Village Jille (4)
I'll put this here because I wrote the first part of the chapter listening to this song: NIGHTCORE - Anxiety (nathan wagner) (Extended) (lyrics). (Just search on YouTube; I'm not sure if links can be posted here).
So, if anyone wants to listen to it like I did, there it is.
[...]
At the moment I heard the scream, I felt my muscles tense, and my heart began to beat faster.
It wasn't a conscious reaction, but rather my body responding to the information I had about that phrase, the information I knew would follow.
My eyes unconsciously went to the Minimap, where I knew the supposed army was. What I saw was not a good sign. In the time I wasn't looking, the number of enemies had grown significantly.
Looking over, at the red dots, I would guess about seven hundred, maybe more, all coming toward the village; they seemed organized...
...This was bad.
I swallowed hard and took a deep breath before tossing the boxing gloves into the inventory and turning around, ready to run in the direction of the scream, before hesitating and turning to Dylan, who still wasn't in great shape.
"Can you run?" I asked the guide. The guy was better than before, but I could see he was trembling slightly, and his skin was still pale.
It seems using the Waterbolt really took a toll on him.
He hesitated for a moment before nodding, agreeing. "Yes, but not fast. Mana drain is not pleasant." He made a sheepish face before waving his hand. "Go ahead, I'll run right behind you."
I nodded hesitantly before starting to run, the guide's steps right behind mine before I began to pick up speed, increasing our distance as we ran through the village towards the gates.
As I ran through the village streets, I could see the residents, contractors, the Terrarians waking up; many with loud shouts and sighs, others in silence with vacant, sad, or desperate eyes.
With none of them trying to stop me as before, when they were under goblin control, it didn't take long until I reached the village gates, or what was left of them after I blew them up along with a part of the wall.
In front of the wreckage that used to be the village gates, I could see a small crowd forming; some Terrarians on top of the debris, some behind them, others outside the village.
But they all had something in common; they were all looking at the horizon with fearful, scared, and desperate looks in their eyes.
And I could imagine why...
I didn't waste time trying to go around the crowd; instead, I quickened my steps. When I was a few meters from the crowd, I tensed the muscles in my legs and jumped, then again using the double jump.
Gaining altitude thanks to my two jumps, in the air, I could get a better view of what these people were seeing. The reason they seemed hopeless.
An army.
Not a bunch of goblins roaring and running like mad towards the village, no, what was coming from the horizon was a real army.
If the organized points on the Minimap hadn't been a good enough hint of what awaited us, what I was looking at on the horizon was.
Even at this distance of over two kilometers, I could see their organized march, their coordinated steps, their numbers... Looking now, I could be sure, there were more than the seven hundred I had guessed before, no...
...There were probably more than a thousand goblins.
"Damn, that's just great!" I muttered as I landed, the impact softened by my knees.
Already on the ground, I took the opportunity and quickly ran to one of the still-standing watchtowers, which hadn't been destroyed by my dynamites, and climbed it to get a better view.
At the top, I pulled binoculars from the inventory to get a clearer view of the army... it wasn't good, not good at all.
I could feel my hand trembling slightly and my mouth opening in astonishment.
The first three rows of the army were large goblins, probably the same size as an average human or Terrarian, maybe even larger.
They advanced like a wall of metal, wearing complete plate armor made of a gray material that I wasn't sure what it was made of, but it was some kind of metal alloy, of that I was sure.
They carried longswords in their right hands, made of the same material as the armor, a cold gray metal, and, finally, large shields in their left hands, so big that they covered half of their bodies.
Right behind the first rows, the rest of the goblin army marched like a green tide. They were smaller in size, more similar to the mental image I had of goblins.
They were much smaller, about the height of a ten-year-old child, varying a few inches from goblin to goblin. That is if ten-year-old children wore leather armor and various weapons to go to war.
All of them wore leather or chainmail armor, none of them unarmed. Some wielded bows, with quivers on their backs, while others had short spears, swords, and daggers.
And worst of all? I could see mystical symbols engraved...
...On each armor and weapon.
They didn't seem to be in a hurry, marching slowly, one step at a time towards the village.
And I knew why...
I involuntarily swallowed hard, the palms of my hands sweating.
...Intimidation.
