国产午夜亚洲精品AⅤ

Chapter 161

The possibility of us being tried for murder had become very unlikely. Therefore, apart from any punishments we had to receive, our rewards would be determined based on the benefits we’d brought to the guild.

This wasn’t about earning a commission.

As such, there was no set compensation, and we didn’t know the extent of our achievements.

Moreover, this was a serious incident. Until the investigation was complete and the whole truth came to light, our achievements and compensation would remain unknown.

Saints Point, and the points south of it, were frequented by low-level adventurers.

Given the evidence of a large-scale massacre and the identification of suspects, the Egxian Forward Base had deployed a significant number of personnel.

This place, usually crowded with mere stragglers, would now see the arrival of not just adventurers but actual military forces.

“The convoy mission might be scrapped entirely, and specialized troops will likely take over those roles.”

With the intensification of adventurer activity and the collapse of Klitz Point...

Significant guild resources had been invested, and because there had been a planned attempt to seize those resources, even more specialized personnel now had to be deployed. From the guild’s perspective, just discovering that the person in charge of the escort had intended to steal the very resources he’d been charged with safeguarding must have been quite a shock.

We submitted ourselves to whatever investigations necessary over those few days, and we were now ready to head out again.

—Are those the ones?

—Yeah, that’s them.

—They killed all those guys by themselves?

—No way...

—Is that mage actually really powerful or something?

—Anyway, a lot of people owe their lives to them.

We had become famous figures in Saints Point. Even though job opportunities had disappeared, if things had gone on, many would have fallen into Hugson’s trap and lost their lives.

Though we had killed many people, we’d saved numerous others as a result.

The dead couldn’t speak.

And so, the praise from the living tickled the back of my mind in an uncomfortable way.

Ellen, Eleris, and I were having lunch after getting up late.

We’d been exhausted from the investigations and needed to rest.

This incident had essentially been handled by Ellen from start to finish. She was the first one who’d detected the issues, the first one to speculate about them, and the first one who understood everything that was going on.

Since the clash with the large band of robbers, my thoughts had become a little jumbled. Trying to act nonchalantly after killing something felt wretched, and my mind wasn’t sharp anymore.

I was at my limit mentally, and that left me with no room to think about anything else.

Honestly, it was strange that I was holding on, but it was even more unusual that Ellen was as well.

“We needed experience, but we ended up getting an entirely different kind of experience... damn it,” I said.

We knew to be cautious around people. However, neither Ellen nor I had wished for this kind of experience.

“... I had some idea, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad,” Ellen responded.

Ellen seemed to have anticipated something like this. Ellen was definitely in a state of constant vigilance. She seemed to remember above all else that one had to be wary of people.

What kind of stories had Artorius shared with his sister Ellen? I didn’t know.

The biggest incident in Saints Point, the collapse of Altz Point, was now resolved.

Now that we had handled such a major case, there was no longer any reason to stay. The only thing to do if we stayed was to head down to the southernmost point, but the newly-formed supply convoy would take care of the problems there.

“For now, we should head back to Egxian or—”

Just as I was trying to organize our future plans, a voice interrupted us at our table.

“Um, excuse me...”

Ellen, Eleris, and I turned to look in the direction of the voice.

“...”

There stood Austin, his face displaying a multitude of emotions, including despair, shame, and embarrassment.

With great difficulty, he opened his mouth, enduring his shame.

“I came to say I’m sorry, and thank you... If it wasn’t for you all, our convoy members, including me... we all would’ve died.”

If we hadn’t been there, the convoy would have departed as planned, and they would have been massacred by those guys while completely defenseless. He had come to express his gratitude and to apologize for that.

Even though he had been coerced into it, he’d still tried to frame us. He seemed to be carrying a lot of guilt over that.

Honestly, there was no need for him to come find us. We hadn’t done this while expecting Austin’s gratitude. But Austin had gone out of his way to come and apologize.

That was more than enough.

“Well, don’t worry about it too mu—”

“Stop it,” Ellen interrupted, looking directly at Austin.

