Cleanup

"What is an E-Release?"

Luke kept looking at Ellios with a tinge of curiosity on his face.

He, in turn, examined Luke's expression with a sharp look in his eyes, as if confirming something, nodding to himself soon after.

"…So it is as I've thought. You don't know anything about it."

His sharp gaze relaxed into a mellower one, and the seriousness on Ellios' face melted away like snow on a spring day, a warm smile sprouting on his face.

"In that case, it is nothing you should worry about for now. I was planning on letting you rest until tomorrow, but seeing how energetically you sprinted out of the room as soon as you woke up, I believe that you're perfectly ready to earnestly start your training. We will be leaving before nightfall. So rest up until then."

After saying his piece, Ellios stood up and turned to leave, but Luke called out to him, stopping him.

"Ellios, why won't you just tell me?"

Only turning his head halfway towards Luke, Ellios' lips curled up.

"I believe that I told you to address me with 'Master'."

Luke averted his eyes from Ellios and looked downward as he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

It's not that Luke wanted to disrespect Ellios, but he was instead simply still embarrassed about calling someone his master.

"Um… M-master. Could you just answer my question?"

Chuckling, Ellios turned his head away from Luke and continued walking towards the door.

"I could, but it's something I'd rather save for when I start training you. Remember, patience is a virtue!"

Saying that, he continued chuckling to himself as he left the room, leaving Luke alone with his thoughts.

'That was… rather anti-climactic.'

Sighing, Luke laid back down on the bed and wrapped himself in the blanket.

There was no reason for him to keep sitting up while he wasn't talking to anyone, so he decided to fully utilize the chance to make himself comfortable for as long as he could.

'I need to meet up with Lala as soon as we leave. From her perspective, I've been missing for over a day without any prior notice of leaving, although the receptionist, Marvin, surely saw me when I left and had probably told her about it.'

Taking a look out the small window, Luke could tell that it would be a very warm day outside.

'Even if he told her that I had left, I am still unsure of how much that would appease her worry. I didn't drop by the embassy when I was leaving Naiccos with Ellios and Anastasia, as I didn't fully trust them at that point. I still don't, but I think they mean me no harm, having brought me here and all. I'll go along with Ellios' training and see how it goes. Not like there's much to do in the city while Leon investigates Joseph, after all.'

Luke then turns around to lie flat on his stomach and closes his eyes.

'Putting that aside, did I even successfully reach the second phase of soul cleansing?'

Opening one of his eyes, he stared at the open palm of his hand.

He repeated the motion of clenching and unclenching his fist.

'I don't feel any different than usual. Nor was I oozing with sweat like when I woke up after going through the first phase.'

Closing his eyes again, he thought about the various events that had transpired since he first woke up in the Forest of N'Gool and their effects on who Luke had turned into as a person.

There was one event in particular that he hadn't sat down to think about at all during all this time. During one of his loops, he found a small village that was relatively close to the forest using a map that he had looted off of Wilfred's corpse.

'…Obron village.'

Even though he had only heard the name once while Leon was talking about the massacre, Luke had etched it into his memory.

'It was there that I… that I murdered someone for the first time. So much stuff happened in so little time that I almost forgot what I had done…'

Turning around, Luke sprawled himself on his back and looked at the wooden ceiling of the room.

'…No, that's a lie. I've only pretended to have forgotten.'

'Wilfred was the first person I've ever murdered, but that's different. I basically had no choice there. But when it comes to the homeless man in the village, I went out of my way to kill him. I had the choice not to do it, but I still did it.'

While he had very good justification to kill the man – that being a prior death at his hands – the fact that that villager was also a human weighed heavily on Luke's mind. There was also the fact that avoiding the man would've solved Luke's problem of being murdered by him.

Maybe if Luke had left the villager to his own devices, he'd kill some other passerby, just like he did Luke. Maybe he had also done such things in the past, and Luke was just one of his victims.

'Be it out of impulse or out of some self-serving sense of righteousness I felt, I still intentionally took that person's life away with my own two hands.'

Sighing and closing his eyes, Luke pondered.

'…Be as it may, even when I'm preaching about morality to myself, I still don't feel guilty about it. Even back then, it didn't feel bad at all. In fact… it felt oddly good.'

'I wonder, what about it made me feel like that? Was it seeing the wind spike penetrating the man's head and his limp body hitting the ground? Getting revenge? Feeling mighty like a powerful wizard casting omnipotent spells?'

'I think it's none of that. Was it perhaps because I labeled that person as 'evil' inside of my mind? Did I feel like some kind of hero out of a comic book, swooping down from my flying dragon and defeating the villain so that I could save any future victims from dying at his hands?'

The bright rays of sun made their way through the small window and landed on Luke's face, causing him to jerk his head away and frown.

'…I don't have the answer right now. And I might never get one.'

Killing Wilfred caused Luke no pleasure at all. He was at least sure that he didn't like killing for the sake of killing.

Now lying on his side and releasing himself from his thoughts, Luke's mind and body slowly and calmly drifted away into a deep sleep.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"…out of…there…now!"

"Hngh… Who's yelling?"

Luke's rest came to an abrupt stop as he heard a loud voice coming outside of the house he was in. The house was, in fact, a very large shack in the middle of the slums, but Luke didn't know that.

Standing up in a bit of a daze, Luke saw a robe identical to the one Lala had previously gotten him sitting still on a chair.

'How considerate.'

He smiled, guessing that either Ellios or Anastasia had bought a replacement robe for him, as the one Lala got for him was probably destroyed after the fight.

