So it is done: ...between good and right... (Patreon)

It would be a ruthless death.

Jonathan exhaled slowly, then looked at the clothes lying in front of him, pierced by several bullets. Cinder, clearly unable to comprehend the reason for Jonathan's actions, nevertheless only continued to stay by his side, certain that what Jonathan had just committed his actions for, he did have a purpose for it.

Even, perhaps, a little too ruthless.

Jonathan slowly lowered his assault rifle before he heard a knock on the door. “Your Majesty?”

“It's all right,” He replied to the curious voice of one of the operatives coming from behind the door.

You do realize you might not have to do it, don't you?

Jonathan was aware that there were more humane ways to deal with the escaping Marcus.

For example, he could have just created a small portal equal in size to the bullet, so that it would pass through Marcus' clothes and into his body seamlessly. He couldn't have done such a feat three years ago, but time doesn’t stand still, and neither did he.

It might not have been enough.

Aura. The special ability of the locals, a manifestation of their souls that acts as a force field, one that every Hunter possessed.

According to the local world lore, it is a force that supposedly can be awakened in every one with a soul, even animals. Still, even if it was supposed to be able to be used by anyone, only a very small stratum of people could make use of it as they’re ‘awakened’ to it. Jonathan could only smirk sardonically when he heard such a thing.

As far as Jonathan knew, the process of awakening and training an Aura is not fully understood, and the ways of Aura training kept a great secret relative to the general population.

Even Jonathan himself, a King who had a personal relation with two Headmasters of Hunter Academies, had been unable to obtain any information about it. Other than the fact that it was a very rare ability, he doesn’t really know the specifics to it.

In all of Mountain Glenn, excluding Cinder and Neo, there were maybe ten or twenty people who possessed an Aura abundant enough to set their abilities apart from the rest of the populace. And most of them had already been recruited into the army or the RATS. There may be a few hundred or even a couple of thousands who had at least a potential for Aura, paltry in the face of a Kingdom of nearly three million people. Or, to be fair, a city-state. And without an ability to awaken it, they might as well just be ordinary civilians.

Moreover, even among that small percentage of people possessing Aura, most often called Hunters regardless of whether or not they had graduated from a Hunter Academy or licensed, there was within it, a small percentage of people possessing an even more advanced manifestation of Aura. The so-called Semblance, an Aura-born ability, supposedly the manifestation of their inner essence.

In all of Glenn, there were only three who possessed Semblances, or were at least overt enough that they were easily seen. Cinder, the head of the RATS special task force, who coincidentally was just outside the door, and the First Captain, the second-in-command of the army after Aisa.

However, while numerically speaking, three was negligible compared to three million, four was still an unprecedented number, as it was obvious that Marcus possesses a Semblance. So, who has the ability to hire a Hunter with a rare Semblance to assassinate Jonathan, or at least anyone in his entourage.

Of course, there exists the possibility, no matter how slim, that Marcus was a Mage.

Still, since Ozpin hadn’t divulged to Jonathan the existence of any actual ‘magic’ of sorts, the most logical conclusion still remains was that Marcus was simply a Hunter using his Semblance.

And since Semblances in turn only existed in those with a strong Aura, then it must mean that Marcus' Aura was strong. Perhaps strong enough to defend against rifle rounds, even multiple ones.

In other words, a simple teleportation of bullets could do nothing more than give the attacker information that someone was after him. Jonathan wasn't exactly sure about how Aura works to protect the user, so more subtle ways of harming the hunter were also questionable. As far as Jonathan himself knew, Aura existed in the form of an insensible film on the surface of the body itself, so many of his tricks with precise shots were possibly useless.

Theoretically speaking, of course, there was a way around this problem entirely. For example, by opening the theoretical portal for a bullet not over or even close to Marcus' body, but simply, well… inside him. Creating the portal then might still have been possible in theory, but Jonathan  just didn't know human anatomy well enough to place the shot.