Pure and simple intimidation. That's why they were coming so calmly, without haste. There was no better reason; they knew the state of the village people very well.
Even with the healing rain that Dylan had created, they were weak, their bodies malnourished for months under the matrix that stole their vitality and mana, and worse...
I turned, lowering the binoculars and diverting my gaze from the army, turning my attention back to the people below. Villagers and contractors.
They all seemed fine at first glance, that is, if you ignored the sickly pallor they had. They all had varied emotions on their faces.
Fear, desperation, anger, anguish, sadness, lament. Negative emotions overall, but all of them, all of them, had one thing in common. Their eyes, I could see in their eyes, in each of them, something in common, or rather, the absence of something.
Will.
They had no will in their eyes, no will to fight, survive, react. They had accepted their fates, accepted the end that awaited them.
"Excellent, what a wonderful thing to see..." I said to myself, my voice containing enough sarcasm that if it were a liquid, it could probably drown the army on the horizon.
I sighed as I threw the binoculars into the inventory. I had seen enough.
It's like the saying goes, right? "No plan survives contact with the enemy." or something like that.
The primary plan was to use the village as a kind of fortress, as it would be much easier to defend than to fight directly. Well, that had gone wrong right from the start, as I was forced to blow up part of the wall to disable the matrix around the village.
And now, to improve our "army," people whom I thought were just being controlled but were actually being "sucked" almost dry, wouldn't be of much help.
After all, they had given up.
Even looking at the Minimap, I could see that the only things moving were the army on the horizon and a small green dot just below me. Dylan.
None of the yellow dots were moving away.
None of the people in the village had tried to run, either they stood in place, or they were walking slowly towards the village entrance, probably to watch the army come their way before they were captured again.
After all, I doubted they would be killed; the goblin himself had said that, right? To him, Terrarians were just "batteries."
Speaking of Dylan, I could see the guide just below me, at the foot of the watchtower. The guy looked tired.
He was sweating more than before, trembling as if he were cold, and breathing more heavily. I could see in his eyes that he didn't want to fight either, I didn't blame him, after all, even at this distance, the goblin army was intimidating.
Never thought I'd say that about goblins...
But he hadn't given up; I could see that. He would prefer to run, of course, but I could see in his eyes that if forced, he would fight, he wouldn't die silently... But with his current state, that didn't matter much.
So, it was just me.
Dylan, as much as he might want to fight, wouldn't do much in his current state; the guy looked like he might collapse at any moment.
Our "fort" had a huge hole in the front wall. I could plug that gap with something big I had stored in the inventory, but what would be the point?
After all, our "army" didn't want to fight, just lie down and die slowly while being "sucked" by the matrix.
I could feel my fists clench tightly, and my jaw grind.
Damn...
...How was I supposed to fight an entire army alone?
In my current state, I knew I couldn't do it.
Sure, I could handle many enemies; I had done it in HOTD. The largest horde of zombies I had killed had about three hundred of them, and they didn't even touch me.
But that? That wasn't a horde of dumb zombies just running forward without thinking, until they caught their prey or died. No, that was a real and trained army.
Ignoring the fact that they were much more than the three hundred zombies, their number was close to a thousand or maybe more. They wouldn't just run forward like brainless creatures and die.
They would try everything to kill me, all the tactics they knew, all the techniques and strategies, everything.
As much as I had the VoidBag, weapons, strategies I could use, my trump cards, I had the feeling it wouldn't be enough...
... I couldn't face that... not now, I was sure of that, in my current state, facing that army was suicide...
I wasn't a protagonist who could save everyone; I wasn't invincible. Less than four months ago, I was just a college student, a programmer, working to pay the bills and survive...
...I wasn't a hero...
The (CHAT) seemed to agree with my thoughts.
[(MOD)GeniusBillionairePlayboy]: Yep! It was good while it lasted, we had a lot of fun. We pushed a car for almost an hour, destroyed a wall, and punched dozens of malnourished people with boxing gloves, but I think it's time to grab the Humvee and run! What do you think of this idea? (Iron Man running emote).
[BestToadSannin]: Anthony is right, fighting now is suicide. You need to know how to pick your battles, kid, and this isn't one of them. (Sad frog emote).
