Ch 38 – Mary’s doubts

After a few quick minutes, all the 28 bodies were piled up in a small clearing. 

"Good... Now let's go." Bid thought his job was done and they needed to hurry.

"Wait! I still have to bless them so they don't turn into undead!"

"Come on Mary! It's just an hour. There's no way they're gonna turn into those that quickly. Let's go!" Hal pressed her into going. 

"But they..." 

"Shut up and let's go already! Jeez, that's annoying." Necro jeered for the first time, making Mary pout inside her helmet, almost crying. 

"Oi, Necro!" Hal interjected. Despite agreeing with Necro, she was mean to Mary. "Anyways. Let's get going. Where is the hideout?"

Leaving behind the pile of corpses, the group marched through the forest towards the direction pointed by the dead bandit. His directions were not exactly clear, given that he was being tortured, but enough for Necro to recognize the trail and markings left by the very bandits. While Necro and Bid went ahead, leading the way, closely followed by Ace and Hal, Mary followed them a little ways behind, with her head low. It wasn't that she was annoyed or angry. Rather, she was feeling a little down. Even Mary herself did not know why she was feeling so down. She barely avoided crying when she was spoken to by Necro that way. She didn't consider herself the kind of girl who would sull over being sneered or looked down upon. In fact, she had experienced that a lot over the years, especially the ones she spent in the Papal Army. Necro, however, gave a solid hit to her heart, in a way even herself couldn't have predicted.  All the while, she wondered why she felt like this, refusing to believe she cared this much about what this new girl thought of her. 

"Necro... I think you went a little too far..." Ace approached Necro, trying to talk sense into her.

"What do you mean? I tried my best to not burn down the forest."

"No, not that, rather. What the fuck? You were actually trying not to do it?! I can't imagine what it'd be like if you wanted to... Anywho, I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about Mary."

"Who? The blondie? She's a Paladin from an army. She'll be fine. Bid, the broken branch! We turn left there." Necro turned behind for a second to look at Ace, before spotting the landmark ahead and telling Bid, who was a little ways to the side of her.

"Ah, Thanks" Bid responded.

"Anyhow, she should be fine, right? Why would she care that much?"

"I... I don't know... She looks a little strange though..." Ace looked behind at Mary, and so did Necro.

"Yeah... She looks a little sad... I'll talk to her later okay? But I needed to do that."

"What do you mean? Why?"

"See... If she blessed those bodies it'd be a nuisance." Necro slowed down for a second, and turned behind to whisper in Ace's ear.

"Ah... That... Sorry... I didn't notice..."

"Not a problem. I wouldn't have expected you to read into it that far either."

"Is that so..." Ace felt a little embarrassed from Necro having such low expectations of her. But, it was to be expected to some extent. They'd met each other not long ago, and Ace was still grasping the scope of her magic. And while she was loyal to her simply from the fact that Necro had such advanced magic, it wasn't strange that Necro still didn't trust her entirely yet. Her magic, after all, was still a taboo. She let herself slow down a bit and fall behind. Enough to end up beside Mary.

"Hey..."

"Hi..."

"So... Are you okay?" Ace asked, a little awkward but very nonchalant. 

"Huh? Yeah... I'm fine. Why?"

"Nothing... It's just that you look a little sad."

"Do I? Haah... I do, right?" Mary let out a sigh.

"I'm sure she didn't mean it that way... You don't have to feel sad, you know."

"I'm not like that because of her... I think..."

"Okay then... Wanna talk it through then?" 

"Uh... Sure. I guess. It's just... I'm not that used to killing people. That's all." Mary's answer surprised Ace. While it's true that for as long as she was here, they had never had to kill other people. Only animals and monsters. But one would've expected her, coming from the army, to be used to this kind of thing.

"Really?! But weren't you in the army and what not?"

"... Yeah, but my division never fought in a war, we were mostly sent to deal with monster attacks on villages and dungeon spillages. We never fought a war per se. So... This is the first time I killed a person."

"Oh... I don't think you should worry about it that much. I mean, they were bandits, you know? It's not like we were killing innocent people or selling them as slaves like they were..."

"Is that so... Then... I guess it really was okay to kill them, wasn't it..." The image of the pile of corpses resurged in Mary's head for a second, making Mary doublethink her words.

"You don't sound like you believe what you're saying though."

"Yeah... Sorry... I'm not that convinced yet... We didn't even give them a proper grave. It feels... Wrong. But I'm sure we can manage it on the way back."

"Yes! If that's the problem we can always properly bury them when we return, right? You shouldn't feel bad about that, they attacked us, we just defended ourselves. In the end, that's just the way the world is. If you wanna blame someone for it, blame God."

"I..." Mary felt incredibly uncomfortable with that statement, but she could understand where it was coming from. 

"Ah... Sorry... I didn't think that one through."

"No... It's fine... If that's how you feel about him, I can't say you're wrong..." She put her hand up over the base of her neck, where a necklace with the symbol of the church remained, even after being excommunicated. "I want to believe he does all he does for the good of all of us but... The church is rotting from the inside. While I don't want it to be true, I can't deny the possibility that that's just how it was supposed to be from the beginning... It's said that his doings are beyond our understanding."

While Ace did not believe her words a single bit when it came to God, her words were also applicable to someone else. She stared at the back of Necro, who was leading them through the forest, as she answered Ace one last time.

"Yeah... He's completely impossible to read... yet so amusing..." Mary looked at Ace's face for a second, not believing her words, before following her sight all the way to Necro.