Chapter 364 - Just Another Day on the Tundra (Patreon)

Zeke kicked the huge, white bear directly in the snout, sending it skidding backwards across the ice. It recovered quickly, but by that point, Pudge was upon it, raking [Netherclaw] across its broad back. Light blue blood splattered across its fur as Pudge’s skill tore a jagged wound in its thick hide, exposing its crystalline ribs. The beast lashed out, its enormous paw taking Pudge by surprise. When it connected, the former dire bear went flying through the air, then skipped across the ice for another hundred yards.

Meanwhile, beams of light descended upon the giant bear – an ursine horror, according to Zeke’s inspection skill – scorching its pristine fur and burning holes in its thick hide. At the same time, a massive ball of fire coalesced in the sky. Even before it was fully manifested, the roiling ball of flames cast its blistering influence across the frozen lake. The flames were hot enough to melt steel, but the icy surface the lake remained frozen. In the Ianthian Wastes, it would take far more than a spell-wrought ball of fire to melt the ever-present ice.

The ursine horror rose to its hind legs, bellowing a challenge as the kobolds continued their assault from afar. Under Silik’s direction, they wouldn’t stop until the thing was dead. Or they were, which was a much more likely result than any of them were equipped to contemplate. Without Zeke, Pudge, or Sasha, they would’ve already been dead.

Little kobold rangers added arrows to the mix, but their attacks were inconsequential. They weren’t equipped for a fight; instead, they were scouts who specialized in speed and camouflage. They had their role, and it wasn’t in battle.

But they needed to participate, and so, they continued to pepper the massive creature with their ineffectual attacks.

At the same time, Zeke charged, his heavy steps leaving superficial cracks in the ice as he thundered forward. Even with his size having been augmented by the unattuned form of [Triune Colossus], the ursine horror towered over him by more than a dozen feet. But fighting enormous monsters was nothing new, so Zeke didn’t hesitate before aiming a baseball swing at the joint of the creature’s back leg. Voromir landed with herculean force, which was further augmented by Zeke’s destructive Will. The comparatively delicate joint collapsed with a sickening crack. The ursine horror roared in agony as it lost its balance and fell to the icy ground.

The pain nearly rendered the thing insensate, but it still had the presence of mind to swipe out at Zeke. However, by the time the blow descended, he was already gone. The bear’s claws only found ice.

Zeke yelled out, “Burn it, Sasha!”

The porcine girl, who was standing behind the line of kobolds, replied with a shout of her own, screaming, “Working on it!”

Just as the words left her mouth, a series of vines – blue, with white thorns – erupted from the lake and wrapped themselves around the ursine horror. Zeke spared a glance back at his gathered allies. The kobold centurions occupied the front lines, while the centurions came soon after. Behind them were the remaining former slaves, among whom stood the dryad Eta who was responsible for those vines.

Normally, her skills were very weak within the confines of the live-starved tundra, but apparently, the frozen lake had given her more options than usual.

The bear tore free of the vines, but they kept coming, continuing to wrap themselves around the beast until it could scarcely move. At that moment, a thick ball of [Hellfire], thrown by the now-recovered Pudge, fell upon its white fur, burning a gaping hole in its side. It roared in impotent fury as the intensity of Sasha’s spell continued to build, and the roiling ball of fire further coalesced.

As he retreated, Zeke felt mana swirling all around him – a promise of what was to come. As the storm of mana intensified, so too did the temperatures beneath the huge ball of fire rise. Eta’s vines withered, and the panicked and agonized bear broke free. That’s when Zeke rushed back in, leading the way with his hammer. The resulting blow crushed the monster’s other knee, and its howls of pain followed Zeke to safety.

“End it!” he screamed.

For anyone else, the sheer heat of the fireball would have been just as damaging as it was for the bear. However, for Zeke, whose unique constitution gave him near immunity to fire, it was merely uncomfortable. Still, now that everyone had gotten a shot in, he wanted to end the hunt. He had no interest in prolonging the bear’s suffering. It was a monster, certainly – a nearly unthinking beast – but that didn’t mean it couldn’t feel pain.

And it did, as evidenced by the roaring screams of mingled anger and agony.

As Zeke skidded to a stop, he looked back to see the bear trying to drag itself away from the ball of fire. Or perhaps toward the gathered army of kobolds. Was that the murderous instinct common among monsters? Or was it simply trying to end the threat? Maybe a bit of both.

