What Good People Do

Three days had passed since they left the mountains of Solvar. Tenshi noticed that Nino was walking more slowly.

He hadn’t complained once until then, but he could no longer hide what the poison was doing to his body. Every few hours, the pain began in his arms and spread through his chest until it reached his neck, following the same paths through which his Pulse normally flowed. Rest made the sensation lessen, but it never disappeared completely. After what he had done in the mine, something inside him continued to spread even when he wasn’t using any energy.

“We need to stop,” Tenshi said.

“No.”

“You’re already limping like an old man. I had to hunt and set up camp last night because you couldn’t.”

“...”

Nino continued along the narrow road that ran through the fields between the mountains. The region grew increasingly less populated as they traveled, until even small villages became rare. And when they did appear, they were little more than small properties scattered across the landscape, makeshift fences, and crops following the uneven terrain.

Tenshi quickened his pace to catch up with him. His dark, uneven hair had grown even messier after three days of travel, and exhaustion was beginning to show beneath his blue-gray eyes.

“What if you pass out?”

“You wake me up.”

“And if you don’t wake up?”

Nino glanced at him.

“Then you can stop trying.”

Tenshi exhaled in frustration but didn’t insist. They continued for a while longer until Nino brought one hand to his chest. The pain came harder this time. His steps slowed, and for an instant, his vision darkened at the edges.

He stopped. Tenshi noticed immediately.

“Zero?”

“I’m fine. And stop calling me that.”

“Then what do you want me to call you?”

“...”

“Argh! You’re stubborn.”

Nino started walking again before the argument could continue.

The sun was already beginning to set when they found a village.

It was small enough that Nino initially thought it was nothing more than a few properties built close together. Simple houses of wood and stone stood on both sides of a dirt road, and the surrounding fields were larger than the community itself. Some of the crops had been partially destroyed, with broken fences and long stretches of overturned earth cutting through what should have been a harvest.

Few people were still outside. Nino managed to take a few more steps before the pain returned. This time, his knee struck the ground.

“Zer... Mister Hero!”

Tenshi caught him by the arm before he could fall completely. A door opened in one of the nearby houses.

A man stepped outside carrying a lantern and stood there for a few seconds when he saw them. He looked to be a little over forty, with clothes worn from work and hands still covered in dirt he hadn’t managed to completely wash away.

“Are you two all right?”

“He needs help,” Tenshi replied.

“I don’t,” Nino muttered.

The man brought the lantern closer and saw the dried blood on Nino’s clothes, the makeshift bandages, and the condition of his face.

“Of course you don’t.”

Nino looked up at him. The man pointed toward the house.

“Come inside.”

“We don’t have any money,” Tenshi said.

“I didn’t ask if you did.”

Nino still hesitated.

“We just need somewhere to spend the night.”

“Then you’re lucky. I’ve got one of those.”

There wasn’t much inside the house.

A wooden table occupied most of the main room. A few pots hung from the wall, and a small fire warmed the space. Two children sat close together, watching the strangers their father had just brought inside. The older one looked to be around eight; the boy beside her was perhaps five.

A woman emerged from another room and stopped as soon as she saw Nino. She was a little over thirty, with brown hair loosely tied behind her head and a tired face that carried the same years of hard work as her husband’s hands. Her simple dress had its sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and a cloth still rested over one shoulder. First, she looked at her husband. Then at the blood.

“What happened?”

“I found them on the road.”

“I can see that.”

The man ignored her tone.

“He’s hurt.”

The woman remained silent for a few seconds before exhaling and pointing toward a chair.

“Sit.”

Nino obeyed.

She removed some of the bandages and cleaned his wounds with warm water. There wasn’t much she could do about the poison, but she treated the cuts that were still open and redressed them as best she could. Nino didn’t explain where the injuries had come from, and she didn’t ask.

When she finished, she placed food on the table. It was a simple soup accompanied by small pieces of bread.

Nino watched as she divided the portions. The two children were served first. Then Tenshi. Then him. The man and woman were last.

Nino looked at the bowl in front of him and then at the man’s. The difference was small. But it was there.

“Eat,” the woman said when she noticed.

“You don’t have much.”

She paused for a moment.

“We still have some.”

“That’s not what I said.”

The husband pulled out a chair.

“If you don’t eat, my wife will think you didn’t like the food. Trust me, you don’t want to create that problem.”

The woman looked at him.

“Keep talking and you’re sleeping outside.”

Tenshi lowered his head to hide a smile. Nino continued staring at the bowl for a few more seconds before finally beginning to eat.

After dinner, they offered the two of them a small room used to store tools and supplies. There was only one bed, but the man brought blankets and made a place for Tenshi to sleep on the floor.

Nino tried to refuse the bed. The woman wouldn’t allow it.

“You can barely walk.”

“I can sleep on the floor.”

“And I can throw you out of my house. Want to find out which one of us is lying?”

“...”

Tenshi started laughing.

“I think you’d better listen to her.”

Nino sat on the bed.

“Everyone’s gotten very brave lately.”

The woman closed the door. For a while, silence remained. Tenshi fell asleep first. Nino tried, but without success.

The pain continued moving through his body in waves. Sometimes it faded enough for him to think he might finally fall asleep, only to return a few minutes later. He remained lying there, staring at the dark ceiling as he controlled his breathing.

That was when he heard voices in the next room. Quiet ones.

“Did you see how much is left?”

It was the woman.

“I did.”

“Then you know it won’t last.”

Nino remained still.

“We can get more from the next harvest,” her husband replied.

“If we have a next harvest.”

