Chapter 23: Choices

Deryn cast a wind blade and instantly cast 7 more, spending 75 points of mana to take a leg from each member of the blondies' group, blondie included.

It happened so fast that only 8 squelched and screams were heard before everyone realised that 8 regular people had been crippled in under a few seconds. The speed and cruelty made the rest of the group shudder, as the screams of blondie's group echoed throughout the valley.

Deryn sick of the screaming knocked each of them out one by one before asking Dan where his kid was, that was Deryn's priority right now. It had hit a nerve with Deryn that a 6-year-old kid had been threatened and abused because of some asshole who liked to boss people around.

He didn't care too much about people that was true but it only mostly applied to adults. Kids on the other hand had never done anything against Deryn and he developed had a soft spot for them by taking part-time work at an orphanage when he was 16. He hadn't always liked them, but the little monsters at the orphanage managed to crack his heart.

It was a tough little group and in the end, all of them managed to get adopted to the relief of those who worked there, yet times were tough. Deryn had seen the kids go hungry more than once and having no money himself felt powerless to do anything. It was worse when they were ill, considering how tight-knit the orphanage was, once one person got ill, a lot more followed.

Deryn jolted out of one of his few fond memories realising where he was and the situation he was in.

"Dan where is your kid." Deryn snarled making the man jump.

"In Kieth's shel... shelter!" Dan pointed at the blondie whilst stuttering to Deryn.

"Take me there! The rest of you stay here for a few minutes. If they wake up, knock them out again, got it?" Deryn ordered the rest of the group, following Dan who was sprinting into the distance.

It took them less than a minute to get to one of the log cabin shelters. Dan not minding Deryn ran up to the door, taking an axe out of his inventory before trying to chop through it, wanting to get to his boy.

"BENNY... IM COMING TO GET YOU, STAY AWAY FROM THE DOOR... *ooof*" Dan shouted at his son before Deryn pushed him out of the way and began using his own axe to take the door down. With his increased stats the durability of a wooden door was nothing to him, only taking a few minutes before all that was left was wood chunks and sawdust everywhere.

Deryn strode in first followed by Dan as they both looked around.

"YOU FUCKERS ARE DEAD" Deryn roared like a wounded beast whilst Dan almost collapsed to the floor at the sight before him. It was only Deryn holding him up that he managed to stay conscious long enough to find some strength and rescue his boy.

Deryn rushed forward before Dan and broke the wooden cage bars with his bare hands before taking out his spear. The kid's hands and mouth had been bound and Benny was covered in bruises and small slash marks. He also looked to have been burned on his arm. The more Deryn looked the more his vision turned red, whilst Dan beyond what tears could express looked like his soul had left his body.

Dan held his son whilst Deryn cut off the bindings around Benny's hands and feet before gently taking off the one around his mouth. The boy looked at both of them, body shuddering from the pain, yet with dead eyes.

"System get me a basic health potion from the store! NOW!" Deryn ordered once more, having remembered the novice HP potion cost 10 AP points and would recover 25 HP, hopefully enough to make a difference on the kid's wounds.

A red pellet appeared in his inventory. It was not what Deryn expected when he saw the definition for a potion but didn't waste any time putting it in the kid's mouth along with some water. Dan went to stop him but looking at the look of anger and concern on Deryn's face made him stay his hand and just hold his boy, hoping whatever the other man did could help.

The sores of Benny's hands and feet began to heal at a rapid pace, whilst the small slash marks began to scab over. The burn began to turn into a blister before being replaced with scar tissue. The bruises on the other hand stayed and the more Deryn looked at the kid the more he couldn't hold his anger anymore.

He stood up to the shock of Dan, who watched Deryn storm right of the house before sprinting to the group. Dan picked up Benny before making his way over, carefully carrying the boy to not make his wounds worse, but not wanting to miss out on the punishment blondie and co would be getting from the looks of Deryn's face.

By the time Dan arrived, not even a minute after Deryn he was in shock. Chris lay flat out on his back while Owlen was nursing what looked to be a black eye. He looked around and saw Deryn beating blondie who was screaming in agony, but Deryn didn't stop.

