Aftermath

I didn't know what happened.

How could I know what happened?

Somehow, I seemed to have blacked out, and before I knew it, I was standing over her body. It was all shrivelled and desiccated. Like all the moisture — all of the blood, all of the liquid, all of her life — was emptied out of a leather canteen.

I couldn't move my feet. I was surprised that I didn't feel disgusted at all. It felt…justified. Like she deserved the outcome that she got. That temporary bliss that justice had been served only lasted for a little bit, as I remembered what she had told me earlier. She had contacted Mobito and Nato, the men who killed my parents and crippled me, and they were coming to the orphanage soon.

A slight panic washed over me as I hurried back into her room and picked up all the letters from Kei I could find. I placed them all in my inventory. They are also stacked in a single slot.

When I exited her room, I walked past the other bedrooms and looked into the emptiness. There had been children living here once. The twins, Amana and Taido. Gorou, the annoying brat. I had lived here for most of my life. We made so many memories of our lives. We had to treat each other like family because we had none.

But all of that had been a lie. We believed that Oba— we believed that she was also part of our family. We were wrong. I was wrong. We were just like cattle to her, and this orphanage was just her barn.

Something clicked in my head that made total sense at that moment. I couldn't leave her withered body just laid there for her two accomplices to find. They would know someone had killed her. I had to make it look like an accident.

After I looked around the kitchen area for a little bit, I found what I was looking for. It was a small container of oil that she used to fuel the lantern she used when she had to travel during the night. I then moved the lit candles from her room to other parts of the orphanage. One was in the kitchen area, one near the fireplace, and one near a bunch of papers I had found in her room when I collected Kei's letters.

I splattered the rest of the oil around on the floor to try and allow the fire to spread quickly once I lit it. When I was done, I walked back to her body and decided to check her clothing one last time before I left.

She didn't have anything other than an opened envelope in her clothes. It was yet another letter from Kei that she kept from me. I placed it into my inventory and noted that it used another slot, with a tag saying that it was 'unread'.

I grabbed one of the candles and looked down one last time at her body. I felt nothing for her anymore. She was a liar, a criminal and a murderer. Even if she didn't physically do anything, she was still responsible for the murders of my parents. That knowledge left me hollow.

I dropped the candle on the ground near the body and a tiny flicker of the flame reached the oil and started to burn. It spread over the body slowly as I walked out of there.

I needed to leave the orphanage. I started the fireplace and grabbed a smouldering piece of wood along the way. I pressed the end of the wood that was on fire on the fabrics of the different rooms and when I reached her bedroom one final time, I looked down at her belongings that I left in the middle of the room.

I doubted that the pile was everything of hers, but at the very least, symbolically, I was going to get rid of the monster that pretended to be my caretaker for all these years.

I reached down and pressed the wood against the papers and before long, they caught on fire. I dropped the wood and walked out. As I made my way through the orphanage one last time, I avoided glancing at her flaming body. I avoided looking back into the empty rooms filled with toppled mattresses and bunk beds. I avoided looking at anything other than the ground at my feet because I was scared that if I looked, I would see one of the kids.

Even though I knew that there was no way anybody would be standing there, staring at me in horror, I was still scared.

The heat chased me slowly as I walked out of the building. The lantern oil had done its job spreading the fire to a lot of the orphanage, and the dry papers and fabrics served as kindling for the flames.

Once I was a little bit away from the growing fire, I stopped in my tracks. I could still feel the heat from the fire warming my back, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't turn around.

The orphanage was where I spent the majority of my childhood — my life. And all I got from it now were painful memories.

I took a moment to gather my composure as the warmth from my left arm started to grow and distract my attention from the warmth on my back. I swiped up and saw the message left to me by the System:

[ALERT!

BLOOD SACRIFICE STATUS TILL COMPLETION: 32%]

***

I managed to sneak my way out of the town and back into the forests near where the Solo Dungeon had been. Because the orphanage was slightly out of the way, away from a lot of the other buildings in the town, it took a little bit before anybody noticed the orphanage was on fire.

