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Chapter 30: Survive

“News to me!” I shouted. “It must be because of my Class. I got it for killing Temporus. But I sure as hells haven’t heard of Demons rising up from the Underworld to capture some random guy who killed a Demon!”

“What the fuck is a Temporus?! What the fuck are you talking about? You need to explain. Everything.”

We slowed down and I looked around at our surroundings. We were in the middle of the forest, trees on every side. There could be Infernals right behind any of them, or maybe that damned Supreme Hellion was swimming below our feet this very instant.

I took a breath, trying to shake my paranoia. The Infernals were too large to hide like that. And the Supreme Hellion was what made that rumbling, so we’d feel it if it was about to attack again.

“Listen,” I said to Erani, “I barely know any more than you do. I killed a weird Demon and got a weird Class from it, and that was all I knew until just now. Apparently I got into some sort of trouble for killing it, but I had no idea. I wouldn’t have ever gotten you – or anyone – mixed up in all of this otherwise. Fuck. Listen, if you want to leave now, I won’t hold it against you. I’m obviously in deep shit, and I wouldn’t want you to die for it. Just please, don’t tell anyone–”

“Leave? You think I can leave?” Erani laughed bitterly. “I’m mixed up in all of this just as much as you are, now. We were seen entering together, gave our names out, we talked to people together, and we were seen trying to leave together minutes ago. Anyone who knows your face knows I was with you. If I go back to Carth, best case scenario is that someone recognizes me, the Demons torture me for information, and then I get to leave with my life once I sell you out. That’s the best case. The more likely case is I get killed at some point along that process.” She leaned up against a tree, sliding down it until she was sitting on her heels. “We’re fucked.”

I took a breath, pacing around in a small circle. “Not necessarily. We just need to take refuge somewhere until the Kingdom takes care of it. They won’t allow an invasion like this to last, right? They’ll send in a squad of elite Classers or something to take out the Demons, and then we’ll be safe. Until then, we just have to hide out. We could go hide in Ordensville, or better yet, just hang out in the forest nearby your town, going in to periodically grab some resources while trying to stay unseen. All we have to do is stay away from Carth.”

Erani shook her head. “No. No! We’re completely fucked. You seriously believe we can survive an entire Demon army searching for us? Did you see that gigantic fucking Hellion? It ate the clock tower. Ate it! We can’t– I– fuck.” She exhaled, burying her face in her hands as she sat, leaning against the tree. “We’re dead. We’re fucking dead. Cornered, helpless, in over our heads. We are fucking dead.”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re wrong. We can survive this.” I knew I was being harsh, but I needed to convince myself just as much as I was trying to convince her, and I couldn’t do that with a constant spew of hopelessness in my ears. “We are going to survive. Okay. Issue one. Supreme Hellion. I haven’t seen it since the initial attack, and it’s been a few minutes. We would’ve seen it again if it was still around – or at least felt it moving around. It was making that earthquake from before, and I haven’t felt it since. It has to be gone by now.”

“That still doesn’t–”

“Issue two. Demons. There’s only a finite amount of them, and the further away we get from Carth, the thinner they’ll have to spread themselves to find us. If we get far enough away, there’s no way they’ll catch us before the Kingdom comes in and dispatches them.”

“But–”

I got down to my knees, my face in front of hers. Relatively speaking, Erani was still a stranger to me; we’d only known each other for a couple days, and the most intimate moment we’d shared was a first date. I didn’t know her well at all. But I needed her. She was double my Level, and had access to some incredibly powerful magic. We needed to work together. “Listen. I will help you, and you will help me. We’re going to wait this out. That’s our plan. Got it?”

I watched her take a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, we can get through this. It’ll be easy. Just wait it out.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself more than me.

“Okay, good. Let’s keep moving.”

She nodded and took a moment to breathe before stuttering out, “W-we can head to Ordensville. I know the area, so I’ll be able to get what we need from my place without alerting too many people. It’s a good distance from Carth, too. Let’s find the road and follow it there.”

And that’s what we did. We found the road that led to Ordensville and began walking down. Well, we didn’t really walk down the road. Instead, we walked along the side of it, keeping out in the trees, that way we kept out of sight of anyone traveling along the road. Periodically, we would take a moment to sneak closer and take a glance at it to make sure we were going the right way.

Not too long into our flight, we stumbled across a grisly sight.

“Oh!” Erani gasped, looking down at it and looking sick. “Good gods.”

I swallowed, feeling the same as her. It was a person – or, at least, what remained of one. The form of the Human was crushed and broken, bent in countless places it shouldn’t have bent, bones stabbing through skin, and blood, guts, and general redness spread about the grass and leaves next to the road.

“What… happened here?” Erani took a step back.

“I haven’t ever seen a monster do something like this. Hells, I barely ever see monsters leave freshly killed corpses lying around uneaten. This… wasn’t something native to the forest.”

“The Infernals? Those Demons that attacked the city?”

“I don’t know. This person, they must have tried to run, and… the voice, it said that anyone resisting will be killed, right? This is probably how they kill you.”

“Fuck,” Erani closed her eyes and turned away from the morbid display. “Fuck! These people are innocent! How can they do this?”

“It doesn’t matter how they sleep at night. It matters that they’re trying to kill us. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

“We can’t just leave them,” she looked at me. “This person – the city! They’re innocent, all of them. I can’t just pack up and flee! What if the Demons decide to kill them all when they realize we aren’t here anymore, huh? What, what if they just decide to torture every citizen for information, just in case? What then? I can’t have that blood on my hands.”