“H-Huh...?”

“Stop doing this.”

Ellen’s voice had a commanding tone to it, something uncharacteristic for her. Her sudden words made Austin’s face turn pale. Ellen continued to speak in a cold, unwavering tone.

“You don’t have the skills to protect your own life.

“You don’t have the discernment to identify dangerous people.

“You don’t have the caution to consider the risks of the tasks you’re given.

“If that’s the case, you should at least have the sense not to bother us. But you do have that sense, apparently.”

It was the first time I’d heard such harsh words come from Ellen’s mouth. I was as taken aback as Austin was.

He had neither the skills, nor the judgment, nor the caution.

But he did somehow have a sense of decency.

“Hugson may have disqualified himself as a person, but as an adventurer, he was a success. He was bold, ruthless, and lacked any sense of decency.”

Ellen seemed to have concluded the moment Austin had come to apologize that he absolutely had to quit being an adventurer.

If he hadn’t apologized and had acted shamelessly, it might have been different, but he couldn’t even do that.

Since he lacked so many things, he should have at least lacked a conscience as well, but Austin was still trying to maintain his.

Because of that, Hugson was somewhat more qualified to be an adventurer. Though he was merely a killer, adventurers, in the end, were people looking for big opportunities.

Those who were less than human survived better as adventurers.

If you don’t have the skills or the drive to score big, you shouldn’t be an adventurer.

Hugson may not have had great skills, but he had the required tenacity. In a world where such individuals survived, what was the point of Austin entering it with his current disposition?

If you lack skills, you should at least be wise.

If you lack both skills and wisdom, you should at least be cautious.

If you possess none of these, you should abandon your conscience.

If you want to be kind, you need the skills to overcome the weaknesses that kindness brings.

You don’t fit into any of these categories.

Ellen was pointing all this out.

“I don’t know if you qualify as a human being, but as an adventurer, you’re disqualified. So quit.”

Ellen seemed to have a strong disdain for people who aspired to be adventurers just because they idolized Artorius. These were people who followed a romanticized idea of adventuring without knowing its true nature.

They were doomed to be sacrificial lambs, unaware that their half-baked admiration could cost them their lives. They didn’t realize that, instead of dying in battle with monsters, they might get robbed on the roadside or betrayed by their own comrades.

Ellen’s candid criticism turned Austin’s face a ghastly white.

“Ah... uh, yeah... I guess you’re right...”

He hung his head, a miserable expression on his face. It was pitiful to see that he couldn’t even muster a single rebuttal to Ellen’s cold words.

Austin, who’d once bragged about having a B-rank adventurer in his party, hadn’t even known what kind of person that was.

Was it really a good thing to crush the dreams and hopes of someone who was full of them, and send them back home?

Ellen, seeing that his hopes and dreams had already been cracked, chose to completely destroy them.

She was telling him to live an ordinary life. She had used harsh words because she knew he wouldn’t listen to moderate advice.

I watched silently as Austin walked out of the inn, defeated. He might take on another commission despite these words, or he might give up and return to his hometown.

Ellen must have thought it was better for him to stay alive rather than spend it chasing futile hopes and dreams.

“...”

Despite this, Ellen’s eyes were wide, betraying the fact that she couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

It seemed like she couldn’t believe that she was the one who was saying such things to someone else.

“Let’s talk for a moment.”

“... Okay.”

I got Ellen up and took her to our room.

Eleris watched Ellen and me with a complicated expression as we headed upstairs to our room.

***

Once back in the room, I faced Ellen. I didn’t have any intention of saying something specific. There was no reason to say anything.

Ellen kept her head down, staring at the floor.

“Should we go back?” I merely asked, seeing Ellen blankly gazing at the ground.

“...”

It had been a harsh experience.

We had to kill not just one person, but dozens. We didn’t have the time or space to properly reflect on the experience, since we were constantly preoccupied with one thing after another. While I couldn’t handle it, Ellen had been trying to keep her mind sharp and keep track of everything.

