Chương 139: Chapter 137: A pleasant evening

We don't see the creature, be it boar or something else, until we're almost done walking for the day. We've made it a good forty miles around the island, so at least a quarter of the way around. The jungle is starting to thin out a bit, but the underbrush is getting thicker. We come across a tree that's been torn in half, and recently. It looks like something sharp split the tree down the middle, practically ripping it from the ground.

There are more of the cloven hoof tracks near it, and it seems like whatever that beast is, it tore apart the tree on purpose. I wonder why. Maybe there's food in the tree. Did the creature eat the coconuts that fell from the tree? Is it even a coconut tree? I'm used to a much more deciduous forest, and all these trees look like they could be coconut trees. They have that same feel, like the tree grows in spurts, making it look almost like there are sections to the tree.

Easier to climb, I suppose, but they make the tree seem more like a regular plant than a tree, like it just keeps growing new shoots up higher and higher. But not like bamboo. Bamboo is a whole different animal. Or tree, rather. You get the point. There aren't any coconuts at the bottom of the tree. That doesn't mean much. Maybe the creature ate them all. I walk around the torn apart trunk, trying to figure out what purpose the creature must have had to do this much damage to the tree. This doesn't just happen.

And animals don't just attack trees in a fit of rage, do they? The creature's scent is all over the tree. It clearly rubbed itself against the trunk before it attacked. Maybe the tree has some kind of defense mechanism, and the creature attacked when the tree's natural defenses hurt it? It's while I'm investigating that the creature attacks us. I hear it before I see it. It sounds like a freight train tearing through the underbrush. Then it bursts out, barely five feet away from me.

I don't have time to dodge all the way, barely moving to the side, where one of the tusks catches my chest and sends me flying through the air. It is, indeed, a giant boar. With tusks like swords. I fly through the air, narrowly avoiding impaling myself on what's left of the tree. I twist around and land more or less on my feet. Not as graceful as a lynxith, but more graceful than any human being could be. My Shell has taken 900 points of damage from the impact, but I take nothing from the landing. Giant Goar.

Legendary elite beast, level 44. HP: 44, 000/44, 000. I get back to my feet, somewhat surprised that I managed to hold on to my sword and my dagger during the flight and the impact. I stand up to get ready to fight the creature. It's called a Goar. I guess that's like goring boar or something like that. I don't know; I don't make up the names. Whatever the case, the goar is currently thrashing its head about, trying to keep my friends at bay.

Maybe I should switch back to the bow and shoot at it; it seems like a bad idea to get within range of those tusks. They really are huge. On a regular sized boar, they'd be maybe double the length of normal tusks, but scaled up to this thing, which is about the size of a van. It thrashes its head about for a while, keeping everyone at bay, but there's no way it can maintain that. It must be getting dizzy. Suddenly, something occurs to me.

Sometimes, when I'm doing one thing, something that I really should be paying attention to, I'll suddenly figure out something else that I've been mulling over. Something that I maybe did not even realize I was still trying to figure out. It happens without my input, and I'm not proud of it. But in that moment, as I'm facing off with this goar and trying to think what the best way for us to kill it might be, something suddenly occurs to me.

"Ostrich!" I shout out the word before I even connect why I'm saying it. But it clicks into place. An ostrich is a bipedal animal that isn't intelligent. So being bipedal is not a sufficient condition for intelligence. Or a necessary one. Take that, college level philosophy. Gigi gives me an odd look. El just shrugs. Ash steps forward with her shield and slams into the goar's tusks, knocking it back a bit. The creature falls back and is clearly dizzy, stumbling a bit from side to side.

Ash smacks it across the snout with her mace. It stumbles a bit more after the hit, but not long enough for any of the rest of us to get an attack off. The battle with the goar is not a long one. When I step forward and hit it with my sword, I do 490 damage to it. That equates to about ten thousand damage a minute. And, as far as I can tell, I deal the least amount of damage among the four of us. Though my damage does double once we have the creature surrounded.

Point is, the goar doesn't survive more than about a minute with all four of us attacking it. We decide to stop walking for the day and set up camp relatively close to the goar carcass. Ash gets to work butchering the huge creature, and I start building a fire. Building a fire used to be a difficult thing. Sometimes, if I was tired, I would cheat. I'd just cast a Flame Bolt into the kindling and let it catch that way.

It's not the best way to start the fire, because it kind of scatters everything all over the place, but it's effective. I'm finding I don't need to do that nearly as often as I used to, though. I'm just getting better at starting a fire on my own. I set the tinder, surround it with little twigs, and make sure there's good airflow. It's second nature, now. I take my piece of flint and press my dagger against it, then slide the dagger towards the tinder. Out comes a spark.

