A Special Delivery, Again

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Ren beckoned Merrit closer, and muttered to him-

“Is this girl for real? You didn’t just pick up some random nutcase off the road, right?”

Alice put her hands on hips and glowered at Ren, with an indignant look on her face.

“I can hear you, you know! And I’m not a nutcase!”

“Anyone as cheery as you in these times has to be either delusional or hopped up on enough drugs to knock out a horse.”

“I am one hundred, one thousand, one bazillion percent, not delusional! Watch this!”

Seeing the many accidental burns and cuts on Ren’s hands, she approached him. Her hands began to shine with a bright golden light, and before he could react, his cuts closed and his burns healed. The feeling was intensely familiar, almost like-

He recoiled, whipping his hands away and stepping backwards. She noticed his reaction and her bright smile fell away, as she rushed towards him.

“Are you ok?! I’m sorry- your wounds should be healed… does it still hurt? Did I mess something up?”

“Don’t… I-”

He regained his composure, after a second or two.

“It’s… It’s nothing.”

Since awakening from the ice, he hadn’t seen a single person capable of doing magic in this world. He hadn’t seen a single member of the Church either, or any of their buildings still left maintained. If she was able to do this, then…

“Worker ID #75493, breaks are not permitted during work hours. That applies to the new trainees as well. Result : Infraction has been noted, and multiplied by 3 times, as you are training them. Please extend daily work hours by 18 for the next month.”

Ren sighed and took a second to think- He still had 4 Red Zone deliveries left, and his daily shift length was now at… 33 hours.

“Can we extend the previous deal? You need people doing the Red Zone deliveries, right?”

“Thinking… 6 more deliveries will put you back at regular hours. Now please return to your shift.”

___

Ren and Merrit found themselves at the fryer, while Alice was away in the front, handling orders.

They worked in an awkward silence, until Merrit broke it with a question.

“Alice… she told me that you weren’t just a soldier. She told me stories of you… how you saved entire cities, how you never lost a fight, how you were a symbol of hope… for everyone. Is- is any of it true?”

“... Is that what the stories say? Just me? Nobody else?”

“There were others… but apparently they weren’t that important.”

Ren was silent for a long time.

“Then… none of that is true. It’s all lies. Did you really think you could trust her?”

“But I saw you use really strong magic! The old people at the church called you by the same name- the Knight of Crimson Flame!”

There was almost a pleading tone in Merrit’s voice.

“Look… I know what you want. You’ve lost everything. You want a reason to believe. That there’s still something worth living for, that things can change, that there’s hope.”

He turned and looked Merrit straight in the eyes. Ren saw the same person he was all those years ago, staring at the ashes of everything he once loved, surrounded by unimaginable nightmares, who picked up a weapon anyway, refusing to admit defeat.

That day, he had been granted hope, a shining blade in his hands. But in the end, that had been nothing but a curse. If the boy had given up then and there, the result would have been the same.

“I’m not what you’re looking for. Even if I am that person you say I was- look around. Look what the world is like. You and I are powerless to change it. Don’t waste your time. Just accept, and move on.”

“You don’t really mean that…”

Before Ren could retort, Alice barged in.

“Ren! The manager asked me to tell you- we have a Red Zone delivery! Oh… Am I interrupting something?”

“No… let’s go.”

__

This one was a larger delivery, this time. Ren and Alice were on one bike, and Merrit on the other.

Over the wind, Alice yelled in his ear-

“WHY ARE THEY HAVING US DO THIS?”

“ARGH-QUIET! It’s not that windy, I can hear you!”

“Oh… ok.”

Ren sighed exasperatedly.

“Red Zone deliveries are the only reason they need us. Going out here has a 90% casualty rate, and the robots are more valuable than us. So, they send humans out.”

Merrit asked nervously-

“Wait… is that why there’s no other humans working here?”

“Yup. I’ve been here the longest. The others last about a week or two.”

Turning purple, Merrit focused on driving.

The voice behind Ren’s ear spoke up again, after a few minutes.

“Still, I can’t imagine why anyone would go out of their way to pay for this.”

