Stupor had never taken hold of Artyom, unlike the other members of the party. While slack-jawed expressions surrounded him, he coldly took in his surroundings thanks to years of militaristic training. The village of Freeacres lay in ruins, smoke and rubble making up the collection of scattered buildings that made up its being. The survivors of the attack, at least the able-bodied ones, were gathered together in the center of town, either mourning their terrible loss or petrified by shell shock. Wails and sobs flowed freely from the group, with the occasional individual with a wide-eyed, blank expression. Artyom’s mind went still, his years of emergency training taking over and directing his voice and actions.

“Dark Lord?” asked Artyom, loud enough that the townsfolk could hear him. “What exactly happened, and when was it?” He practically barked the question out, pointing directly at Ruba in order to single her out. The bystander effect would delay the response if he asked the group as a whole, and if he was right, time could be of the essence.

“They killed so many and burned the whole town down! What are we going to do?” she responded, in between tears.

“Who did? Was it an army? And how many hours ago?” Artyom asked again, his voice now booming.

Ruba’s tears temporarily froze in shock at his voice, and she answered. “Y-Yes! The Dark Lord’s army came through and did this. It was this morning, maybe three hours ago?”

“Three hours?” asked Sae in a hoarse whisper, fists curled into painfully tight balls. He’d finally snapped back. “If we’d woken up earlier and ran, we could’ve gotten here in time.”

Pireni and Skeya held similar expressions, with snarling lips and narrowed eyes respectively.

“We’re going to get them!” shouted Sae, in a fit of rage. These poor villagers, who had taken them in, were standing on the steps of ruin, their village destroyed and many of them dead. Sae was furious.

“Let’s get them!” shouted Pireni in response.

All of the pain Skeya felt boiled to the top, resulting in a nod from her.

“Sae, everyone,” began Artyom. His voice and expression back to ice cold as he addressed the party. “You’re still newbies. You charge into the Dark Lord’s army, and you all die. Do you think that’s useful to these people?”

“But look at what they did to everyone!” shouted Sae, indignantly. “How can we sit back and do nothing?!”

Artyom’s cold stare turned absolutely frigid. “How about if you start with getting them to safety. There could be more survivors, buried in the rubble. And after that, a pile of ashes is no place to sleep, and it’s already midday. I know Chey’s farmhand went to town, and someone needs to tell him he doesn’t have a home anymore. Right now, we’re powerless against the real threat, so we need to be where we can do the most good. And that’s here.”

The unsaid emotions in his voice silenced Sae and froze his own rage. He realized that Artyom was right, and slowly nodded, the chill in the air even having soaked through his muscles. “You’re right, Artyom. Let’s help these people first.”

Artyom nodded in response and turned to address the gathered townsfolk. “Listen up, everybody! You’re all still alive, and there could be more of you buried in the rubble. We’re going to split into four teams, each led by one of us adventurers, and we’re going to start searching for survivors and whatever food you can find.”

The townspeople were silent, drinking in Artyom’s words. He turned to his party and continued.

“Alright, you three. We’re going to each pick out 5 or 6 of the villagers to help sift through the rubble. Try to get at least someone physically strong to help lift stones and logs, and someone lean and small to squeeze through tiny gaps. Sae, you take the North side of town, Pireni East, Skeya South, and I’ll take on the West. I want every building or ash pile checked for anyone who’s still alive or anything edible. There’s not much longer most of them can stay alive for if they’re buried under their own house.”

The three adventurers said nothing, their expressions conveying their feelings, and they all ran to the survivors. The four of them each picked out a small team from the gathered villagers and set out.

Stone after stone, log after log, Artyom’s team dug through house after house. Their wails quieted and tears dried as their grief was exhausted. It’d be back when they were safe. Artyom’s magic made it easier to move the rubble out of the way, but the work still took everything out of them. Sweat dripped from every pore in his body, mixing with the ashes and soot that settled on his skin, forming an uncomfortable paste. He didn’t have the luxury to be bothered by it, and continued his work.

“I found someone!” shouted a young girl who squeezed through a gap in the Western farmhouse. “Oh Goddess, it’s- ack” she burst into a fit of coughs. One of the lifters in the group, a bald man with bulging muscles from a lifetime at the forge, grabbed the girl by the feet and pulled her out of the hole while another lady got her some water from a flask.

The rescue team didn’t wait for her response and began to lift the rubble around the hole she climbed through. Ashes and dust flew as they quickly tossed the stones and logs to the side to get at whoever was trapped underneath.

Artyom lifted the final piece of wood, revealing Chey. He lied on the floor with dried blood covering a terrible gash on his chest. A look of grim determination covering up a primal fear was stuck to his face, his wide eyes revealing the cause of his fate.

“Another corpse for the pile,” said Artyom, his expression entirely blank. He ran out of tears long ago. “Someone’s gotta tell his farmhand that he has to find a new job now.”

Nobody laughed. They should be thankful to have never needed to develop gallows humor to cope.

“Some of these barrels are filled with wheat,” said one of the members of the team. “And one’s filled with fermenting sparkle.”