“What do you expect us to do?” I scowled – not at her, but at the situation in general. “Think we can just walk up and ask nicely that the Demon army return to the Underworld? Or, what, you think we can fight them all off? You saw what they could do. I’m sorry for the people of Carth. And I wish it didn’t happen. Hells, if there was anything

I could do, I’d have done it without even thinking. But right now, we are nothing compared to those Demons. We can’t do anything but run.”

“We can do something.”

“And what would that be?”

“We go back–”

“I already told you, we’d die if we did that.”

“Yes. We go back and die. The Demons are here for you, not the other Humans. They’d probably leave if you were dead.”

I just looked at her.

“The number of people. We– we can’t just let them all die for our sake!”

My scowl deepened. This time, it was directed at her. “I’m not just going to lay down and die because the Demons are choosing to kill people. If they want my life, they\'re going to have to fight me for it.”

Erani took a shaky breath. “...My family. They’re in Carth. Right now, my sister, my parents, they could be…”

I blinked, suddenly feeling a lot worse about my anger at her. “We aren’t letting them die. They’re being killed. We are not the ones making the choice to kill them. Their lives are not in our hands. Their lives are in the hands of the Demons. Yes, the Demons might kill more people if we run, and they might decide not to do that if we kill ourselves. But personally, I’m not interested in dying to maybe convince a group of evil bastards to not kill some innocents. If I’m going to try and save these people, I’m going to make the Demons spare them, preferably by sending them to whatever afterlife they go to.”

Erani stared at me with an indescribable expression of grief and terror.

“Listen,” I sighed. I didn’t want to be so callous, but now was not the time for tact. “There was a lot of destruction in that invasion. Bottom line, your family might already be gone. We have no way of telling. But if we work to escape and get stronger, maybe we can avenge them. If we lay down and die, we’re telling the Demons that we Humans are no more than insects to them. That whenever they want, they can walk up, kill us, destroy our cities, and we won’t do shit about it. They’ll take it as an invitation to kill more people, because they’ll know they can. But if we make this as difficult as possible for them, and stall for time until the kingdom steps in, maybe they’ll learn to leave us alone. And nobody else will have to die.”

Erani blinked as her eyes began to wet. “Okay. We can do this. Just survive.”

“Yeah, survive. We can’t let them win.”

I gently guided her around the bloody corpse. Once we were past it, we kept walking in wordless silence. I did understand her panic at the situation we were in. I’d gotten used to weird and dangerous things happening to me; my experience getting the Minute Mage Class and the subsequent fight for my life in the forest had mentally prepared me for this moment. But Erani had nothing like that. She was an adventurer, sure, but adventurers still didn’t take jobs they couldn’t beat. They didn’t put themselves in situations where they genuinely didn’t know if they’d make it out alive.

But I knew the outcome here. I knew, because whatever the circumstances, I would make it happen. We would survive.

After about a half hour of walking, the bored voice echoed out from Carth once again. “Headcount completed. Infernals, be advised: Arlan Nota has not been found. Suspect Erani Wos has been confirmed to have information on fugitive Arlan Nota. Erani Wos has not been found. Commence hunting efforts immediately.”

Erani stopped. “They know my name. They’re hunting for me.”

I nodded. After a moment, she sighed and kept walking.

“It’ll be okay,” I could hear her mutter. “I’ll survive.”

Before I could respond, there was a sound, like someone was shuffling around. It came from Carth in the same way the bored voice had before. I could hear two voices muttering to each other, amplified by the magic, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

After a few seconds, a new voice started speaking. This one was less bored, but not in a good way. It was full of frustration, like I could hear the scowl on the speaker’s face. “Listen, Arlan Nota,” it said. “It seems you’re determined to cause us more trouble than needed. Do be informed that what happened here was a mild display of our power. You have destroyed something that was ours, as well as stolen our property. You are a nuisance to be taken care of, and nothing else. An annoyance. But understand that if you prove it will require us to apply more force to solve this problem, we will not hesitate to do so.”

Erani looked at me, worried.

The voice continued. “My name is Xhag’duulinithar’obaba’iidook’naisantipoduun’torobaroxhixhonxhaxintep. Take care to remember that name, because it’s going to be the one you will beg for mercy to. I’ll take care to remember your name, too, since I look forward to reading your charges in person at your formal execution. But most importantly, remember this: there is no such thing as a Human that can gather enough power to oppose us. You have no hope of help, you have no hope of growing strong enough to defeat us. Your best option – your only option – is to turn yourself in and stop getting innocent people killed. Members of your own species are dying, Arlan Nota, and it’s all because you want to extend the remainder of your life for a few extra hours. Your death warrant is signed. You will not be making it out of this alive. Make one last contribution to your society, and take responsibility for your actions.” There was another shuffling noise, like someone had just gotten out of a chair, and the voice echoed out one last time, “That is all.”

I took a breath and kept walking.

“It’s just wartime propaganda,” I said to Erani. “They’re attempting to demoralize us so that we turn ourselves in. Ignore it and keep walking.”

She stayed put.

“There would be no reason for them to tell me all of that information unless it gave them an advantage if we knew it,” I said. I was also partially trying to convince myself. I knew that, logically, they didn’t empathize with us and didn’t care about Humanity, but there was still something incredibly intimidating about the voice – that Xhag’duul-something-something guy – saying all of it so confidently. “They would never tell us about their plans to bring in additional forces if they actually planned to do it. It’d be much better to surprise us. They’re just trying to get under our skin.”

Erani took a slow breath, and kept walking. “Okay. Just survive. As long as we can just wait it out, we’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t even sure that I believed that, anymore. Even if they didn’t bring in any additional forces, the ones they had were still overwhelming.

But we had to survive. I had to survive. And I would personally find that Xhag’duul Demon and fucking kill him. You signed my death warrant? Well, motherfucker, you just signed yours, too.