“I’ve been thinking about something. What exactly separates us from animals? We’re not necessarily smarter, some animals can process more information than us or have longer attention spans. You don’t look very interested in what I’m saying. Have you heard this bit before? I’d still like you to hear me out. You’re a better listener than most. Anyway, I think it’s our ability to deceive. At some point, humanity developed something other animals didn’t have: a sense of cruelty. We tear each other down to gain money and power, even knowing that we’re dooming hundreds or thousands of others to death just so that we can succeed. Is it inherent to us? It’s possible that there was one cruel human at first who had more influence than the others, and so the rest of us changed to be like them. But why is it that even after we’ve multiplied for so long, no group or individual has decided to change this? If cruelty was a ‘defect,’ it wouldn’t have spread so quickly and rooted itself into our nature like this. So, it must be by design. Perhaps mother nature realized that, in order to be at the top of the food chain, you must use and manipulate all at your disposal, even your fellow man. Were we destined from the start to rule over the world? Why did only we develop that deceptive nature? Why are we the only animals that can lie? It’s hard to say. When I say ‘we,’ I mean purely in the biological sense, of course. Seeing as I have realized all of these truths, to call myself truly ‘human’ feels disingenuous. It feels equally wrong to call myself a transcendent being, what with you standing right in front of me, but I’m definitely ‘something else.’ Hey, stop looking at me like I’m being pretentious. This is true. Humans are defined by their inability to realize the cycle that they’re in. Look at any religion or mythology borne by humans and you’ll see this trend. Death and rebirth, forever wandering it. On the subconscious level, they realize that to ascend this cycle is to attain Godhood, but they know they can’t do this while remaining human. As thus, they seek death, to leave behind the physical body. Humans can’t get what they want as long as they are human, is what these stories say. The inability to realize their cruelty is a large part of what it means to be human. I’ve fully accepted this fact. I do not deceive, nor do I manipulate. I don’t want to die, either. I haven’t fooled myself into believing some made up ideology about how the world should be. Humans were born to deceive everyone. They even deceive themselves into thinking they weren’t. They all have the self-awareness to realize and deny this purpose, but none of them do. Such beasts… That said, there’s only so much I can do in this world of man without taking on the role of man. I’ll play my part in this game of yours until the end and show them the uncomfortable truth. Are you interested in seeing a wild card, Alien? Watch closely. You’ll get to see that ‘war’ soon enough.”

 

    

 

    

    Sweat fell down my face as I followed closely behind Barb, surrounded by trees and bushes. The sun was still high in the sky, so we had to be extra careful to not be seen by anyone. Rubi had convinced me that doing this during the day was better than night, and the logic was sound, but now that I’m here, I have to admit that being hidden by darkness makes me feel a lot safer.

 

    Barb was holding two sticks, as Rubi had instructed. If we found ourselves in a situation where our only option was to fight, she would rub them together and try to apply a spark to them. I struggled to imagine a scenario where we would be forced to fight yet also have the time to do something like that, but it wasn’t my place to argue. Worst case scenario, we have two sticks that don’t do anything. Not really a burden on us.

 

    We continued slowly and silently, taking occasional glances below us to make sure we weren’t about to step on a twig or something that would make noise. Our job was to identify where any enemy camps were and tell Rubi so that we could draw a map in the dirt of our camp. We had been doing this for almost 20 minutes now and there were no signs of other people. This really was in stark contrast to day one. It sent a shiver down my spine to consider that the people who panicked on the first day must have had something horrible happen to them to scare them back into hiding, or worse…

 

    Barb startled me by throwing her hand to the side and pointing forward. I squinted and noticed an opening similar to the one we had claimed. As we got closer, there was a tent and what resembled the remains of a campfire. We scanned the area but didn’t see anyone. I gulped. Was Rubi wrong about our theory that everyone would be in their camp during the day? Maybe they had the same idea as us…

 

    She gave me another hand signal: a thumb pointed back to indicate that we should back up. I remembered that we had come here to locate camps, not players. Even if they aren’t here, they’ll have to come back here eventually. We turned around and I let Barb take the lead again.

