“I wanna see the stars,” Dema deliriously requested that same night. And so, Theora gently picked her up and carried her out of the shed, only to see the Jellyfish girl standing at the foot of the hill.

“She wants to stargaze,” Theora spoke, in a soft voice, but loud enough for that person to hear. “You will have to wait.”

And thus, she left that girl waiting for a few hours until they returned to the shed. Dema was fast asleep again. After putting her back in her bed, Theora allowed the guest inside.

Their people were called Medusae. They lived in the south, on a few islands.

She had a humanoid face and skin coloured in mixes between azure blue and bright yellow. Countless thin tentacles draped her head instead of hair, poking out from a large blob of transparent jelly. The tentacles reached far down, and she could apparently move them at will.

The girl’s arms and legs furthered her humanoid appearance, although they were made of thicker tentacles reminiscent of squids. She wore a pretty dress; partly transparent, white and fluffy, completing her jellyfish appearance.

“I remember asking you to leave after our fight,” Theora said.

“I wanted to talk to you, if that’s okay,” the person replied. “I am Bell. It should not take long.”

Without replying, Theora simply stared at her for a while. Bell had ignored her request to leave, and that was rude, but nothing more than that. So far, the girl had shown no hostilities, and she didn’t seem interested in attacking Dema for the moment.

“Talk it is,” Theora answered, even though she didn’t really want to. Talking was tiring, after all.

“Today has made me really sad,” Bell began. She took a deep breath, picking up her arms and combing them through her dozens of tentacles. “I guess that’s what happens when stubborn entities meet.”

“Stubborn?”

Bell shrugged, and pointed at Dema. “The Ancient Evil, for example. It looks really, really bad. The Devil of Truth, I presume? Did a real number on it.”

“That was mostly my fault,” Theora replied.

“And yet, the Ancient Evil persisted. Still alive, after such a long time. Because it just wants to keep living. Very stubborn. And you are stubborn, too. You want to be the one to kill it. Nobody else is allowed to.”

Theora frowned. “I would prefer if she didn’t die at all.”

“That so?” Bell shrugged again, and this time, she gave a weak smile. “The System told us through our quest descriptions that you still have that scroll to strip away [Immortality]. There’s no other entity besides the Ancient Evil that has a Skill like that. If you don’t want it to die, why keep carrying it at all? Why not burn it?”

Theora took a sudden and short step back. That’s right. She still had the scroll.

Because, despite it all, she still knew that one day, she’d have to kill Dema. And killing her by using the scroll was much gentler than destroying her with [Obliterate].

At least, that was the vague and unsound justification Theora had in her head. A head that, as she came to realise more and more, was feeding her with self-deception and empty dreams.

“But you two aren’t the only stubborn ones,” Bell continued. “The System wants the Ancient Evil dead at all costs. And the others from the party were willing to do it, no questions asked, just like that. Everyone involved persisted. Adamant on their views, unwilling to compromise. And now, I’m sad.”

“They should have gone home,” Theora muttered.

“Right. You think you are on the correct side. And in a way, you are, because you are lucky to be stronger, so you can dictate your reality on everybody else. Such is life.” Bell shrugged, making a soft squelching sound. “And, just for the sake of being straightforward, I am stubborn as well. I also was persistent about something. I told them I would not join them in their fight against you, and in the end, I didn’t, for what it’s worth.” She pulled her mouth to one side, making a grimace. “It was already a big mess, but who knows how it would have ended if I’d joined them.”

“I noticed. Why?” Theora said. 

Bell started walking through the shed, gently touching over the wooden surfaces with her tentacles, as if to inspect them. “Oh, damn. This shed is reinforced. Did you do that?”

Reinforced?

Oh, that’s right. Maybe the things that had withstood time had done so because they’d been made with skills or infused with magic. Maybe Bell had an [Identify]-type Skill.

“I mean,” she continued, “I knew it was pointless to fight you. You are just way too strong.” She let out a short sigh. “The others didn’t really believe me, though. Of course, as heroes, even among each other, we will hide our true strength. Neat little trick, by the way, making everyone think [Obliterate] had a usage-restriction.” Her lips curled into a smile. “Really got Amyd with that one. Anyway, I can’t say for sure, because we all hide some of our capabilities, but my guess is that among our party, I was the strongest. If I’d fought, it would have made this all a little bit harder on you. Maybe you would have needed to kill.”

If anything, Bell’s reasoning seemed sound to Theora. Bell had been the only one in the party who had determined that fighting was futile. Not many beings in the world correctly judged Theora’s strength. The monsters at the Zenith of the End had avoided her. Dema had chosen not to fight. And the Devil of Truth had known from the start that he would lose. This alone put Bell closer to them in power than to her fellow party members, if one were to estimate.