“They don’t have much better, out here. Food from the city is a luxury, and this is about the only one they can afford. It doesn’t happen often, but often enough that they have to send people like us out to deliver.”

“Really? It tastes more like cardboard to me…”

“Well… wait, what?”

Ren looked in the mirror to see her snacking on some of the fries, carefree as ever.

“HEY! They’re going to fine us to hell and back if you-”

“Look- there’s so many! Nobody’s going to miss a few if they’re gone. We never had anything like this at the Church…”

“Just… just stop, ok?”

Aside from that, they reached their destination without incident. In fact, it was almost too quiet. There wasn’t a single sign of life on their entire drive there.

Thus, Ren was on edge the whole time, but they made it inside the fortified stone walls of the town without incident. This one was one of the largest Red Zone settlements, almost twice the size of Erma, so maybe the defenses and patrols were just that good. Once they were in, the usual sight of villagers walking through the streets, living their daily lives, was somehow reassuring,

Breathing a sigh of relief, they took a short stroll along the parapets of the wall, when suddenly the ground beneath their feet began to shake. Alice gasped-

“Look up!”

A giant red summoning circle, with arcane symbols scattered about it, was in the sky. Ren knew what this meant, but he had never expected to see it again. It was less of a summoning circle, and more like a signal flare.

Now , every monster and demon within a massive radius would be now heading towards their location. He had been preoccupied at the time, but thinking on it, this symbol had probably appeared over Erma, before he had made it there.

Interrupting his thoughts, a large crash echoed throughout the city, as seemingly appearing out of nowhere, a black-scaled dragon came whooshing down from the clouds, incinerating houses in purple flame, and crushing the entrance gate to the city with its claws. Villagers scattered, as demons of all sizes began to flood through the ruined gates.

“We- we have to help them!”

With a look of horror, Merrit started racing down the stairs, heading down for the main street.

“Don’t be an idiot-”

Merrit jumped down after him, and Alice followed down the stairs in a panic.

“Wai-wait for me!”

__

Merrit had picked up a rifle from the defenses up top, and joined the garrisoned guards on the ground street.

He couldn’t let something like this happen again- No matter what Ren said, taking on that living nightmare in Erma had left him with hope.

However, hope was not much use when the dragon suddenly soared over them again, breathing purple flame. With the street being narrow as it was, there wasn’t enough room to dodge out of the way-

“I won’t die… not here!”

Suddenly, Ren tackled him with blinding speed, covering them both under his metal case. Somehow, the case absorbed the flames, leaving them both scorched but alive. The other soldiers were not so fortunate, collapsing in screams as the flame melted them alive.

“Are you an idiot? Actually, I guess there’s not even any point asking-”

There was a flash of claws. One moment Ren was there, and the next moment he was flung into a brick wall, his bones breaking with a sickening crunch.

“REN!”

Before Merrit could rush over, the dragon that had sent Ren into the wall advanced on him, blocking his path.

Ren gasped for air, but blood was beginning to clog his lungs.

He looked through the gate to see hundreds… thousands… no, hundreds of thousands of demons and other assorted monsters, wolves, orcs, goblins, their glowing eyes like fireflies in the night, the moonlight gleaming off of their fangs.

So this… this is it. A disgraceful… fitting … end.

He felt his pain go numb.

But as his pain numbed, his senses returned, and a golden light hovered at the corner of his vision.

Alice walked past him, slowly, purposefully, Her peppy demeanor was gone. As she approached, the dragon fell to its knees, as if the gravity around it had increased by ten times the amount. As she came closer, it burst into golden flames, roaring in pain.

He had seen this phenomena once before… the time the Goddess herself spoke to him.

Alice snapped her fingers, the sound clear and resonating. It cut through the sounds of battle, leaving only silence. Suddenly, every single attacker, inside and outside the gates, fell to their knees, incinerated in holy flames.

Hundreds of thousands of them instantly fell, dead.

All Ren could do was watch in awe, and horror. A feat like this was something he could only have dreamed of, even at his peak.

I see… so this is how they felt…