And (N)one Shall Remain

The first option is to head towards where the sun rose each morning. Roughly two months of journey away in that direction, by which We calculated according to the pace that the children could keep up with, lay a small community of our worshippers, hidden in a small cove deep within the forest. You will have to trek through the depths of the forest to reach that region, however.

 

“So, retrace the path I took to reach Navef and keep going in that direction?” asked Esperanza. “Won’t the forest depths be full of creatures even higher in level, though?”

 

That is correct. That area of the forest would definitely have creatures that are in their forties to fifties in terms of levels. If you were to be unlucky, you might even stumble into the territory of a level sixty or higher beast, against which we doubt even your prowess would have helped. Discretion would be greatly required should you choose to take that path, especially with all the children you brought with you.

 

“I’m pretty confident that I could get through that area without too much of an issue myself…” mumbled Esperanza thoughtfully. Between [Aura Mastery] and [Gauze of Oblivion] she could likely sneak her way through the territory of even the more dangerous beasts that she could not handle in a fight, especially with Dali and Gordy helping along.

 

Even if she failed in such an endeavor, at worst she’d just have to respawn a bit later anyway. Unfortunately that doesn’t apply to the gaggle of children she had with her, as they were neither anywhere near as capable of silently skulking through the jungle like she was, nor were they able to come back from death as if it was little more than an inconvenience.

 

As such, to take that sort of dangerous road meant that she would need to escort the children to the best of her ability, and Esperanza honestly doubted that she was up to such a monumental task. It was a great difference between carefreely skipping around through the depths of the jungle inhabited by many vicious monsters on her own compared to doing so with two dozen defenseless children in tow.

 

While Eda-Zil and Kvar-Litu might be able to hold their own against some beasts, she also doubted that they could do more than buy a few moments of time against the more dangerous ones deeper in the forest, given how the village they lived in saw even second-tiered beasts as mortal dangers to their lives. Their poor classes did not help matters either, nor did their current injuries, even if those were healing up quickly.

 

“What of the other route, Oldies?” she asked at last, having decided that it would be a difficult and risky journey, at best, if they were to take the first route to the east as Oldies described.

 

That route lay towards the south and west, instead. Around a month’s journey away, hidden within a series of abandoned mineshafts is a small settlement, or rather, a hideaway for people who still remembered us. The route itself is less littered with beasts and monsters, the worst of which you would find along that path at worst in their thirties or so. However, more than half the route passed through inhabited lands, without any convenient forests or other wilderness to help hide your passage.

 

“So we would likely run across the inhabitants of those lands… whose lands are those?” asked Esperanza as she thought about the suggestion.

 

The land belongs to the non-humans, who the humans like to call demons. The same group of people whose [Champion] you had bested in single combat not a day ago, child. Before you ask, yes, the average demon citizen would still be bound to the system and be alerted should they see one of our worshippers, and that in turn would likely cause them to round up whatever militia or other armed forces in the vicinity to hint the ‘heretics’, as they usually called us.

 

“Puta Madre. So it’s either a long, perilous route through the depths of the forest, or it’s a shorter but probably more troublesome route through a territory where the people would try to kill us on sight, is that it?” muttered Esperanza with some frustration as she heard about the situation. “Any way to not have the locals go all torches and pitchforks in our presence?”

 

You could kill them before they could raise an alarm, but barring such extreme measures, We fear that they had lied for far too long under the new gods and the system that they would not have entertained other possibilities. You could attempt to communicate with them, but most likely they would just attempt to kill you upon hearing that you are one of ours instead.

 

“Right, now that you mentioned it, I could understand what that

[Champion] said during that fight. I just didn’t pay much attention to it at the time,” mentioned Esperanza as she realized an oddity. “How do the gods deal with that? I know there’s centuries of bad blood and precedence behind it, but surely someone must have tried to communicate and seek out the other side in peace after all this time, no?”

 

That is where you misjudged, child. This world’s incorporation and reliance on the system is partly to blame, but the humans and the demons are in fact, incapable of understanding each other. When every child learned to rely on [Language Understanding] to communicate with each other from infancy rather than learn a language the old-fashioned way, they would never notice that certain languages were not included in the version of the skill they received.

 

“So… the gods are actively making it impossible for the two sides to communicate by sabotaging their language skills?” asked Esperanza with some exasperation at the downed idea. 

 

Exactly so. The humans received a version of the skill that only included their own languages and dialects. The demons received a version that only had theirs in turn. After thousands of years of development and drift, the languages on the two sides had developed into two completely different languages, that it would have been a hellish proposition to even try to learn it the old-fashioned way.

