Chapter 237
The air vibrated with collective weariness, thick with dust and the gloomy grey atmosphere. Ahead, through the haze, the faint outlines of the camp finally appeared.
"We're almost there," Dimitra breathed, a genuine smile cracking the fatigue on her face.
Her eyes, usually sharp and focused, seemed to catch a spark of light.
She flexed her fingers, wincing slightly.
They were rough, calloused, and blistered raw from hours of relentless work – nocking arrows, clearing debris, and simply hauling supplies until her hands screamed in protest.
Beside her, Alise sighed, the sound a mix of relief and longing.
"Finally. I can already imagine a real bath. And maybe a hot meal."
Draco, walking beside her, interjected without turning his head.
"Better tether those dreams to the here and now. Resources in the city are stretched thinner than parchment. Water especially is a luxury nobody can afford to waste."
Alise scowled, kicking a loose stone.
"Tsk. We know that, Draco. Can't you just let us dream for a moment? It's been... rough."
Dimitra’s eyes widened suddenly, her smile shifting into something mischievous.
A familiar spark of ingenuity ignited within her.
"Wait a minute!" she exclaimed, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet despite her exhaustion.
Her eyes gleamed, fixed on Draco.
"Draco nii, you can use all sorts of elemental magic, right?"
Understanding dawned on her face, bright and clear.
"Couldn't you just... make us a bath? Like, shape the earth with earth magic, fill the hole with water magic, and then heat it up with fire magic?"
A collective gasp, followed by murmurs of excitement, rippled through the group.
"Ooooooh!" echoed Vasileios, Lyra, Kaguya, and Alise in unison.
They turned their weary faces towards Draco, their eyes shining with naked anticipation, hoping he would agree.
Ryuu, walking slightly apart as she often did these days, remained lost in her own world.
Her gaze was fixed somewhere distant, her mind replaying recent, painful events.
The conversation about baths and elemental magic barely registered in her current state of introspection.
Draco stopped, his scaly tail, giving a sharp flick against the wind.
He turned his red, slitted eyes onto the group, a slow, almost predatory grin spreading across his draconic features.
"Let me clarify this," he drawled, his tone dripping with mock incredulity.
"Five presumably responsible individuals, in the middle of a war zone where every drop of magic is a lifeline, want me to… waste my precious reserves on a bubble bath?"
Alise puffed out her chest, her earlier weariness momentarily forgotten, replaced by indignant pride.
"Waste? Waste?! What do you mean, 'something like that'? Beautiful maidens like us have... special needs! Especially after everything!"
The other girls—Kaguya, Lyra, and even Dimitra—nodded vigorously in agreement, closing ranks behind Alise’s declaration.
"I'm not a maiden, though," Vasileios whispered softly, a touch of confusion on his face.
But the others were too focused on Draco to hear him.
Draco’s grin widened, revealing sharp, white teeth.
He appraised the group with an exaggerated sweep of his gaze.
"Yes, yes, beautiful maidens indeed," he purred, the teasing edge sharper now.
"And beautiful maidens, you are. Hmm. Sharing a bath with so many beautiful maidens... it doesn't sound entirely awful, does it, Vasileios?"
Alise’s jaw dropped, her face flushing a vivid red.
"W-what are you saying, you absolute scoundrel!" she sputtered, taken completely by surprise and utterly mortified by his suggestive remark.
Kaguya and Dimitra merely exchanged knowing glances, seeming entirely unbothered by the implication.
Lyra, however, shrank back slightly, a faint blush dusting her cheeks as she mumbled under her breath, barely audible, "Pervert."
Draco chuckled, amused by their varied and predictable reactions.
The lighthearted moment, however, was abruptly shattered by a prickle of awareness, a sudden disruption in the ambient energy that only he seemed to sense initially.
‘Hmm, what's this now?’
His heightened senses, registered a cluster of presences just ahead on the road, blocking the final approach to the camp.
‘They feel civilian... weak signatures... but we can never be too careful’
His relaxed posture vanished, replaced by an instantaneous tension that rippled through his muscles.
His tail ceased its playful flicking, becoming rigid, ready to lash out or brace for impact.
Unseen, almost imperceptible to the others, his scales seemed to shift slightly, tightening.
Just then, a knot of figures stepped fully onto the worn path, forming a ragged, defiant barrier. They were civilians, their number perhaps a dozen or so, huddled together but standing their ground.
The rest of the group, their laughter dying on their lips, quickly noticed the obstruction. Confusion flickered across their faces.
Why would civilians be here? Why block their path?
"What is the meaning of this?" Lyra called out, her voice clear despite a tremor of unease.
