Chapter 138: Innate Good or Evil

"To my chagrin, we are in different classes," Ahmed sighed dramatically, making everybody ignore this love-sick man.

"Besides me, there is Najwa — she is the best in our class."

"How strong are we talking about?" Tom Nguyen asked.

"Najwa is like a Goddess of War walking on the mortal plane," Khadijah explained. "She’s beautiful, imposing, intimidating, and gentle at the same time. Her stats are slightly lower than Devonte and Faletui, but she’s extremely aggressive and resilient. No one can last longer in a fight against her."

"Her stamina is indeed terrifying," Ahmed added, and Devonte nodded.

"You guys know each other?" Zane asked.

"We’ve met in the Paladin Order."

"That makes sense."

"Continue," Keesha motioned with her hand.

"There is Uzoma; he’s also received a blessing from Ogun —"

"The Orisha God of War?"

"Not just war, but also metal, iron, and heroism."

Zane nodded. "He’d probably make a great blacksmith."

Khadijah sighed. "I said the same thing to him, but he didn’t care much."

"It’s his loss," Ahmed added.

"Finally, there is Mykhailo. He’s the only warrior whose performance can rival the top knights. He’s also the only one who can give me a real challenge with a shield."

"Wait, is his name Mykhailo Rykov?"

"I think that’s his last name, but I’m not sure."

"Is he handsome with brown hair, green eyes, and in his late 20s?"

"He does have these features, but I don’t know his age."

"Does he have a scar on his left shoulder that looks like a tree with countless roots?"

"How would she know that?" Ahmed asked.

"Oh, right, my bad."

"Do you know him?" Keesha asked.

"I think it’s someone I know." Zane wasn’t sure, but the possibility wasn’t zero. He remembered how Myk seemed to already know about the potions that could cure his mother. Before, he didn’t think much about it, but now he had his suspicions. "The departure day is coming. I’ll just ask him," Zane thought.

"What about that guy you mentioned the other day? The one who won the last championship," Ahmed asked.

Khadijah frowned. "You’re talking about the cheater?"

"Yes, him."

"Cheater?" Keesha asked. "Can you cheat in tournaments?"

"There is a knight in my class who trains by taking enough steroids to kill an elephant; it makes his life energy extremely active, and he follows it with intense training."

Keesha stopped eating. "You can do that?"

"Our professor warned him that it would destroy his body, decrease his control over his life energy, make it more challenging to condense his battle core, and even reduce his lifespan, but he didn’t listen."

"Your instructor didn’t stop him?" Tom Nguyen asked.

Khadijah shook her head. "According to the tower, a recruit has the right to sacrifice their future potential for rapid gain in power. Their task is to inform them of the danger."

"Wait," Tom continued. "By that logic, doesn’t that mean it’s perfectly normal for recruits to make a deal with inter-dimensional creatures like devils and eldritch beings?"

"Yes, and from what I gather, there is even a profession designed to negotiate contracts with these entities."

"What if the entity is the demon race?" Zane asked.

"Yes, that is also allowed."

"You’re joking, right?"

"There is no way."

"I’m not," Khadijah said, shaking her head. "We had an entire discussion on the topic. Our instructor said that our relationship with the demon race is an internal issue of the Earth Dimension. We can choose to accept people affiliated with the demon race, encourage it, or treat them as traitors —that’s for Earth to decide. Their purpose is just to train us."

"If it’s our decision, then it should be fine, right?" Evelyn asked. "Surely, no one would be stupid to treat our invaders as allies or partners."

"I wouldn’t be too sure," Zane added. "Humans can empathize with anything and anyone. Adding the fact that the demon race hasn’t done anything yet, I’m sure a lot of people do not consider them a threat."

"You would be correct. Our class argued on the subject, and more than half supported a relationship with the demon race."

"Are they mad?" Keesha asked.

"I can see their point." All eyes turned to Ahmed.