[(MOD)RedHuntressLive]: But the people in the village!? They will die if no one stops these goblins! (Concerned Little Red Riding Hood emote).
[WiseWizardGleam]: ... As sad as it is to abandon the people of the village, it is not a sin to choose to live... Go away, Devas. (Sad old wizard emote).
[JiraiyaIsAnIdiot]: It's a sad fact, Ruby, but Devas is not invincible. We, of all people, know what he is capable of. At this point, facing something like this is too much for him. As Albus said, it's not a sin to choose to live. (Sad old frog emote)
[(MOD)RedHuntressLive]: But... that's right... Devas is not a trained Huntsman... I forget that sometimes; it's not his job to do this. Run, Devas! No one will judge you, I promise! Anyone who does, I'll ban them! (Little Red Riding Hood shouting run emote).
[AsuraLady]: Don't think! Just run! You don't know these people! This is different from choosing to help fight dumb zombies and fighting an entire army! (Worried little lion emote).
Most of the messages were like this, even in the other (CHATS). The majority of people telling me to run, that it's not my job to save these people, especially since they don't seem to want to be saved.
That they had given up and it was better for me to just run, grab Dylan, get into the Humvee, and drive away without looking back, that it would be difficult or almost impossible for the goblins to catch us after I reached the road...
I could see messages from everyone, Takashi, Kohta, Saeko, Shizuka, telling me to run...
Hogwarts employees Snape and McGonagall saying that foolishness and bravery were different things...
Ruby's teammates saying it wasn't my job to do this, that I didn't have training, that it wouldn't be my fault...
Even messages from little Alice and Harry telling me to run, hide from the evil green monsters...
Sally saying that I wasn't like their "children," the gods, that I wasn't a demigod, that I was just human, that it wasn't shameful to be afraid...
No one blamed me, none of them would blame me if I ran, I knew that...
... They were right... I was scared, how could I not be? That there was a real army, they weren't like the "monsters" I had faced before...
So, why... why did this message hurt so much... why reading this single message felt more like a punch in the stomach than anything else...
[JackSon]: But isn't Devas a hero? Shouldn't he save the people of the village? Why is everyone telling him to run? (Confused seahorse emote).
... I knew why. Why it hurt so much to read this...
If it were anyone else, Ruby, Saya, Stark, anyone, I would be the first to deny it; I wasn't a hero, and I never wanted to become a hero.
Heroes carried more weight than they could bear until their backs broke.
Heroes were always blamed for everything when something went wrong, even when trying their best.
Heroes were almost always alone... almost always had a bad ending...
Died alone...
This wasn't a comic book, an anime, a cartoon...
Human history was there to prove it. Almost all the heroes that humanity knew had a bad ending, as glorious as their legend was, it almost always ended badly...
So why... why couldn't I say those words... why couldn't I say that I wasn't a hero...
I knew why,... after all, I could say it to everyone else...
...Except for him...
The one who carried the name of one of the few heroes who didn't have a bad ending.
The one who would be the greatest hero in his story.
The one who would be the greatest demigod among all demigods.
The one who at this moment was just a ten-year-old child watching me through a cell phone without knowing his divine origins.
The one who in the past... was my hero.
I lost count of how many times I read and reread the series of books that Riordan wrote.
I lost count of how many times those books brought a smile to my face.
I lost count of how many times those books gave me hope...
After all, if a twelve-year-old boy went to the underworld to rescue his mother, guilty of a crime he didn't commit...
...I could move forward even knowing the real meaning of my name, why my "father" had given me that name...
After all, if a twelve-year-old boy was forced to face a dangerous journey at only twelve years old, guilty of a crime he didn't commit...
...I could confront my "father," tell him it wasn't my fault that mom died, that I wasn't to blame for the way I was born...
After all, if a twelve-year-old boy faced a god face-to-face in battle, while mocking him... and won...
...I could keep living for myself, even if it was one day at a time, step by step...
I felt my breathing calm down, my heart starting to beat slower, more slowly...
...I sighed as I closed my eyes...
Sighed... "What foolishness..." I wasn't like him...
...I wasn't a hero...
…
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I opened my eyes forcefully while manifesting my plate armor over my body, on top of the chainmail I was wearing.
