Rufus’s Tangent – I Want to Be a Hero

Two giant eyes stared down At Rufus. With each motion, the beast’s muscular arms and legs flexed, anticipating its prey’s next move. Flat teeth lined its mouth – a jaw powerful enough to crush skulls with ease. The horrifying face could scare even the calmest people. It was a gorilla, an A-rank beast: a being nearly everyone wouldn’t dare cross.

Rufus's mind raced, trying to figure out what was happening. Gorilla beasts aren’t native to this forest, so why is one here? How did it get so close? Why hasn’t it killed me yet? More and more questions spilled from his mind, but none of it made any sense. In the midst of it all, the man glanced at the gorilla, looking bored.

“Mind leaving us alone? I need to find this kid’s friends.” He turned back around and with a quick, “Okay, let’s get going,” grabbed Rufus in one hand and his chair in the other before walking off. The gorilla remained in the same place, watching. Rufus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Why was a gorilla listening to a person?

Of course, it was too good to be true. The gorilla roared, shaking the world. Some of the nearby trees snapped and blew away under the wind pressure. It took a single step, cracking the ground as if a meteor had struck the surface. The only area unaffected was around the man.

He let out a sad sigh. “I guess we have to fight then.”

The gorilla took another step, this time using its speed to reach them in an instant. The man swung his chair behind him and kept walking forward, not sparing a single moment. The gorilla froze in place like a statue. Rufus kept turning around, trying to see if the gorilla would follow, but it remained unmoving. It seemed like it died, but it still looked alive, leaving Rufus more confused than scared.

“What just happened?”

“Oh, that? Nothing interesting. I just defeated the beast.”

“But how? I don’t see a wound.”

“Can’t let a kid get traumatized, can I? So, don’t worry about it. Let’s just find the rest of your friends.” The man pulled Rufus along until the gorilla was out of view. A loud thump echoed a few minutes later.

The man walked in a straight line, running into a kid. Then, he turned another direction before finding another. Rinse and repeat forty or so times, and he found most of the kids. Sometimes there was an A or B-ranked beast blocking the path, but they died the same way the gorilla did. The other kids saw his strength and simply followed along obediently. There was no way any of the kids could escape anyway.

As he walked back to the gate, reaching the forest’s edge, the smell of blood only grew stronger. The carnage was instantly visible past the trees. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of beasts lying dead on the ground. Some adventurers were cleaning up the mess while others joined the beasts. It was enough to make anyone throw up.

The man grimaced at the sight. “And I went through all that trouble to avoid traumatizing them,” he muttered. “Don’t look if you can’t stomach it! This is what it means to be an adventurer or guard.” He continued walking, not giving the kids any time to take in the destruction. Some looked on in wonder, fantasizing about the adventurer's life. Others closed their eyes and held each other in fear.

Rufus looked over the battlefield, but he didn’t feel anything. Instead, his mind kept wandering back to the man leading them. The more Rufus thought about what the man did, the more he became fixated, unsure why.

The town guards rang the bells after seeing the man approaching from a distance. They rushed out, pulling everyone back behind the gates in a panic. The man disappeared almost immediately afterward. On the other side of the gates, yelling, crying, and a whole host of other emotions rang out from the plaza. Parents flocked towards their kids, holding them tight. Those who returned hugged their parents back: some smiling, others with tears. However, a few kept calling their kids’ names. Rufus didn’t really understand what was going on, but he felt a stinging sensation in his chest.

Rufus’s parents sat him down and explained what happened. Apparently, a nearby dungeon had been overrun with S-rank beasts, pushing out the A and B-rank beasts previously living there. Starved for food, they attempted to attack the capital in droves. All the high ranked adventurers mobilized, fighting to defeat the beasts, but only 10% had been defeated so far, such as the area they arrived from. The others were still a battlefield. Of course, like any parent would, they freaked because he was in the forest. They wanted to rush outside, but all that would do was endanger their own lives. They did the only thing they could do: hold out hope.

Rufus held onto my parents’ hands as they left the guardhouse. Though they wouldn’t be allowed outside until all the beasts were defeated, at least they were all together. It was a happily ever after–

“Why didn’t you save him?!”

–until he heard a single scream.

His parents had the tact to keep walking; however, Rufus turned around and looked on. The parents of the children who didn’t come back were screaming and punching at…him, the man who brought us back safely.

He stood there, stoic-like, chair in one hand, not defending himself. He made no effort to comfort the parents. He simply accepted it all, acting like a wall for the parents to lean on.

It might seem trivial or rude, but that’s what they needed: to cry and let out their pain. He couldn’t bring smiles, so he took on their grief. Watching him, Rufus finally understood why he was so fixated on that man.

The man was a real-life hero, and Rufus wanted to be just like him.