"Paul, where were you during the attack on the fort?"
A wave of fear and terror washed over the bespectacled boy, while the rest silently stared at Asan with questioning looks.
"Hey, Asan, what does this have to do with…" Laszlo began to say, but Asan waved his hand towards him, indicating that now was not the time for questions.
Asan looked at the boy in glasses, watching as sweat dripped down his face, whether from running or from the nervousness of the question. For the first few seconds, Paul, not taking his eyes off Asan, stared at him, but it was clear that the question had thrown him off, as he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Paul's eyes darted around, then he snorted and straightened up.
"Asan, how does this question relate to the current situation? I-I don't see the point in discussing this now, especially when in the forest Alice might need our..." — Paul quickly said, until he noticed the angry and menacing expression on Asan's face.
"This isn't an answer to my question. Where were you during the attack on the fort? Answer me" — Asan almost growled, his face turning red like a tomato. It was a mystery to everyone why this was happening, except for the Geographer and Paul himself.
"Stop this right now!" Geographer barked, looking at Asan with a furious gaze that Nelson noted, seemingly confirming something to himself.
Asan quickly shifted his gaze to the Geographer, bewildered, not understanding why he had raised his voice at him. This was the first time Geographer had lost his composure and looked at someone with anger in his eyes, instead of his usual coldness. But rather than regain control and assess the situation calmly, Asan found no better option than to get even more infuriated.
"I'm asking for the last time, where was Paul during the attack on the fort?!" Asan said, feeling the situation escalate. A few people from the camp began to emerge from the trench and were already watching the verbal altercation between the strike force. Geographer noticed this, and Asan thought he saw even more fury ignite in his eyes.
Crane, who had been looking at Paul with cold fury before, now looked at Asan, nodding his head negatively but not trying to stop anything. Bridgite, who usually stood silently without saying a word, this time was looking at Paul, apparently also waiting for an answer to Asan's question, as if it were some world mystery that needed to be solved. Only Laszlo, who had fully supported Asan until then, didn't know where to go. His gaze kept shifting between Asan and the bespectacled one, as if he couldn't decide which side to take. Only Nelson and his personal knight seemed to maintain neutrality and merely observed from the sidelines, not intervening in the verbal sparring at all.
"Asan, you seem too tired, let's rest while we go look for Alice and the others, okay?" Paul said with a trembling voice and a clearly fake smile, spreading his arms wide and watching the others, hoping for some support in his words.
In some ways, Paul was right. Perhaps if Asan had rested more and participated less in battles, his mental state would have been better. The anger boiling inside him and his true self he desperately suppressed to avoid stirring any arguments or conflicts within the team. But such a decision was extremely dangerous, because even a minor disagreement could cause his patience to snap instantly, cracking their so-called "peace" within the strike team. Asan didn't like being ordered around, but he endured it to avoid causing trouble for others.
He suppressed his inner self. But now...
Now he wasn't going to stop when his nerves were on edge.
"No. No, Paul. You, bitch, are going to answer my questions" Asan began speaking with undisguised aggression, his hands already shaking with rage and hatred.
Such behavior caused concern among the others. Crane started gripping his axe tighter, Laszlo placed his hand on the hilt of his flamberge. The Geographer's teeth seemed to grind together from how tightly he was clenching his jaw. Even Bridgite, who had been standing next to Asan before, moved away from him slightly, as if afraid of getting hit.
"Asan, that's enough! This is too much! You've completely lost it!" Laszlo said, stepping forward and standing in front of Asan, blocking Paul with his broad build.
"Paul, I... I was in the temple" Paul unexpectedly decided to answer.
Asan silently watched the expression on the glasses-wearing guy's face, observing his darting eyes and sweating face. Paul lowered his gaze down, as if being scolded. His shoulders were slumped, and his face had paled too much. Without much thought, Asan looked towards Bridgite, but she merely shook her head negatively, indicating that he was lying and speaking falsely.
"Stop bullshitting. In the temple, there was Bridgite. She hid with people to help them cope with panic, and you weren't there when the temple was destroyed. Why, when I saw you, didn't you even have a single wound?! Huh?!" — Asan said, circling around Laszlo and slowly approaching Paul.
"Asan, stop what you're doing right now immediately!" — Suddenly blocking his path, Geographer glared at him with intense hostility, once again breaking him out of his established image.
People who had been resting in the moat were already listening intently to the argument of the assault group. From time to time, an exciting whisper came from behind Asan. Perhaps that was why the person standing in front of him was on edge. But, in any case, Asan thought. The whole picture of Paul and the Geographer fell into place when he observed their reactions. Geographer knew, he knew that Paul wasn't protecting people, but was... just a coward.