The (CHAT), realizing my intentions, exploded with messages, messages that I ignored, pushing the (CHAT) aside, minimizing it.
...It was foolish, I didn't need to do this, I owed nothing to anyone, didn't need to prove anything to anyone.
I could feel the weight of my armor as it appeared on my body. The weight of my sword as it appeared in my hand...
...I didn't need to prove anything, even though I was being watched, I didn't need to set an example.
I could feel my heart start to race, beating faster and faster. My blood starting to run faster, hotter...
...And what example was this? Choosing to fight and probably die when you have the option to flee? Protecting people who didn't want to be protected?
I could feel my mana start to course through my body. Accelerating, reacting to my emotions...
...Fighting in a world that wasn't yours, for people who weren't your people, who weren't of your own kind? A fight that wasn't yours?
I could feel my instincts scream at me, telling me this was a terrible idea, my fear trying to overpower me, my body starting to panic...
...But this wasn't just about setting an example... no....
I turned, the wood beneath me creaking under my weight, the weight of my armor and weapon. Looking down, I could see the people of the village.
Their eyes devoid of hope, their air defeated, their fear, their dread, their despair... Their lack of will...
...I felt that if I fled here, at this moment, I would lose something, something very important within me, something that I knew could not be recovered...
I could feel my instincts begin to shift, my emotions change, fear giving way to another emotion... determination and determination slowly transforming into something else...
...Anger.
No one would save them, I knew that. Damn it!, they knew that, knew that this wasn't a world of heroes, no one would come to save them, and yet they chose not to react.
This wasn't my universe, it wasn't my planet, it wasn't my people, it wasn't my race.
I wasn't born on this planet, I didn't grow up in this realm, in this village, I wasn't a Terrarian.
They might look like me, act like me, live like me, bleed like me, but I wasn't a Terrarian...
...I! Was! Human!
No one on this planet knew my species, everyone mistook me for a Terrarian, even the stream's (CHAT) seemed to have forgotten that, but not me!
The sole human in Terraria, the only one of my kind on the entire planet... in the entire universe!
I could feel something inside me reacting, reacting to the army on the horizon, reacting, knowing they were a real threat...
...Reacting to the defiance.
I released the breath I didn't realize I was holding, the warm air from inside my body creating a thin mist as it collided with the colder outside air.
I cracked my neck, moving my head from side to side, and turned towards the army...
"So be it... I'm a fool anyway..."
...And took a step forward, falling from the watchtower.
I wasn't a hero... I don't think I could be one... But I was a fool...
...And what was a hero if not the greatest of fools?
I felt my body become light for a moment before gravity began to take effect, and I fell, cushioning the impact with my knees.
I turned to Dylan, seeing the slightly widened eyes of the guide as he realized I was armed, ready for war.
"Can you cover me?" I pointed to the tower and then to his hands, his bow.
The guide seemed scared for a moment, realizing it wasn't a mistake on his part, I was really going to fight.
I thought he would refuse, after all, he could run away, this wasn't his fight, it wasn't mine. I didn't blame him, and wouldn't blame him if he ran, if he hid.
After all, he wasn't a hero either... It wasn't a sin to choose to live.
But that lasted only a moment before the guide sighed, lowering his head and then quickly raising it with a smile on his face.
"My maximum range, using my bow and enchanted arrows, is five hundred meters. Anything beyond that, it won't reach." He said to me as he began to climb the watchtower.
I looked at him in surprise. But before I could say anything, he stopped halfway on the ladder, turned to me.
"You didn't tell me to run. You didn't tell me I would be useless, even knowing my current state." He pointed to his trembling body, sweating cold. But unlike his body, his face told another story.
He had a smile on his face, with determined eyes.
"You asked for my help, if I could cover you." He began climbing the watchtower again, at the top, he continued.
"You were the first person to really trust me, not treat me as just a nerd, a bookworm with knowledge." He had a mix of emotions on his face, bitterness and happiness.
"I said it before, didn't I? That I wanted to be a part of your group!"
He placed the bow against the wall and started taking things out of the ring, placing them all over the top of the tower. When he finished, he pointed to the army in the distance.
"I'm not a good fighter, but I'm excellent with the bow... so I'll throw back the same words." He looked at me, repeating the words I had said myself...