Usually within the first few sparks, it catches, and soon enough I have smoke, then flame. My survival goes up to 18, which I guess is well reflected by how easy it is for me to start the fire. It takes several minutes of coaxing and slowly adding to the flame to get the fire really going to the point where I can add thicker sticks and even logs if they're available.

By the time I have the fire going, Gigi has the tent set up and El has already done a pass around camp, making sure there's nothing dangerous right near by. And probably digging a latrine pit for us. All in all, we're very efficient. It's like we've been doing this together, every night, for months now. Ash brings her cooking supplies out of her spatial bag and starts to grill us some ham steaks from the goar. It smells absolutely delicious.

"This is a nice island," El says, settling down on a fallen log.

"We could just stay here for a while. Good food, good monsters."

"I'm hoping we find something more in the line of treasure," Gigi says.

"Like a dungeon."

"We probably need to move inland for that," I say.

"I doubt there will be any kind of underground structure too close to the coast."

"That makes sense," Ash says, prodding at the sizzling meat.

"But do we just randomly turn inward and start walking?"

"Might be something we can figure out from monster tracks," El says.

"If the tracks start to avoid an area, that might mean that there's a dungeon there. Or at least a bigger monster."

"Would monsters avoid a dungeon?" Gigi asks.

"What if there's one of those monster spawning things in there? Wouldn't that mean there'd be a lot of monsters around it?"

"Then we can follow all the tracks backwards to their origin," El says.

"Either way, we still get there with the tracking." She smiles, seeming proud of her logic. I'm not sure I'd qualify it that way. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Okay," I say.

"Let's try that. We look for either a place without monster tracks or a place where all the tracks converge. Either one is something different. Either one could lead us to the dungeon."

"Assuming there is one," Ash says. I nod.

"Assuming there is one." The meal is fantastic. There's something about a ham steak, a nice thick one, that is just unbeatable. The sweetness of the meat along with the texture of it; it just kind of melts in your mouth, even when you have to tear it apart with your teeth. It's hard to describe. I'm not good at describing the way food tastes. I just know that I like it, and I could keep eating it for a really long time. In fact, I do gorge myself, eating three of the giant steaks.

We've got enough meat for days, so no one complains. El eats a lot too, also gorging herself. But this time, I think I managed to pack away more meat than she did. She goes to sleep first, and Gigi goes with her. Ash, for some reason, stays up with me on watch.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I ask her.

"You'll only be getting two hours of sleep."

"If I get tired, I'll go to bed," she says. Then she shrugs.

"I'm just not tired yet."

"How do you think Vincent and Amanda are doing?"

"According to the last message I got from Vincent, miserable but progressing. They're soaked, they're cold, but they're still moving."

"We definitely got the better deal," I say. Then I stretch out my legs.

"But my legs are still sore."

"It's so weird that we can be sore after we regenerate," Ash says.

"I mean, isn't regeneration just super fast healing? Shouldn't the soreness have gone away?"

"Maybe it's psychosomatic," I say.

"Maybe we just think we're supposed to be sore, and so we are."

"My bruises are healing, at least." I look at her legs. She's taken off her armor, so I can see the onyx colored skin. I don't see any bruises, but I do see the shape of her calf. It's hard not to notice.

"How can you tell?" I ask. She touches her shins, runs her hands over her calves. I'm jealous of her fingers.

"They're just mostly cleared up," she says.

"Not as sore as they were this morning."

"That's good," I say.

"I didn't think I'd be able to get bored flying on a dragon, but I'm pretty sure I fell asleep for a good portion of the ride." I nod. I give Ash a look. She wants to say something, and I really wish she would just let it out. I hate all this dancing around the subject. I'd force the issue, but I have no idea what she wants to talk about.

"I'm going to be leveling up soon," she says.

"So is Gigi. Are you close?"

"I'm still about fifty thousand experience from the next level," I say.

"Once you get above forty, the levels start coming a lot slower." She nods, rests her hands on her knees, and bites her lip. I worry that she's going to bite through her lip with those angled teeth, but she doesn't. I guess she knows her teeth are sharp and is being careful.

"I'm thinking about changing class," she says.

"I'm not sure I want to be a paladin anymore."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Paladins are supposed to help the world," she says.

"They're supposed to be like knights, but more so. More chivalrous, more protecting, more holy. And I guess I just don't feel all that holy lately."

"Why? What changed?"

"We did," she says.

"Ever since we met with Amanda, I've been thinking about it. We're part of this world in a way that no other player is. I mean, probably. It's possible that others are going through the death cycle as many times as we have. But it's made us different. It's made my demon side stronger. And I don't feel as holy because of it."

"I don't think being a demon, or having demon blood, makes you unholy," I say.

"It doesn't work like that. Content of your character, and all that good stuff." She rolls her eyes.