"Are you serious?" Keesha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. "Are you seriously siding with the Demon Race? They’re evil."

"They are not evil."

"Yes, they are; they are creatures born for killing and destruction."

"That’s bio-essentialism, and very dangerous," Ahmed argued. "The Demon Race is a highly militarized and aggressive civilization, but they are not innately evil; that’s just learned behavior. The only race you could argue is "innately evil’ is the Abyss Race, but even I’m not fully convinced."

Keesha looked around. "Someone back me up here."

"I’m with Ahmed," Khadijah said.

"Oh, you don’t count."

"I don’t know, maybe he has a point," Tom Nguyen said.

"So, you’re telling me you would trust and accept someone who has made a deal with a demon?" Keesha asked.

Tom shook his head. "Of course not. However, I think we should consider the possibility that Demon Lord Shakurri is a warmonger and not a representation of the entire race."

"But we have countless records of their civilization invading, killing, and plundering — he’s not an exception, but the standard," Evelyn interjected.

"And that’s just the tip of the iceberg," Evans added. "Their list of crimes is probably too long to write down."

"The victor writes history. Right now, the Demon Race is under extreme management, but that doesn’t mean they are innately evil," Kjadijah countered.

Keesha sneered. "Under extreme management? Besides being helpful for the Abyss Invasion, have they ever done anything good?"

"To be fair, we have no idea what the demon race was like before their battle with the Divine Race," Ahmed said.

"And you just assume they were a peaceful civilization?" Evans asked.

"No, but all I’m saying is we don’t know, so we shouldn’t judge."

Keesha exhaled, trying to regulate her elevated blood pressure. "You two haven’t said anything yet. What’s your take?"

Devonte raised his hands. "I have no opinion."

"You?"

"The way I see it," Zane said, finishing the last piece of chocolate. "The truth does not matter — at least for now. Until we’ve dealt with this invasion, the demon race must be treated as our irreconcilable enemy, with no exception. Maybe there are kind individuals among them, maybe there is more to their civilization that meets the eye, but we cannot afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, the price we’ll pay is...incalculable."

Ahmed sighed deeply. "A realistic approach, but it may be the correct one." Only a powerful and stable civilization has the power and time to think about the nature of the Demon Race. As for Earth? They truly cannot afford to show any sympathy.

The group continued their conversation for a while before returning to their dorms. Zane’s focus was on his thesis, and he had spent the past few days doing an outline of all the steps he’d need to build his [Magic Analysis Program]. He finally completed it, but there was an issue: "I can’t complete all that work alone in a year." Even if he gave up all his studies, training, and homework, he might not finish in time.

"I need help." Zane suddenly remembered his idea to create a club for software engineers and coders; he also remembered the website he was supposed to publish—the one that helped people calculate the perfect trajectory for their spell engraving. "Someone probably already created one," Zane sighed as he logged into the club forum.

"Um? I was right — someone else did create the club." He focused his mind to enter the link, which redirected him to the club webpage. "How cliché." The first thing he saw on the page was the binary code for the word software. After shaking his head, Zane scrolled down the page, and to his surprise, he found two interesting things.

First, someone else had indeed published a website that could calculate the optimal spell trajectory, and this person was from the club. However, the tower shut down the website because the man kept user data, which let him access spells without buying them. By the time the website owner fixed the issue, a few others were already available.

The second interesting thing Zane found on the webpage was that someone else suggested creating a program to analyze spells, or magic in general. An entire club activity revolved around this project. Ultimately, the software engineers concluded that while it was possible, they lacked sufficient understanding of magic theory and Gremorian Mathematics knowledge to pull it off.

"I can hire these guys to help me with the program," Zane thought. Only he could build the core codes, but there should be no issue outsourcing the rest. The only issue is he didn’t have the money now, and by the time he does, these guys might be financially stable and not interested in his miser reward.

"Let’s see how things are after hunting season," Zane decided.