"Whatever it takes…?"
Rey found himself blurting out the very words he heard Esme say.
'What does she mean by that?'
"I mean what I said, Rey." The Half Elf answered him with a stern face. "I will do whatever I can to achieve more good than suffering around me."
For a moment, an eerie silence took over. Rey watched as Esme's lips moved to show the extent to which she was willing to go.
"... Even if it means taking the lives that I once thought was precious."
In that instant, Rey recognized just how prepared Esme was to fulfil her new disposition.
Many people often spouted off ideals, but they lacked the resolve to do anything to bring them to reality. Even back on Earth, Rey's original world, there were people who wanted radical changes to the world, or warned against certain catastrophes that would befall mankind if certain steps weren't taken.
Some of them were for objectively good causes, and they were right in their ideals.
However, most people did not follow-up these ideals with action. They didn't have the resolve—the unbreakble will—to do what had to be done.
Just like on Earth, this was a dog eat dog world.
Many people—like the Esme of the past—wished for peace and harmony. They shunned evil and clung to good. However, they really didn't have enough willpower to take the extra step to ensure their wishes became manifest in the canvas of reality.
But now… Rey saw a different person in front of him.
Esme had changed!
"What is good, Rey? What is evil?"
For a moment, no one said a world. Rey merely watched in astonishment, processing everything he was hearing.
"Come on… answer."
"A-ahh, about that…" Rey stuttered, his face falling as he thought a little deeply about the subject matter.
"I don't think there's such a thing as objective good or objective evil. Killing is bad, until you have to kill for the reasons. Stealing is wrong, unless those goods are stolen from a hoarder to feed your dying child. It's a messy spectrum, but such an arbitrary disposition can also mean anything goes if someone has a right reason. It ultimately leads to chaos."
He paused for a moment, introspecting on what he really felt.
"What do you mean by chaos?"
"Well…" Rey sought for the best way to explain his position. "For the most basic examples, my position works just about well. If there is no objective good or evil, then people simply need to operate on their perceptions of morality. But… that never ends well."
In the end, people are warped.
One man's definition of morals often differ from the other, and while there is usually a general consensus by society on what ethics ought to be, there were certain grey areas that couldn't be resolved no matter how Rey thought about it.
"If a man's daughter is captured by an unknown third party, and he has to kill another man's dauughter to save his own… what happens then?"
"..." Esme was silent.
"Is the first man justified in commiting such a sin? Perhaps. But what of the second man who has to defend his daughter, whose life means the death of the first man's daughter?"
"..." Yet another moment of silence.
"Who is right? Who is wrong? Ultimately, the third party is the truly evil one, but sometimes life presents us with equally problematic situations. What then?"
Perhaps life in itself is evil, but since everyone is living in the world, it remains an abstract entity.
For Rey, he couldn't get over this moral dilemma.
Perhaps that was why [Dead Calm] seemed more appealing to him these days.
"I justify my murder of humans by saying they're nothing more than monsters, or perhaps they're even worse." That was his way of escaping the moral dilemma.
He could kill Monsters because they weren't a member of his species, just as humans killed animals. He would kill Dragons because they were going to wipe out humanity otherwise.
And as for people… they were no longer humans in his eyes.
"I get stronger by these killings, so its an additional incentive for me." Rey confessed.
He never claimed to be morally correct in all instances, which was why he was of the firm opinion that people couldn't be completely good or evil.
He sometimes did evil things for what he considered good reasons.
"I know I'm a hypocrite in a sense. After all, I sided with the KariBanc Group and aided a criminal organization, instead of wiping them out along with the rest."
A true saint would have done that.
"I spared them because of my past relationsip with them, and for the additional benefits I could gain from them."
Rebal and the rest were his allies, so he sided with them.
If they had been his enemies, he would have killed them without mercy.
'The same thing will happen if they turn on me at any given moment.' Rey had already made that resolve within him.
He simply didn't think it was a 'Good' action. Still, he didn't think he was evil either.
"I just—"
"Want to know what I think?" Esme's voice interrupted his silent whisper.
Rey broke out of his slump and looked at the Half Elf in front of him. She had a calm look, not appearing bothered by the moral conflicts at all.
It made him curious.
"What… do you think?"
"I think you're overcomplicating the issue." Rey found his eyes widening the moment he heard this from Esme.
"What do you mean?"
"You already said it yourself. Good and Evil are relative." She answered with a sigh. "There is no true good and evil in this world. There never was, and I fear there never will be…"
Despite making such a despairing statement, Esme leaked out a smile.
"Still, I want to make the world as good as it possibly can be."
"H-how…?" Rey asked.
No matter what one did, they would still end up in the same moral dilemma.
Unless—
"I will follow my own definition of morality and execute justice… the way I deem fit."
That, ultimately, was the path Esme chose for herself.