There were a few seconds of silence.

“They came back yesterday,” she continued. “They took almost everything from the eastern field. And every night they come closer to the house.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Because every time I try to talk about it, you tell me you’ll find a way.”

“And I will.”

“How?”

The man didn’t answer. Her voice grew quieter.

“We have two children.”

“I know.”

“We barely have enough food for them, and you brought two strangers into our home.”

Nino slowly turned his face toward the wall.

“One of them can barely stand,” the man replied.

“I’m not saying you should’ve left that man to die on the road.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we can’t keep giving away what we don’t have.”

Silence returned. When the woman spoke again, there was less irritation in her voice than fear.

“If those creatures come back tomorrow, there might not be any crops left. What are our children going to eat?”

The man took a moment to answer.

“We’ll find a way.”

“You always say that.”

“And we’re still here.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you bring them inside?”

The question remained between them for a few seconds.

“Because they needed help.”

“We need help too.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

This time, the answer was simple.

“Because that’s what good people do.”

The woman said nothing.

“There doesn’t need to be another reason,” he continued. “Someone needed help. We could help.”

“Even when we barely have anything?”

The man slowly exhaled.

“It’s who we are.”

For a few seconds, Nino heard only the fire burning in the other room. Then the woman answered:

“I hope God is looking out for us too. Because our children still need to eat tomorrow.”

The conversation ended shortly afterward. Nino remained awake. He looked at Tenshi sleeping on the floor and then at the empty bowl he had left on a small box beside the bed.

Good people.

For most of his life, Nino had never stopped to think about what made someone good. There were orders and results. Useful people and useless ones. Allies and enemies. Those who obeyed and those who had to be forced to obey.

Hero was just another title. Then Alicia appeared.

A girl who had nothing and still cared about other people. A child who asked the names of those everyone else treated like numbers. Who worried about strangers, about other children, even about him.

Nino closed his eyes.

Because that’s what good people do.

The pain tore through his chest again. This time, when he opened his eyes, he looked at the sword resting beside the bed.

When the woman woke, the sun was only beginning to rise over the mountains.

She added more wood to the fire before preparing what little they had for breakfast. The children were still asleep, and her husband had gone out to check the fields before they woke.

After a while, she set aside some clean water and a few cloths. The stranger would need his bandages changed. She walked to the small room and knocked twice.

“Are you awake?”

No answer. She knocked again.

“I’m coming in.”

She opened the door. The bed was empty.

For a moment, she thought Nino might have gone somewhere nearby. Then she noticed that the blankets had been folded over the mattress and that the makeshift sleeping place on the floor had also been tidied.

The two of them had left.

The woman looked at the small table. No money or message. Nothing.

“Idiots,” she muttered.

That was when she heard the shouting. She froze. One voice came from outside. Then another. For an instant, her first thought was of the children. Her second was of the creatures.

The woman ran outside.

The few neighbors who lived there were leaving their homes while a man shouted near the fields. Others were running toward the crops, some carrying tools that would hardly serve as weapons.

“What happened?” she asked.

No one answered. She followed the others. When she reached the first broken fence, she stopped. One creature lay dead on the other side. Then she spotted another. And after a few more steps, dozens of them.

Bodies were scattered among the crops, along the fences, and as far as the distant trees. Some were small, while others were large enough to take down a man with ease. They were the same creatures that, night after night, had destroyed the fields and forced the villagers to hide inside their homes.

None of them were alive. Her husband stood several yards ahead.

“What happened here?” one of the neighbors asked.

No one knew how to answer.

The woman walked among the bodies until she noticed a deep mark cutting across the ground. The earth had been split open by something sharp, and one of the larger creatures lay dead at the end of the gash.

Her husband approached. She looked at him. Neither of them needed to say anything.

Nino and Tenshi were already far from the village by the time the sun had fully risen.

Tenshi walked a few steps behind him, watching the red stains beginning to seep through the bandages around his arm again.

“You knew.”

Nino kept walking.

“Knew what?”

“That using Pulse would make the poison worse.”

“...”

“I saw you yesterday. You could barely stand before we went to sleep. Now you’re worse.”

“Then stop looking.”

Tenshi quickened his pace.

“How many were there?”

“I didn’t count.”

“A lot?”

“Enough.”

Tenshi remained silent for a few yards.

“You could’ve died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“This time.”

“...”

Tenshi looked at him again.

“Why?”

Nino kept walking.

“They gave us food.”

“So you killed all those things for a bowl of soup?”

“The soup was good.”

Tenshi let out a small laugh. They continued down the road. After some time, Tenshi spoke again.

“It was my sister, wasn’t it?”

Nino slowed slightly.

“What?”

“Alicia.”

Nino looked at him. Tenshi hesitated before continuing.

“She’s the one who made you start doing things like this?”

For a few seconds, Nino didn’t answer. He remembered a blind girl holding the red ribbon that remained from her teddy bear, asking if she could call him by a name no one had ever used before. Then he remembered the man’s voice from the night before.

Because that’s what good people do.

Nino turned his eyes back to the road.

“Veyra is still far away.”

The two continued walking. To Tenshi’s surprise, it was Nino who broke the silence again.

“Mister Hero...” Nino gave a faint smile.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what did you want me to call you?”

“You can call me Nino.”

Tenshi brightened immediately.

“I knew it! She’s the one who changed you... It had to be.”

“...” Nino frowned, confused.

“Nino was the name of her teddy bear. I don’t know what happened, but I’m glad you kept the name.”

Then, without another word, they continued on their way to Veyra.