 

    The distant, faint echo of a snapping twig made my hair stand on end, trying my best to not scream. I looked up to see if Barb had noticed. She did. We stood still as ice, waiting for any further noise. If it were something big like a person, surely it would make more than one sound, right? A concept I hadn’t considered started to enter my head. Did this place have animals in it? Oh, wait, we ate fish earlier. How was that alien capable of recreating organic life like that? I guess plants are technically life, so I should have been impressed the moment I saw the trees, but they’re less complex probably…

 

    “GET DOWN!” Without warning, Barb shouted at me and shoved me with her shoulder. I hit the ground with a thud. My breath accelerated as my eyes darted around for signs of what exactly she was talking about. Only seconds after I had fallen, I saw a man with a facemask standing over my previous position with a knife in his hand. He scoffed. 

 

    Barb wasted no time in engaging him. She tossed one of the sticks to my feet and kept the other in her hand. The stick was rather blunt since it was from the pile that we used for our campfires. Our assailant’s eyes shifted from her to me and back again, uncertain about engaging the both of us. He jumped away right as I got the idea to try and grab his leg. Clearly he hadn’t discounted me just yet. I stood up and started taking deep breaths as I pulled my knife out of its sheath. I considered grabbing the stick, but dual wielding isn’t in my training yet. Those sticks really did end up being pretty useless. The distance between us eased my surprise, as did the fact that we had the numerical advantage. I remembered my training with Garald and took a moment to try and analyze the enemy. He was similar to me in build, with blonde hair and a mean scowl. His shirt and pants were both tightly fit and dark. How convenient. Must be why they sent him on recon. That made me wonder, though, if he seems so specialized for this, then does that mean he’s the only one? It wouldn’t shock me if his teammates split up to take on another task since he’s more than qualified for this one on his own. It’s a great way to manage time and effort.

 

    “Based on his looks, this is his job. He may not have any backup around here.” I kept my comments short, just enough to give Barb the info I gathered.

 

    “Always be ready for it, anyway. Just in case.” She said. My eyes narrowed at our opponent. My arms and legs entered the stance I had practiced so extensively in the last couple of days. My knife was extended forward, threatening to counter any attempts at approach. The man clearly was unsure of how to handle this. He backed up slowly. Barb and I pushed forward at a similar speed at first, then faster. He leaped into the air with impressive height and grabbed an extended tree branch, pulling his body up it and vanishing into the leaves like a ninja.

 

    “Shit!” Barb grunted. She started running toward the open camp and I followed shortly. Staying under the trees when the man is so adept at traveling through them would be like asking to get assassinated. I felt a sense of relief when Barb ahead of me entered the camp successfully. That must have been why I didn’t notice the body dropping onto me from above. I tried to turn around, but he was already on my back and driving me into the ground. I felt his knife pierce the skin in my lower back, but a loud, blunt smack made him pull away. Barb had tossed the slab of wood and was running towards him before he could gather himself again. He growled and quickly stabbed me once again, closer to the spine. I screamed. When Barb had almost gotten close enough to grab him, he kicked off of me like a launching pad towards her. He grabbed her shoulders and used the force of his flight to knee her in the stomach. The two of them tumbled forward, but he recovered much faster and was already up on one knee. She didn’t take too long to get up either, not giving him any room to take advantage of his attack.

 

    My whole body felt hot, like someone had just pushed hot iron right into my back. I was lucky that the second attack was more shallow than the first, since he was already preparing to move when he did it. I’ve taken punches before, but never a stab wound. The mental shock was as great as the physical shock. I thought I would be ready for an encounter after experiencing it twice and training for it, but this was beyond anything I could have imagined. This person was ready to seriously injure me. If they had dug any deeper into my spine, couldn’t that have paralyzed me for good? I didn’t want to think about it but it was stuck at the front of my mind. I just came so close to losing everything at the very start. Even if I survived that, I would never be able to help them like this again.

 

    Like this… Like this… Help them… This is all I can do. This guy almost took away the last thing I have to offer to my wonderful friends: my body. I was ready to throw it away for them before, but not like this. Sacrificing my body and throwing it away are two different things. How would me dying here benefit them in the slightest? It wouldn’t. I have to get up and beat that guy, but any time I tensed my muscles, I feel the fire in them explode. I slid my legs forward and tried to lift myself up to a sitting position, but even having my abdomen indirectly moved made me want to scream. I panted and glanced up at Barb, who was in the middle of a close quarters fight. Despite this, she didn’t make any risky moves. She was almost entirely on the defensive. Seeing her narrowly avoid that knife made me scared. So scared. I couldn’t take it. I shut my eyes and buried my face in the dirt. I moved my arms with great effort and pushed myself up, screaming into the dirt. I finally managed to get myself up on all fours, but I couldn’t yet balance myself with just my torso.