I didn't hear much but I could hear the panic and the yelling from the townspeople who tried to put out the fire. From what I could hear, it didn't work out too well.

That was good for me. I knew that the longer the fire burnt, the more evidence of my encounter with her would be destroyed.

Like many of the townsfolk, I didn't sleep that night. The warmth in my left hand persisted at a pretty constant level, and even though it wasn't hurting, something about the sensation kept me awake and calm.

I checked my left arm and could not see any discernible differences or markings, yet I knew something had changed. I felt stronger. Calmer. Almost like I levelled up an attribute. Something inside me had changed, and not even the knowledge that I probably killed…her and saw the gruesome state of her body shocked me. I didn't feel any dread. Any fear. Only anger. Anger at her, at Mobito and Nato, and even at Saizo.

I wanted justice for their actions, but I knew that I couldn't simply just go up to them and kill them, or hurt them when I next saw them. I had to be careful and think up a plan. I didn't want to be labelled a criminal. That would make me no better than them.

At some point in the afternoon, I decided to make my way back to town to solidify my alibi. If Mobito and Nato were around, I didn't want them to think I had anything to do with what happened to the orphanage.

As I entered the town, I heard the murmur of the townspeople, shocked at the destruction of the orphanage. The building had so much history to it, it was a big shock that it was now practically gone.

Nobody seemed to pay any notice to me as I walked in the direction of the morbid discussion, towards my old home. I could hear snippets of the different conversations.

Glad there were no children around…

What a shame…

They found a body in the wreckage…

I was entranced by the commotion until a familiar voice rang out and snapped me out of it.

"Ryuu! Thank the gods you're safe!" Saizo's voice called out from somewhere in front of me. The people in front of me turned slowly and when they saw me their murmurs changed.

He wasn't at the orphanage…

Where has he been this whole time?

"Ryuu!" Saizo said again as he pushed past the people in front of me.

As if I had rehearsed it the whole time on the walk into the town, I answered in a weak, shaky voice, "wait, what's happened?"

The authenticity that came out of me surprised me. I never really lied before, and I wouldn't consider myself an actor or a performer, so the fact that Saizo's face crumpled in grief at my words indicated that my lie had been accepted. The crowd's murmurs around me changed and I knew that they had also believed me.

"What's happened to the orphanage?" I said again, still shocked at the ease of my lying.

"I'm sorry Ryuu, but the orphanage had been burnt down." Saizo's shoulders slumped as he gazed at the ground. He couldn't look at me.

I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes, and my voice became sounded more emotional, "what happened to all the kids? Were they—"

"Have you just come back from the quest?" Saizo asked.

I nodded.

Saizo placed a hand firmly on my right shoulder. "I'm sorry, but you were gone for over a month. And when Obaa-san couldn't pay the rent and there was no news about when you were coming back, they decided to shut the orphanage down and send the rest of the kids to another town."

"Obaa-san couldn't pay the rent? But I made sure that there was enough for this month's rent." I mumbled.

Pon, the tanner, had approached us at this point and joined in, "I heard that she had been struggling for the last few months, and this time it was just the last straw."

I kept looking back and forth between Saizo and Pon as I spoke, "but I heard that you found a body, it's not one of the kids, is it?"

Saizo shook his head, "no, we don't think so."

"We believe it might be Obaa-san though. I'm sorry Ryuu, we know you were close with her." Pon continued.

They didn't know that I wasn't close to her anymore. Nobody could know. That was the whole point of me acting like this.

"So, none of the kids were hurt?" I asked, genuinely surprised at how my voice trembled.

"No, as far as I know, all the kids have either been adopted or transferred to another orphanage in another town," Pon answered.

I exhaled a quivering sigh and made it seem like my legs buckled. It must have looked very realistic since everybody gasped and backed away to give me plenty of space. Saizo also quickly knelt in front of me.

He gasped when he saw that when I collapsed, I ended up leaning heavily on my left arm.

"Ryuu! Y-your arm…" he started, "you're leaning on it!"

I pretended like I hadn't noticed and in a half-sob, half-laugh said, "yeah, it was the Legendary Item reward from the dungeon. It was a really strong healing item."