Slowly, day by day, he continued to evolve when compared to him in the past. But, it was not a process where he could comprehend all the secrets of magic that the Order had collected for thousands of years in just a couple of years. Opening a portal inside an object presented some special difficulties that needed to be solved. First among them was that it needed several facts about the object itself to be known first.

After all, you couldn't provide Aer access where there was no Aer originally.

At least, that's how Jonathan understands it.

And so the bullet that smashed into the clothes lying on the floor was not actually physically transported. No, it went through the T-shirt, its second layer, and then simply crashed into the cheap laminate floor.

We'll have to allocate money for hotel repairs later…

What Jonathan had done, was not teleporting the physical bullet, but…

The damage a bullet does when it enters the human body.

A bullet is capable of inflicting damage on a person, isn't it? So, in other words, after leaving the muzzle of a rifle, a bullet has the property of ‘causing damage to the person it hits’. However, if the bullet does not find a person at the end of its flight, it would have stopped without actually threatening a person, its property of ‘harming the person it hits’ disappears as unused, simply dissolving into nothingness.

And so, Jonathan simply ‘teleported’ that property the moment the bullet hit the clothes, the very clothes that, in his mind, were supposed to be on the person.

In other words, what hit Marcus Black wasn't a bullet, it was rather the concept of 'something capable of damaging Marcus Black'.

And it was indeed dangerous.

A bullet has a concrete, directed, physically determined effect, no matter how dangerous it is in itself, the damage it can cause is limited. It has form, Aqua, and substance, Terra, things that have limits and can be negated in some ways. The concept, of ‘causing harm to man’, the force, Ignis, has nothing of the sort. It is a naked concept, a naked force, free without form or direction that can limit it.

In other words, it was not a weapon that Marcus Black could defend himself against, as he was attacked by the concept of ‘bullet damage’ itself. As Jonathan finished the spell and ritual, Marcus Black simultaneously suffered a myriad of different wounds that could have been inflicted by a gunshot.

Ruptured blood vessels, internal bleeding, punctured organs, and without a physical cause, these were the wounds that were opened simply because they could have been inflicted by a bullet. And all of these would have happened at the same time, the pain would’ve been unimaginable.

I have to say, it was very brutal.

It was a way of attacking that was very difficult to defend against, this attack essentially attacked not the physical body, but the very ‘concept of life’ that Marcus Black possessed.

But it was very effective.

Jonathan had restrained himself from killing Marcus Black right at that moment. His blow, his spell, would only have weakened him to the point where he would have been unable to resist capture.

I'd say you don't want to get your hands dirty, but…

At the very least, we should try to find out his full identity and whether anyone had hired him. And if so, how it was…

Jonathan lowered the barrel of his rifle and exhaled slowly.

He felt sick to his stomach.

We didn't kill him, but even if we hadn’t killed him, Jonathan. Marcus Black, is still a walking corpse in the fullest sense of the word.

But after that…

Still, after this he should easily be captured, followed by interrogation… An intense interrogation, maybe even…

Yes, Jonathan, it would almost one hundred percent be torture, and then, after they have extracted all the information they wanted, he would be executed, silently or loudly. That's how this world works.

Jonathan could only sigh slowly, before looking at the somewhat confused Cinder with a smile, though it came out strained and weak. Collecting himself together, he shouldn’t appear so distraught to his subordinates, he pulled up the sleeves of his shirt.

Now all he had to do was find the assailant on the map, and give the order to capture him…

Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

***

“The target was killed in the capture.” The voice from the receiver spoke clearly and without any sentimentality, answering Jonathan's question appropriately.

“In accordance with your orders, we prioritized our own safety and began firing the moment the capture target did not obey orders and seems to be trying to escape as his body began to turn transparent. Your Majesty, what should be done with the body?”

Jonathan could only utter a faint reply at the unexpected execution. "Just… just take him to the central morgue…” Then he felt his hands weaken and after the connection on the other end of the receiver broke off, he put it aside bonelessly.

