Capítulo 12: Joten and Bree
Lucas slumped into a padded chair in his room at the Sakura with a heavy sigh. Exhaustion held the reins over his brain and controlled his movements like a plane on autopilot, and in that moment it commanded him to collapse into the nearest furniture. His head fell back over the headrest of the chair like a weight on a chain.
Though Savior Online largely protects its player inhabitants from pain, muscle fatigue, and physical exhaustion, nothing exists to shield the brain from overexerting itself, as Lucas's had. He struggled to keep recent events orderly in his mind. This was his first solitary moment of reflection since Joten had found him at his hermitage.
The past few days had dredged difficult memories from long-buried graves and plopped them onto Lucas's plate without warning. He had twice faced certain death and only prevailed by a hair. His mere definition as human became muddled as he grappled with the new NPC sentience. For a man who had drifted through the last five years after having lost his raison d'être, this sudden explosion of emotional shrapnel had overwhelmed his weakened faculties.
Outside likely held a crowd of villagers hoping to thank the player inside that had saved them. He had seen them start to gather. He had recognized the glint of awe in their gaze as they eyed him near the inn. Lucas could handle those - he had always had an uncanny knack for appreciating others' praise for him.
It was the others he couldn't face now. The ones who had lost homes, family, and friends. The ones who now sifted through the wreckage in search of a semblance of normalcy - a doll, a pillow, a hair clip - any small inkling of the memories of yesterday. Lucas knew they would feel responsible for thanking him and hiding their emotions upon seeing their Savior, so he avoided them, instead choosing to hide in the Sakura alone. They deserved an uninterrupted mourning period, and he deserved to unburden himself of the guilt.
A few moments into being swallowed by the padded chair, Lucas heard the door to his room open a crack. He opened a single eye and glanced askance at his unexpected visitor.
"Just wanted to check if you needed anything," Joten asked quietly. Lucas was surprised to find him here.
"You've already grown tired of your adoring fans?" Lucas asked, referring to the cheering group of onlookers that had surrounded Joten after returning to the village. All who had listened to his advice to escape into the forest rather than return to the village had survived. He was the true hero of the day. At least his antics hadn't flattened any homes.
Joten blushed a small blossom of pink. "They should be cheering for you. All I did was run away while you faced the demon single-handedly. I feel guilty stealing your glory," he admitted. Lucas couldn't help but smile at that. If only the kid knew how little he wanted any more cheering. How hollow it rang in his tired ears.
"True, anyone could have followed my advice and gathered people into the forest," Lucas admitted flippantly. He watched through the corner of his one opened eye as Joten deflated a bit. "But it wasn't just anyone who did it. It was you and you alone. Circumstance always makes the hero. You could be the bravest man in a quiet kitchen and no one would bat an eye. It is only when you are the bravest man during danger that one can be heroic."
Lucas could feel his exhaustion drip into his words toward the end of his rambling. He shut his mouth before his lecture devolved even further. The poor kid had lost a great role model in Ben, and now he had to deal with this crazed solitudinous hermit. Instead, he closed his one open eye and displayed his tiredness clearly through a long dramatic sigh.
"I actually do require a favor. We will be leaving for Freehold in the morning with Elvira's girl, Bree. I'm sorry that you will not be able to assist in the reconstruction efforts, but our goal is of greater importance. Please relay this message to Bree and Elvira. We embark at dawn," Lucas said with eyes closed. He placed his hands behind his head and enjoyed the comfort of the luxurious padded chair. A mattress rested on a tatami mat in the next room over, and for a moment he considered moving, but the inertia of his sluggish mind kept the synapses from firing that would have lifted him from the chair. Instead he drifted into a deep and dream-filled sleep as he heard the door close with a soft click.
---
Joten gingerly pulled the door to the player room and cursed his clumsiness when it closed with a loud click. The hero of the town was trying to sleep in there, and he didn't even have the good sense to close the door quietly!
His shame only lasted a moment, though, as he remembered the praise Lucas had heaped upon him. The Savior's words would be embossed in his mind for as long as he lived: "Circumstance always makes the hero." Joten flipped them over in his mind as he pondered Lucas's explanation. For the most part it made sense - a man standing alone in a room is no more a hero than the singular person in the room beside him. However, Joten still struggled to understand the explanation in full, as it wasn't true in his experience. For instance, anyone who saw Lucas could tell he was a hero, regardless of circumstance. The way he walked was full of the confident swagger that comes with the knowledge that nothing in the world could defeat him. His eyes burned with a sun's intensity, forcing one to look away before they became blinded by its strength. He rippled with muscle that effortlessly revealed itself under the slightest strain. Heroism came with a presence, regardless of circumstance.
Ben had exuded the same energy when he was around. Even when he smiled wide after making a childish joke, his presence was stiflingly apparent. It always hung overhead, as if reminding those around them that they could be snapped like a twig on a whim.
For a shy adolescent like Joten, this confidence was like the holy grail. The ability to conquer a room without a word, to command a conversation off-handedly, to impress a woman with a glance - these were all mythical characteristics that he had only understood in the depths of reverie. He dreamt of acquiring such incredible esteem from the first moment he lay his eyes on a Savior nearly seven years ago.
Before falling into a deeper trance of memory, Joten snapped to attention and remembered the task Lucas had given him. He groaned intensely, but not so loud as to alert Lucas to his discomfort through the door.
