Chapter 14: Chapter 14: The power of fear

While I'm still lost in thought, a group of orcs wearing leather armor and carrying muskets and spears approach the village, stopping right at the entrance.

"Attention everyone! We are about to begin an all-out battle against the orks! Any civilians who want to volunteer please gather here!"

What? An all-out battle? Right now?

I thought that I could at least try to convince them to get along, but now it seems like I won't have any time, isn't it too much of a coincidence that this happened just when I arrived here?

"Why are you coming to recruit so suddenly? Did anything happen?"

The orcs seem to be surprised as well.

"Earlier today our scouts sensed someone or something with an incredible amount of dark mana wandering inside of the ork village, it's possible that they're making some sort of deal with that being in an attempt to destroy us, in which case we cannot waste any time"

...

He's talking about me, isn't he...

Does that mean that this is my fault!?

The orcs are probably thinking the same thing because everyone is turning to look at me... I suppose I should say something here.

"Eh... excuse me"

As soon as the soldiers see me they all tense up and point their spears at me.

"W-Who are you?"

"I'm not your enemy! You don't have to start a fight, I'm not planning on doing anything to you!"

Arana is squinting her eyes at me, yeah I know, I came here intending to teach them a lesson, but that's only because I thought that they were the bad guys... just like everybody usually thinks that I'm the bad guy, maybe there's a lesson to be learned here.

"You expect us to believe that when you're giving us such a threatening glare?"

What threatening glare? I'm just looking at them like normal... does it always seem like I'm glaring at people?

"I guess you're the one who was at the ork village recently? Even if you're telling the truth it's already too late, both sides are getting ready for battle right now"

The soldier seems nervous while talking as if he's expecting me to attack at any moment.

"But there's no need to fight! Both of your villages seem to be doing perfectly fine on their own, if you can just come to an understanding nobody will need to get hurt"

Nobody seems to be convinced at all, one of the soldiers gathers his courage and approaches me.

"L-look, if you're our enemy then we're ready to fight, but if you're not then please stop getting in the way"

So that's how they see me, I'm just in the way... I guess they won't listen no matter what I say.

Should I tie them up or something to stop them from fighting? But that would confirm me as an enemy and they could still fight as soon as I leave.

I need to think of a plan.

"Ara, let's leave for now"

---

 

Arana and I walk away from the orc village, just far away enough to be out of view, part of me was expecting the soldiers to try to stop me, but they just seemed glad that I was leaving...

"Ara, please! I need your help!"

If there is anyone who knows what I should do here it's probably her, I'm willing to beg if I have to.

"My help? For what?"

"To stop the battle! You have some idea of what I can do, don't you?"

"Why do you want to stop them? No matter how I look at it, this is none of your business"

None of my business? Has she not been paying attention?

"I promised that I was going to stop the fight! And even if I didn't, I can't just let people die without even trying to do anything about it!"

"Look, helping innocent people when they are in trouble is very noble and heroic, if that's what you were trying to I would be completely on your side, but this just two groups of idiots who want to fight each other for no reason, what exactly is an outsider like you supposed to do about it?"

"Even then, I can't just ignore people who are about to die... and there's probably plenty of innocent people in those villages who are going to suffer as well"

"You know this is going to be trouble for you, and knowing you, you're going to blame yourself if you fail"

"I'm only one person, this is more important than what might be troublesome for just me"

Arana lets out a heavy sigh.

"You really are too nice for your own good, no wonder that you're destined to become a villain"

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What she just said doesn't seem to make any sense, what did she mean by that?

"If you want my opinion, there's actually one way that you can stop this battle, but you might not like it"

"Really!? What is it?"

"First of all, I'm guessing that you've already realized this yourself, but physically stopping them from fighting won't help in the long run, they'll just go back to it as soon as you're gone"

"Yeah, I know, I'm not THAT dumb"

"However the impression I'm getting from this conflict is that it's closer to a brawl than to a war"

"Eh? What's the difference?"

"This might be oversimplifying things, but the way I define a war is that it's a conflict fought by soldiers who are determined to win at any cost, they won't hesitate to kill their enemies and will probably fight until death"

War sounds really scary, doesn't it?

"A brawl, on the other hand, is fought by a bunch of idiots who don't like each other, they're more likely to stop themselves when it's time to kill and will run away if it seems like they're going to die"

"Oh! So does that mean that they're not going to kill each other after all?"

"No, they're still going to attack each other with spears and firearms so you can expect quite a few deaths, also keep in mind that this is only an assumption I'm making based on what little I've seen of both tribes of demons, I've barely even seen the actual soldiers"

"Oh..."

"But if I'm right and they're not fully committed to this battle, then you should be able to stop them by making use of that power of yours that I told you about earlier"

I have a feeling that this is the part she said I won't like...

"Power? What power?"

"The power of fear"

Fear? She was talking before about how fear can be used to make people do what you want, but I thought that she was just teasing me like usual.

"Ara... I don't think that's really something I can do..."

"Why not? Isn't this exactly what you were going to do in the first place?"

"What!? I never thought about using the power of fear for anything!"

"If I recall correctly, your exact words were 'I guess I'll just beat them up a little and tell them to stop causing trouble', that is to say, you were planning to make them stop by making them afraid of your reprisal"

"But that's different! I was under the impression that they were the bad guys, and beating up the bad guys is what heroes do!"

"Exactly, using fear to stop the bad guys from hurting innocent people is what heroes do, isn't it? In truth, a hero is just someone who uses their great strength to enforce whatever they believe is morally right"

"That's not the way I would describe it..."

"And you said yourself that both sides were the 'bad guys' and the 'good guys' at the same time, didn't you? So shouldn't a hero use fear to stop them from hurting each other? All you have to do is make sure to scare them enough so that they won't forget even after you leave"

"Ara... why are you trying so hard to make me use fear? Do you actually want me to become a villain?"

"Of course I don't want you to be a villain! And I'm not trying to make you do anything, in case you've forgotten, my advice was that you leave and forget about this, I'm just trying to make sure that you understand what your options are"

"My options?"

"The only two things that make you special here are your high level and the fear you inspire on everyone around you, if you are not willing to use either of those, you are just some random outsider passing by, nobody will listen to what you have to say"

Well, I'm also a magic researcher and I'd say I'm rather good as a healer, but I don't think either of those applies here.

"If we had more time maybe it would be possible to come up with some complicated way to make the two races get along with each other, but they are marching to war as we speak, as things are right now, your only options are to use the power of fear, or to decide that this is not your problem and leave"

Arana was right, I don't like this... but no matter how hard I think I can't come up with anything else, and I already decided that I'm not going to simply ignore this problem.

"You know... if you don't want me to think that you want me to be a villain, you could at least try to word things in a less evil-sounding way"

She looks at me with a strange smile.

"Luna... do you think that only people who have evil intentions can be villains? That because you are a 'good person', you cannot become one?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"Many of the worst villains to have existed could commit their atrocities because they kept believing themselves to be good, to be honest, Luna... you scare me quite a bit, you are extremely naive and incredibly powerful, that is a very dangerous combination, you may end up believing that because you did something good here you should act the same way every time, that's why I word things the way I do, I want you to understand what you are actually doing"

So even Arana is afraid of me... it's rare to see her get serious like this, but now I think I may be able to trust her after all.

"Alright then, what should I do exactly?"