After successfully locating Marcus, which to Jonathan’s surprise had been somewhat away from the walls, Jonathan, and Cinder returned to the safe house while relaying all the information to the capture team. They then settled down to wait for any updates.

Jonathan didn’t need to wait long.

In that short amount of time, Jonathan had begun thinking about what would happen next. How the attacker would be captured, how he would be interrogated… well, tortured. Still, even with the expectation of a swift and easy capture, he gave orders for the men to concentrate on their own protection, not on capturing the target. And all of it for naught, Marcus still died..

That makes sense, doesn't it, Jonathan? You didn't want more corpses of your kingdom's men, only the assassin’s corpse would do as a substitute in such a case.

Jonathan sighed, before shifting his gaze in an effort to clear his head from such an eventuality. There’s the sofa, the cupboards, and there’s Cinder and Neo across the room. And that’s about all the thing Jonathan could see in the room

Cinder was watching him carefully, clearly assessing his every action and thoughts, but did nothing more than look. Then Jonathan's gaze came across Neo, who was sitting next to Cinder.

She probably would have preferred to spend her time doing something more fun, but for some reason she sat across from him next to Cinder, also just staring at Jonathan.

You’re surprised? Why? Jonathan, you look like your parents just died! Of course, Cinder, and Neo are worried! Cinder might have empathy issues, but she's not a monster, and you're not just a passerby to her. Of course, they’re bloody worried!

Jonathan looked at his two daughters, looking intently at them, to which they replied by silently staring back at him.

Jonathan, you are not the Messiah. And even if you were, heh... How did it go again? 'I came not to bring peace, but a sword!' Matthew... 10:34, I think? Maybe I missed a stanza or two, it was a long time ago. Jonathan, you're not trying to outdo Jesus himself in holiness, are you?

No, I'm not…

Jonathan felt that, even after his acceptance of his fallibility, his soul was still heavy.

All my life, I have been trying to be a good person. Nothing more, nothing less. Not a hero, not a savior, not a Messiah, I just want to be a good person…  Is that too much to ask?

Jonathan, we will only know how much or how little we’re asking when we know what being ‘good’ means. Tell me, Jonathan, what is a good man?

I…

Jonathan could not answer this question, because he did not know.

What is a good man? What should a good person do? Could one action be good or bad depending on the conditions? Could a murderer be a good person even when he commits murders? Could a person being murdered be a good thing? Could cold-blooded murder be a good action? Under what circumstances, then?

I don’t know about others’ circumstances, but we do know that catching Marcus was the right thing to do, even if there exists the chance that he would die in the struggle. Even so, isn’t murdering a murderer a good thing?

Yes. Murder in those circumstances, in that situation, was the only right thing to do. But it still wasn't a good thing.

That's not even the question here, Jonathan, focus. The only question is, which is more important, doing the good deed or the right one?

Jonathan slowly raised his gaze, which had lowered during his contemplation, and then looked at his two daughters.

Cinder and Neo were looking at him, concern clear on their faces.

Thousands of horrific things happen every day, and not even from the anger of people and not even from doing wrong things, but just from doing what's right.

Police officers shoot a dangerous criminal to save their own lives. Don't things like this happen all the time? Is that something to worry about?

They did their job the way they were told, and they did it right. And similar things happen all over the world all the time, but you don't worry about every one of them, don’t you? You yourself don't think it's a good thing that's happening, but are you going to impose your views on the whole world? It's not what you have chosen to do, but in this world, in its laws and in reality, it's the right thing to do. Not in terms of how you would choose for things to happen, but the way it happens. How it should end.

Or does it bother you that the attacker got shot because of your orders? The whole world works this way, do you want the world to bend to your will, that the world had to make an exception?

Jonathan, isn't the narcissism, that messianic complex hard to stomach? ‘Look, look! I'm a magician! I can make reality bend under my will!’. But then, when reality refuses to yield to you on your first word, you break yourself? Jonathan, you know how the Paradox works, don't you? You try to change reality, and reality, the one created by millions of other people, would refuse to obey you. You push harder, and reality presses back even harder.