 

    Barb yelling made me gasp and look up. She had taken a slash to the arm, but she still seemed capable of moving it. Rubi told me the points to aim for with a knife, the points that would have the highest likelihood of incapacitating an opponent. That slash was eerily close to a vital muscle. I screamed again, but this time in frustration rather than effort. Both of them turned to look at me, but Barb took the greater pause and suddenly lost her distance from the attacker. He lunged at her, but she reacted quickly. Her leg shot out like a bullet and shoved him back with a donkey kick, but not without him managing to slash down her leg. She grit her teeth and fell down to one knee, rubbing her palm over the wound. I started crawling towards her, but the man got up before I could make any distance. The more I moved, the more I could feel how deep the first wound was. I was lucky he didn’t hit where he probably wanted to, but he still got me totally off guard. Barb clenched her fists and made a face that told me she was trying to generate a shock but probably meant nothing to our opponent.

 

    She didn’t try to stand up, but I gathered that standing now would hurt her a great deal. The man was on his feet, though. He approached her, not even looking at me anymore. I picked up the knife I had dropped and chucked it at him like a spear. He jumped away. The knife smacked into a tree and fell flat. He was highly agile, but that made him create more distance than he needed. Barb smacked her legs interchangeably, presumably to keep the injury quiet. She shut her eyes tight and then stood up firmly. 

 

    Seeing her get up despite the wounds, I grunted and drooled a bit in extreme concentration as I put all of my power into my legs to lift myself back onto my feet. I felt the wound open and drip blood down my back and onto my pants. It was as though an immense weight were trying to keep me glued to the ground, but I growled and clenched my teeth as all of the power I could ever harness into this one leg lifted me off of the ground.

 

    Not like this… Not like this… I don’t want to leave them yet! I want to be the one who saves them!

 

    With stomps that felt heavy enough to shake the earth, I finally stood beside her. I didn’t bother to wipe the dirt or spit off of my face, nor the blood from my back. The attacker’s advance halted when he saw that the both of us had stood back up. Most of his face was hidden, but we could tell he was shaken. He seemed particularly spooked by me. What kind of face was I making just now to scare him like that? Whatever it was, I couldn’t relax my facial muscles even if I tried. 

 

    It didn’t take long for him to keep going, albeit slower than before. His expression relaxed. He must have realized we don’t have much steam left in us. I knew that we needed to escape. What we had to seek out was an attack that would either force him to retreat or give us an opening to flee. The latter was probably unlikely, given how hard it would be for us to run like this. There was no way to send a signal to the others. Rubi and Garald were making sure nobody invaded the camp while we were off.

 

    I tensed my legs up to see how quickly I would be able to dash for the knife over there. This made it clear to the enemy what my goal was, though. When I decided further caution was pointless, I dashed towards it. In the same instant, he sprung towards me. His launching speed was insane. He caught up to me before I could grab it, but Barb had also jumped into action. She grabbed the arm with the knife in it and pulled him closer to her so fast that I heard a pop come from his shoulder. He was still able to yank his arm back, but he didn’t begin slashing at her despite how close he was. His arm hung low, although he tried to hide this.

 

    I retrieved the knife and ran towards him with it. My vision flashed white for a moment. I nearly fell forward until I just barely managed to catch my consciousness and force it back into my head along with my anger. I thrust my blade towards him repeatedly, far sloppier than in my routines, but Barb rushing him from his right side added enough pressure to make up for my lackluster assault. Even brute force worked in moments like these, but I had to remember that he had a knife too. He swapped it from his injured arm to the free one and started dodging my swings more confidently, as though he were now conscious of his ability to counterattack. Rubi told me that knife fights were dangerous and pointless, but what the hell am I supposed to do here?

