Chapter 115: Tips

Zaid and John turned to look at him, in shock.

"I didn’t know you could say things like that," Zaid said.

"Are you into philosophy? No wonder you read so many books..." John remarked.

Erick blinked several times. He felt his head burning and snorted, stopping paying attention to them.

Although what they said was quite true.

It’s true. Some people are already gone, but you’re alive. As long as you are, it’s worth keeping trying and moving forward.

In the future, new people will come into your life whom you can trust; you’ll tell them about the people you once knew, or perhaps you’ll simply think that if they were alive, the two of them would get along well.

Zaid, Erick, and John returned to their seats to continue eating after the killing spree they had just carried out. Each of them had their own thoughts about the situation. They weren’t used to killing people.

Although covered in blood, they ate and tried to ignore the terrible events.

They spoke little for the rest of the time. All three were deep in thought.

After eating and drinking some water, Erick went to read a book while he dozed off, though one of them would stay behind to keep watch, just to be safe. Fortunately, they didn’t need much sleep since they had become Awakened. They could stay awake for long periods of time without being too affected by it; perhaps John was the only one who might have trouble with that, since he was the weakest.

However, with everything that had been happening recently, he wasn’t the least bit sleepy. He was still trying to come to terms with the death of his brothers at the hands of someone he had trusted—and now someone else he had trusted had also betrayed him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been betrayed, but so many betrayals happening in quick succession and resulting in such terrible losses took a toll on him mentally.

Zaid approached him when he saw him sitting by the edge of the old-fashioned well and sat down beside him.

"Do you think hunters are hypocrites, John?"

John frowned and looked at him. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," Zaid replied.

"Hm." John nodded and didn’t answer right away.

He let the minutes pass, thinking of an answer.

"Most of us have a certain degree of hypocrisy, actually. I don’t think it’s inherent to hunters."

"Well, it’s true that we humans are hypocrites when it suits us. But look at the world of hunters. We have no choice but to be hired killers. Because killing gives us status, strength, and the ability to survive in a world governed by the law of the strongest; yet, in the eyes of civilians, we act like heroes."

"We have two sides that civilians don’t tend to see, and that’s why they spend millions of dollars a day granting hunters status, power, and wealth. Do you think they’d treat us the same if they knew everything that goes on inside a dungeon?"

John frowned. "That’s a tough question to answer. Once you enter the world of hunters, killing beasts isn’t murder... It’s simply survival."

Zaid nodded, a chuckle escaping his lips. "In fact, we try to survive day to day. But we take lives—countless lives—along the way. Occasionally we even have to get our hands dirty with human blood because failing isn’t an option. If you fail, your dreams and goals fall apart. Your family and friends might too. It wasn’t so obvious before because no one could defend themselves against the killers. But now we can... and since we can, we kill without giving a second thought to numbers or causes. We just do it."

John nodded. "It seems you have a point. Power turns us into hypocrites... and selfish people."

"The problem is when we let it corrupt us to the point where we’re willing to kill even those we once considered friends," Zaid murmured.

John listened to him and remained silent.

"Although killing them if they betray you isn’t wrong—after all, if they don’t die, you will. We must be selfish when it comes to our lives and our dreams."

"I wouldn’t want to be so selfish as to lose what little empathy I have left," John replied.

Zaid laughed. "You can be selfish without losing your humanity. "The problem, John, isn’t being selfish or hypocritical. It’s doing so without a just cause. Don’t we have a good reason to be hypocritical? To save civilians. To prevent their dreams and families from being destroyed... Essentially, we’re heroes, John."

"..." John remained silent. Noticing this, Zaid spoke again.

"We are heroes fighting for the common good of our race. Even though the first generation knew they might not make it out of the Portal of Calamities alive, they still went in to give the civilian population a chance to escape. Thanks to that act of heroism, many were able to get out."

"However, after the first generation died, there were no protectors left in the major cities and countries. In the end, more people died than they tried to save," John muttered.

Zaid nodded with a smile. "Yes. That’s why you can be selfish and hypocritical without losing your humanity. They wanted to be heroes, and they went down as heroes. They died because they took their acts of heroism to the extreme, but if you look closely, there was a good cause behind it all: saving the inhabitants of Gaia."

"What are you getting at?" John frowned.

"Here’s what I’m getting at, John. You can be selfish and hypocritical as long as you don’t take it to extremes. Once you take something—even good deeds—to extremes, it will be your downfall. A person who is selfish to the extreme loses empathy for those they love and will eventually end up alone. A person who is hypocritical to the extreme is so irritating that they don’t even have loyal subordinates."

"Be selfish enough to realize that your life is worth more than others’, but don’t be so selfish that you lose the empathy that makes you human. Be hypocritical enough to hide things from a child that they don’t need to know. Keep up the pretense—it’s okay to be two-faced occasionally, as long as you find a just cause for it within your own humanity. Because once you lose just causes and humanity..."

Zaid stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "I think you’re losing everything," he said, and then began to walk away.

"Don’t you think it’s too easy for you to say that? Your father loves you. It’s just your brothers who are a little crazy, but that’s normal for humans," John said, stopping him as he walked away.