After a few hours, Alice noticed a group of humanoid creatures about a half-mile ahead. "Braydon." She said.
"Yeah?" Braydon asked as he looked at Alice, who is focusing on maintaining her mana.
"There is a group of small humanoids up ahead about a kilometer away." Alice said.
"Right." Braydon said as he looked toward the leader of the escort group. "Ryan!" Braydon called him over. He trotted over with his horse.
"What's up?" He asked.
"About a kilometer up there may be an ambush, have everyone prepare." He said
"How do you know that?" He asked.
"She developed search magic, don't question how she does it, I don't know, all I know is it takes a lot of mana." Braydon explained briefly and concisely.
"Okay, I'll have everyone get ready." He said as he moved farther up the group. By this time, the caravan had slowed to a pace of about thirty kilometers an hour and began to slow down a bit more.
Alice broke the layer of mana and formed a large barrier around the caravan and after a few minutes, crude arrows shot at the caravan only to bounce off. Alice stood up.
"Are you going to take care of them yourself?" Braydon asked. Alice nodded then jumped off the wagon. She sent out a pulse of mana to take not of the positions of the enemies.
'Thirteen in the trees, likely archers, another forty in the bushes, they seem to be wary of approaching since the arrows bounced off.' Alice thought as she quickly conjured water around the heads of the archers.
She ran at the group on the right side of the road. Once she passed the bushes, she saw small green creatures with long ears and crude spears. They looked up at her with fear as she conjured a sword made of ice.
Alice quickly decapitated half of the group of twenty-three. "R-run away while you can! A demon has appeared!" One of the goblins yelled. A surprised expression suddenly covered Alice's face. She stopped where she was as she was about to cut off the head of another.
'They... Have a complex language?' She thought. 'Aren't goblins only supposed to have rudimentary knowledge? Rudimentary language?' She thought. 'A stupid species... Right...?' She thought as they ran away.
Her breathing became erratic as she took a step back, stepping on a round rock and slipping, falling on her butt. 'If they're intelligent... Wouldn't that be the same as killing a person?' She asked herself as she attempted to slowly retreat and tears formed in her eyes.
She suddenly froze when one looked back and started to charge her. It got closer and closer and her breathing became erratic as tears began to fall from her cheeks. As it was about to strike, she subconsciously cast an ice spear, piercing the small creature's chest and likely their vital organs.
'She's taking too long.' Braydon thought as he jumped off of the cart and ran in the same direction as Alice. As he approached Alice, he saw a spike of ice appear and pierce the goblin.
Alice looked back with a face full of tears. After a moment, Braydon realized what happened and crouched over by Alice. "Let's go back to the caravan, the others already took care of the other group." He said. Alice nodded lightly as Braydon stood up.
After a few moments, Alice stood up, stopped her tears, and grabbed onto Braydon's clothes from behind him. They went back to the wagon and Alice assumed her previous position, though with a grim expression.
"It was the caravan or them." Braydon said abruptly after a few minutes. "There wasn't any other way." He continued.
"There... There's no way it's that simple..." Alice said quietly with a grim tone.
"If we had left them, the next caravan would have been attacked and even more people would have died." Braydon said.
"I know that!" Alice yelled. "I know..." She mumbled. "I know that, but..." She started as a tear ran down her cheek. She brought her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.
"Alice." Braydon said. "You can't blame yourself. They would have killed you if you didn't kill them." Braydon said, attempting to appeal to her logic.
"I know." She said with a shaky voice. Ryan noticed that Alice seemed upset and trotted over on his horse.
"The first time is always the worst." He said. "Some people quit because they can't take it weight of killing." He continued.
"Am I an idiot?" Alice asked quietly.
"Why do you ask?" Ryan asked in response.
"Because... I... Despite knowing... I still can't help but feel this way." She said in a shakier voice than earlier.
"No. You're not an idiot. You're a human." Ryan said.
"He's right. It's only natural to feel empathy for other living creatures. Especially those similar to us." Braydon added.
"Kay..." She said as tears began to flow again. After a few moments, she choked the tears back and put on a wry smile, then released her grip on her legs and lowered her legs. "That was embarrassing..." She said lightly.
"Alice, you can't-" Braydon started.
"I can and I will." She interrupted Braydon. Braydon sighed.
"Don't let it pile up too much." He said.
"He's right." Ryan said.
"Jeez, will you two stop already? It's not like I'm sad or anything." Alice said. "I was just a little shell shocked is all." She added with a light smile. Ryan and Braydon glanced at each other, then sighed.
"Alright, I'll leave you two be, for now. We'll be stopping for lunch soon." Ryan said then went back to his post.
"Okay~!" Alice said with the happiest tone she could muster. "Food, food, food~." She sang a bit. Braydon looked at Alice with a worried expression. "Don't look at me with that expression, I'm fine, really." Alice assured Braydon.
He sighed and released his expression. "Alright. I'll drop it for now." He said.
About an hour later they stopped for lunch. Alice happily ate the food that was prepared before they left. "Y'know what, Hiroto?" Alice asked.
"What?" He responded.
"You would make a much better wife than me. You're hardworking and a really good cook, while I'm lazy and useless." Alice said.
"Well, I'd say you would be a better wife considering you are actually a girl." Braydon said.
"What are you talking about, I'm not-." Alice started saying but cut herself off. "Sorry, I guess I forgot for a moment." She said blandly.
"You also called me Hiroto." He said. Alice's eyes widened.
"Sorry..." She said as her expression became a bit gloomier.
"It's fine, no one heard you." Braydon said as he crossed his arms. "More importantly, it's still bothering you." Braydon said.
"What are you talking about? What would be botheri-" Alice started, but quickly stopped due to Braydon's glare. She jumped slightly when she noticed the glare. "I'm not sad or anything. I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel." Alice said.
"Alice, what do you mean?" Braydon asked.
"Well... How should I say... I was shocked when I realized what I had done, due to the shock, I began to cry. Once the initial shock was gone, I was trying to cycle through everything that happened and figure out how it affected me." Alice explained.
"Right, and what about just now?" Braydon asked.
"I was worried I was dragging down your mood due to my behavior, so I tried to be erratically happy so you wouldn't feel down. All that did was make me try to comfort myself from however I feel by thinking back to before we came here." She explained further.
Braydon sighed then flicked Alice's forehead. "You think too logically." Braydon said sternly as Alice said ow. "You can't just analyze your emotions and say that you feel a certain way. You just let your emotions tell you themselves." He said.
"I don't work that way, Braydon." Alice said.
"What does that mean?" He asked. Alice sighed.
"We've known each other how long and you still haven't figured it out?" Alice asked sarcastically. "If I don't analyze them, I just wind up ignoring them and that just winds up causing a big explosion of emotion, you Baka." Alice explained.
"That just doesn't make any sense." Braydon said.
"Just like how your methodology doesn't make any sense to me. Everybody deals with emotions differently, due to this, there is no one size fits all solution to emotional issues." Alice said.
"Alright, I guess you're right about that. But what do you mean it just gets ignored?" He asked.
"I just don't notice it and it piles up. I do my best to think in terms of this is practical or this is logical, and sometimes this is right, but due to this, I just don't notice my emotions, but I guess it doesn't just apply to my own, sometimes I get so caught up that I accidentally ignore the emotions of others too..." Alice said.
Braydon sighed. "Alright, I won't push any further then." He said.