This Hero is Sleeping!

Holding his head, Claude slowly moved away from the bed. His eyes fell on Elric, sound asleep.

Claude hesitated a lot, but then sighed in resignation.

"Why am I like this?" He spoke to no one as he placed the book in his pockets and walked out of the room.

Through the many houses with their oak frames and ebony lines, the huts of straw and mud ceilings, and roads made of studded stone and sand, he visited a bunch of them and grabbed ropes before putting all of them in a wheelbarrow.

After tying the handle with a rope, Claude pulled the wheelbarrow along as he made his way through the village. Past the herd of huts, the thicket of trees, and the files of fields.

His gaze landed on the emptied body of water in the distance. The reflection of the sky urged his head upward.

A chuckle left Claude.

"It really is pretty…"

Claude moved over to the many people Elric had left near the lake. From the pile of over sixty, only about twenty were still alive.

"That guy kills without a thought."

Humans. Orcs. Goblins. Harpies.

They were all the same. They all lived the same, and they all died the same. It was only hypocritical of them to hesitate from killing humans after slaughtering in the forest for two years.

Forcing through the pain that assaulted his body, Claude yanked and pulled the still breathing few to the trees before snugly tying them up around the stumps.

Claude then picked up the dead by their feet and forced them up on the wheelbarrow.

One after the other, until it filled up.

Many trips would be a hassle, so the boy stacked them one over the other until a giant pile of corpses was left on the wheelbarrow.

He didn't know if it was their fault. Or if it wasn't.

And… he couldn't care less.

He didn't blame any of the people here. He didn't have that right.

Weak groans spread around the lakeside as Claude placed his arms on his waist and looked at his handiwork. Since the pile had become too large for the wheelbarrow, he used the remaining rope to firmly hook them down.

Dusting his hands, the boy grabbed the handles of the barrow and pulled it along.

The night was still long.

Near the church that had been demolished was where the villagers buried their dead. Claude took a longer route and circled the church, not willing to face the ghost girl yet.

As he neared the cemetery, his steps came to a halt.

The sound of dirt and stones hitting around resounded in the air. Amid the cemetery, a young auburn-haired beauty with piercing silver eyes was digging graves.

"You're up," Claude muttered. Elric looked up and glared at him as if he was staring at trash.

Claude knew it was only because he couldn't leave things behind that made Elric step up. He was definitely annoyed for his sleep was disturbed again.

"You forgot a shovel," Elric said.

Claude nodded and pulled the wheelbarrow. He took another of the shovels Elric had brought and moved to a different spot.

His friend had barely scratched the ground.

The pain of being thwacked around like a rag doll was still fresh in his bones, but he managed nonetheless.

After a few grueling hours, Claude finally finished digging up forty-four graves, and Elric one.

The two of them moved to the wheelbarrow and loosened the ties. Claude held the torso while Elric took the legs as they started moving the corpses in the graves.

"I…" Claude spoke, dropping the first into the ground. "I want revenge."

Elric dropped the corpse.

Sweat poured out of his head as he slowly picked it up again and moved to the next grave with Claude. "Go on," he said, hiding his fear.

Claude's heart thumped.

The images of the two years he had spent here filled his mind.

His friends, his family back home. Everything flooded in all at once. The field trip, The flipping of the bus.

The accusation, the betrayal.

"Not for the abandonment," Claude said. He hated it, yes. But there was something more fundamental. A deeper reason that had ruined his life. "I want revenge for being brought into this world."

"Hmm…"

Elric nodded, pulling out yet another corpse.

Foul pitch. Batter safe.

If it wasn't about him, Elric was more than willing to help Claude with open arms.

Claude stopped as he looked around himself.

"See it, Elric… If that god hadn't abandoned this place, this kind of thing would have never happened."

Elric stopped too.

"Do you know why things worked well back home? Because it was fair. But not here. A god that is pissed off from self-defense, a god that would feel its world collapse from a mere statue, a god that would bring kids from another world and throw them in this hell… That's not god."

Was this omnipotence? Such frailty?

Was this omniscience? Such insensitivity?

"I don't care about this village… or that fucking snake… I…"

Claude looked at his friend. His only friend. The only person he could trust in this damned, accursed hell he was pushed into.

"I care about us."

"You say you don't care, yet you dig their graves." Elric couldn't stay quiet anymore.

Insensible as he was, Elric wasn't one to stay quiet. Not when some hormonal bastard was not just disturbing his sleep, not just making him engage in physical labor, but was also treating him as a roadside psychologist.

His drowsiness would blow away at this rate!

"Do you think a world would survive where all is hell?" Elric asked, his gaze fierce. "Do you think you're smarter than all those who died for this… this god or whatever? Do you think you're the first to think it? What gives you the right to judge?"

Claude lowered his head.

Elric's words resonated to the thoughts he held deep within.

What's wrong would survive, it wouldn't last, it wouldn't flourish.

People could be controlled, but they couldn't be unhappy.

Maybe the god never helped this village? Were there no droughts back at his home?

Maybe it was a vile snake that had set its eyes here? Was there no evil back at his home?

"I know nothing…"

Claude muttered.

His heart screamed. Lord of Shadows? Spirits? Magic? Betrayal? Evil? This… this thing… he was just an ordinary school boy. He didn't deserve all this. Yet.

Yet, to demand revenge so righteously, he knew nothing of this world.

His revenge was selfish.

"You can learn now, Claude."

The boy looked up. His friend was looking at him with a gentle gaze.

"We'll learn together. I have no where to go anyway."

Those weren't words he needed to hear. Claude already considered himself a package with Elric.

"Learn what?"

"Whatever you want… Another world or not, this is still a life we have."

They weren't in the forest any longer.

They weren't weak any longer.

"And well," Elric shrugged and pulled out another corpse from the pile. "That revenge, whether's its selfish or not, deserved or not… What's stopping you from having it? God's fair, remember?"

The motives didn't matter. Kill or be killed, that was the principal that had guided his life.

Why would it stop now, for some seemingly higher beings?

"Take revenge against this whole world, I'll lend you a hand."

A sigh left Claude.

The night sky truly was pretty.