He's a coward. An ordinary coward who didn't fight because he was afraid. What Asan had previously not paid much attention to became obvious now. In every battle, Paul tried to stay away from the fighting and command from a distance. But what was wrong with being a coward? What was wrong with worrying about his own life and such? There was nothing wrong with that, but then... could Asan accept the fact that a coward had been commanding him for such a long time?
He's also a coward at heart who said that he would abandon everyone if he needed to survive, but he didn't abandon the others under the bloody rain, did he? Asan himself was confused about who he was and why he was doing things he never would have done… At least, that's what he thought.
In almost two months of the journey, he had become someone else, kinder, caring about other people and not just his own survival. But… Yes. He considered each member of the strike team his family. Does this mean that Asan simply couldn't accept Paul for who he is? Well…
Maybe that's true.
Geographer didn't expect Asan to suddenly grab him by the shoulder and push him aside so he wouldn't block the way to Paul.
A surprised expression appeared on the Geographer's face, which quickly turned back to angry once he realized what had happened.
"Y-you?!" Hissed Geographer, clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
But Asan didn't care what Geographer, Laszlo, or anyone else thought of him right now. Even though his gaze was clouded with anger, he remembered that while they were sorting things out, Alice could die at any moment in the forest, and they needed to hurry. Moving close to Paul, Asan met his gaze, which Paul tried to avoid by all means, not wanting to look him in the eye.
"We're going to search for Alice together, me and our leader of the strike team. And this time we'll return with three of us, I'll make sure you don't escape again, you bastard" said Asan, leaning into Paul with his entire frame. Though he was small, thin, scarred, and tired, in Paul's eyes he seemed bigger than anyone else.
"Y-yes... Okay" whispered Paul softly.
Suddenly Asan felt something flying towards him from behind. Instinctively, he turned to his mana, which immediately flowed into his hand. Literally just a second before his head collided with Laszlo's fist, the fist suddenly trembled and stopped an inch away from his head. Now at least Asan knew what exactly his gravity was doing. Although it was consuming a considerable amount of mana, it made sense since he had almost completely halted all of Laszlo's striking force, which he had been building up like crazy.
"Laszlo, what the fuck are you doing?" Asan asked angrily, turning his head and seeing sadness in his friend's eyes. For some reason, something in Asan's chest wavered, but this feeling quickly passed because he was determined to see this through.
Soon, TERM_2's fist stopped encountering any resistance from the suddenly appearing transparent wall and he lowered his fist.
As soon as this happened, TERM_1 and TERM_6 immediately left the camp, going deeper into the forest of shadows.
On that day, TERM_1 decided that he would leave the camp shortly after emerging from the forest.
***
A few paces away from the moat, among the trees, stood two people, one of whom looked incredibly angry, while the other silently observed his actions. The one whose face was known in the camp as the leader, and who had saved everyone, bringing them to the much-desired Alps where they could create an ideal place for all to live, and the one who had previously been the leader of the military group.
"How... How dare this fucking worm?! He's a sheep, and I'm the shepherd, so how dare he?!" TERM_57 angrily struck the tree, leaving a web of cracks on the sturdy trunk.
The geographer was torn apart by rage. Before, he could tolerate Asan and his antics only because the latter was truly important to him, but after today's events… He could undermine his authority… Could this petty little sneak actually be vying for his position as leader?! Could he be a wolf in sheep's clothing?!
"Hey… Geographer… " whispered the one standing next to him, Nelson, who was smoking cigars he had miraculously found among the ruins of the fort.
"What do you want, Fuck?!" nearly shouted Geographer, blood dripping from his knuckles.
"Why don't you just get rid of him? Since he's such a problem, you could simply eliminate him" said Nelson with a smile, taking a puff on his cigar and exhaling the scent of tobacco from his mouth.
"That's… Too big a risk."
"You yourself said that he's the strongest in the entire strike team" Geographer said, placing his hand on his hair and leaning his back against the tree he had just hit.
"Hmm, I'm not talking about now! We can arrange things so that it looks like he died... in battle. But we shouldn't do this in the forest; he's too dangerous, both the forest itself and Asan. We'll do it when we get out..." Nelson said, closing his eyes as if lost in thought.
"That's when I'll crush that damn bug. I'll smash him to hell, he'll regret ever daring to bite his master..." Geographer said with a vicious grin, clenching his fists so tightly that blood flowed even more profusely.
This is how Geographer decided to kill Asan.