Bree. Why did it have to be Bree? Couldn't someone else accompany them?
Joten reluctantly made his way to the front of the Sakura, his feet dragging as if they were filled with concrete. In the excitement of saving everyone from the giant ancient demon, he had forgotten all about the troubles of his old life - especially Bree.
She seemed to relish in tormenting him over his quietness and refusal to defend himself. Flicking his ears from behind, pushing him into the mud after a heavy rain, making crude jokes at his expense in public - Bree seemed to take pride in her creative bullying of Joten, all the while knowing full well he wouldn't retaliate.
Joten liked to view his stance of non-retaliation as a noble pursuit worthy of a gentleman, but the truth was that he was afraid of her. Bree had been taller than him ever since childhood. Only in the past year had he finally shot past her in height, which he attributed to a fluke in development that would soon be corrected by granting her the same rapid growth until she once again towered above him. The worst part of the torment wasn't the size advantage, though - it was the fact that they had actually been close friends during childhood, and she knew various embarrassing details about him that she held hostage, likely waiting to release them at the most opportune time to create optimum shame and flush in Joten's face.
It was true that their relationship had once been amicable - even close. As early as seven years ago they had whispered jokes to one another beneath the noses of their demonic slavers, daringly defying them in the small ways that children rebel. They had frolicked together during dusk in her mother's small garden after the day of toiling was through, and watched intently as ladybugs devoured small green aphids on the leaves of tomato plants. Her parents kept the garden to bolster Bree's nutrition during the hard times of occupation by the Demon King's army, and had graciously shared some of the food with Joten's family to help him grow as well.
All that had changed when Bree's parents died shortly after their liberation. Lucas, Ben, and Cara had defeated the overseer of the village in spectacular fashion, and the chains that held the villagers' feet and hands dissolved into a brilliant gold dust. That had been Joten's first brush with true heroism. The calm, confident image of their warm smiles was burned into his mind as clear as his own mother's face.
Shortly after their liberation, Elvira had come to settle in Hillsborough. Rumors spread of her circumstances - having lost her only friends during an overzealous dungeon crawl, she settled for a quiet life in the village rather than seek further destruction at the hands of the Demon King's army. She settled in nicely and rarely spoke of her past, and after a few weeks people had practically forgotten that a former Savior lived among them. She was also instrumental in setting up Hillsborough's efficient farming plots and trade routes, so it became universally shameful to gossip over such a benefactor to the village.
One day a few months later, one of their original liberators, Ben, had come back to town to visit Elvira. Joten had overheard bits of their conversation in the common room of the Sakura, and he heard them discussing a plague with one another in hushed tones. A local gossip must have overheard as well, because rumors of a spreading plague exploded through the town in the next few days like… well, like a plague. A few days later, as if following the same established channels as the rumor, the real plague hit Hillsborough like a wildfire. Its destruction swept through town, claiming nearly half the residents before the disease finally ran its course. Bree's parents were two of those afflicted. Though Elvira had quickly adopted her and raised her as her own child, Bree had never been the same.
Joten barely registered the cheers of a few onlookers in the street as he exited the Sakura. The gloom that surrounded him was too thick to be penetrated by a few outbursts of joy. They'd need to move Heaven and Alstyn to change his attitude right now. He kicked up a clod of dirt from the road in anger before chastising himself for his childish pouting. Lucas had given him a request, and it was unbecoming of him to complain - but, man, did he want to complain. Why had he been so stupid as to interrupt Lucas in his room? He could have left him to his rest and gone to enjoy the praises of the crowd once more, but instead he desperately sought the player's approval like a lost puppy. Surely he would have found someone else to notify Bree of their departure in the morning.
Joten wound his way through Hillsborough in a melancholy mood, sometimes avoiding the direct path in favor of a roundabout route in order to avoid crowds or to prolong the time before his arrival. He knew it was immature, but he couldn't help himself; he was dreading knocking on Elvira's door and greeting Bree.
However, as was bound to happen eventually, Joten found himself in front of Elvira's sturdy stone home at the edge of Hillsborough. He noticed with raised eyebrows that the other homes around it had been obliterated entirely in some violent explosion, not even leaving a trace of their former plots. Old Man Eringer's home, Brau and Lilit's, Fenetel's, Dar's, the Vanderlay sisters'... at least a dozen homes had been reduced to dust and ash. Joten gulped as he observed the landscape, hoping nobody was inside when the attack happened. He recognized that the odds of that were slim to none, as Old Man Eringer rarely left his home these days.
After taking two deep breaths to steady himself and forget his worries of the other inhabitants around him, Joten raised a hand and knocked on Elvira's door. It was a new design, seemingly made of maple where her former one had been oak. He didn't understand how it worked, but Joten knew that Savior magic allowed them to easily and quickly change the designs of their buildings. He had seen it firsthand when Ben built the Sakura in a day a few years ago. Nothing about the homes of Saviors surprised him anymore.
After a few tense moments of waiting, the door swung open quickly. Before even seeing the occupant, Joten knew from the loud unlocking sounds and the speed of the door who had answered. It was Bree.
"What's up, dickhead?"
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Casual_ Apologies for the super long wait this week -- my puppy was in the hospital and my house flooded! It would cheer me up if you read, saved, and voted, though! Regular updates will resume now.
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