Survivors

Kai howled in pain as his left arm was disintegrated by the Demon's attack. A gaping hole was left in the side of his chest while blood rapidly poured out of the wound onto the grass below, tainting it to a dark shade of red.

Failure had a much less reasonable reaction, only letting out a small grunt and a wince. Still, he was not happy with what had just happened.

After the Demon saw a chunk of the moon get ripped out, it went berserk and started screaming about how it was a despicable action to 'touch the Lord's creation in anyway.'

It then went on a rampage as its spread out its aura, completetly immobilising all off Failure's creations, allowing it to engage the man one on one.

Failure managed to deflect and dodge properly now that he wasn't straining himself by trying to rip a literal chunk out of the moon, meanwhile it had also lessened the strain on Kai's soul, allowing him to keep the cracking orb more intact than previously.

That didn't mean he didn't have his fair share of work cut out for him, because after every blow the Demon and Failure traded, another crack appeared in his soul, leaking more and more gray wisps out.

But after the Demon was unable to project its rage and utterly destroy Failure and Kai, it turned its rage on something that it could destroy.

It had managed to launch Failure backwards in the air with how hard it had swung its axe, which was looking a little worse for wear at this point. It had numerous bits of its flesh chipped out, but the light in its full moon eye still did not dull.

Then, the Demon had turned around and tried to eradicate the Dome filled with all the survivors.

This was where the problem came in.

Of course, they were all able to leave by now, they had all received the notification. So Failure needed them to leave, otherwise the world was doomed.

The way this tutorial worked was only the survivors on the winning side were taken into consideration by the gods to give their tutorial world extra time against the Corroding.

Of course, they were perfectly fine with accepting suitable candidates from the losing side, but they wouldn't offer the world that had them in the tutorial any rewards for them.

Meaning, even if all the humans managed to make it out alive, if Aldred died it wouldn't matter, the Corroding would inevitably destroy the world.

The same could also be said for the other way around. If all the humans died but Aldred survived, they wouldn't be given any time and assistance, meaning it all would have been for naught.

So Failure had to give everyone enough time to leave the tutorial while also making sure that Aldred and all the moon beasts, which were not allowed to leave the tutorial, stayed alive.

Which was a tall order, especially now that there was a meteor about to destroy the forest anyway.

But when the Demon went to attack the dome protecting all the beings that Failure was relying on, he could still sense that majority of them were still in there.

Meaning if the Demon was able to land its attack, all of this would have been for naught. Their would would eventually be destroyed while Failure continued to suffer the continuous effects of the Corroding and the torturous gaze of the moon, while he would have also lost his closest companion, Aldred.

So Failure done what he had to do.

Of course, he did ask Kai first, considering it was his body and all and Failure knew they would not get out of blocking an attack like that unscathed, but Kai had long accepted the fact he was going to get injured, so he quickly just said yeah so he could go back to repairing the cracks in his soul.

That didn't make the pain any more pleasant though.

Kai was reeling after his arm was obliterated, he could barely see the cracks in his soul with tears in his eyes so he had to blindly feel around to find them.

Then, his heart dropped as he heard two voices simultaneously speak behind him.

"Kai?"

Of course it was Sofia and Noelle, why wouldn't it be Sofia and Noelle? It seemed that John was the only one who had any sort of a brain as he wasn't staring blankly at the floating Kai's back.

"Leave."

Kai let out a groan as he took over from Failure to tell them to, well, leave.

Both Sofia and Noelle stared at him incredulously, both completetly shocked at what they were witnessing.

The last they had seen was an attractive brown haired man and the gray wolf fighting that horrible Demon, so why the hell was Kai fighting it now?!

"What the hell do you mean leave?" Sofia cried out. "And what the hell are you doing? How are you flying?"

Kai's heart ached as he turned his head to look backwards. The Demon was still recovering after launching that Eradicate attack again, meaning Kai had a few seconds to recover.

"Please, just leave, you have to leave."

Sofia looked up at him like he was an idiot.

"What the actual fuck are you talking about?! You have to leave too!"

Kai winced. His soul was already racking up more and more cracks due to him not currently actively repairing them. Even though the strain on his soul had lessened, it seemed the end of the miracle was approaching, meaning the strain was basically the same.

"You have to go, otherwise you'll die. Please, Sofia, just leave."

While they continued their conversation, more and more humans left as quick as they could. None of them really paid Kai any attention as they would much rather just get out of the tutorial before the Demon could unleash another attack like that and potentially kill them as easily as they could squash an ant beneath their feet.

Just as Sofia was about to rebuke and shout Kai again to tell him to leave, she felt a finger poke her in the shoulder.

"Just leave, Sofia, he's not going to listen."

Sofia's gaze weakened as her jaw fell slack, but she had nothing to say. There was nothing she could say.

Kai knew that Noelle would understand what he was going through. She could see the look in his eyes and it said more than his words could possibly say.

It was the same determined look she had throughout the whole tutorial after all.

Sofia stared at Noelle unbelieving, wondering why the hell was she taking his side in this situation, they could just leave the tutorial after all.

Stupefied, Sofia turned back to look at Kai and said:

"Promise me you won't die, you're too young to die."

"I..."

Kai opened his mouth to respond, but paused for a moment. Should he just...

Biting his lower lip softly, Kai said in a soft tone:

"I'll try."

Sofia sighed, it wasn't exactly a very convincing answer, but what could she do?

"You're such an idiot..."

Then, before Kai even got the chance to rebuke, Sofia disappeared from where she was standing.

Sofia had left the tutorial, she had survived.

Kai then caught a glimpse of John in the distance. He noticed that the burly man was missing an arm himself, but he still gave Kai a weak thumbs up with his good arm before he himself disappeared, making it out of the tutorial.

The humans continued to drop like flies until, not even three seconds later, there was only one left.

Noelle gazed up at Kai before giving him a weak smile and saying:

"Good luck."

Kai gave her a small smile in response.

"Thanks."

Kai then sighed.

"And Noelle..."

Noelle waited for him to continue.

"It was nice getting to know you."

Noelle glanced away so Kai couldn't see her face.

"It was nice getting to know you too, Kai. You're a good person."

And with that, Noelle disappeared.

That was it, all the people Kai had gotten to know over the last month were gone. They had all survived stage three of the tutorial, meanwhile it was still undecided if Kai would or not.

He knew he was being an idiot, he knew what he was doing was stupid. But he was being an idiot on his own accord. It was his choice to do this, he was going to do what he wanted to do.

So he was going to do what he wanted to do.

Aldred made sure all the moon beasts stayed together before making his was to Kai, who had managed to lower himself in the air without randomly tipping forwards or backwards. He had never flown after all.

Kai then fell back into the backseat, once again allowing Failure to take over.

Failure then glanced down at Aldred wistfully, a small smile etching itself onto his lips.

"So we just have to keep you alive for another three minutes, and we have to make sure the Demon dies. Easy, right?"

Aldred chuckled darkly.

"Nothing with you is ever easy, it never has been."

Failure smiled in response.

"Ah, but if it's easy then it's less exciting, don't you think, Kai?"

Taking over for a moment, Kai snorted and said:

"I would much rather easy, anyone who takes the hard option is either masochistic or an idiot."

Failure blinked.

"Would this not be considered the hard option, considering the other option was to just leave?"

Kai used his right to remain silent.

Failure chuckled and shook his head, before Kai quickly took over one last time to say what was on his mind.

"Also, that fucker owes me a new arm, so I'll leave that up to you two."