What is the world if not an artificial concept created by humans? What is a paradox but the attempt of that concept to prevent you from breaking it?

If you can't realize what it's like to live by the same rules as the rest of the world, if your magical exceptionalism screams your inimitable brilliance through you? Then consider that every such event, every such problem, born of reality in response to your actions, is also a kind of paradox.

Even the greatest Arch Mages, whose, with the snap of their fingers, can toss stars around like toys, even they are wary of grappling with reality so openly. But you, you, you, surely you can succeed where those who are a thousand times smarter, a thousand times stronger, a thousand times luckier than you fail…

Jonathan, you’ve made a choice, you should respect that. You hold your morals, and that is to be admired. You think, and that's to be applauded.

But don't think that's enough for reality to make an exception for you.

Jonathan felt all his strength literally leave his body, nearly causing him to fall to the ground in surprise, stopping only because a small, girlish hand held his body.

Jonathan looked up, expecting to see Cinder looking at him anxiously, but instead he got an equally anxious look from… Neo?

Two eyes tinged by heterochromia, one dark brown, the other pink, suggestive of albinism, and both were looking at him with concern. Cinder was also close by, reaching out a hand to keep Jonathan from collapsing completely if Neo couldn't hold him down, but she stood to the side, and so Jonathan stared into Neo's eyes.

Confusion. Questioning. Anxious.

Were the things he saw so clearly in her eyes.

Jonathan dredged up the will, the rest of his strength and stood up on his own, pausing for a second, looking at his…

Family, looking at him with worry.

He has two daughters… A single father with two daughters… almost the blueprint for some sitcom.

Except there weren't enough jokes.

Jonathan sighed, then looked at his two daughters. After all, he didn't want to bring them into this, but… he could no longer keep it all inside. It was almost maddening.

“Tell me…” Jonathan paused to prevent his voice from breaking off at the most inopportune moment before continuing to speak. “Am I…”

Jonathan felt the words stick in his throat as he tried to force them through. “Am I…”

“Am I…” He swallowed down the lump, looking at the people sitting across from him, at his daughters.

Jonathan, we know exactly what they are going to say. Yes, you are a good man. Even I know that. Even you know that. The only problem is that you don't know anything else. You don't even know what a good man is.

Jonathan froze, then lowered his head, but before anyone could panic, he slowly smiled sadly. “What is a good man? What does it mean for a person to be good?”

For a second, his daughters, sitting across from him, seem to be in thought for a moment and…

Poke. Poked at him.

A girl's thin forefinger rested somewhere in his chest.

Jonathan blinked slowly, before realizing what had been said, or rather, done, before lifting his gaze up, looking at whoever had poked him with the finger.

Neo, resting one finger on Jonathan’s chest, glared at him before rolling her eyes.

‘Of course it's you!’

Cinder's voice came from the side. “According to the dictionary definition, a good man is one who does more good deeds than bad. And I agree with Neo, you, Jonathan, are the closest thing in this world to a good man.”

More good deeds than bad deeds, huh… How is that determined in this case? Is the goodness and badness of the deeds are somehow to be measured from case to case? Or is it only the quantity that matters? If so, then what kind of deeds are considered good enough and which is, then, considered bad? Is a good deed done in the understanding that such an action creates an opportunity for further bad deeds, is it still good? And vice versa?

Poke.

Neo pressed a little harder, bringing Jonathan out of his trance before forcing him to look up to the… Scroll screen.

"You're overthinking this."

Jonathan blinked.

Neo very rarely used her scroll to communicate with people. She usually made do with facial expressions or verbose hand gestures, and if the situation demanded anything more from her? Well, she typically just wasn't involved in the situation in the first place. Neo has the canny ability to avoid any situation that requires her to express complex thoughts.