Either way, Zeke couldn’t watch for much longer.

Thankfully, it was at that moment Sasha completed her spell. The ball of fire finally bloomed into its full fury. And then, a moment later, it descended, crashing into the bear with the force of a not-inconsiderable bomb. A ring of force and fire erupted from the point of impact, melting snow and ice along the way. The kobolds, who’d placed themselves more than a hundred yards away from the bear, were knocked from their feet. Sasha had protected herself with some sort of shield, so she remained upright. Pudge did too, though he was even closer than the kobolds.

Zeke, having increased his weight in anticipation of the shockwave, was completely unaffected.

When the billowing cloud of steam dissipated, Zeke was surprised to see that the bear had survived. It was little more than a pile of charred meat, but because of its innate vitality and endurance, it was still clinging weakly to life. With the beast’s agonized mewling filling his ears, he strode forward. Once Zeke reached the monster’s, which was at the bottom of a crater Sasha’s spell had melted into the ice, he took a moment to look down into its eyes.

There was no sentience there. Nothing but pain and bestial anger.

Still, Zeke’s jaw clenched in frustration. There had to be a better way to progress.

“End it,” came Eveline’s voice. “That’s the only mercy you can offer.”

Zeke agreed. The creature was dying. That much was absolutely certain. Even if Zeke and his makeshift army were to turn around and leave, the thing would die. And the rest of its short life would be filled with torturous pain.

So, Zeke hefted his hammer, and, with a sledgehammer blow borne upon his great strength, he finished the fight. What was left of the ursine horror’s head shattered beneath the mighty blow, ending the beast’s life in the space of a moment. Instantly, its pitiful whines faded away, leaving blessed silence behind.

Then, the kobolds and former slaves let out a cheer.

Zeke was grateful that everyone had survived, but after seeing the beast’s pitiful state, he couldn’t be happy to have killed it. As he climbed up the slope of the crater, he wondered if it was all worth it.

On the surface, it was. He and his people needed to progress, and so, they had little choice but to hunt monsters for experience. Or as Eveline called it, kill energy. Eventually, they would begin to gain levels, advancing their classes and acquiring new skills. It wasn’t the only way Zeke intended to usher his people forward, but it was still a very necessary facet of any progression.

“You’ve killed plenty of creatures in the past,” Eveline said, reading his mood like it was an open book.

“Most of the time, I kill things because they attack me,” he replied, trudging toward his celebrating companions. The tundra was so filled with ice-attuned mana that the melted snow had already begun to freeze over, resulting in a half-solid slush that made the terrain a pain to traverse. Even with the power and increased size that came with his colossal form, Zeke found the traversal annoying. “Hunting down a monster like that is just…I don’t know…”

It wasn’t the first time he’d done so. Even going back to the troll caves where he’d been reborn, Zeke had actively sought out things to kill. He’d continued on that path all through his time in the Radiant Isles, even going so far as to murder a near-sentient monster when he’d sought out the wyrm queen in her home. He’d also killed her progeny, and at the time, he’d thought nothing of it.

But now?

After seeing proof that monsters could evolve and gain sapience, his previous actions felt more murderous than ever before. If he’d left the wyrm queen to her own devices, perhaps she might have ascended and become someone like Mikaena, who’d done everything she could to usher an entire race of kobolds into sapience.

Did the ursine horror have that same potential?

“No,” said Eveline. “It was just a monster.”

“It could have evolved, though,” Zeke pointed out. As far as he knew, every living thing could progress. They all could evolve and reach a higher tier of existence. “It could’ve ended up like Pudge. Or Sasha. Or any of those beastkin back where she came from.”

“Maybe. But probably not,” Eveline stated. “The odds of evolution for a beast…they’re slim. It’s not just one in a million. It’s one in billions. Maybe even trillions. The number of beasts that even have the potential to evolve is so small that we can’t even comprehend it.”

“I understand that,” Zeke said.  This wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it, after all, and in the past, he’d comforted himself by remembering that, for all that he’d encounted, he’d only seen a few monsters who’d evolved. And even that wasn’t certain. Was the wyrm queen sapient? Did she have the capacity of self-awareness? Could she reason? Or was she merely sentient enough to give the illusion of such? It was probably more of the latter than the former.

He continued, “But what if that bear was one of them? It’s like I didn’t just kill a dangerous monster. I killed everything it was. Everything it could’ve been. That’s a difficult thing to process.”