Blondie's screams awoke the other members of his group but they too were crying and moaning in pain from losing a leg to even think of helping their leader.

"LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO A CHILD" Deryn roared at the Cerry and co.

The group looked at Benny before clenching their fists, eyes filled with pain and disbelief.

"I'm sorry Deryn I didn't know it was that bad or I wouldn't have tried to stop you," Chris said with remorse.

Deryn paid him no mind, getting off of Kieth before looking at Chris. "Things are going to change. Scum like this doesn't deserve to live. You are either with me, or you are against me!" Deryn solemnly spoke to the others before summoning his spear.

Before anyone could react Deryn thrust downwards, taking the life of Kieth with a slow thrust through the man's skull. Keith's eyes opened in shock as he saw the spear coming but couldn't move out of the way. Pulling the spear out signalled the loss of Keith's life. More importantly, it marked the date when Deryn took his first human life.

"DAN, get over here!" Deryn ordered. Dan left Benny with Cerry before walking over to Deryn, heart pounding.

"Summon your weapon and end this scum's life" Deryn snarled, still extremely angry that the other 7 who had harmed a child were still alive and breathing.

Dan summoned a sword out of his inventory with his hands shaking. Walking towards the self-entitled prick he couldn't bring himself to kill him. "Look at your kid, then look at the monster who did it" Deryn softly said.

Dan looked back at his son and the marks which covered the poor boy.

"ARGHHHHH" Dan roared in anger, swinging his sword down, leaving a giant gash on the self-entitled prick's throat.

*Gurgle*

Dan watched with spite in his eyes the man below him slowly dying. The fear of killing a man was long gone as he watched the man who harmed his child die from his own hands. A feeling of relief from getting revenge washed over him as he ignored the gargling of the self-entitled prick before walking back to his son, hugging and whispering in Benny's ears.

"Now you guys have a choice to make. You kill one of these scum or you take a limb from them if you can't stomach killing. Just know choosing either of those choices have a different outcome." Deryn said to everyone else but the cripples.

The now cripples were shuddering and begging for mercy, but no one paid them any mind as they were thinking about their decision. All but Chris.

Chris strode over in rage, summoning his bow and shooting one of the scum in the head, instantly killing the man.

"I'm with you. I understand why you have done this but a few of the others may not be able to. I just want to ask for leniency on those who can't or choose to take a limb." Chris whispered in Deryns ear after shaking the man's hand.

Deryn gave a slight nod before looking at the rest of the group. "Chris made a good point. The three of you who defected from the blondies group, come here and kill one of them. Cerry and Owlen, you two will cut the limbs of the man before ending his life together."

The three men who defected turned pale white. They no longer had a choice. Well, technically they did but they weren't sure they wanted to find out what not listening to Deryn meant.

All three slowly walked over to where the scum was still begging for mercy. They held no good feelings to them, only wanted to take an easy time surviving was the only thing they had in common. But realising what Deryn said earlier made sense, made them defect.

A few seconds later and the three let out battle cries and snarls as they killed their first human. Two of the three went to their knees beside the corpse's vomiting whilst the last stood there, slightly swaying like he was going to pass out.

Deryn walked over to that man and muttered a "Well done" before telling the three of them to go back to where they stood once they collected themselves.

"Cerry, Owlen! Your turn".

"Deryn I don't think I can". Cerry muttered.

"Imagine that was your family member I had to rescue. If you cant be strong now, where everything is under my control and safe, then what about in an actual battle. If you let an enemy go because you can't kill them, they may come back one day and kill you. Deryn matter of factly said. There was no emotion in his voice.

Cerry and Owlen walked over to the last scum on the ground who at this point had pissed himself in fear, trying to crawl away whilst the stump for a leg was still bleeding. Owlen grabbed the man before swinging the sword cutting off his hand. He abruptly turned his head to vomit and a moment later cut off the man's remaining leg.

Cerry cut off the man's arm with what looked to be a giant axe. Deryn was surprised at her choice of weapon for a brief moment as seeing a 5ft 5 girl wield an axe almost 4ft tall was extremely strange.

