"Huh?... Where am I?"
I open my eyes and find myself standing in the middle of a battlefield, a warzone.
The black clouds that have built up in the sky block any light coming from above and at the same time cover the whole surroundings with darkness. The destruction of buildings and other structures gives me an idea of how strong and dangerous the enemies are, and the sounds of crying from the people around tell me that many lives have been lost in this place.
I'm standing surrounded by a lot of injured people. Their clothes are tattered with many open wounds all over their body, others have broken arms or legs and they are slowly losing their lives, and some with severe wounds are already dead.
When I turn around and look behind me, I find thousands of people in the same condition. And when I look further upfront, I finally realize what is happening.
These people, myself included, are inside and being protected by a large-scale Magic-Barrier which is probably more than hundreds of meters in diameter, and outside this Magic-Barrier is a group of eight heroes fighting an army of monsters, numbering more than thousands, all by themselves.
After realizing the situation that I'm currently in, a burst of emotions suddenly flowed to me and made me realize where I actually am.
I'm inside of a dream, a Memory-Fragment of the 2nd-World. And this scene is nothing but a fictional story, a made-up story created by the Humans that used to live in the 2nd-World.
But even though this is a dream, the emotions of everyone here are real. The people crying for help, the heroes trying to protect them, and even those savage monsters. All of their emotions flow to me along with their thoughts that define those emotions.
...I'm afraid!...
...Why am I here?...
...What happened?...
...Where is everyone?...
...Where is my family?...
...Where are my friends?...
...Are they safe?...
...Are they alive?...
...Am I going to survive this?...
...Am I going to die?...
...I'm hurt!...
...I don't want this!...
...I don't want to die!...
Fear, confusion, anxiety, and pain, are all the emotions that flow to me from all the people around me. And at the same time, this is also what I'm feeling right now.
...Die!...
...Destroy everything!...
...Kill the heroes!...
...Kill the people!...
...Kill them all!...
Madness is the only emotion that flows to me from all the monsters outside the Magic-Barrier.
"Ugh!... This is bad, my own emotion is being swayed by their emotions."
Those floods of negative emotions brought my trembling hands and knees to the ground, my face bowed down with a look of despair, and my whole body shuddering from the feeling of hopelessness.
...Protect everyone!...
...Defeat all of these monsters!...
...Save everyone that is still alive!...
...Avenge those who have died!...
"That is not enough!"
I retorted to the emotions and thoughts of the heroes that flow to me.
"With how strong all of you are, maybe you can defeat all of this monster given time. But there are thousands of them! You can't defeat them all while those monsters slowly destroy the Magic-Barrier!"
The efforts of the heroes to protect everyone and defeat all the monsters are not enough to suppress the negative emotions of the people inside the Magic-Barrier.
These people are aware of the fact that before the heroes can defeat all the monsters, the monsters will destroy the Magic-Barrier first and kill everyone.
They know that they can't be saved and that they are doomed to die here today. Those thoughts make them scared and take away what amount of strength they have left.
And I'm no different from them either.
I know that soon this dream will be over, that I will wake up back in my room, and then I will tell the story of what happened in this dream to my family and friends like what I always do.
I know that I'm not a part of this story, nothing in this dream would affect me, and I won't be able to affect this story either. The worst thing that would happen to me while I'm in this dream is to feel the emotions of everyone around me.
So I just cower in the ground, close my eyes, cover my ears, and accept the fact that this is how this story would go, that this is how this dream would end.
But in the darkness of hopelessness to where I shut myself in, there an emotion and thoughts that flow to me which are completely different from the others.
...Stand up!...
...Fight!...
"Huh?..."
That emotion and thoughts called out to me.
It's not an emotion filled with despair or madness and not an emotion filled with hope and belief that the heroes with their overwhelming power can defeat all of these monsters and save everyone.
I open my eyes and remove my hands covering my ears to support myself and look at where that emotion had come from.
And what I find is something different.
What I found is a hero fighting those monsters with nothing left but her broken sword.
She doesn't have an overwhelming power like the other heroes. She can't use Lightning-Magic, cast multiple offensive magic, create hundreds of illusions of herself, turn into a giant, rip apart those monsters with her bare hands, run fast across the battlefield, or fly above the sky.
The only thing she is probably good at is using her bow and arrows. But those arrows ran out even before I found her and her bow was broken lying in the ground behind her.
But even after losing her weapons, she never gives up. She runs ahead straight to those monsters, brandishes her broken sword, gets knocked down, gets up, and takes more damage before she can defeat one of them.
"... Sob... sob... sob..."
Seeing her standing up on this battlefield filled my heart with an emotion that I couldn't understand and that emotion brought me tears.
"...Yet you keep standing no matter how many times those monsters knock you down!...
...You're wounded all over your body, if you take any more damage you'll die!...
...I can also feel your emotions, so I know you're also afraid of death!...
...So how can you keep standing up? Why won't you run away?!"
I'm not even sure anymore if this emotion is something that flows to me from everyone around me or just my own emotion. All I know is that what is behind my tears isn't fear or despair.
"... Sob... sob... sob...
...Your sword broke down long ago, what you're holding now in your trembling hand is just a piece of metal scrap!...
...Those other heroes won't help you, they won't even look back at you!...
...You don't even have powers like them, so stop pretending like you're one of those heroes!...
...Without your weapon you're just an ordinary girl, like me, and like these people you're trying to protect, cowering behind this Magic-Barrier..."
...uwarghh...
"Huh?..."
...uwarghh!!...
"What's happening?"
...UWARGHH!!...
"Where is that sound coming from?"
...UWARGHHHH!!!!!...
"Ehh?..."
What I heard at first was a small cry that could barely be heard among the chaos of the battlefield. Yet that cry echoed again and again, getting louder each time, again and again, until it became a war cry that swallowed the chaotic sound of this battlefield.
That didn't come from the heroes or the army of monsters fighting each other. That came from the people cowering behind this Magic-Barrier.
They were standing with their wounded bodies just like her, their trembling hands were holding metal scraps as their weapon just like her.
The emotions that flow at me still feared death yet in their eyes I can see courage and resolution to fight along with her reflection standing on this battlefield.
Right now their eyes weren't looking at those powerful heroes with their overwhelming power or the monsters in front of them trying to break the Magic-Barrier to kill them.
What they're looking at is a hero stripped of all her weapons and power, turned into nothing but an ordinary powerless person like them, yet still has the courage to stand against the enemy in front of her and the resolution to face what might come after.
She showed them that right now they didn't need those heroes to save them, that they didn't need this Magic-Barrier to protect them, that they didn't need to be a hero to stand up and fight this battle.
Now I understand the emotion that filled my heart and now I know that I'm crying because I was inspired.
"Haaa!!!..."
I gave a loud shout like I was trying to call myself out in the middle of negative emotions that were crowding around me.
"Arghh!..."
Then I bite my lips so that my pain can pull my heart out in the flood of negative emotions in which I'm drowning.
"Uwarghh!!!..."
Then I shout a war cry and force my trembling legs to move, so I can stand up.
I wipe my tears with my trembling hands, pick up one of those metal scraps to use as my weapon, and then look to where she is with the same courage and resolution in my eyes.
Then as I watched the moment when she stood up again after being knocked down by a monster, she looked back at us and gave us a call like she knew we were ready to join her in this battle.
...~©√¥÷√{}!!! ~}}√€'¢√!...
"...UWARGHHHH!!!!!..."