Eveline said, “You have a soft heart.”

Zeke shook his head and said, “I think you might be the only person that has or ever will say that.”

“You remind me of myself.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked.

“It could go either way. For me, it wasn’t so great. It ended with me in Hell. But I don’t regret the things it drove me to do. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. I acted according to my conscience. My own sense of justice. If you do the same, you’ll never regret your actions,” she said. “So, forget about consistency. Forget about trying to live up to whatever everyone else told you was right. The only arbiter you need to satisfy is your own conscience.”

“That’s a self-centered way of looking at things.”

Eveline gave a mental shrug. “Perhaps. But here’s the thing. Everyone who’s ever tried to tell people what was right or wrong – they’ve done so because that’s what they feel. You can make logical arguments to support whatever you want. I can twist the facts and make it seem like up is down and down is up. But at the end of the day, there’s always that feeling. We all recognize the difference between good and evil. We can sense it. We know it in our hearts. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. Not laws. Not someone else’s interpretation of right and wrong. You can only trust your own judgement. And mine, of course. I’d never steer you wrong.”

In response, Zeke just shook his head as he climbed out of the crater and crossed the tundra. But he had to admit that she was at least partially right. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if things really were as subjective as they sometimes seemed. Was there even such a thing as universal right and wrong? Growing up, he’d always been taught that was the case.

“Maybe there is,” Eveline said. “I don’t think it matters, though. What matters is how you feel about it. For instance, let’s say that you one day find these objective truths you’re looking for, but they all say the opposite of what you feel. Will you believe them? If some God were to descend and tell you that killing and eating babies is the height of goodness, will you just start hunting infants for food?”

“That’s silly.”

“It is, but it illustrates my point. Nobody can tell you what good and evil are. You have to recognize it for yourself,” Eveline stated.

“But some things are just wrong.”

“Like murder?” she asked.

Zeke answered, “Yeah. Like murder.”

“What if killing someone will prevent them from killing a hundred other people? Is it still wrong to cut that off? What if they try to kill you first? What if –”

“I get it, okay? It’s all circumstantial.”

“No – it’s all based on what you believe is evil. And good. To some, killing a murderer or a rapist will get you labeled as a hero. To others, it makes you just as bad as the one you’ve just killed. It’s all subjective, Ezekiel. And if that’s true, then the only person’s opinion that really matters is your own. Not mine. Not those kobolds’ over there. Not Pudge or the pig girl. Just yours. If you can justify your actions to yourself, then all you need.”

Zeke couldn’t really find any holes in Eveline’s logic, but he didn’t feel as if it was completely right, either. There had to be something more to it than how he felt about his own actions.

“You’re just afraid of becoming untethered,” Eveline said. “You grew up in a world of laws and rules. Now that there aren’t any to govern your actions, you’re beginning to realize that you have to take responsibility for your own actions. Completely. You can’t cling to some arbitrary code of ethics whose only value is that they were drilled into your head from the moment you were born. You have to decide for yourself what you consider right and wrong, and the terrifies you because, if you’re mistaken, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Or I just care about doing the right thing.”

“Maybe. I hope so. But in my experience, that term is meaningless as an objective truth. Do what you feel is right. That’s all you can do because no matter what path you choose, there will always be people who label it as evil. Maybe they do so because they really believe it. Or perhaps they only want to undermine you. Either way, the subjectivity of the term makes it pointless.”

Zeke sighed, but he didn’t respond to Eveline’s point. Maybe she was right, but that didn’t mean he was going to accept it without a good deal more contemplation. As those thoughts rushed through his mind, he covered the ground to the line of kobolds. When he reached them, he asked, “Results?”

Silik said, “Two of the rangers gained levels.”

“The centurions and legionnaires?” Zeke asked.

The big kobold general shook his head and said, “We made progress, but we will need to continue hunting if we are to gain any levels.”

Zeke sighed. As they’d crossed the tundra, they’d continuously hunted various monsters. Some had been as powerful as the ursine horror, but few had posed such a threat to the group. Still, when they had begun the organized hunts, he’d known it would be a long and arduous process.

“Alright. Get the rangers out so we can find something else before nightfall,” he said, glancing at the sky.

Silik nodded, then departed to give the rangers their orders. Soon enough, the little dragon-like humanoids scattered in all directions, looking for their next prey.

“Just another day on the tundra,” Eveline said.

Once again, Zeke couldn’t disagree.