"Please, let's not make this about race. I was a white girl my entire life until a few months ago. I remember having white privilege. I don't think I can really speak to the difference having black skin has made on my life. There doesn't seem to be as much racism in this world as there was in our old world. I'm not a marginalized group, except when we go somewhere like Elmspire, where I'm the only one of my kind within hundreds of miles."

"We're all the only one of our kind with in hundreds of miles," I point out.

"Now, at least."

"That's kind of my point. I don't feel like an outcast. I don't feel marginalized, or oppressed. I don't feel like there's any judgment based on my appearance."

"And that bothers you?"

"No," she raises her hands, then drops them again, letting out a bit of a sigh.

"It's not that. That's what I'm saying. This isn't that. This is something different. I don't feel holy because the demon side has taken more and more control. And it's making me evil."

"Again, I don't think being a demon makes you evil." She gives me a patronizing smile.

"Thanks," she says.

"But I'm trying to be serious here. I know you've seen it. I'm power hungry. Almost power starved. I want to get stronger, all the time. I just want more power. More levels, more hit points, more stamina. I want to do more damage when I attack something. I want to be strong. Stronger than anyone else. I want to be stronger than Amanda. I – I wanted to kill her."

"You didn't like her?" She shrugs.

"I don't know. I never really got to know her. She's all right I guess. But I wanted to kill her. Not because I don't like her or because she deserves to die or anything like that. I wanted to kill her because I wanted to take her power for myself. I wanted the experience from killing her. I wanted it, and I wanted it all for myself."

"So?"

"So that's not what a paladin should do!" She makes a gesture in the air, one that just seems exasperated.

"A paladin should be self sacrificing. Should be doing what is best for the world. Should be content with their place in the world. A paladin should be trying to make the world a better place. But I don't care about any of that anymore. I mean, yeah, it's great to make the world better. But I care much more about myself, about my own power. I care more about what I want to do and whether or not people can stop me from doing it."

"So you're putting yourself first, and you don't think that's right for a paladin?"

"Yes," she says.

"Exactly. I'm becoming evil."

"Putting yourself first isn't evil," I tell her.

"Putting yourself first is a defense mechanism. It's a way to keep yourself safe and happy, to keep your peace. It's okay to put yourself first sometimes. Being a little selfish isn't a bad thing."

"Do you do it?" I laugh.

"All the time," I say.

"I think about myself first predominantly. I worry about myself first in battle, I know that. I worry about you guys when I know I'm safe, but if there was a monster attacking me, you better believe I'd be more focused on that than on saving any of you."

"That's bullshit," Ash says.

"You've done exactly that. You've let things hit you so that you could protect someone else."

"Only when it's the best thing for the battle," I say.

"The best thing for me in the long run."

"You really think like that?" I shrug.

"I like to think that I'm selfless," I say.

"I like to think that I put the good of others first. But I don't think I do. I don't think I'm truly all that altruistic. I protect you three because you three are stronger than I am. You three can keep me safe and keep me alive. So even when I put myself at risk for you, I'm still being selfish. I try to make the world more tolerant and more hopeful, but I do it so that it will benefit me. So that my world will be better."

"That's not right," Ash says.

"You make small changes that make the world better but don't affect you all the time."

"But I'm just doing it so that other people will do it too. And those other people will end up doing something that will benefit me directly. I'm playing along with the social contract, but I'm doing it for purely selfish reasons."

"You don't come off as selfish."

"I'm not selfish," I say.

"At least, I don't think I am. But I still put myself first, one way or another, most of the time. I'm not trying to be selfish, but I am honoring myself first. I'm not sacrificing my happiness or my comfort for someone else. I may help the poor, but I'm not going to give up everything I have to help them. I'm not going to burn down my house to keep the neighbors warm. I have to take care of myself first, so that I can then take care of other people."

"And you think that's okay? That's not becoming evil and selfish?" I smile at her and put my hand on her shoulder.

"I think that's taking care of yourself, so that you'll be able to help others," I say.

"I think that a paladin should always try to make the world better, but she should remember that she needs stay strong in order to fight for what's right. Maybe consider that getting more powerful will just allow you to help more. That might be why you're hungry for more power. Wanting power in itself is not evil. It's a question of what you do with that power."

"So as long as I'm helping people, I'm still a good person?" Her eyes are wide, desperate, and shining. I think she might cry. It's a strange look, those red eyes, glowing a little bit, glimmering with tears as she looks to me for approval.

"I think you're still a good person," I say to her.

"I promise." She smiles, and blinks a few times. A tear does make its way down her cheek, but I decide it's best not to mention it.

"Thanks," she says. She puts her hand over top mine and gives it a squeeze. Then she pushes herself to her feet.

"I think I'm going to go to bed now," she says. She steps towards me and gives me a kiss on the chin.

"Really, Caleb," she says.

"Thank you." I just smile at her, letting her have the last word.