Chương 107: Doubt is kinda useless

Walking through the city made a few things very apparent. First, malls weren't really a thing anymore. Not in a way he remembered. They had found one, but it seemed that it was repurposed into temporary living quarters for a bunch of the newly arrived level one people. The shops were abandoned, the shelves looted, and pretty much every space he saw had signs of habitation. There were mattresses on the floor, piles of neatly folded clothes, half-finished bottles of water…

Essentially, they were walking through barracks with a McDonald's sign on top. The housing crisis wasn't a joke, but at least people had a roof above their heads and no monsters trying to eat them behind the walls. He noted that most of the kitchens in the food court were actively used, even if they were repurposed from whatever fancy food they were meant to produce and into the basic 'we have a pot with all the vegetables'. If there was something NLA didn't lack, it was grown food.

Skills were just unfair in that way. Some of the pots actually had warm soup in them. Whoever lived there was preparing lunch when Dennis and Lily arrived. At least that was his theory. Undisturbed, they moved on. That was the second apparent thing. Despite essentially walking through someone's kitchen, they didn't see a soul. Or, to be more precise, they sometimes noticed the backs of people running away. The mall was empty. Deserted in minutes. Because Dennis was here.

"This isn't exactly working as I imagined," he muttered, looking at the mall map sign to see if they had a comic books shop somewhere nearby. Theoretically, who the hell would loot comics? They had to still be there, and he was starved for that sweet familiarity.

"It takes time to get used to your presence," Lily noted.

"And levels help a lot. Everyone here is the opposite of immune. I think, for them, it felt like a certain death was approaching. We shouldn't be here." Dennis hummed thoughtfully.

"That bad?" he asked quietly.

"Mhm."

"And you feel it too?"

"It's like living with a knife pressed to your neck," she said calmly.

"At some point, you realize it's not going to cut and just get used to it. It doesn't bother me." There was something in that statement that Dennis really didn't like. Didn't sound right. He wasn't supposed to have that effect on people. He was supposed to inspire hope. In the comic shop, he picked some of the good volumes for Lily's reading. It was a travesty how uncultured she was. They left the mall soon after.

There was no real point in staying for too long anyway, and banishing people from their own residence by his mere existence rubbed him the wrong way. This 'resting' plan really wasn't working the way he imagined. At least he could stretch his legs. He wasn't used to sitting still in one place for too long. It was a habit at this point – if he wasn't sleeping, he should be moving. Didn't feel right to do anything else. Together, they walked the streets.

He didn't have any destination in mind, but just the constant change of location was soothing. There were trees everywhere, and almost no people in sight besides the few too slow to run away. Or, sometimes, they weren't too slow but had a 'freeze' response instead of a 'run' one. Like deer in headlights, people watched him as he passed leisurely. He tried to pass them quicker when that happened. Trying to talk to them and calm them down sometimes worked, but wasn't worth the hassle.

He managed to ask one dude if there were any interesting places to visit, and it felt like the guy was on the verge of begging for his life the whole time, resisting that impulse only because he believed it would annoy Dennis and therefore lead to his death.

"You know, I was willing to give this 'scam people for fun' thing a try, but I'm pretty sure they'd just give me everything I'd ask for without any scamming," he said quietly as they passed another clearly half-scared-to-death woman. She was attempting to hide in a bush. He generously pretended not to notice her.

"Isn't that villainous, as you call it?" Lily asked.

"I really didn't expect you to just say 'yeah, let's try and see if it's fun' when I confessed to doing that." She paused for a moment.

"Thanks, by the way."

"For what?"

"For not going all hero on me?" she said, plucking a weird fruit from a tree. It looked like an unholy combination of a potato and a corn. That grew on a tree.

"It's nice, to be able to share stuff." He shrugged.

"I think I categorize you as a child assassin type of person," he said.

"You know, like Cassandra Cain, with a traumatic backstory of villainy that you did because you didn't know any better. Ten out of ten on the redeemability scale. Honestly, I think pretty much all evil kids are like that – not really evil, but misguided by their dickhead assassin parents." He paused, thinking.

"Unless you're a ghost. Ghost kids are probably just plain evil."

"Uhuh."

"And the scam thing… Well, I thought I'd try doing it like sport fishing," he said.

"You know, where they catch a fish and then throw it back in the water? We'd scam someone and then give whatever we obtained back. That way, we'll kinda cancel out the evilness of the act. If you take a thing and then give it back, the result is a net-zero, kinda? Like a prank or something." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Still not nice, if you ask me," she said, sniffing the potato-corn hybrid suspiciously.

"It's not like I have any better ideas on this whole 'resting' thing, you know." The 'interesting' place that the half-scared-to-death guy pointed them towards turned out to be a sort of street market. Makeshift stalls were lined up in rows along the street, providing a bizarre assortment of things. There was a stall filled with plastic bottles of all kinds. A stall with bows and arrows.

Clothes, both clearly scavenged and made, some of them unnatural to the point that his magic senses were picking up the concept of 'durability' just by looking. Food of all types, modern weapons alongside makeshift medieval ones, camping supplies, a dedicated section just for planting and gardening… Unlike before, where places they arrived in were preemptively abandoned due to his fear aura having quite some range, there were actually people here.

Mostly stall owners, desperately packing up their belongings while simultaneously shitting their pants the moment he even glanced in their direction. Metaphorically. In a way, arriving at places already abandoned before he even came close was easier. He could enjoy the quiet. Walking to new places was fun. Not thinking about the way he made everyone around him fear for their lives wasn't hard when he didn't see that many people.

Standing in the middle of the open market while everyone packed their bags while praying he wouldn't notice them wasn't fun. He didn't belong here. In a way, he felt like a monster.