 

“I can understand the demons fine, though, and there were humans and demons living together in Navef!” protested Esperanza.

 

Those people’s ancestors had lived together from before the time of the system, child. Their own language had merged and mixed with each other as well in that time and turned into one of their own, in a way. You could understand them as well as the demons, and the humans as well because as someone unaffiliated to both sides, we managed to ensure that you received a [Language Understanding] skill that encompassed all the languages instead of just one or the other.

 

“Wait… you mean this applied to the [Heroes] and [Champions] as well?”

 

But of course, child. How else would those paranoid gods that view this world as they playground ensure that the otherworldlers they summoned wouldn’t just communicate and cooperate with each other to throw their yoke and supplant them instead? After all, they themselves did just that, with Us as their unwitting victim at the time.

 

“That’s… I don’t know whether I should call it brilliant or dastardly, honestly,” admitted Esperanza with a frown. If the [Heroes] and [Champions] were unable to communicate with each other, that definitely explained why the scenario set by the gods kept running so smoothly. The same applied with the fighting between the demons and the humans.

 

A lack of communication between the sides combined with the centuries of bad blood that kept refreshing itself with every skirmish and conflict practically ensured the intense hostility between the two sides, to the point that perhaps if the gods had not reined in the people of this world so as to not run out of entertainment too soon, the two sides might have already fought until one side or the other had gone extinct as a race.

 

What do you think, then, child? Which route would you bring these unfortunate ones towards?

 

“I’m… not certain, Oldies. I don’t think this is a decision I could make on my own,” admitted Esperanza. The weight of responsibility felt heavy on her shoulders, and it was something she was unused to, to say the least. Life was just so much simpler when all she had to worry about was herself and her pets, all considered.

 

Then again, she wouldn’t say she regretted having come to know the village either. Their presence – especially the children who were so receptive to her presence – probably helped her retain her own humanity, in a sense. It was something she had worried about in the month or so she had been in the forest, whether the instincts of her new body might one day overtake her human mind and reduce her to a mindless beast in the process.

 

That one of her class choices hinted at that exact possibility had not been encouraging either.

 

You plan to have them weigh in their opinions on the matter and take it into consideration, then, child? 

 

“I intend to, yeah,” replied Esperanza with a slight nod of her head. The best thing she could think of at the moment was to ask the remaining villagers about what they thought. Some of the older children were likely old enough that their opinions might be of some value, then there were Eda-Zil and Kvar-Litu to ask as well.

 

Not the course we would have taken, but as we said, your life is yours to lead, child. To live is to learn, and to learn is to grow wise. Either way, be assured that even if some choices might sometimes lead to less than pleasant results, at the least they were choices you had made of your own free will, and thus even the failure would be yours to own.

 

“That’s… an unusual way to put it.”

 

We probably could not help it, child. After all, when the new gods deposed of us, those of us who represented order were later cut apart and used to create the foundation of what became the system, while the rest of us were discarded, our divinity used as a power source to keep the world alive past its intended time. 

 

“Heh, makes sense that gods of chaos would be advocates of free will, I guess,” she replied with a slight chuckle. “Thanks for the chat, Oldies. I better wake the older kids and get them together in a quick meeting before the smaller ones wake up and keep them busy,” she said as she got up. Just as Esperanza stood up she remembered one other thing, though. “Oh, and do we have time to talk? Or would the [Champion] already be on his way to hunt us down and repay the loss even as we speak?”

 

This location is relatively far from the nearest city, Esperanza. As far as We can tell, it would take at least two to three days from the city to where you are, even on a fast mount. Assuming your worry was indeed valid, then you should have at least this day, and maybe the next, before any pursuer would be anywhere near the vicinity of your current location.

 

“Got it. I guess I’ll get these kids moving within the day just to be safe then,” said Esperanza with a nod. 

 

She quickly gathered Eda-Zil, Kvar-Litu, as well as half a dozen of the oldest children and quickly briefed them on the situation they were in, asking them for their opinion on the direction they should head towards. To her surprise, neither the children nor the youths needed much time to weigh the options they were presented and quickly gave her their reply.

 

All eight of them opted for the easterly course that would take them deeper into the forest without a shred of hesitation.

 

“All right then, you’ve all made your decision. I will lend my aid to help you reach your destination, but please be aware that I would not be able to guarantee that everyone would reach there… alive,” said Esperanza as a final warning, only to be answered by a determined nod from the youths and children present. “Get some breakfast cooking and help feed the younger kids, then. We will march out after breakfast.”

“As for what will be our fate from then on, Que sera sera.”