?” I asked while feeling my entire blood turn cold at the realization of what such words implied.

“You know what I mean…” he simply whispered back.

The bubbling mana under my skin started to leak as I took another not-so-subtle step back to stay out of his reach. A probably futile endeavor considering I was totally ignorant about the nature and the extent of his magical abilities, but a habit I had cultivated in my previous life that had already saved me more times than I could remember. In a similar way, his posture also changed.

This movement that a less experienced person would have entirely missed was all I needed to clench my fists harder than ever and sharpen my focus to not miss anything he would do. Any movement, any mana used, and any expression on his face were laid bare before me as I waited for one of them to give me the signal I dreaded and expected in equal measure.

“I’m willing to honor the terms of our previous accord despite your… unfortunate current situation,” he suddenly spoke while relaxing his posture and making the disturbingly greedy expression disappear from his face in an instant, as if everything I had seen had never truly happened and was simply the fruit of my imagination.

However, I knew better.

Even hidden, the greed was still there, just beneath the surface simply hidden by a mask of decency he carefully crafted over the years.

“And why would you do such a thing?” I immediately asked, not believing for a second his act of generosity while straightening my back and looking directly into his eyes without blinking away.

This kind of man only understood strength and only compromised or negotiated for things he couldn’t get this way. I didn’t know what would make him suddenly stop his hand and temporarily renounce to physically take what he wanted. All I knew was that whatever held him back would probably disappear in an instant if I showed any weakness now.

“Because there is something I want even more than this ring on your finger…” he answered after long seconds of silent observation.

My defiant attitude only seemed to have amused him and certainly made the greed come back on his face long enough for me to finally understand why he had restrained himself previously and what he truly wanted at the same time.

“Come with me, boy-wonder!” he exclaimed with a wide but deformed smile on his mutilated face immediately after this terrible realization crossed my mind.

My right hand slightly raised and ready to react to a sudden attack unconsciously lowered after his abrupt invitation.

“What?” I croaked.

“Come with me,” he repeated with an outstretched hand this time. “I can leave this city safely and take you with me. Of course, I’m willing to take your whole group with me except for your Dwarven protector. Someone becoming one of the main pillars for the city’s defense as soon as he arrived and who makes the whole region shake with his magic would be a little… troublesome to deal with,” he admitted after a few seconds of hesitation.

The confirmation that Jazor’s strength made even this man wary enough to hesitate eclipsed for a second his baffling invitation. It also would have been welcomed news if his offer didn’t imply something else.

In his mind there was no doubt: Jazor could contend against him.

Not me.

“What about Ravanor?” I asked in an obvious attempt to delay my answer, an act that didn’t go unnoticed if the knowing smile he displayed after my words was any indication.

“Don’t worry about him, boy-wonder. He doesn’t need any of us. If he was the kind of man who needed saving then I would have never paid what I did to make him come all the way from the other side of the Human world to become my personal guard. When things start to really fall apart, he will use everyone else around as a distraction to escape and survive. That’s the kind of man he is. The same kind as us,” he declared heavily.

“Us?” I asked baffled. “What do you mean by ‘us’? Don’t talk like you know me!” I shouted, letting my anger take the better of my cautiousness for a second.

“Don’t I?” he mocked back, unfazed. “Walmir told me everything about your journey across the wilderness together; how you risked your life again and again for a girl everyone thought dead, for her useless and backstabbing father, and for slaves you had just encountered. Why would a child in such a situation do something like that? Why would he risk everything for people he barely knew? Can you answer that, Sillath?” he asked in an admonishing voice.

Silence and a disturbed gaze were all I had to offer, something he quickly realized as he didn’t waste much time to give me the answer to his own question.

“Because that’s what everyone expected of you,” he hammered with a firm voice. “Because of your power, your so-called companions force the mantle of savior upon your shoulder time and time again, expecting you to take it, and you did so while preparing yourself for the price such a role would undoubtedly cost you,” he concluded cheerlessly.

“You’re… you’re wrong!”

“Don’t lie to yourself! he barked. “Even you should have started to feel it… How you’re struggling to be everything they want from you; how your own objectives started to become secondary to theirs. You could have left this city on your own a long time ago, but you stayed. Maybe you never truly realize it until now, but I can see it on your face, you know I’m telling the truth, your truth— our truth.”

