Dokeshi March ~ 19!

“Ow.” Suki sat up, rubbing her lightly bleeding head. Grant knew exactly how she felt. Looking around, her eyes widened in shock and surprise. Dead, unconscious, and heavily battered people littered the ground. “What happened? I can’t have been flattened for that long.”

“When I broke the Vassal’s weapon, it exploded.” Grant winced as he finished kicking the big guy off of her. He had started by using his hand, but still managed to hurt his injured arm, so he’d switched to using his undamaged legs. “In the confusion, and with the subsystem down, I had the chance to defeat everyone else. I don’t think they actually know how to fight when combat isn’t turn-based.”

“Breaking the scepter blew the clown’s head off?” Suki’s face turned a little green, and she started dry heaving as she took in the carnage. This left Grant confused. He knew that she had seen dead bodies before, and had even killed monsters right in front of him. She jabbed a finger at the dead man’s neck, eyeing Grant with more than a little hostility.  “That wound looks like a clean cut with a sharp blade. Not an explosion.”

“That’s because I cut it off?” Grant started to shrug in consternation, pausing only when the bolts sticking out of his arm caused him to wince and abort the motion. “He was pure evil. At least Fluffy Fingers didn’t delight in the power he had over people. That guy was a menace to everyone, so I took care of him. Like a rabid trash panda on a farm; you have to put them down before they can hurt anything else, or infect those around them.”

“But… he was a person! You can’t just go around cutting people's heads off!” Suki had begun shouting, and Grant couldn’t understand why.

“Did you just want me to let the clown go?” He shook his head. “He would have gone on to do terrible things after getting a new scepter. Justice only works when people are punished for their crimes. There’s no chance Lord March would have allowed that to happen.”

She waved a shaking finger at him. “You don’t just get to be an executioner whenever you feel like it! You don’t even know if what he was saying was the truth. He could have been lying just to mess with your head!”

“Was I supposed to capture him? Take him with us? Let him go, so he could keep hurting people when the mood struck him? He sure sounded like he was telling the truth.” Grant’s volume began ratcheting up as his tone reflected hers. “I will save these people, and I won’t allow monsters like that to roam free. I’m supposed to become the Calendar King, which means I have to think like a King. I’ve seen you kill monsters before, Suki. Just because he’s shaped like a human didn’t make him any less of a beast.”

Grant grabbed the bolt protruding from his bicep and ripped it free with a shout and a spurt of blood. Suki was shocked into silence and dropped her gaze to her feet.

“I’ve… never had to kill a person before. I’ve trained as hard as I could so that I could defeat an opponent without having to resort to killing them. It isn’t that I think a murderer should be spared, but there are trials and procedures to follow before an execution.” Suki was breathing harder, and she raised a burning glare to the killer right in front of her. “I understand that the system has named you both Lord January and Lord February. It still isn’t right for you to serve as judge, jury, and executioner. It’s a bad mindset for any leader to have, and it worries me to see you adopting such a harsh outlook.”

Instead of continuing the conversation, since there was practically nothing he could say against that argument, Grant removed the second crossbow bolt and sat down to meditate. If he waited too long, he wouldn’t be able to heal the damage. It was dangerous not to get somewhere safer, but it would only take one full minute for his absorbed healing skill to work. He glanced at his health before he started, calculating how much damage he had taken in the fight.

Health: 311/421

Mana: 22/22

“What?” Grant was flabbergasted when he realized that all of his injuries had only brought him down to what he had practically thought his maximum health was! “Sarge, what happened? The increase in my health is huge; almost seventy points!”

<You have a lot of information to look over.> Sarge sounded extremely pleased with himself. <In that battle alone, you defeated one Wielder and five Vassals. Then, you killed one of the defeated Vassals, which counted toward your levels as well. You jumped from cultivation level seventeen to nineteen almost instantly. Like I’ve told you before: for you, defeating enemies is the fastest path to power. Frankly, it’s the only way to make up the difference between you and the people that have been cultivating for years, decades, and centuries. Ignore her whining: be brutal. It’s the only way you’re gonna survive the year.>

“Wow. That’s…” Grant was stunned by both the increases, as well as the demand. “I’ll look everything over when we get to a safe spot and think through what you’re saying.”

He blocked out the urge to look over his stat sheet immediately, and instead concentrated on healing, as the ten minute time limit was already almost up. Slowing his breathing, he willed the stolen ability to activate, finding himself instantly overwhelmed as the replay of events detailed his mistakes.

The first major error was the fact that he should have waited to use Thundering Step until his second turn to attack, even if the surprise usage had been effective. It would have resulted in a tighter cluster of enemies, allowing him to down more of them at the start and avoid getting injured by others in the first place. His second issue had been the angle at which he had struck the scepter. If Grant had destroyed it after maneuvering the clown away, forcing him to slightly turn, he could have utilized the explosion as an anti-personnel spell and taken out nearly all of the enemies on the bridge at the same time.

Health: 311/421 -> 355/421. Critical areas focused. Soft tissue repaired to 80%. Internal bleeding successfully stopped.

“Grant, we need to move,” Suki was crouching next to him and shaking his arm. It was still sore, so he flinched away as the motion registered. He opened his eyes, getting a clear view of a forest of spears moving at speed toward them. They had some time to get away yet, but his blood turned to ice at the faint sight of a short figure oscillating a golden orb leaking green gas.

“Yeah. Let’s get outta here.” Even with the system down, Grant had no way to fight against what was likely the poison of a House Saturday assassin bearing down on them. “Lose them in the alleys?”

The two intruders to the District scrambled to their feet and started their exhausted escape by heading in the opposite direction of the approaching spears. While neither Wielder was in perfect health or in a great place mentally, the thought of what was behind them kept their pace to a fast jog. In just a few minutes, they had successfully passed out of sight, weaving between and through the abandoned buildings of District March.

While they ran, Grant felt Suki occasionally sneaking looks at him. They hadn’t finished their conversation about him killing the clown yet. He was almost certain of it, even if he was done speaking about it. The Lord firmed up his jaw, convinced that—at least this time—he hadn’t made a bad decision.

The Vassal had declared his intent to kill Grant, so all he had done was respond in kind. He could have killed the others, but he had at least given them a chance to survive. That was more than they would have offered him. He hadn’t been in the wrong, and he already knew that he would do it again.

Probably far too soon.