Even though I couldn’t, Ellen was doing it.

“There’s no need to force yourself.”

It was only natural that Ellen was more mentally exhausted than I was. She must have believed that not only her life, but mine as well, depended on her actions.

She must have been under much more tension and stress than me. And then this happened.

It was strange that she hadn’t yet broken down once in this extremely dire situation. Seeing Austin must have triggered her, causing her highly-strung emotions to suddenly explode.

She couldn’t help but say something because she found him so pitiful. And she was surprised by her own harsh words.

Eleris had worn a complicated expression as she watched us coming upstairs, and that also prompted me to ask Ellen this question.

“I didn’t mean to be so harsh,” she mumbled, almost to herself.

“It’s okay,” I gently reassured her, even though it was clear she was struggling. “You’re doing the best you can.”

This was simply a reality check—a raw, brutal lesson about the cruel world we inhabited. And it was a testament to how far we still had to go.

I stood beside Ellen, thinking about how to handle the next step, knowing that we both needed time to process, recover, and decide our future course.

She was shocked by the fact that she had lost her self-control.

So, I asked the question.

If you want to go back, we can go back. There’s no need to force yourself to keep doing this.

“No...” Ellen leaned her head against my chest. “I’m just... tired...”

She didn’t suddenly break down and cry or anything like that.

She simply leaned her head against my chest and remained silent for a while. I gently cradled her head with one hand and stayed still.

However, Ellen seemed to grow more emotional, and began to tremble slightly.

As she began to show her vulnerable side, it was as if a dam had broken, and her suppressed feelings flowed out.

“I’m... I’m scared...” Ellen was trembling. “I’m scared that I’m starting to become like my brother...”

“What are you... talking about?”

“I always thought that it doesn’t matter what happens to other people’s lives... That’s what I thought before...”

It seemed like the stress she was feeling was compounded by something else.

“But now I’m... acting just like my brother...” she continued.

If we hadn’t eliminated the band of robbers occupying Klitz Point, countless people would have died.

That was why Ellen had decided to annihilate that band of robbers. Why she hadn’t hesitated to stain her hands with blood.

She had deferred reflection, and opted to take what actions she had judged necessary in the moment.

As those deferred thoughts began to surface, though, Ellen realized the truth.

Despite vowing never to live a life in which she would sacrifice everything for the sake of others like her brother, she’d ended up taking dangerous actions without regard for her own safety when the situation arose.

She’d killed to save someone’s life.

Ragan Artorius must have acted the same way.

It would have all started as a simple sense of justice—doing what he could because he could.

Since saving lives couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.

However, as the same thing was repeated, it turned into a sense of duty.

First a few lives, then dozens, hundreds, thousands.

Eventually, saving lives became an inevitability, and he was revered as a hero.

And finally, he came to see sacrificing even his own life as a matter of course.

In the end, he’d killed the Demon King at the cost of his own life.

Ellen was terrified to realize that she was starting to follow the same path as her brother. She absolutely did not want to, but with this the very first step, she had unwittingly done just that.

It wasn’t that she regretted her actions.

She didn’t regret saving someone.

She was merely terrified by the realization that she was becoming just like Ragan Artorius.

She felt as though it was the inherent, unchangeable nature of the blood within her.

“What nonsense,” I muttered, pulling her head closer to me.

“...”

Yeah.

I understood what she was struggling with.

“In that situation, anyone would have made that same choice.”

But ultimately, it was nonsense.

“If you have the ability and the skills, anyone would do the same.”

There were exceptions, of course, and some people simply could not do it.

But there were plenty of people who would have acted just as we did.

“We were able to, so we did it. That’s all.”

“...”

“There was no other reason.”

We just made an ordinary decision.

The process and the outcome were far from ordinary, but we were ordinary.

‘You didn’t make that choice because you are the sister of Artorius.

‘You have to believe that.

‘Even though it wasn’t ordinary, you have to believe it was.’

Pointless worry and anguish provided no answers.

“... Do you think so?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“...”

Ellen’s trembling gradually subsided.