Theora had no access to any [Appraisal] Skills. All she could do was judge by her experience, her thoughts, and the small little feelings she got when people used their powers. Their auras, and the soft prickling she felt when someone was about to become violent.

And with all these things combined, that Jellyfish girl seemed rather powerful at first glance.

“I appreciate you choosing not to fight,” Theora said, but Bell immediately waved her words away and shook her head.

“Nah, no way. Don’t thank me for that. Pure self-preservation. I didn’t come here to get praised.”

“Then, why?”

Bell kept shaking her head, but much more slowly now. Her face scrunched up into a bit of a confused expression. “I just don’t understand it. We were all so persistent, and that caused today to end in a really, really sad way. I am still unhappy about how it all turned out. I… just want to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You,” Bell said. “I don’t understand what in the world has led you to choose this path. I can sympathise with the Ancient Evil wanting to stay alive. I can appreciate the perspective of the System, and the other party members, in wanting it to die. It’s the Ancient Evil, after all. People long before us have put a lot of effort into containing it, into finding a way to get rid of it. Maybe you are not aware, but sacrifices have been made to accomplish all of that. Lives were lost. So, there’s that.” She waved her hand. “So, I understand all of that. But it makes absolutely no sense to me why you act the way you do. I came here in hopes of finding that out.”

“Do I need a reason not to kill someone?” Theora asked. By now, she had started collecting Dema’s old bandages, and was washing them in a large basin she’d found and brought here a few days ago.

“Yes. You absolutely do. I mean, you came here to kill the Devil of Truth, and judging from how things look, that’s exactly what you did. Why kill him, but not the Ancient Evil? In fact, I am not aware of a single quest you ever refused to complete, except for this single one.”

Theora stopped scrubbing and looked up. “There’s no evidence of what Dema did. There was evidence for the others, and they were going to keep doing it. I killed them because I didn’t want them to inflict further suffering.”

“Huh…” Bell mused, and her gaze went over Dema’s body, her soft shivering in her bed as she slept, presumably with a bad dream, and then back to Theora. Looked at the cups of tea standing around, at the changes of clothes in one corner of the room. At the carefully propped up bedding, the damp cloths meant to help bring down Dema’s fever, and all the other pieces of evidence lying around. “I mean, look, that may be part of it, but honestly, it seems like there’s more. I can’t help but wonder. If you found evidence of the Ancient Evil’s past misdeeds, or if it gave you a brand-new reason to kill it tomorrow, would you be able to do it?”

That question made Theora stop dead in her tracks.

Would she?

By now, there was no denying that she appreciated Dema. But… was that appreciation contingent on Dema actually not being evil?

Theora had always lived with the assumption that there was a chance that Dema was a true monster, acting nice in order to survive. She’d already fostered that thought on the very first day they’d met.

And yet, that hadn’t stopped her from developing this kind of affection.

If Dema was evil, would that really change anything? Would she stop liking her, or would she have to overcome her own feelings? Would Theora even be capable of that?

The truth was, she had no idea. She just stared up at Bell, not responding, not even moving a muscle.

“So you don’t know either,” the Medusa finally sighed. “Fair enough. Thank you for trying, anyway. I was really hoping I could come to understand this situation. Hoping there was a way to resolve it. I don’t think the others will change their mind. I understand their positions to be final. But for you, since I don’t understand you, I was hoping there was a way to make you yield. But if you don’t even know the answer yourself…”

Bell shrugged, and made her way to the door. “I wish you the best of luck on this little path you have chosen for yourself,” she said. “But I want to let you know one thing, before I go. My personal opinion, that is.” Her eyes got sharper. “If today has taught us anything, it’s that the System is not without its flaws. This endeavour we got sent on was hopeless from the start, and we can all call ourselves lucky that we came away from it alive. The System should have never sent us here, but maybe it was desperate, I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s aware of many more things than you or me, or anyone else. It would never do something like this based on unsound evidence.”

Before continuing, she grasped the door frame rather firmly, her arm-tentacle squishing against it. “As such, I have a firm and unrelenting belief that you are making a mistake,” she said, and pointed to Dema with the tentacle of her arm. “I’m sorry to tell you, but that thing needs to die.”

Then, she bowed farewell. “Take care,” she concluded, and with that, she left.

For a long while, Theora didn’t even move. Just listened to the soft breathing of Dema, who was lying there on her bed. Her little horn poking up from her face, her ashen scent carrying all the way through the room.

Despite everything, Theora just couldn’t help herself.

In a quiet voice, but still determined, she murmured.

“I won’t let them hurt you.”