Ahem, and on that line of thinking… What does she do about her participation at school? How do the teachers even interact with her then? Especially given that she's at a regular school among regular students and untrained teachers?

This question appeared in Jonathan's mind for a second, but immediately disappeared, giving way to the most important observation.

She really cared about my question.

Neo was very much averse to using notes or phones, simply because she didn't like doing it. Even with Jonathan, under normal circumstances, she usually interacted with him by her facial expressions and gestures. Her actually using the Scroll to express herself, just doesn’t happen.

Because she didn't like it. But she does so now.

Why does she dislike it so much? Jonathan did not know, he only knew that Neo did not use this toolkit in her normal daily life. And if she decided to do something like this now…

She really does care.

There was nothing unusual about this remark. On the contrary, it would be strange if the condition of a man far from being a stranger to her, her adoptive father, did not worry Neo. It was a scene that should not have raised any question to an outside observer…

And yet it was the scene that made Jonathan blink, the one that knocked him out of his depressive spiral.

Could it be…  Could it be that we really had gone too deep?

Maybe…

People, millions of people, poor, rich, weak, powerful, stupid, intelligent, were living their lives, solving their problems, made decisions.

The good, the bad. Right or wrong… they made them all, daily. Again and again.

And they didn't wallow in agonizing reflection every time.

They just acted. According to their beliefs, their expectations, their understanding, their emotions…

We've already made our choice, haven't we, Jonathan?

And the ironic thing really was that Jonathan was reflecting on a choice that had already been made. About what that choice meant…

What that choice meant for me.

Not for them.

If Jonathan existed in a perfect solitary world… If he existed in a world where his decisions, their premises, and their consequences could be so perfectly traced, in a world where he existed alone…

But you are not alone, Jonathan. This is the crux of the issue.

Yes, this is why he is in so much pain… Not even whether he was a good man, but…

Can you afford to be a good man?

According to his orders, a man was just killed.

Was that the best solution? If Jonathan could have seen all the consequences of his decisions and actions clearly in a split second, would he have changed his mind then?

Maybe he would have.

But he could not change it now.

He had made a decision, to ensure the safety and health of his men, and it had come at the cost of the criminal’s life.

Was it…  A good decision?

It was such a difficult question, Jonathan didn't know the answer to it. But it was…

Yes, Jonathan. We had made the right decision.

Indeed, it was. It wasn't a good decision, but it was the right one. As correct as a mathematical equation could be.

In other words, the only right decision under the current given conditions.

Preserving the lives of his men. Bringing punishment to the criminal.

In other words, Jonathan…

The difference between right and good is that good is guided by a moral compass…

Jonathan froze for a second, then grasped the thought, feeling something inside his mind quiver…

The rightness of an action depends on how much action was expected in the current circumstances.

Jonathan could only blink as he came to the conclusion, his body totally frozen, as if he had forgotten what it was like to breathe.

I picked Cinder up from the hotel, and that was good and right. Because my moral compass told me it was good…  And because, in those circumstances, I couldn't have done otherwise. My morality was primary in this case. I judge that action to be the right one because I could only have acted according to my moral compass initially. In other words, the right act is the most logical one when considering all the conditions of doing the act, and must be guided by the moral compass…

The dichotomy of what is good and what is right, so itching in his brain, eating him up from within it for so long, finally slowly began to unravel from its tangle.

An action can then be good but wrong in the event that morality is the reason a bad action was taken, and still prevails over rationality. And something is bad but right in the event that morality recognizes the act as bad but reason prevails that such an action remains the only possible decision in the current circumstances.

The last threads of the idea have finally begun to unfold one by one.

If morality is the primary defining fact in whether something is good or bad, it is only when an act that has been morally perceived as bad in the current moment, but morally more right in the end. Given all the perceived consequences and assumptions.

And with that last realization, the paradox that had haunted Jonathan for so long, that he had been haunted by for so long, finally unfolded.

In other words, the right thing to do does not have to be a good thing at the moment of doing it, but it does have to be one in terms of its consequences and preconditions.

