Chapter 430 Something to Destroy that wasn’t Itself

The snow started to fall in relentless silence, each flake a whisper against her skin. She didn't feel the cold. Hadn't for years.

Her gaze drifted to Butcher's remains—a pulverized ruin half-buried in snow.

"Worthless, weak, disgusting thing."

A creature like that shouldn't have required her intervention. Shouldn't have existed long enough to matter.

Her fingers flexed. The shadows at her feet twisted, hungry. Somewhere in the distance, a tree cracked under the weight of ice. Suzuka exhaled, watching her breath curl like smoke in the air.

Power hummed in her bones, restless, eager. It would be so simple to let it loose, to carve her will into the world without hesitation, without remorse. She had done it before. She would do it again.

But then there was Hermit.

Stupid, soft-hearted Hermit, who had begged her not to interfere, who had crawled through his own blood to reach a broken hatchling that, by all rights, should have been left to die. It's just another goblin. She had given him the potions—his own damned potions, brewed with Silvia's help—because it was practical. Because a dead pawn was a useless one.

"Is it even worth it? These goblins are weak. He couldn't even touch this fat pig. 

…Tch. Why is this even sticking in my head. That’s just how it is. Always have been. If you can’t even scratch a fat sack of meat, that’s the end of the story. World’s not fair, I’ve seen stronger things die for less.

So why does that thought taste wrong now? Annoying.

This was supposed to be simple. I smash the bad ones, keep the useful ones breathing, town gets built, everyone shuts up. No crying over spilled blood, especially goblin blood. That’s how I’ve always done things. But now my brain won’t stop poking at it like a loose tooth.

 They used goblins because they could. I keep goblins because I can.

I tell myself it’s not the same. No cages, no whips, no farms full of screaming filth. I ended that. Burned it down. Reduced it to ash without losing sleep. That part was easy. What’s not easy is this stupid, quiet feeling that keeps tapping me on the shoulder like, 'hey, dumbass, you sure you’re not just doing the same thing with better branding?'

My town’s gonna rise on their backs. On Hermit’s back. On broken little idiots who still think promises mean something. And I know damn well I won’t always be gentle. Hell, I already wasn’t. I laughed. I mocked him. I let him crawl and cry because it was easier than dealing with… whatever this is.

Always keeping my promise was something I was proud of, I never game empty promise, not once. And then I broke my word. Not because I had to. Because I could. That’s the part that sticks. That’s the part I don’t like. This means I will do it again.

This slow slide into not caring why I’m doing things, only that they get done—this feels different. Like rust. Like something eating through metal one layer at a time while you pretend it’s fine.

I’ve killed monsters who thought they were justified. Monsters who said the weak existed to be used. Monsters who didn’t even blink while saying it.

I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I sound just like them.

And worse—I don’t want to see it on people’s faces. That look. The one that says they’re not sure if I’m the hero or the monster they need protection from.

Dammit.

I don’t cry. I don’t shake. I don’t pray.
So why does this feel like something slipping out of place anyway?

I don’t need to be kind. I don’t need to be loved. I sure as hell don’t need to be forgiven. I just… don’t want to be that thing.

And the fact I have to think about it at all?

Yeah. That pisses me off more than it should."

Suzuka exhaled, long and slow, watching her breath mist in the air before dissipating into nothing. With one last glance at the corpse, she turned to Kaka's broken body. The goblin lay where Hermit had left him, his mutilated body barely recognizable as something that had once been alive. His breath came in shallow, wet gasps, his remaining eye glazed with pain and whatever fractured thoughts still rattled around in his shattered mind.

Suzuka strode into the cave, the dim firelight painting her silhouette against the damp stone walls. Kaka’s remains dangled from her grip like a butchered stag, his tattered ears stretched taut between her fingers, his grotesquely bloated torso swaying with each step. The stench of ruptured egg sacs and old blood trailed behind her, thick enough to taste.

"Dum-ass, you forgot your baggage. Think fast."

