Chapter 80: Idiot

"M-my lord! What's wrong!?"

All of Kalroth's subordinates are watching in fear and confusion as their master writhes in pain for no apparent reason.

"You have just been bitten by a small venomous spider I had placed on your body earlier." Arana then turns to look at the rest of the demons. "If the rest of you don't want to get bitten by the spiders I placed on you, release the hostages and drop your weapons right now."

Does she really have a spider for each demon? That doesn't seem possible, some of them are just the guards that happened to be around so she couldn't have done anything to them beforehand. And I only get that feeling of Arana's mana from one of them, which means that she's bluffing.

Normally I would not expect something like this to work, but it's obvious that these people are motivated mostly by the fear they feel towards their boss; seeing him writhe on the ground like that must be causing a very strong impression in them.

"If you don't listen to me, I'll start taking you out one by one."

Arana snaps her fingers at that one guard with a spider. If I'm not mistaken, the venom from that spider is far less deadly than the one she used on Kalroth, but it still causes him to collapse.

None of the others have spiders on them, but that doesn't matter, they are all surrendering already. And without wasting a moment, three giant spiders come running, tie them all up and gag them, then run away. They sure are efficient.

"Luna, could you please escort the captives outside."

I take a glance at Kalroth. "Ara... Are you planning to let him die just like that?"

"No, don't worry. Just leave everything to me."

"That's a lie, isn't it."

She's not saying anything... This cannot be true. I know that Arana keeps tricking me all the time, but that's always for pranks that end up being harmless. She's never done anything nearly as bad as lying to me to be able to kill someone.

Arana turns and looks at my face for the first time.

"I know you too well. You're going to save him, even if I tell you not to."

"Obviously! If there are no hostages, there's no way he can beat me, so what is the problem!?"

"You don't understand. There are some people that you just cannot afford to be nice to. If you let this chance go, he will repay your kindness by stabbing you in the back."

"So I should do whatever it takes to win? You are sounding a lot like him."

"It's not the same! Look, just leave for a while and I'll take care of everything, please trust me."

She wants me to leave and 'trust her'... I've just realized something, I think I know what that bad feeling I had was about.

"Ara, when you said that I should go into the infernal caverns before. Were you trying to get rid of me while you took care of Kalroth?"

"I was only trying to protect you. You are too nice to deal with something like that."

No, I know what she really thinks of me. I've suspected this for a while, but I did not want to believe it.

"You know... you say that you want me to trust you. And I do, I've always trusted you. That's why I didn't mind all the secrets you keep from me. I believed that there was a good reason for it. But now I see that you simply do not trust me enough to tell me the truth. You only see me as some idiot that will mess everything up, don't you? You trust me so little that you'd rather try to confront an enemy far stronger than you by yourself than ask for my help."

"That's not true! I trust you, I really do. But I was the one who dragged you into this, that's why it's my responsibility to deal with the problems that you cannot handle."

"First of all, you didn't drag me into anything, I'm here because I want to. And second, I can handle this problem myself. Karin! Come here!"

"Eh!? What do you want!?"

The beastkin girl seems to have gotten scared by seeing me arguing with Arana. She's trying to avoid making eye contact with me.

"Let me heal your injuries. Then take the captives with you and go as far away from here as possible."

"But..."

"No buts! Do as I tell you!"

"Eek! Y-yes!"

And now there are no more potential hostages nearby. There's no longer anything that anyone can use to threaten me.

Kalroth is really tough, but it doesn't look like he can survive the poison for much longer. I need to hurry up. But before I can reach him, a large spider monster drops on top of me from the ceiling.

'Shadow lance'

I get it off me, but then I see another two even bigger spiders blocking my path.

"What do you think you are doing? You know that you cannot stop me with force."

"Even then, I cannot do nothing while you're making such a big mistake."

So she's even willing to go this far... I have to admit that I have not given her many reasons to think that she doesn't need to protect me, before she appeared I was getting beaten up with no idea of how to free the hostages. Even then, she's fighting me to stop me from saving someone's life, I cannot accept that.

'Shadow chain'

She doesn't stay chained for long, there's a sudden flash of light, and the next moment, Arana is right next to me.

'Shining web'

Her spell covers me with a white spiderweb. That magic she just used... did she turn herself into light? That would explain all the times she seems to show up from nowhere, if she can move at lightspeed for even a brief moment it would be the same as short-range teleportation.

"You don't understand, I cannot allow someone to die if I can save them, even if they are an evil person. This is not just me being naive."

"I know, I already know how kind you are."