 

    The answer was this. The thing I’ve been doing, buying time. Barb ducked deeper into his right, now knowing that his knife was in the opposite hand and he would be unable to suddenly strike at her. I remembered what I was taught, like I did at the start of the fight when I calmly analyzed him. It was way harder to make calm choices in this case, but my brain was working overtime. I slid to the left, anticipating that he would flee that way to escape Barb, or if he didn’t then he would attack me suddenly and this would dodge that while letting Barb finish him. He ended up fleeing, just like I imagined. He was visibly shocked that I had moved with the exact same timing as him, like I was completely copying his movements. I swung in a clean arc motion to take advantage of his confusion, and his chest was grazed. His reflexes were good enough to dodge backwards in time, but I had fulfilled my purpose in making sure he didn’t get a chance to attack. 

 

    I felt something odd, like adrenaline shooting right into my brain. I was surprised at my ability to outsmart and read him completely. It felt good to do such a thing. It felt like what I might imagine a weightlifter feels after performing some Herculean rep. I knew adrenaline could cause your strength to skyrocket for an instant, but I had never heard of it increasing your concentration like this. Regardless, in this state of focus, I was able to discern that his next move was going further back and then attacking one of us. I was in front and Barb was to the right. His reflexes were good, I had to admit, but nobody could keep calm in this situation. I had shut down his attacking options. His emotions would get in the way of his reflexes. They would fight for control over his mind. It was only natural, but reaching that conclusion in such a dire moment made my blood pump faster.

 

    At some point, I forgot that we were aiming for retreat. Thinking about retreating would only make my movements noncommittal right now, anyway. Even if I end up running, I need to come at this like I’m trying to win. Keeping my head still, I glanced down at his feet. Sure enough, they were moving back. I tried to stab his right thigh but my physical abilities were not on par with my brain, and he evaded. At last, his opportunity to attack had revealed itself. “Shit!” I growled. I realized that I had gotten way too ahead of myself. He raised his arm up high as if he were getting sick of this and were about to impale me with all of his might. Following us without a moment’s hesitation, Barb slipped into his side with the defenseless arm and punched right into his ribs. He spat in pain and ceased his strike, her liver shot clearly working. 

 

    “Damn it!!!” He shouted as he flung his arm in a wide motion that aimed to catch both Barb and myself with a crescent-shaped slash. A clear desperation move. I managed to wrap my arm around his, but it didn’t stop his assault, only slowed it. That was all we needed. Barb used his open, unsafe stance to switch from a boxing stance to a karate stance. She twisted her arms clockwise in a way that would add as much momentum to her swing as possible. That flying weapon of a leg hit him right in the neck, the side that his arm was unable to lift to defend. I felt his arm lose its force at the same time as I saw sparks fly out from her ankle in the spot that she hit him. 

    Barb lowered her leg down into a wide legged stance in case he managed to recover from that, but he did not. Now that he was frozen, I hugged his arm tighter and pulled it behind him, getting the other arm in there too. His eyes were empty, and he fell to his knees without much resistance. I took a shaky breath as I allowed most of the tension to leave my body. I felt like I was coming off of a high. I sunk into the ground. She pulled his facemask off and tossed it away, presumably to identify him. He was a young adult. Still older than us, though.

 

    “Is.. Is he.. conscious..?” I barely managed to ask. I was still in a bit of a daze. She shook her head and stood over him with one hand on her hip. She tried to look casually annoyed to offset her pain, but it was too obvious.

 

    “This damn twig gave us such a hassle? I can’t imagine what it would have been like if he had his buddies with him…” She hacked up some saliva and spat it to the side.

 

    “Do we bring him back?” I gulped. The pain I had felt before was slowly coming back now that the adrenaline was leaving me, but it was somewhat eased by how dizzy I felt. Probably from the lack of blood.

 

    “I guess. What a hassle… If Rubi saw that fight just now, I wonder if she would still make such unreasonable demands…”

 

    I put my knife back into its sheath. We worked together to lift him onto Barb’s back, but her leg couldn’t handle all of that weight and we ended up dragging his body instead.

 

    “You switched styles so neatly, Barb. That was really cool.”

 

    “Heh, I mean, I do watch a little MMA… Rubi helped me hone it.”

 

    I smiled, trying not to pay attention to the pain. Barb grunted and almost fell down on her injured leg.