Saizo's eyes changed. Even though he was still grieving over the arson and the possibility of someone he knew dying, he sighed in relief. Almost as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

Pon had also knelt by this point, "so you're back to normal Ryuu?"

The broken-hearted voice that came out of me would have moved me to actual tears if I didn't already know that the whole interaction had been a cover-up. As I clenched and unclenched my left fist I absent-mindedly mumbled, "yeah. But what's the point now, I'm never going to see the others again. Having my arm back is wasted without my family."

Saizo hesitated for a split second before clasping both my shoulders. He shook me slightly to emphasise his point, "no! Don't say that! I believe you'll be able to see them again someday."

Pon nudged my arm softly, "exactly Ryuu, this isn't the end of everything. You've got your independence back now. And what's this about a quest? You finished a quest?"

Both men straightened up as I stood back to my feet, "I got a quest, a Solo quest, from the System, and I managed to finish it." I sighed, "though it didn't feel like it's been a whole month since I went into the dungeon."

"No wonder you haven't been around," Pon mumbled to himself.

I put on a dejected face as if I was still heartbroken from the fact that my childhood home is now ruined, and my de facto family was now separated, when Saizo spoke up quietly.

"Do you still want to be an adventurer, like you used to?" he inquired.

That was my 'in', but I didn't want to seem too eager, "I'm not sure," I answered.

Pon excitedly joined in on the attempt to cheer me up, "well, I think you should!"

The man patted my shoulder enthusiastically, "as an adventurer, you get to travel the world! You'll be able to find out where the other kids are staying and visit them as often as you'd like!"

"Is that true?" I asked pitifully at Saizo.

The adventurer looked so unsure of himself. A deep conflict was raging in his head as he tried to work out what to do with me. That was until, "yeah, that's true. I haven't done it myself, but if you've saved enough money, you can even travel abroad to take on quests."

I nodded and tried to act like I was taking some time to think about my options. "Okay, I want to be an adventurer," I said as I gave the two men a melancholic smile.

Pon was ecstatic. I believed that he thought that he had something to do with cheering me up, but he didn't realise that it was all an act. He slapped me on the shoulder, panicked when he realised it was my left shoulder, then remembered that my arm was healed and slapped it again.

I looked at Saizo and saw that he was still conflicted about something.

"Are you able to help me?" I said to the adventurer. I had to make sure I get to meet his two colleagues under a friendly guise.

Saizo was a little taken aback, "I'm sure you don't need an old man—"

"It hasn't been long since I got the use of my arm back, and I don't know anything about being a proper adventurer," I interrupted. I had to stop him from coming up with a proper reason. The easiest way to get close to his two colleagues is if I joined Saizo's party, "can I at least just tag along to a simple quest with you and learn the ropes?"

"Well, the thing is, Mobito and Nato — you've met them, they're my adventuring colleagues — were going to join me on a quest after they finished a couple of errands. I was about to leave town to meet up with them in Shinobu City when we all found out about the fire and all that." Saizo apologetically explained.

Pon decided to help me out and chimed in, "all the more reason for you to mentor him, man. How else would he learn how to meet new people and create new bonds?"

The tanner seemed to convince Saizo who nodded slowly, but Pon continued just to make sure, "this way, he's able to see how someone would work with others on a quest, especially since the only quest he's done has been…" he paused as he looked at me for confirmation, "…a Solo…quest?"

I nodded.

"You see? How is the boy supposed to learn how to work with peers when he's only ever been alone or been the one in charge like he was with the younger kids at the orphanage?" Pon concluded.

Saizo sighed in defeat. He looked at what was left of the orphanage, then at the tanner, then at me. Before he looked down and sighed again, "you're right." He mumbled.

He then looked back at me and smiled kindly, "you two are right."

"Does that mean…?" I started.

"I'm sure the other two aren't hurting for cash, we could all do a simple quest together to let you learn the ropes," Saizo explained.

"Good man!" Pon cheered and gave Saizo a big bear hug as the adventurer sent me a Party Invite.

The first step in my plan was completed.