"Yeah, this really isn't working," he muttered, watching the owner of the weapons stall practically running away while leaving half of their belongings. He was too close for their comfort, it seemed.

"I really don't understand what you're trying to do here," Lily said from aside.

"Resting. Sydney said I needed to rest because she's afraid I'll go crazy, and anyway there's nothing for me to do while she prepares for the chance I'll bring back more people than just Gareth."

"Do you feel like you need to rest?"

"Not really," he shrugged.

"But I never did, and apparently the need for that is a Soul thing. That's the theory, at least. I'm… not sure what I'm doing, honestly." Lily didn't say anything for a while. They stood in silence, giving the people around them the time to scram.

"That's dumb," she finally said.

"Huh?"

"Ever since you got that stat, you're doubting all the time if you're doing the right thing. And since you don't know what to do, you're listening to everyone who looks like they have their shit figured out." She looked at him.

"You're an easy target. To manipulate, I mean. Gullible to the extreme, because you don't trust yourself. Sydney doesn't care about the remaining people stranded in that world. She definitely doesn't care about Gareth. What she cares about is managing you, and managing the fallout of your actions. In her perfect world, you'd sit in your room all day and come out to kill monsters she points you at."

"That's… wait, really?" Lily chuckled.

"That's my point exactly," she said.

"Now you're trusting me like I'm the voice of absolute truth. Don't you see the irony?" Dennis frowned.

"So is she evil or not?" he finally asked.

"She's a person," Lily shrugged.

"She cares about this city. Do you think whoever is left stranded in the Echo would agree to wait for a few days to be rescued because bringing them here is inconvenient for someone?" She walked to the nearby stall, picked up an apple that fell on the ground at some point during the frantic evacuation, cleaned it with her sleeve and took a bite.

"In the same vein, do you think I'd say anything nice about anyone if all I see is liars?" If she was trying to help him, it really wasn't working. If anything, Dennis was just getting more confused. Couldn't she just tell him what the right thing to do was? Huh. He was stalling, wasn't he? Ever since he went onto the saving spree, pointing the level one people to safety. It didn't work out the way he imagined it would, and left him scared of his own decisions.

If he didn't know what was right, it only made sense to follow along with someone who knew. If Soul gave him choices, everything he did was avoiding making them. Going with the flow, paralyzed by fear of himself. Lily watched him intently.

"You know, for a kid, you're surprisingly smart," he heard himself muttering.

"You're not that older than me," she replied.

"I remember you lying about being allowed to drink alcohol, so you're… what, twenty?"

"Nineteen."

"And I'm fourteen. Considering you're emotionally as developed as a potato, I really wouldn't be throwing rocks in your place. Your house is made of glass. I'm way more mature."

"No you're not."

"I absolutely am. I grew up in a rough household and everything, and you're like a houseplant."" You're a houseplant!" he counterattacked.

"A cactus!"

"Says the guy who doesn't know how to cook anything but noodles because his mom did it for him."

"As if you know how to cook! It's hard!"

"I do!"

"F-freeze!" another voice shouted, interrupting them. Dennis turned his head. Then did a double take. They were surrounded. The market was empty of ordinary people. In their place, there were… well, unordinary people. About three dozen of armed men encircled them, though they kept quite a distance, clearly afraid of coming closer. They didn't have a uniform, but every one of them had something like a badge hanging on a chain around their necks.

The weapons, as he was getting used to, were a combination of modern and fuck knows what. He counted two arbalests, four bows, and six pistols, all aimed at him and Lily. There were lots of people with makeshift spears that they held nervously. Were these… guards? Armed militia?

"P-put your hands in the air!" a scrawny looking guy with a gun squeaked at him.

"You're under arrest!" Under fucking what?!

"Dude," Dennis muttered, amazed.

"You're fighting in the wrong direction. Monsters are–" He pointed in a random direction.

"On the other side of the walls, you know."

"I said–" the squeaking got louder.

"–and anyway, you're gonna miss me if you're aiming like that. Like, I wouldn't even need to move. What the fuck?! Are you cosplaying the police? Who the fuck decided that we need police in a post-apocalyptic society?!" Lily gave him an amused look, and took a step to the side. Directly into the line of fire. Dennis sighed. He took a step. Maybe this whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

Not everyone knew of his fear aura, and maybe he kind of forgot to tell Sydney that he was going for a walk, because why would he? Maybe this was a setup by the Christopher guy. Or someone else from high up was playing some dumb political games. Could be a way to test him, or to frame him, or a way to indirectly attack Sydney… Even Sydney herself could've been the one to set it up. As a way to create a reason to scold and ground him later or something. Really, he didn't know. And honestly, he didn't care.

He was scared of making choices, constantly wary of doing the wrong thing. The safe thing to do would be to talk things out. Maybe cooperate. Explain himself, let Sydney or whoever sort it out. Doing nothing and going along with things was a choice as well. It wasn't really working. He didn't need Muramasa. In two seconds, he knocked everyone out. Some dude managed to make an accidental shot at Lily in a moment of panic, but he just deflected the bullet by throwing a pebble at it.

As the buff dropped, he listened to the sound of bodies falling to the ground.

"You know, I don't think we're welcome here," he said quietly, looking around.

"That's mostly on you, I think," Lily said, picking up a gun and examining it curiously.

"They think you're an evil mind-controller."

"Fair." Standing in the middle of the circle of bodies, he looked up at the sky, thinking.

"Let's kidnap El'el and go save Gareth," he said.

"I need you to trigger the buff if things go south. Unless you want to stay?" Lily hummed, and looked up to him.

"I'll go where you go," she said.