 

    “You okay? I really don’t know about this… If we weren’t injured, sure, but…” I thought about the alternatives. Let him go back and heal, or… deal with him.

 

    Barb exhaled and relaxed, no longer attempting to stand up as she let him lay limp over her back. “Rubi won’t know if we just handle him and leave…” I shivered. I looked at the man, his eyes now closed as though he were sleeping.

 

    I replied, “We could, like, break his leg or something?”

 

    Barb sighed and rolled him off of her, trying not to wake him up. “Well, I didn’t learn how to execute an unconscious opponent, haha…” Her laugh was weak, like she realized how morbid of a comment it was. “Well, I could step on his leg or something. Prop him up and I’ll kick down. Are you alright with that, Yu?”

 

    I felt stupid to be worrying about the fate of the guy who almost killed me and my friend. It’s not like we were going to kill him. A lot of people are happy with only one leg… Shit, that’s dark. I nodded. Barb lifted him up and put him on his back awkwardly. She lifted his left leg up and used a tree to keep it up at about a 90 degree angle. Perfect for destroying it.

 

    “Hey, before we do this… Do we know what his power was… er, is?” I asked. “He was moving really fast. Maybe his legs are just really strong?”

 

    “Whether it’s natural or thanks to his ability, he won’t be doing much without one of his legs.”

 

    I didn’t reply. I wasn’t asking that to delay the act or get to know the guy. I was only wondering if we could make use of his power or something if we managed to discern it. That’s all it was.

 

    “Well, Barb, you’re stronger, so… You don’t mind, do you?”

 

   She looked slightly worried but didn’t object. As she stepped forward, we heard distant footsteps through the foliage and lifted our heads up like deer in headlights. We exchanged a quick look, then I immediately started booking it towards our base. I assumed Barb did the same, but I heard a loud crack and a bone-chilling scream. Barb managed to catch up to me, not giving me even a glance as we ran for our lives. It seemed that she was like me, too scared to pay attention to our brains yelling at us to calm down and treat our wounds nicely.

 

    One of my steps ended up being too strong and caused my leg to freeze up, sending me tumbling forward onto my face. Barb stopped and pulled me up to my feet, which made my muscles scream, but I moved her arm away to indicate I was fine to go on. We continued running, though I was a bit behind her. Embarrassing, considering she got her leg cut and I didn’t.

 

    I couldn’t hear anyone following us. They must have stopped to care for their teammate. Barb slowed down, breathing fast until she came to a stop and fell to the floor, rolling onto her back to rest. I fell too, though I made sure to keep my back off the ground. I put my face into my hands for numerous seconds and calmed myself down as much as I could.

 

    I tuned my hearing into my surroundings as much as I could. There was nobody here but us. I could tell that we were close to the base. It was way faster to run back than it was to sneak out.

 

    “Did… Did you… Uh…” I muttered a question to her.

 

    “I think… His leg bent back, but I had to flee and was under pressure, so I can’t say it’s broken… He might recover…”

 

    I felt relieved, oddly. I couldn’t say if it was correct or not to disable that guy. I would have to think about that more once I’m not in such an intense situation. When I tried to in the moment, all I was met with was a headache.

 

    

 

    

    We broke into the clearing, alerting Rubi and Garald to our return, and stopped walking, hands on our knees. They ran up to us and let us lean on them.

 

    “Treat Yu… They got stabbed in the back.”

 

    Rubi held a hand up to her mouth as she walked to my back and lifted my shirt up “Oh, gosh… Hey, Garald, can you bring Barb down to the river?. We need to dilute the wounds.

 

    We allowed ourselves to be taken, dragging our legs a bit. We stripped, saving the essentials of course, and dipped the parts of us that were injured in the water. It stung. I got out shortly after, not liking the idea of water getting into my body through the holes. Barb got out too and we both wrapped our clothes around the places that were cut. Seeing as her wounds were more spread out, she wrapped her arm with her tank top and her leg with her jeans. I silently lamented the huge opening that had been made in the leg of her favorite pants. They were cool looking. Rubi grabbed the ends of my shirt and pulled out, causing it to tighten around my torso. “Ack! Hey, not so tight, I’m wounded…!”

 

    “We need to stop the bleeding. This is harder to stop than a wound to a limb. Not to mention, it’s deep. I gathered some tree sap and various plants that are good for treating bruises and cuts. I’ll apply some to you after the bleeding has stopped.