“Toss the sparkle, keep the wheat,” said another. “We can feed the whole village for a day with that, the drink is just dead weight at this point.”

“Good,” Artyom thought. “They’re learning.”

It took all of several hours, but the four teams had swept through the whole village. They’d found several survivors buried in the rubble, and twice as many corpses. Several barrels of food and family heirlooms were gathered on a scavenged cart tied to a pair of mules, ready to be carried to the nearest town and bartered with for a chance at survival.

“Everyone here?” asked Artyom, taking check of all of the villagers. Everyone was there, at least out of whoever was still alive. All of the corpses were gathered and roughly cremated in individual pyres. Skeya presided over their last rites, which consisted of a quick prayer of hope for the fate of their souls, wishing them a more pleasant afterlife. She didn’t have it in her to light the fires, and ran off before the town blacksmith could do so himself.

“If it makes you feel any better Skeya,” began Pireni. “You’ll probably level up after all that work.”

Artyom couldn’t help but smile. It looked like someone here had taken it up.

“Now that that’s taken care of, it’s on to the next step,” said Artyom, getting everyone’s attention. “Getting everyone somewhere safe. What are the nearest towns? Preferably ones with a standing army that can keep everyone safe from another attack.”

“There’s two I know of,” began Pireni. “One to the North and one to the West. North is much farther away, but much bigger and better defended. The one in the West is pretty big too, but not as much.”

“Hold on, which way did the army come from and go?” asked Artyom. “We don’t want to send the villagers anywhere near them, or towards a town that was already attacked.”

“Oh, I remember,” spoke up Ruba, the shock of the whole ordeal starting to wear off. The grief would come back harder, but she was free from it for now. “The Dark Lord’s army came from the South and travelled East.”

“In that case, we head West,” said Artyom, making the call. Besides, it’s starting to get late and the sooner these people are to safety, the better.

Everyone nodded. Sae did so with a scowl on his face.

“Still, we could’ve gotten here earlier and maybe even saved some lives!” he said, fury starting to bleed into his voice.

“We didn’t even know that the Dark Lord was here!” exclaimed Pireni. “There’s no way we could’ve known, so please don’t hold yourself at fault for this. I mean, I’m the one who brought the bottle of Sparkle and turned it into a little party! We probably wouldn’t have slept in if it weren’t for that!”

“Don’t feel bad, Sae,” said Skeya, snapping out of her own funk to comfort him. “The Dark Lord will face justice soon. The Great Hero of the Goddess will stop him!”

Artyom’s ears perked. This setup sounded quite familiar.

“That’s right, the Great Hero!” shouted Ruba, trying to cheer up everyone present, adventurers and townsfolk alike. “The Great Hero is still on his quest to become powerful enough to defeat him, so he wasn’t able to do anything here, but we need just wait! With his knowledge of the great, faraway land of California through his mighty Television, he will find the artifacts of the goddess and save our kingdom!”

Artyom’s eyes widened at Ruba’s statement. He stuck his left pinkie finger into his ear and scrubbed around to clear out any wax buildup, after which the other villagers parroted the same statement. It sounded ridiculous to him, but there it was. He’d found it. The real and only reason he’d come to this World in the first place. Artyom’s experiences taught him that suffering was a constant occurrence no matter where you go, and he’d learned to accept that. His job was to simply keep it away from the people of Earth, people for which he still had tears to spare.

“Yeah, I heard rumors that he was spotted North from here,” added Pireni. “Man, I’d love to head that way to meet with him! But we’ve got to take care of the villagers first.”

“Alright, everyone! Collect what belongings you can carry and enough food for a two day trip. If you have any other horses and wagons, bring them along too!” shouted Sae at the others. “Ok team, let’s help them out and make sure the way is safe. Hey Artyom, where are you going?”

Artyom was walking towards the dirt road to the North leading out of town. He looked back and simply replied, “I have something very important to do, I won’t be joining you. You can handle yourselves out there without me.”

“Wait, are you leaving?” asked Sae, incredulously.

“That’s what I said,” replied Artyom, his voice still eerily calm.

“As in the team? You just joined!”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Wait, leaving the team? Why?” asked Pireni, surprised by the sudden turn of events.

“I’ve got a mission I need to accomplish, and you three can take care of yourselves,” replied Artyom. “Sorry, but this is goodbye.”

“So just like that? Do you think you’re better than us or something? Is that it?” asked Sae.

“Yes, actually. I do. I came here to do something more important, and I finally have a lead on that. It’s for a greater good you wouldn’t understand.”

“Something more important than helping these villagers?” asked Pireni.

Yes… “they’ll be fine.”

“Something more than us?” asked Skeya, with tears in her eyes. She was sure she already knew the answer.

…Yes… “you’ll be fine.”

He received no more questions after that. All three members of the party remained silent.

Artyom walked out of the village ahead of everyone else, not intending to see them ever again. He shattered a heart, lost some friends, and spat on an entire village’s hospitality. But he had gained a lead on his mission whose completion could save the lives of the people who mattered most to him. To Artyom, there was no question about it. It was worth it.