She hurled Kaka’s ravaged body onto a pile of moldy hay, where it landed with a wet thud. The impact jostled something inside him—a sickening, liquid shift—and a trickle of viscous fluid seeped from his gaping butt.

Hermit didn’t look up at first.

He was too busy cradling a hatchling with a shattered leg, his hands trembling as he poured one of Silvia’s potions down its throat. The little thing convulsed, its claws digging into his wrist as the liquid worked. Three others lay nearby in varying states of ruin—one missing an eye, another with its spine twisted, a third chewing mindlessly on its own tail. All alive. All broken.

Hermit’s shoulders hunched.

"…Thank you, master Helen, for bringing Kaka. For the help."

Suzuka’s lip curled.

"Don’t. I don't need your gratitude. Just don't."

She didn’t want his gratitude. Didn’t deserve it, not when she could still feel the ghost of the Butcher’s skull splintering beneath her palms, not when the part of her that had enjoyed it still hummed beneath her skin.

Suzuka exhaled sharply through her nose, surveying the cave with disgust. The walls were slick with damp, the floor littered with filth—rotting straw, discarded bones, the lingering stench of goblin musk and misery. Not exactly her idea of suitable lodging, but the storm outside had worsened, howling through the mountain pass like a living thing, and even she wasn’t stubborn enough to march through that tonight.

"We're staying. Till morning. Get them ready to move by then."

She didn’t look at Hermit as she spoke.

"We leave behind whoever can't be carried."

With a snap, dark energy rippled from her fingertips, an invisible force scouring the cave floor like an angry wind. Rotting straw, clumps of filth, and the remnants of old bones were hurled toward the far wall, piling into a rancid heap that she promptly shoved out through the cave mouth with another pulse of power. The stench lingered, but at least they wouldn’t be sleeping in filth.

Next, she yanked a compact bedroll from her magic storage. It wasn’t much—just a thin mattress and a fur-lined blanket—but it was leagues better than the damp stone.

The fire came next.

She dropped firewood into the pit, the flames roared to life, heat pulsing outward in a slow, steady wave. The cave’s chill retreated, the frost on the walls melting into glistening beads.

Finally, she tugged down the ragged pelts hanging near the entrance—some goblin’s pathetic attempt at insulation—and sealed the cave mouth. The wind’s howl dulled to a muffled groan, the cold kept at bay.

She turned, finally taking in Hermit’s progress.

He had gathered the hatchlings into a fragile row, their broken bodies arranged on the driest patches of straw he could find. His hands moved adjusting a splint here, tilting a potion to trembling lips there, murmuring soft, useless comforts to creatures too far gone to understand them.

One of them—Pepper, the half-crushed one—latched onto his hand as he tried to pull away, its tiny claws snagging in the skin. It didn’t cry. Didn’t make a sound. Just held on, it's one good eye glazed with pain and something worse—fear.

The cave was too quiet. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the shallow, uneven breaths of the broken hatchlings scattered across the damp hay like discarded toys. Twenty-three of them. Twenty-three tiny, ruined bodies that Hermit now knelt beside, his gnarled fingers moving with care of a creature who had spent a lifetime tending to things that were never truly his.

He started with the worst ones first—the hatchling with the shattered spine, its tiny limbs twitching uncontrollably. He cradled it in his palms, feeling the fragile bones shift beneath its skin as he wrapped it in strips of torn pelt, binding it snug enough to keep it from hurting itself but loose enough that it could still breathe. It didn’t cry. It didn’t make a sound. It just stared up at him with glassy eyes, its pupils blown wide with pain, and Hermit hummed to it, a tuneless, rasping sound that had soothed a hundred hatchlings before.

"Shhh-shhh. Shhh-shhh."

The next one was chewing on its own tail, its teeth sunk deep into the flesh, blood bubbling at the corners of its mouth. Hermit didn’t scold. Didn’t yank its jaws apart. He simply pried them open with gentle fingers, sliding a knotted rag between its teeth—something to destroy that wasn’t itself. The hatchling bit down immediately, its tiny body shuddering, and Hermit stroked the ridge of its brow until its breathing slowed.