 

    I sighed. I reached back and wiped up some blood with my hand. There sure was a lot of it. I got up and dipped myself in the water, keeping the wound itself and my shirt above the surface. In the meantime, I looked over at Barb, who was tightening the makeshift bandage around her arm and wincing. The bleeding there had already stopped, it seemed. Her leg was not so well off.

 

     As I stared at her injuries, my mind wandered to the fight we had just finished. What the hell was up with me? First I was useless, then I was in the zone… Why was I suddenly so prepared? Did the pressure of a real life or death situation make me snap?

 

    I didn’t have the time to finish the thought. Rubi bundled a handful of leaves and some sticky syrup stuff. She unwrapped Barb’s leg and rubbed the gooey stuff along the cut like a lotion of sorts. “I scraped some birch bark, but I haven’t had time to cook it yet. It makes pain killer tea.”

 

    I was always shocked by how prepared she was in every situation. “When did you gather all those different things? Were they in the same area?”

 

    “Ahh… Well, I couldn’t sleep the other night.” She giggled, not looking up from her work. “I wanted to explain to you guys what all of them are for and how to use them. I’ll do that soon. If the pain gets seriously bad, you can chew on the inner bark of a willow tree. It’s basically aspirin. I got some of that, too. It can also make tea.”

 

    “Damn.” I said, absentmindedly. After several minutes, I checked my wound with my hand. There was no blood, but I still wanted to reach under the wrapping to feel it. I resisted. “Do you think my wounds are closed yet?”

 

    “Nah, it’ll take a while. For real, that willow bark is in the tent.”

 

    I felt a little sick at the thought of eating wood. “I’ll bear with it…”

 

    

 

    

    A little less than an hour passed. We had explained the scuffle to Rubi and Garald. The wrapping around my torso was gone and I had received some of that mysterious stuff on it that Rubi had explained but I hadn’t retained. Barb and I were now resting in the tent, the other two sitting outside. They were probably gathering food or medicine or something that I was incapable of helping with right now.

 

    “Fuck…!” Barb snarled and pounded her fist into the dirt once. I could tell the pain was adding to her frustration. “We barely even beat that guy! Both of us! He didn’t even look that strong. We did way better in our last fight.”

 

    “Yeah, it’s annoying. He must have been way stronger than he looked. Also possible that the last team we got jumped by wasn’t very strong. Teams who jump into fights thoughtlessly are probably going to be less of a threat than the ones that hang back and let enemies come to them.”

 

    “I didn’t ask for your breakdown, nerd!” She punched the ground again and hurt herself, grunting and rolling over. I resisted laughing.

 

    After some silence, I stared at the flimsy roof of the tent and let my mind wander to my previous thoughts. Best to confront this now, I guessed. That flow state I was in… As much as I didn’t want to ask the question, was that me.. Having fun? What the hell was fun about that situation? There’s no way that was it. I was terrified. I tried to put myself back in the place I was then. I let the emotions flow back, or at least the ones I could remember. I really couldn’t tell how much of it I had forgotten in the heat of the moment.

 

    The feelings sunk into me. I wanted to try and get myself back into the “zone,” but I couldn’t muster up even a fraction of that energy. I guess that’s to be expected. Aside from that crazy feeling, the objective memories I could gather were telling me something worrisome about myself. Was it possible that I was enjoying the feeling of being useful? It was like I was in some kind of fantasy where I was the protagonist. In this fantasy, I was a hero who was stopping a villain from reaching the people I love. Is this how Rubi feels? Is that why she was so excited about seemingly childish things? Is she the protagonist of her world? I’ve never felt something like that before. Even in our fights up to this point, in my head I was the side character who existed to keep the real protagonists safe. 

 

    This time, I was actually useful. I messed up, but I actually helped. I don’t think Barb could have won by herself. As wrong as it felt to take her frustration positively, she affirmed that earlier. Wait, no, I can’t gloss over that. That IS wrong. I’m getting happy that Barb was frustrated, and happy that Rubi and the others were in danger. In the moment, I was thankful that such danger had shown itself and given me a chance to prove myself. In my heart, I longed for a situation that would force me into the hero’s role because I knew I could never muster up that kind of confidence by myself.