She stepped forward, positioning herself protectively in front of the other members.
"What do you all want?" she asked.
The civilians offered no immediate reply.
They simply stood there, silent and unmoving, their faces stark, grim masks carved by hardship and despair.
Their eyes, vacant yet burning with something potent and unsettling, were fixed on the adventurers.
Resentment, thick and palpable, radiated from them, directed squarely at the members of the Astraea and Bahamut familia.
The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable, punctuated only by the wind whistling through the ruined buildings nearby.
Then, one among them, a beast-kin woman whose wolf-like ears twitched with agitation, seemed to force herself forward.
She took a hesitant step, gathering a fragile mantle of courage, and finally broke the silence.
"We... we thought you were supposed to be the good guys," she began, her voice rough and trembling, thick with an emotion that hovered on the edge of breaking.
Her eyes, once perhaps trusting, were now filled with a raw, accusatory fire.
"Why did you fail to protect us?" she demanded, her voice rising, cracking with pain.
"Why have you let everything... let our lives... devolve into this?" Her shoulders began to tremble, not from cold, but from contained fury.
The hate in her eyes intensified, a banked fire now blazing.
Suddenly, the fragile courage snapped, replaced by raw, unfiltered rage.
"You lied to us!" she screamed, the sound tearing from her throat.
"You promised safety! Justice!"
Her voice became a broken wail.
"Give... give our loved ones back!"
The adventurers, the 'good guys' by reputation, stood frozen.
The Astraea girls and the Bahamut familia members listened in stunned silence, their expressions shifting from confusion to disbelief at the sheer, unadulterated fury of the outburst.
The accusations felt outlandish, preposterous, a cruel twisting of their efforts.
Draco alone showed no outward surprise.
He had anticipated that the weight of the city's devastation would eventually fall upon those perceived as protectors.
What surprised him, however, was the timing.
‘It's only day two, for heaven's sake’ he thought, the absurdity of it almost making him scoff internally.
The grief and anger had boiled over far sooner than he'd anticipated.
And then, as if a dam had burst, the floodgates opened.
The other civilians, emboldened by the first woman’s outburst, erupted.
A torrent of insults, accusations, and raw pain washed over the adventurers.
Hands reached down, scrabbling amongst the rubble, finding stones and chunks of broken masonry.
The projectiles began to fly.
"They're all dead because of you!" one man shrieked, his face contorted in grief and rage.
"And what did you adventurers do? Nothing! You hid behind your power!" another cursed, spitting the words like venom.
"What good are you, really? Why were you gifted all that power if you just let this happen?!" someone wailed, the question a bitter accusation.
"Justice? What a sick joke!" a woman sneered, hurling a rock hard and fast.
"It’s all your fault! Every single death!" came the final, damning accusation from the back of the mob.
Draco didn't flinch.
With simple, almost imperceptible flicks of his tail, he deflected the stones aimed at him and those standing immediately behind him.
The rocks glanced off his scales or bounced harmlessly away, a small display of effortless power in the face of impotent rage.
He remained silent, allowing the civilians to vent the terrifying depths of their frustration, their fear, and their overwhelming grief.
The insults, the unfair accusations, the venomous curses – they struck harder than any physical blow, lodging like shards of glass in the hearts of the young adventurers.
It was a painful spectacle.
It was something he desperately wished Dimitra, Vasileios, and the other members of the Bahamut familia didn't have to witness.
But he knew, with a grim certainty, that enduring this unreasonable hatred was a necessary, albeit brutal, experience for their growth.
They needed to understand the mortal cost of failure, even perceived failure, and the burden of expectation placed upon those with power.
The others, schooled by their own experiences and understanding the futility of arguing or retaliating against an enraged mob, seemed to grasp this instinctively.
They gritted their teeth, swallowed the burning retorts that rose in their throats, some covering their faces with their palms, others clenching their fists until their knuckles turned white, simply enduring the onslaught of words and stones.
All except Ryuu.
She was still reeling from the encounter with Eren/Erebus, her carefully constructed world view shattered, her deepest beliefs shaken to their core.
That trauma had left her mentally vulnerable, stripped bare of her usual composure and resilience.
Ryuu, despite her capabilities, was at heart still a young elf with a deeply sensitive and idealistic spirit.
She simply could not endure this situation, this unjustifiable attack, as the others could.
"What... what is the meaning of this?" she whispered, her voice thin, trembling not with cold, but with incredulous indignation.
"What have we done... to deserve this?" she questioned, her voice gaining strength as disbelief warred with hurt.
"Is this anyway to repay us after all we've done for you? After all we've given? All we've lost?" Her voice rose, cracking with pain and rising anger, directed at the unyielding wall of resentment in front of her.