"We haven't known each other for long, but I'll trust you to do your part, Devas." The exact words I had said before...
I could feel a smile growing on my face.
This guy... Dylan seemed to be a fool too...
I didn't respond verbally, just started walking towards the army. No more words were needed.
I walked slowly, in the plain around the village, until I stopped at the three-hundred-meter mark, far enough for the battle not to reach the villagers of Jille but close enough for Dylan to help me.
I put my helmet on using my hands, then planted my sword in the ground, supporting both hands on the hilt and waited for the army...
...Standing.
The goblin army didn't take long, curiously, they stopped about two hundred meters in front of me. All more than a thousand goblins stopped at the same time, as one.
The army up close looked even more intimidating. The larger goblins, the ones wearing full armor, seemed like a massive wall of steel, impenetrable.
As the army stopped, one of the goblins at the front, one wearing plate armor, took a step forward and shouted.
His deep and thunderous voice tried to assert dominance.
"CAME TO SURRENDER, TERRARIAN?!"
A simple question, but one that carried an air of sarcasm and disdain. If their goal was to intimidate me...
...They had failed.
It was almost funny, the same army that, a few minutes ago, from a distance, had left me scared, terrified even... But now, in front of me, I felt nothing...
No... that was a lie, I felt something, not fear, not terror, not dread... No...
...Even with a helmet on, I was sure my smile was visible through the lower opening... A big smile... A fierce smile... in defiance...
A primal part of my being, the one that represented human challenge... the part that best represented humanity... reacted to the army in front of me....
I could feel my race, my being as a whole, I, human... roaring at the army in front of me...
If the stream were like a certain system from a Korean novel, I'd probably be reading this message.
[Your race "Human (Origin)" looks at the army in front of you and shouts in anger! Roars in defiance!]
So no... what I was feeling wasn't fear, dread, terror, none of those emotions....
...What I felt in this moment was anger, excitement for the coming fight, and most importantly...
...Defiance...
I drew a line with the sword in front of me, without responding to the goblin. He seemed to understand what that truly meant.
"You won't pass through here."
He didn't seem to like that, I could hear his growl of anger from this distance, and I wouldn't be surprised if, under his helmet, he had a furious expression.
I was sure the goblins behind him shared the same opinion.
With a fierce cry, the army in front of me began stomping their feet and roaring as one, making the environment tremble.
So, they started coming toward me, running, not like the orderly march from before, no, now, like an army rushing to battle, to kill.
I stood there, calmly, waiting for them to come.
When they reached the fifty-meter mark, when I could see the arrows flying over the army, coming in my direction, when I could practically feel the mockery coming from them, I moved.
A simple movement, I lifted the tip of the sword slightly from the ground, an unnecessary gesture, after all, I could command the VoidBag with a thought, but I was being watched, so I might as well show off a bit...
Above me, something seemed to happen...
It started with one, then two, three, and so on, the number increasing every moment, until there were dozens... no, hundreds of weapons floating above me.
Pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, all kinds of firearms, all that I could find while wandering through Japan...
...All pointing at the army in front of me.
Before gravity could pull the weapons down, before the army in front of me could think, "What were those strange objects?"
I lowered the sword, sticking it into the ground again, at the same time, with a simple thought, all the triggers of the weapons were pulled by the appearing elastics...
...Firing all of them, all the bullets towards the goblins who were startled by the noise of all the guns firing at the same time.
They realized too late, what those explosion sounds were, only realizing how dangerous they were when the first goblins in the front began to fall.
One by one, the first goblins, the goblins in the frontline, started to fall, their armor and shields holding up for a few seconds under the rain of bullets before giving in, their bodies, right after, riddled with holes.
As impressive as their armor and shields with Mystic Symbols might be, they didn't last more than a few seconds against my weapons...
...Against the modern armament of Humanity.
The weapons went in and out of my inventory, firing rapidly, returning to the inventory before they could hit the ground and reappearing, firing again.
Compared to whom I was imitating, what I was doing was a pathetic imitation, but a part of me couldn't help but whisper the name of the original Noble Phantasm.
In the end, I wasn't a hero, I was just a fool...
...But who said a fool can't imitate a hero?...
"Three Line Formation: Three Thousand Worlds!"