 

    Just like I thought, I am the worst person ever. Such childish egocentrism would just get me in danger if I kept it up. What am I going to do if this train of thought makes me overlook potential threats so that they can become a problem I have to deal with and make me look cooler? An inflated ego leads to overestimating yourself. Hell, that’s literally what happened near the end. If I was a bit stronger, I could have managed that… But I’m not, end of story. It was as Barb said, as a duo we barely managed to beat him. If I got myself into a 1 on 1 situation like that as a result of my big head, I’d be toast.

 

    That settled it. Rubi’s protagonism is childish. If she was displaying traits of a person like me, then I have to do what I can to put her on the right path. Nobody can recognize garbage traits like I can. I mean, I’m practically made out of exclusively those. 

 

    I remembered the look on the attacker’s face when I stood up. I couldn’t have seen my own face, but it must have been frightening. Covered in dirt, spit, blood… Like an animal. Would I be able to live with myself if one of my friends looked at me like that? What if Barb had stopped to look at me at that moment? Did I look like a pathetic person who wanted so badly for their existence to be validated that they would form a power fantasy out of a disaster? A pathetic person who valued the concept of saving their friends more than their actual friends? A pathetic person who only kept people around if they could reflect all of their trashiness onto said people?

 

    Whatever. I won’t have to worry about that. I’m locking it away for good.

 

    Just get stronger. Become confident in my own strength. Remember that I exist for them. Without them, I’m nothing. Without me, they’re the same.

 

    When I put it that way, it got harder and harder to doubt that Rubi was the protagonist of this world. Do I have any right to stop her? Well, saying I want to “stop her” is wording it like it’s more dramatic than it is. If every other captain here is like her, then they probably have similarly lofty ideals. I doubted Rubi’s assumption that everyone here who doesn’t share her ideology is wrong. I’m sure there were plenty of captains here who would make the world just as good as Rubi would or better, just in a different way. Garald and Barb, despite lacking lofty ideals, were still incredibly invested in this. They could be considered protagonists, too. Far more than me, at the very least.

 

    All that thinking hurt my brain. I don’t care about who is going to make the world a better place. That’s just the kind of piece of shit I am, I’ve come to realize recently. It was a waste to think about who is the most correct when the only outcome I care about is the one that affects my friends. To care about people I don’t even know would be to assume I’m some kind of virtuous person. Only those people get to care about things beyond their personal world. When I put it like that, I was embarrassed at myself for how hard it was to make the decision on what to do with the attacker back in the forest. Do I really think I can help more than three people at a time? I’m already failing to do what I need to do for them. Even if someone with a greater sense of justice than Rubi shows up, I won’t hesitate to use them to further Rubi’s goals. That’s my selfish wish. It’s all I can do and all I need to do.

 

     From now on, I won’t allow myself to think I’m a saint. I can’t change who I am. If I need to, I’ll become a beast for their sake.

 

    My loathing was disrupted by sudden fast footsteps outside. I immediately worried that the attacker’s friends had come for revenge, but I couldn’t tell if there were more than two people out there just yet. Barb rolled over too. She held her hand out to tell me not to speak, like I didn’t know that already.

 

    Hearing Rubi’s voice confirmed what was occurring. “Halt! Your surprise attack was a failure. Are you here for revenge?”

 

    There was an uncomfortable silence. I got the impression that they weren’t going to engage her in conversation like she expected.

 

    Damn it, of course they followed us. They knew now that only one of them could handle two of us. It stands to reason that three of them could handle the other two of us now that Barb and I were incapable of fighting. Luckily for us, though, they probably expected us to send our strongest on recon and leave the weaker at camp. It wasn’t easy for me to guess who the strongest in our team was, but what I did know was that I was the weakest. Rubi and Garald as a duo would be far stronger than Barb and I.

 

    “Hey! She’s talkin’ to you! Can’t even have a civil conversation?!” Garald barked at the intruders. I really wanted to stick my head out or at least peek through the entrance, but if they saw me and realized that we were a weak point, then they would use us as hostages or something. I did everything I could to remain still.

 

    “Well, we won’t be attacking first, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” I heard her blunt, wooden sword tap the ground. “Violence isn’t our cause, but if you attack us, we will defeat you. That’s your last warning.”