Before I could offer any kind of answer, he parted the long hair obstructing the left side of his face giving me a full unaltered view of the horror hiding behind.

“If you’re still blind, then take a good look. I was once like you and never saw the truth until it was too late; until the comrades I had sworn to protect abandoned me without any hesitation when I couldn’t fulfill my role anymore. Take a good long look boy-wonder for this is your destiny!”

For an instant, it was not his face I saw horribly mangled and disfigured, but my own. Like a promised fate staring directly at me in its raw ugliness. I chased this image from my mind before roaring as loudly as I could as if trying to convince myself.

“Nobody forced me to do anything, my choices are my own!”

Shaken and strangely out of breath, I stared back at him as if I was daring him to contradict me. However, for the first time I didn’t see mockery in his eyes, neither did I see greed.

All I could see was pity.

I felt my cheeks growing hotter and my mana leaking as my emotions started to take the better of me.

“I’m not like you!” I exclaimed through gritted teeth while cursing Walmir in my mind for telling him so much about our group and our journey together.

“Will you attack me to prove your point?” he ridiculed with a small laugh as if daring me to let go of my restraint.

It took me a few seconds, but I managed to put my mana and my breathing once more under control, something he apparently expected.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re different from the rest of the people here waiting to die, praying for the wall to stand strong so that their pathetic lives can last one more day. You don’t pray, you don’t leave your fate to chance just like Ravanor and me.”

“I…” I mumbled, unable to offer any kind of denial this time.

“You’re just like us: a survivor!” he declared with his gaze plunged into mine.

For a reason I couldn’t explain, this word resonated deep within me.

No matter how much I wanted to chase it, it refused to go away and stayed printed in my mind like a burning brand on raw skin.

I wanted to have nothing in common with this man, but deep within myself I immediately understood that there could be no more fitting word for someone like me who had transcended death before.

A survivor.

That’s who I was.

Who I have always been.

Even when I was lost on my own inside the wilderness; even when my sight was robbed from me, I never gave up and desperately clung to this new life with my entire strength.

When did it change?

I struggled so hard when I was on my own, I bled and shed tears just to live another day, so when did I start to feel as if this life was disposable?

The answer was simple.

When I met Alianelle.

I risked everything to save her time and time again starting from the moment she was kidnapped by a Ryunno clan member. I took absurd risks to reunite her with her father, but also to assure their safety and lead them to the first Advanced town.

At first, it was to repay my debt to them.

At first.

So, when did it change?

When did I start to feel as if her life was more important than my own?

On the day of the fall of their Advanced town, on the hill surrounded on all sides by deviants and animals all desperate to tear us apart, there was no doubt that I could have escaped by myself. There was nothing anyone could have expected from me in this situation, so why did I turn around when everything was lost for them?

I had my own life, my own goals, and desires, but I was ready to throw everything away just to save them.

If the beast of harmony hadn’t intervened, I would have used my strongest magic to save them— and would have lost everything else in the process.

“You’ve started to realize it, don’t you?” spoke Sooreman once more.

“Who I choose to protect is my own business,” I finally spit through gritted teeth. “It has nothing to do with you!”

“And yet, my words struck a chord, did they not? No matter who says it, a truth is still a truth,” he chuckled. “I understand why you would want to save kids from slavery, I understand why you would risk your life to save your friend. If half of what Walmir told me is true then you did admirably and can be proud of yourself, but when will it be enough? When will you have shed enough blood for their sake?”

“I…”

“You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting to live; you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for their sake— they wouldn’t do it for you. Just tell me: do you truly not care if you live or die as long as they are safe?”

Once more, the violent words of rebuke I wanted to throw to his face stayed stuck in my throat, because the answer to his question was limpid.

I didn’t want to die.

The image of the family I had left behind appeared in a flash in my head reigniting the desire I had to see them again. Their love saved me from my guilt and the darkness of my past life. I killed, bled, and suffered for their sake so that one day I could return to them, so why did I risk everything so many times?

‘Your own objectives started to become secondary to theirs…’

“If you refuse my offer and the walls of the city are broken, then no matter if you’re a boy-wonder, you will definitely die. Do you want to bet your future on the small incomplete stone you’re hiding in your left hand or do you want to take my hand right now to save yourself and your friends?”