Owlen and Cerry both whispered to one another how they would take this man's life. They decided to use Owlen's sword, with owlen holding it whilst Cerry held Owlen's. With a cry from Cerry and a grunt from Owlen, the sword was thrust downwards into the man's heart.

A part of Cerry broke in her heart as she watched the man die beneath her. Owlen on the other hand spat on the man's corpse before turning to Cerry, comforting her.

"I won't say good work. Taking another human's life isn't anything pleasant, yet it was a necessity. If we don't form some semblance of rules now then we have no hopes of surviving in this world."

Deryn continued, "I am not here to take over the camp. I'm here to make sure my allies won't go on a path of self-destruction and end up dead because of it. You can hate me all you want, but remember you killed scum who hurt and abused a child. There should be no forgiveness for that."

"We could have made a prison and kept them there. But what good would that have done? They would have won in that case; they would have shelter and be provided for without doing any work. I can leave if that's what people want and return should you desire. I'm going to give you 5 minutes to talk to one another before you let me know your answer". Deryn began to walk away after finishing his little speech.

"Wait" Chris shouted. "You don't need to go anywhere. You might not want to be part of this community but we always considered you as such. Your advice saved our lives once and uncovering this and making us kill those scum has probably just saved our lives once more." Chris finished slightly panting.

"Yeah... We don't blame you Deryn. Killing them might not have been the morally right choice but it was definitely the right one. If we gave into them today, and just put them in jail, they would have won and we would have to watch our backs" Cerry softly uttered, still shook up at taking another human life.

"They're right Deryn. I couldn't make the tough call to do so. I didn't even investigate where Benny was. I'm not fit to be a temporary leader, previous experience on earth or not, I've let everyone down" Owlen said, growling out the last few words.

"No Owlen. You're the only one whose fit to be the leader. Chris is more of a lone wolf, especially getting a new class, he loves the forest a lot, whilst we lot still have faith in you" Cerry uttered whilst giving the man a small hug.

"Then I have to say a few more things. There are 13 people here. Besides the kid 5 of you haven't done anything to earn a bit of my trust. The others seem to trust you however so ill give you the benefit of the doubt for now".

"To survive in a community you all must contribute. If you don't want to fight that's fine. You just have to have something equally as valuable to offer the community. If you know a trade and it's useful, or if you have a non combat-oriented class, then you won't have to fight should you be able to contribute. If it's not useful then the group has no need for anyone who can't contribute and cant fight so you will be asked to leave."

"If you wanna grow stronger then kill things and take their rewards. Loot encampments/bases and if you have wiped out all creatures belonging to them you will get a specific chest with its rank based on the level of the base/encampment. I recommend focusing on the north, east and west as ill be covering my north which will make your south safe."

"Any questions?" Deryn asked with a slight smile at seeing everyone look at him nodding their heads with determination in their eyes. Even Dan who still held Benny was looking at Deryn like one may look at God.

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< 5:36PM >

Deryn had been in Alexandria for a few hours. He had burned the bodies a ways away from the encampment from earlier slaughter and spent the rest of the time coordinating with everyone to make sure they were all on the same page.

He had spent the last hour answering everyone's questions about how they would proceed and information about the world. Sadly the group didn't seem to know much and had nothing of interest to trade with Deryn.

It was time for him to leave. As he said his goodbyes Owlen walked out of the door.

"Deryn can we talk in private before you leave?" He asked.

Deryn nodded and they walked towards his buggy to have some privacy.

Owlen started the conversation. "I want to say thanks. I'm also about to tell you something I just received after claiming my rewards for this morning".

"No problem. Didn't you claim the rewards earlier?" Deryn replied.

"No, I didn't get a chance. Plus as I'm the leader of this place I get an extra reward. The guys know but don't want a share of it" Owlen grimaced at the last bit. He wouldn't have been able to share it even if they wanted a fair share.

"Speak, I need to get back soon so make it quick" Deryn muttered in slight annoyance.

Owlen ignored his annoyance before simply saying; "I'm an oracle".