But the civilians, lost in their own storm of grief and anger, paid no mind to her desperate questions.
Her words seemed only to fuel their rage, and the volume of stones thrown their way increased, many now specifically targeting Ryuu.
Something inside Ryuu snapped.
The injustice, the ingratitude, the sheer cruelty of it all, combined with her raw, unhealed emotional wounds, ignited a furious blaze in her heart.
Her pent-up rage, simmering beneath the surface since the confrontation with Erebus, was about to boil over, threatening to consume her.
Ryuu wasn't the only one feeling the strain of reaching a breaking point.
Kaguya, too, stood on the precipice, though her reasons stemmed from a different kind of strain. The biting insults they were enduring were one thing, unpleasant but survivable.
The hail of stones, however, was a physical violation, a step far beyond mere words, and it ignited a dangerous spark in the typically composed warrior.
Her hand tightened around the worn leather sheath of her blade, fingers flexing.
Every line of her posture screamed readiness; it seemed she was moments away from unleashing steel upon the unruly crowd.
Observing the volatile situation, 'Ah, I need to stop this,' Draco thought, mentally bracing himself.
He was about to step forward, intending to quell the unrest with the sheer, powerful presence of his draconic aura, when a figure moved past him, quicker than anticipated.
Alise had beaten him to it.
"Captain, stay back!" Kaguya's voice, usually steady, held a note of startled urgency.
She hadn't expected Alise to thrust herself into the direct path of the projectiles.
"We don't know what more they might do!"
But Alise, her gaze fixed on the enraged faces before her, seemed not to hear.
She stepped deliberately forward, positioning herself squarely before her comrades, accepting the barrage of stones aimed their way.
Each impact brought a wince, a flinch, yet she did not falter.
Then, one stone, thrown with perhaps more force or finding a vulnerable angle, struck her face, carving a thin, crimson line across her cheekbone.
The beast-kin woman who had thrown it recoiled, her hands trembling visibly as she saw the blood she had drawn.
A sudden, uneasy silence fell over a small pocket of the crowd where she stood.
Alise, however, offered no reaction to the injury or the woman's sudden pause.
Her focus remained on the furious mass of civilians.
She drew a deep breath and yelled, her voice cutting through the lingering tension.
"I am sorry!"
It was a simple declaration, utterly devoid of artifice or clever deflection.
A nakedly pure-hearted apology.
The raw sincerity embedded within those two words seemed to transmit itself, washing over the crowd like an unexpected wave.
The enraged faces froze, their momentum abruptly halted.
They were caught completely off guard, unsure how to process the sudden, earnest admission of fault.
An uncomfortable stillness settled, replacing the frenetic energy of their anger.
If anything, many in the crowd felt a flicker of shame igniting within them, the bitter reality of their own harsh actions contrasting starkly with the unexpected apology they were receiving. They knew, deep down, their reaction had been excessive, fuelled by grief and fear, yet here stood one of the people they were attacking, taking responsibility.
"We are weak," Alise continued, her voice still loud but now tinged with a haunting sorrow. "And as a result, we let your homes get destroyed. We failed to protect your loved ones, your family. For that, truly, I am so sorry." She bowed her head slightly, a simple gesture of regret.
The crowd remained utterly silent, their collective rage abruptly doused, much like a raging fire smothered by a sudden torrent of water.
But while the crowd's fury was quieted, Alise's allies were experiencing a different kind of fire. Fury flared within them, bewildered and sharp.
‘Why is she apologizing?’ Dimitra thought, clenching her fists at her sides.
‘For us trying our absolute best, giving everything we had, to protect these... these ungrateful people?’ The injustice of it burned in her gut.
Vasileios mind seethed with a cold, hard anger.
‘Do they honestly think they're the only ones who lost people?’ He scanned the faces in the crowd, seeing only selfish entitlement.
‘They don't even compensate us for protecting this city; we do it out of our own free will, driven by our oaths and beliefs, yet they have the sheer nerve, the gall, to throw accusations and pull out some twisted version of a 'justice' card!’ He had dedicated his life to protecting others, this was why he took up a shield, but he had never encountered people who could feel so utterly detestable in that moment.
"Alise..." Ryuu, Lyra, and Kaguya murmured the name almost in unison, their voices laced with shock and confusion.
They, above anyone, had witnessed Alise's tireless efforts, seen her push herself to her physical and magical limits, giving just as much, if not more, than anyone else to ensure the safety of the very civilians now hurling stones and insults.
Why, then, was she the one offering apologies for what felt like an impossible failure?