I barely reacted at the mention of the stone I had been hiding since his appearance. Somehow, I knew that he didn’t care for these incomplete stones much more than he cared about the survival of the city.

“Will you free Himara and Seth?” I finally asked after a few seconds of tense silence.

“I will not,” he simply answered.

Then I can’t accept.

That’s what I wanted to immediately answer and somewhat expected to say, but these words didn’t leave my mouth.

I wanted to say them; I wanted to proudly reject his offer, but all along our conversation the explosions— testimony of a never-ending battle for the survival of this town, had grown even stronger. If this man truly had a way out of this situation, then it was worth considering accepting his offer even if it meant renouncing to free Seth and Himara.

But, I had promised to free them.

However, there was no doubt that if the wall fell, I wouldn't have the power to save Alianelle and Paul.

‘You’re struggling to be everything they want from you.’

Once more the image of my family crossed my head as if to remind me where my true duty was. Maybe they needed me; maybe they were putting themself in danger to look for me across the wilderness; maybe each day spent in this town trying to fulfill everyone else’s wishes had already robbed me of my last opportunity to reunite with them.

“Don’t let them use you as a disposable servant,” added Sooreman in a forceful voice. “Wake up before it’s too late! Take my hand and live, Sillath. Survive!”

No matter how hard I tried to deny it in my head and heart, Sooreman was right: his words had struck a chord deep within me.

I couldn’t do everything and if I tried, I would pay the price for it.

If I took his outstretched hand, I would give up on my promise to free Seth and Himara but I would save Paul and Alianelle.

If I was strong enough, I could save them all, but I wasn’t.

Despite my reincarnation, despite my abnormal soul, I wasn’t strong enough yet.

When this thought crossed my head, the answer I was looking for suddenly hit me. I finally understood the reason why despite common sense, I risked my life time and time again to save them at the cost of my own desires.

Whether it was Seth, Himara, or Alianelle they were all innocent and all deserved to survive and live their life to the fullest.

Much more than I did.

‘Your sin is your own existence.’

These words had haunted me— much more than I cared to acknowledge — because they were right. I could see it now. The stronger I became, the more I started to realize the true unfairness and irregularity of my nature. In an equal world, I should have never been born.

However, I did.

I was born, lived, and struggled as hard as I could. The ancestor called me a monster when Sooreman called me a boy-wonder, but the truth was that I was neither. I was just a man who had done his best to avoid repeating the mistakes of a past life flawed with regrets— a life that ended with tears and shame.

However, now that I was so close to my goal, so close to reuniting with my family and accomplishing my only true desire in this life, the idea to give it up was unbearable.

“Let me help you, boy-wonder!”

If the wall fell, this choice would be gone. Now was my chance to at least save Alianelle. I could free Seth and Himara later.

Now was my last chance.

Slowly, I raised my hand in a motion almost too slow to call it voluntary, as if my arm wasn’t my own anymore.

I had done enough.

I kept repeating these words in my head when another quake— stronger than all the others before — stopped my motion and made me stumble forward.

“Come with me, Sillath. This city won’t last much longer!”

Once more, Sooreman opened his mouth to convince me, but this time his words appeared much more distant and much less appealing than before.

As if waking up from a dream, I realized that I had forgotten the most important thing.

I wasn’t alone.

This burden, this duty to save them all wasn’t for me alone to bear.

Jazor was still fighting. He was still putting his life on the line to save us all. I wasn’t the only one who could have left on his own nearly at any moment to save myself. Jazor could have done the same with his magic, but he didn’t.

He stayed behind and fought so that our group could have a chance of survival.

He fought to keep his word.

Didn’t I promise to do the same?

Didn’t I promise that we would go back together?

To help each other and do together what we couldn’t do on our own— that was our vow.

This way, we became like brothers.

For an instant, the fear of losing everything I had fought for in this life had made me forget it. However, now it was impossible for anything to be more important to me.

Sooreman clenched my right hand to help me to my feet, but I didn’t let him.

As if his skin had burned me, I shook it away violently.

I saw the incomprehension on his face just before disappointment and wrath took its place.

No other word was necessary.

I had made my choice.

And will have to pay the price for it.