It was like he could finally breathe fully as the revelation finally concluded in his mind.

Well, Jonathan…  That's a start. We have finally succeeded in laying out the first concept of your world view. Now the question arises, what do we do with it?

Jonathan sighed and looked at Cinder and Neo, who were looking at him in silence, unaware of the thoughts that were currently running through his head.

And he couldn't help but smile.

Slowly, but without the strain and undercurrent of sadness that had been there before.

With a kind of…  relief of sorts, as if the problem that had been eating him up from the inside, hanging over his soul for years, had finally receded, giving him freedom.

Jonathan's smile slowly stretched out fully, grinning like a loon, but even so, it still could not contain all the joy he was experiencing at the moment and so Jonathan laughed.

To an outside observer, Jonathan's reaction might look…  Insane.

He was sitting in the living room, opposite him sat his two daughters, of a safe house, prepared in case of an assassination attempt on his life. And he had just received word that the assassin who had attempted to assassinate him had been killed during his arrest attempt.

Of course, one would have thought that there would have been someone who, upon hearing that his assassin had been murdered, would have indeed laughed. Perhaps in a sense of cruel joy that someone like that had died. Or even in anger, as the information that the assassin might possess was now lost. But there was no such anger or mockery in Jonathan's laughter.

On the contrary, there was relief in it, as if Jonathan was suddenly free from a chain that was clutching his heart, causing heartache and pain in his every move.

Without holding back, Jonathan leaned forward, pulling Cinder and Neo into an embrace.

Neo, and even Cinder, who prided herself on her ability to discern the subtle tones of Jonathan's mood, didn't understand the reason for Jonathan's reaction.

He didn't look mad, on the contrary, both girls suddenly realized that, for the first time in a long time, Jonathan looked…  Normal.

Normally, Jonathan looked burdened. The same complexion and tone of voice, the clothes fit him the same and even the cane he walked with always clattered evenly. Somehow, it was only now that Cinder and Neo realized that Jonathan was carrying something, something heavy inside his soul. Now, it looked as if that burden had been relieved, the worry and crease of the eyebrow that they ignored as something usual, were now gone.

Jonathan's smile now looked more joyful, finally reaching his eyes, and even the hair on his head, gathered in a short ponytail behind his back, had begun to shine a little brighter. It was as if he had straightened his shoulders a little and relaxed for the first time in a long time, creating a picture of someone who was…

Happy.

That was the word that came to mind for the two girls. For the first time in perhaps years, Jonathan was happy.

And Jonathan himself was aware of it. A mental error, an inner contradiction in his soul, had finally been resolved after years of deliberation, and he was happy.

It did not matter what happened next. It did not matter that his revelation was only a base, not even a skeleton, but only the first brick in the foundation of his first and full personality. Not even the old man's warning about this supposedly being the saddest day of his life bothered him, none of that mattered.

Jonathan was happy.

In that split second, as the answer he was unknowingly searching for slotted into his mind, Jonathan felt what the old mages of his world once described.

The joy and happiness of ending his…  Seeking.

No, even more than that, the joy of resolving their… Arch-Seeking. The event that allowed them to reach out and touch magic greater than magic itself for the first time. A miracle beyond miracles.

However, for Jonathan, such a milestone held no sway to him at the moment.

After all, there was no way to find the connection between these events.

Still, there had to be an Avatar involved in the quest, and even more so in the Arch-Seeking. Another mind, existing on the periphery of his consciousness, the mentor of his soul and magic, an unimaginable amorphous entity that had gone through thousands of his past incarnations. Such a thing was not possible for Jonathan to find out, no matter how hard he stresses his understanding.

And, after all, he was only in his early twenties.

And as appealing as it was to hope that he would be the one of those incredible exceptions in this world that could reach Ars Magna Mundus, Jonathan knew and was certain that he would not be one of those exceptions.

Besides, right now he didn't care about that either.

For the first time in years, Jonathan was truly…

Happy.