Just then, a chilling echo resonated in Ryuu's mind.
Erebus.
His words from their past encounter, spoken with that unnerving, malicious lilt, replayed with vivid clarity.
‘It can’t be easy working a thankless job, without pay to boot.’
‘I don’t think it’s healthy, both for you adventurers parading justice and the civilians too dependent on your kindness. It breeds a sense of entitlement within them.’
The evil god's words, delivered in the mocking cadence of a jester delighting in others' pain, seemed terrifyingly prescient now.
‘You’re energetic about it now, but what happens when you burn out? Would you stay the same?’
An icy dread tightened its grip around Ryuu's heart.
As much as she desperately wanted to deny it, to scream that he was wrong, Erebus's cynical prophecy felt like it was unfolding before her eyes.
His teasing voice seemed to torment her from inside her own head, a constant cruel whisper.
The sheer, crushing weight of the situation – the impossible expectations, the misplaced blame, the thankless sacrifice – felt utterly unreasonable.
And just as the thought solidified, a figure stumbled out from the stunned silence of the crowd, disturbing the fragile peace Alise's apology had momentarily created.
This person did not accept the apology.
"Sorry isn't enough," a human woman gasped, lurching forward like a figure possessed by grief, her movements jerky and uncontrolled.
Her voice was raw, ragged with pain and fury.
"My child is dead... because of you."
Her ashen hair seemed to writhe with the intensity of her rage.
With a sudden, desperate surge, she charged at Alise and struck her hard across the cheek, the sound sharp in the sudden quiet.
Alise froze, stunned into absolute stillness, her eyes wide as she simply stared at the grieving woman before her.
Beside her, Dimitra gasped, a sharp intake of breath born of pure astonishment and shock.
"She was so young," the woman cursed, tears carving paths through the dirt on her face, "and now she is gone!"
"Hey! Stop that!" a man yelled, rushing forward.
He grabbed the woman, pulling her back, his arms wrapping around her struggling form.
He was her husband, his face etched with exhaustion and sorrow, but also a desperate attempt to inject reason into the madness.
"They did everything they could..." he pleaded with his wife, trying to restrain her.
"They saved little Leah... they saved her once already!"
"Leah?" Alise, Ryuu, and Draco repeated the name simultaneously, a new wave of shock rippling through them.
It was the little girl Alise had miraculously saved weeks ago, pulled from the brink of death.
The same child Draco had briefly met on the very day they first encountered Erebus – a day that now felt like a dark omen.
A vivid, terrible replay of that meeting flashed through Ryuu's mind – Leah's small smile, the fleeting interaction.
Disbelief warred with horror on her face, the terrible coincidence adding another layer of unbearable weight to her crumbling composure.
‘What an odd, cruel twist of fate’ Draco mused internally, his sharp mind connecting the disparate threads of events.
(Refer to chapter 178 to recall the scene)…….
‘To think such distant events were linked by a single, fragile life’
He wasn't as personally devastated by the girl's death as Alise or Ryuu; he had only crossed paths with her once, a brief, casual encounter.
Yet, the tragedy triggered a different kind of concern in his mind.
His thoughts drifted not just to Leah, but to other innocent civilians they had connected with – specifically, the cat people who ran the Nekomata Inn, where he and his family had stayed upon their arrival in Orario.
He vividly remembered their youngest daughter, who had quickly formed a close bond with his younger sisters.
‘I should find out what happened to them’ Draco resolved, a protective instinct stirring within him.
The Nekomata Inn family represented one of the very few genuine, personal connections the Bahamut Familia had cultivated with civilians within the city.
They were more than just faces in a crowd; they were people they cared about.
His thoughts, however, were violently interrupted by a sudden, piercing scream.
Draco whirled towards the sound, his eyes locking onto Ryuu.
She was clutching her head with both hands, staggering backward before collapsing onto the ground, her body trembling.
The pressure, building relentlessly, had finally overwhelmed her.
A mental breakdown was occurring, raw and terrible, right before their eyes.
"Ryuu... Ryuu!" Dimitra's voice echoed faintly in her ears, laced with panic, but it felt distant, muffled as if heard from underwater.
She could dimly perceive the worried cries of Alise and the others as well, but her senses were dulled, her consciousness rapidly fading, pulling away from the overwhelming reality.
As the world dissolved into a chaotic, painful blur, Ryuu's mind clung to one last, clear thought, a question born from the maelstrom of injustice, sacrifice, and sorrow she had witnessed:
‘What exactly... is justice?’………………
A/N: Damn this chapter was long as f….k, hopefully you all still following the story.
Feel free to read ahead on pat3on and donate.