While he dressed himself, the yelling refused to cease. The belongings that he owned were already in the pockets of the robe.

Leaving the room, Luke saw a person napping on a chair next to a table in the corner of the room.

"Ellio- Ahm, Master?"

The loud knocking of the wooden door and the annoying yelling voice weren't nearly enough to wake the man up.

He slept while sitting still with a straightened back. Luke called out to him because he didn't notice that his eyes were closed at first. But after hearing him snore, everything started making sense.

"This is the last warning, you fucker! Come out!"

'What's this even about?'

Before fully understanding the situation, a sharp stream of wind cut through the wooden door that Luke was standing a few meters in front of.

It was a wind blade, although not as good as the ones Luke could make.

It made its way to the left side of his body, causing Luke to instantly envelop his body in wind and bend his upper body backwards, easily dodging the shabby wind blade.

'Even I can tell that this guy is a joke.'

As shabby as it was, it was enough to cut through the wooden door and enable whoever was outside to bash it in and enter the shack.

A burly man with a sleeveless shirt and ragged pants was the one who kicked the door in.

His muscles bulged whichever way his body moved. The man had disheveled brown hair and a furious expression on his face, with steam about to start coming out of his ears. It was the same man who previously blocked Ellios' way when he and Anastasia were entering Naiccos to treat Luke.

Behind him stood two men, one wearing a tattered robe and the other being the spitting image of the man who had kicked the door in.

'Who are these guys?'

Luke's curiosity was apparent. He wasn't afraid of the men at all, but was rather intrigued instead.

But all this racket only served to make Ellios start snoring even louder.

Only taking a single glance at Luke, who was the closest to the door, the gaze of the burly man in the front snapped to Ellios as soon as he heard the loud snoring.

"…You fucker dare sleep while I was still being courteous?!"

The man started dashing towards where Ellios was sitting in a fit of rage.

He knew that Ellios was an elementalist, but taking into consideration that he was asleep, the burly man was sure that he could crush him before he even managed to wake up.

"Haa…"

Heaving a sigh, Luke wouldn't just sit still in this situation. Ellios did save his life after all.

The wind was still surrounding his body, allowing him to be many times faster than the burly man, even with the difference in their physiques.

Clenching his fist, Luke drove it upward into the burly man's big chin. He was taller than Luke by almost two heads, but his head was still within Luke's reach.

The man's head rotated in an unnatural direction as a crack resounded throughout the room.

His momentum carrying him forward, the man's body slammed into the table where Ellios was sitting.

'Shit. Did that just kill him?'

He wouldn't have much time to think about it, as the man identical to the one he had just punched rushed at Luke.

"How dare you hurt my little bro-"

But just as he was saying that, he lost consciousness due to Luke's fist slamming into the side of his head. The man's body crashed into the floor with a loud noise.

Just after the man's body fell, a wind blade came from where the man in the robe stood.

Having barely any time left to dodge the wind blade, Luke twisted his body as fast as he could and managed to dodge it by a hair's breath, only sustaining a light scratch on his shoulder.

Smirking, Luke taunted the elementalist.

"Damn, and I just got this robe…"

Saying that, Luke disappeared from the elementalist's line of sight, causing him to start looking around rapidly, with an uneasy expression on his face.

The elementalist was simply too weak to make his eyes keep up with where Luke went.

Appearing behind the elementalist, Luke gathered wind on his palm and hit his back with a palm strike, launching the elementalist across the room and onto the table in the corner.

The table buckled and broke into pieces after being hit by a second strong impact, making both the burly man and the elementalist lie on the ground on top of each other unconsciously.

'…It's strange. Why was that elementalist so weak? At least from my past experiences, it should take a lot more effort than this to incapacitate an elementalist.'

He thought back on the shadow elementalist as an example.

'Maybe that guy was just very strong, and this one is very weak in comparison?'

At that moment, Ellios suddenly opened his eyes and smiled warmly at Luke.

"Good job, my disciple."

His comment dispelled Luke's thoughts as he smiled wryly at the commendation.

"Was this a test of yours?"

Ellios chuckled a bit as he shook his head.

"No, not really. But it did work out like a sort of warm-up in the end. It seems like you're all healed up now. Except for that scratch, that is", said Ellios as he pointed at the small cut on Luke's shoulder.

Shrugging his shoulders with an easygoing expression, Luke answered.

"It's not too bad. Considering how I fought against an elementalist and won while only sustaining a scratch, I'd like to commend myself as well. Although that guy was strangely weak."

Nodding, Ellios looked at the unconscious elementalist.

"Of course. He used an artifact to gain that power temporarily. He hasn't even gone through the first phase of soul cleansing."

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"How can you even tell that it's an artifact?"

Ellios proudly smiled at Luke.

"These things are easy to tell once you get to be as old as me."

Not thinking much about Ellios' answer, Luke approached the burly man who appeared to be leading the pack.

He placed his fingers on the man's neck, checking for a pulse.

'He's still breathing, although it seems like I broke his jaw. It must've been the cracking noise that I mistook for his neck breaking. Well, this is what I wanted. I saw no reason to kill these guys, considering how two of them weren't even elementalists, and the one who was ended up being incredibly weak.'

Standing up, Luke turned to Ellios who was still looking at him.

"So? Who are these guys?"

Laughing awkwardly at Luke's question, Ellios started explaining the incident that had occurred in front of Naiccos' gates while Luke was unconscious.