The Cost Of Compassion

Bearowls typically just look like bears with feathers and the head of an owl, though they’re are a lot tougher than normal bears. However, this one is covered in dark, wood-like plating, with vines hanging between the crevices in its armor.

“We have to leave. Now.” I whisper.

“What?! Why?! It’s a sitting duck!” Petra protests.

“It’s a Verdant Bearowl. This isn’t a 3rd Order mission, it’s a 4th Order one.”

“So… what? It’s more tree-like? Who cares. There’s four of us.”

“You don’t understand. It’s a mutant. The monster didn’t adapt to its environment, its environment adapted the monster. Mutants come from mana-heavy biomes. They’ve naturally got a lot more mana than their normal counterparts. It’s too dangerous. Besides, it’s a rare species, if we go get the help needed to capture it alive—”

“And so the truth comes out,” Arthur interrupts.

“What?”

“Enough excuses. You just want to keep this thing alive. It’s made of wood and fire magic is my specialty. We’re killing it here and now!”

Arthur goes charging in, chanting an incantation, forcing us to summon our monsters and rush after him.

“Arthur, stop! You don’t understand!”

“—and let the flames rise! Blaze Pillar!”

A tower of fire engulfs the bearowl.

Arthur chuckles. “You were saying—gah!”

With a burst of wind magic, I hurtle toward Arthur, tackling him aside just before the bearowl’s claw comes down.

“Its wood plating is fire resistant! Why won’t you ever just listen to me?!”

“I—”

The bearowl lets out a roar, and I turn around to find it standing right over us. But before it can slash at us—

“Gyah!” Petra smashes into it with her club, knocking it back.

Despite hitting it as hard as she could, she barely leaves a dent. “What?! You gotta be kidding me!”

Lucas, Sugarcube, Pudding, and I—all horrible matchups against this monster—have no attacks even worth trying.

“Ugh! This is exactly what I was talking about! We don’t have the firepower to pierce its defenses!”

“Then how about—”

“No! You can’t use Heaven Splitter! We’re too close to the local river. If we cause a cave-in there’s a chance we could destroy the town’s water supply!”

The bearowl charges Petra, but Pepper comes to her aid. The two wrestle with the bear owl, struggling to keep it from toppling them. Arthur tries hitting it with explosion magic from behind, but it has little effect.

“Then what exactly are we supposed to do here, Nora?!”

“I… um… I got it! There’s this earth spell I’ve been working on, a more advanced version of magic I used to immobilize large creatures when I was training with Vincent—but I’d need you guys to hold the bearowl in place for a while—”

“I don’t know if that’s something we can manage, Nora—”

Vines start shooting out of the bearowl’s crevices and grabbing at Petra and Pepper’s limbs. Arthur quickly moves to slash some away while I burn others, but they’re regrowing too quickly.

Come on! Think, Nora! Think! There’s gotta be a—

“I got it! The crevices in the plating! if we could just hit a vital spot through one of them—”

“Nora, how about the back of its neck?” Lucas shouts.

“Yeah, that’d be perfect!”

“Petra, you and Pepper hold it in place from the sides! Arthur, you take the back! I’ll put up a barrier in the front! Nora, once we get it under one of the patches of stalactites on the ceiling, I need you to use magic to break them off! If we do that, at least one of them should end up piercing straight through its neck!”

But that’ll kill—

“I’m burning through mana fast here, Lucas!” Petra shouts.

“Do it!”

Petra and Pepper knock the bearowl backward.

“Ogre Magic: Polar Crush!”

As Petra and Pepper swing their clubs from opposite sides, the clubs snap together like magnets, pinning the bearowl in between.

Arthur pushes it from the back, moving it into position, and Lucas throws up a wind barrier. The bearowl is crushed between the four of them, forced onto its hind legs, struggling to break free.

“Now, Nora!”

I start casting my earth spell, slowly pulling up the cave floor around the bearowl.

“Nora?! What are you doing?! Hit the ceiling!”

“No! We don’t need to kill it! I can capture it safely!”

“Nora! We can’t hold it much longer! You have to take the shot!”

My spell’s now over halfway up the monster.

“No! I’m almost there! I just need a bit longer!”

“Nora! Please! I can’t—AAARGH!”

“LUCAS!”

I scream out as I watch the owlbear finally smash through his barrier with its claw, raking deep across Lucas’s chest.

My concentration breaks and the spell instantly unravels. The bearowl swings around, knocking the others to the ground, then retreats through a passageway deeper into the cave.

I collapse to the ground as the weight of what I’ve just done to Lucas hits me.

Petra sprints over to Lucas, tearing the cloth off her waist and wrapping it tightly around him. “If I don’t get him back to the village now, he’s not gonna make it. You two do what you can to block that passageway so we can keep the monster contained until we can come back for it, then catch up with me.”

As Petra races away and Arthur quickly works to seal the passageway, I lie frozen on the ground. I can’t feel, I can’t think, I can hardly even breathe—it’s like none of this is even real. I can’t even tell how much time is passing—

THUD!

Before I know it, Arthur has picked me up and slammed me against the wall, knocking the wind out of me. He holds me by the collar, his face contorting with rage.

“This. This is what your sympathies for monsters will get us. Congratulations. You saved the monster. Now Lucas is likely to die. Was it worth the trade? Are you happy?”

I shake my head and sob as tears start flooding down my face.

Tears gently from Arthur’s eyes as well.

“I am sick and tired of watching good people die. Of watching our kingdom terrorized by this blight. If you want to get yourself killed then go on ahead, but I will not stand idly by and watch others get wrapped up in this suicidal compassion of yours. We are in a fight for our very survival—and we’re losing. If we have to start worrying about enemies from within, it’s over. It will break us.”

He tosses me to the ground and heads for the exit.

“If you really are sincere in your desire for peace, if my initial assessment of you truly was correct, then you’ll do what’s right and cease with these infantile ideals of yours at once. Otherwise, I won’t hesitate to treat you as I would any other threat to this kingdom—”

He looks back.

“—and crush you beneath my heel.”

***

After collecting myself to what little degree I could and gathering Lucas’s things, I arrive back at the town. Vincent is wracked with guilt over his absence, Petra’s upbeat demeanor has entirely disappeared, and Arthur trains in solitude.

The town has a healing mage, but not a particularly powerful one. He’s just barely able to save Lucas’s life. None of us are in much mood to talk, and Lucas needs continued treatment and rest before he’ll be fully recovered tomorrow, so we put off deciding what to do next until then.

Pudding tries his best to cheer me up, but I de-summon him as his attempts only make me feel all the more ashamed of myself. While everybody else heads to their rooms, I stay awake at Lucas’s bedside until I eventually cry myself to sleep—tortured by the knowledge that I nearly cost my best friend his life.