"That's not it, the reason why I cannot kill or allow anyone to die is that I cannot avoid thinking of what it means for someone to die. It's not just some superstition about life being sacred or some morality that I learned from someone else. Death is something that can happen very easily and cannot be reverted, and yet its consequences are impossible to predict. Anything a person who died had been working to accomplish will be unfulfilled, any potential they had to change or improve themselves will be wasted, and every single person who knew them will also have their lives changed. For someone like me who's obsessed with fully understanding and controlling every detail of everything I do, thinking about the massive consequences that a single death can have is the most terrifying thing. And for that reason I cannot let anyone die, I cannot just say 'oh, he's evil, it'll be better if he dies', and if you ask me, it is the people who can say that who are the naive ones."

While she was listening to my speech Arana's body started to tremble a little, and now she's looking at the ground.

"Yes, you always overthink things too much and end up missing the more basic stuff... But Luna, this time there was a prophecy that said that Kalroth is going to end up getting killed by you. I cannot even imagine what he'll do to accomplish such a feat, and I don't want to find out."

"So that's why you want to kill him so much? Because of that stupid prophecy?"

My 'mana corrosion' dissolves Arana's web without trouble, and I get closer to grab her with my arms. She attempts to turn into light again, but now that I know about that magic it's not too difficult to deal with. It takes a few seconds to activate and during that time she's vulnerable to my spells.

'Mind void'

"Luna, please..."

Arana falls asleep and I look for the small spider on her hat.

"Longleg, can you also give orders to Arana's spiders? Please tell them to take Arana somewhere safe."

He nods and the two spiders that were blocking my way leave, carrying their master.

Now that my friend is out of the way, I go next to Kalroth, who's somehow still conscious.

"I will remove the poison from your body, but only if you promise that you will allow me to place a curse on you and that you will never hurt anyone again."

"Y-yes, I give you my word."

I don't really think that I can trust him, but I can just beat him if he doesn't keep his word.

That poison was more difficult to remove than I expected, where did Arana get something like that? But less than a minute after getting rid of it Kalroth has already recovered.

"What you said earlier... was that true? You won't let even your enemies die?"

"Yes, that's true."

He seems to be thinking of something, did I manage to get through to him?

"I see... you really are an idiot."

"Eh?"

*Bang*

It happened too fast for me to react. Kalroth punched in the direction of one of his lower-level guards and some skill of his sent a shockwave that crushed the guard's head. He just killed him... why? He was his subordinate, no? This doesn't make any sense.

Before I could get over my shock Kalroth grabbed another guard and is holding a dagger to his neck.

"Mmmmm! Mmm!

"What are you doing? Isn't he on your side?"

"You said that you would not let even your enemies die, didn't you? So he should work as a hostage too."

Don't tell me... the reason why he killed that guy was just so that he could prove that he's willing to do it? What the hell was he thinking to kill someone for such an idiotic reason!? No, he wasn't thinking anything. I'm starting to believe that I'm the only one who even bothers to think.

"You better surrender or I'll kill him too!"

So Arana was right, like always... Am I actually the one in the wrong for wanting to avoid needless suffering? It feels as if the entire world wants me to become less kind, to be more like a villain.

"Are you listening to me!?"

Then perhaps I should give this demon king wannabe a taste of what he wants.

'Shadow lance'

"UGH!!!"

My spell pierces the hostage and injures Kalroth, causing him to let go and fall to one knee. But that wasn't a normal 'shadow lance', its mana also contained a few flesh shaping spells capable of healing the hostage the very instant it left his body.

That was a dangerous move, I estimate that there was around a 0.03% chance of the hostage dying. Normally, a risk like that would be unacceptable, but someone has died already, we are past the point of not taking any risks.

'Share pain'

When I rush at Kalroth, he stabs his dagger into my arm. My curse then causes the exact same wound to appear on his arm, and unlike me, he cannot heal it immediately. I then send a 'mana push' at him, making him lose balance and hit his head on the floor.

"S-stop."

"Stop? I already stopped Arana from killing you. And apparently, I was an idiot for doing so."

'Shadow lance'

"ARGH!"

As tough as he is, my spells seem to be hurting him quite a bit, and I'm not even using much power. And looking at his face I can tell that all his confidence from before has been replaced with fear.

Next, he sends another one of those shockwaves at a guard far away, forcing me to get away from him for a moment to intercept it, is that the only trick he knows? Now he's taking the chance to run away, but I won't let him go. He's never going to hurt anyone again, this time I'll make sure of it.

forli

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my stupid rant, I was thinking about explaining myself a bit better or maybe address some of those comments, but I just don't feel like doing that right now... perhaps some other time.

But the one thing I want to make clear is that I don't want you to think that I don't want any criticism, the comments that bothered me just happened to be mostly hyperbolic rude, and unhelpful, don't stop yourselves from telling me what you really think of my story for fear of hurting my feelings. And really, the thing that caused them to bother me so much is that I was afraid of writing this chapter, if you've read it you can probably tell why.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice, I drew a new cover.