Not the Hero, Not the Villain — Just the One Who Wins-Chapter 86: The Scars We Carry

They all looked at me as I emerged from the gaping maw of the cave, a solitary figure stepping from the abyss into the pale, pre-dawn light. My whole body was a canvas of crimson, the dark, viscous blood of the Goblin King and his horde clinging to my clothes, my skin, my hair. It was not the clean, honorable blood of a warrior, but the thick, cloying gore of a butcher.

Layla’s team, having just arrived, froze. Their expressions, once a mixture of grim determination and weary concern, shifted to ones of pure, unadulterated shock.

"Ashen," Layla said, her voice a sharp, cutting note of alarm as she took an involuntary step back. "What happened? Why do you look like that?"

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. The words were trapped in my throat, choked by the bile and the horror of what I had just done, of what I had just become.

Cecilia, ever the pragmatist, scoffed, her voice laced with a familiar, aristocratic disdain. "It looks like he had all the fun while we were just killing some low-level beasts and wandering around in the dark."

Nyx, a slow, predatory smile touching her lips, added, "And now he will frown and act all broody, like he’s the hero who has borne the weight of the world. That’s not fair."

I glared at her, my eyes, I knew, still glowing with the faint, residual light of my rage. It was a bloodlust so profound, so raw, that it made even the void-wielding Nyx flinch. I stood for a moment, my body trembling with the aftershocks of the battle, and then I turned and walked away, my footsteps heavy, my own shadow seeming to recoil from me. I needed peace. I needed silence. I knew if I remained with them for a few more minutes, I would lose what little control I had left. I made my way to a small, secluded lake nearby, its surface a perfect, still mirror of the bruised, pre-dawn sky.

As I left, the first of the survivors began to emerge from the cave, their movements slow, hesitant, like ghosts returning to a world that had forgotten them. They were followed by Liora and Aurelia, their own bodies a testament to the brutality of the fight they had just endured. Liora’s arm was in a makeshift sling, her face pale with pain. Aurelia, her golden hair matted with blood, leaned heavily on her, a deep, ugly gash on her forehead still weeping a thin trickle of crimson.

Layla’s team, their own petty squabbles forgotten in the face of this new, grim reality, immediately moved to help. They took out their supply of healing potions, their hands gentle as they tended to the wounded villagers.

"What happened to him?" Layla asked, her gaze fixed on my retreating form as she pointed toward me.

Liora, her own voice a raw, trembling whisper, recounted everything. She told them of the horrors we had found in the cave, of the dead and the dying, of the pregnant woman’s final, desperate act. And she told them of my rage, of the monster that had been born in that dark, terrible place.

A small girl, the one whose eyes had pulled me back from the abyss, was listening, her own small face a mask of silent, uncomprehending grief. She looked at the small, glowing healing potion in Layla’s hand. "Can I have one of those?" she asked, her voice a tiny, fragile thing. "The one that heals?"

Layla, her own expression softening with a profound, maternal pity, patted the girl’s head and handed her the potion. "Of course, little one."

The girl looked at her mother, who nodded her approval. Then, she turned and made her way toward me.

I was staring at my reflection in the still, dark water of the lake, at the monster that stared back at me, when I heard her small, hesitant voice.

"Uncle?"

I didn’t turn.

"Here," she said, holding out the glowing potion. "Have this. It will heal your wounds."

"I don’t need it," I said, my voice a hollow, empty thing. "My wounds won’t be healed by something like that."

"But that girl with the pretty, silver hair said it heals wounds," she insisted, her voice filled with a child’s unwavering conviction.

"Yes," I said, my gaze still fixed on the stranger in the water. "These potions, they heal the wounds you can see. But they can never heal the wounds that are on the inside."

She was confused, I could hear it in her silence. But then, she said, "Can chocolate heal inner wounds?"

I turned then, my own brows furrowing in confusion. "What?"

"Yes," she said, a new, excited energy in her voice. "Whenever I feel bad, or sad, or anything, I simply eat a piece of chocolate, and it makes me feel good. You should try it." She began to rummage through the small pockets of her tattered dress, her expression turning from one of hopeful excitement to one of profound, heartbreaking disappointment. "Oops," she whispered, her lower lip trembling. "My mother always told me to eat in moderation. I’m sorry, uncle. I ate my last piece of chocolate." Tears began to well in her small, innocent eyes. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

I laughed. A real, genuine laugh that seemed to shatter the cold, heavy silence that had settled over my soul. "It’s okay," I said, my own voice a little less broken now.

"But I will give you a piece of chocolate once we get back home," she insisted, her voice filled with a fierce, unwavering determination. "I have many chocolates there."

My mood, which had been a dark, swirling storm of self-loathing and despair, began to change. She really meant it. And I knew, with a certainty that was both ridiculous and deeply moving, that she wouldn’t let me go without eating that chocolate.

She looked down at the glowing potion in her hand. "What should I do with this, then?"

"Give it to me," I said, my voice a soft murmur.

She handed it to me, her small hand brushing against my own bloody, battered one. And I drank it. The potion, warm and sweet, washed away the physical pain, but it was the simple, unadulterated kindness of a child that began to heal the deeper wounds within.

From a distance, all the people, the survivors and the saviors, looked at the very same monster who had just moments before been a whirlwind of death and destruction, now sitting by a quiet lake, brought back from the brink by a little girl with a promise of chocolate.