(Warning 18+, Viewer Discretion Is Advised)
After the battle Himmel and Texan made their way to the receptionist. There they asked for the earnings Texan won and his portion of the betting's. He in total earned 3 gold pieces, but the money wasn't where they were looking. Instead what they truly earned was the backing of the higher elites and it was shown quickly, five orc with clothing's of higher class arrived to the two.
Texan cracked his knuckles, "Ahhh, time to get back to work."
Himmel then patted on his back and said, "Yeah while you do that I'll look for Recon, meet you back at the base."
The two nodded and Texan stepped forward to talk his smooth talk to the elites. While Himmel walked back to the receptionist.
"I have a question." Himmel said as leaned on the counter.
"Oh, uh yeah what did you need. Did you wanna fight too?"
Himmel shook his head, "No, but have you seen a beastman around, he's specifically a rhinoman."
The guard then scratched his chin, "Well now that I think about it yeah, there was a beastman who was a marksmen. He came to fight three consecutive fights to gain an achievement and level up. He did good the first two fight but his third one ended with his death."
Himmel had a grimly expressed look on his face, "when was he here and where is his body."
The receptionist then pointed at door where those two men with aprons walked out of. Himmel stepped over alone and opened the door, "He came five days ago."
It was a near mountain of dead bodies, at the top was the orc Texan had just fought. Himmel stepped forward and crushed the hand of a slave. He pulled on an arm and it ripped off, the maggot swarmed around, they were nibbling on the rotten flesh.
Himmel slowly clawed through each and every single body, bit by bit. He crushed old skulls, his finger tared through skin and eyes. The intestine filled with feces, the smell of death, rotten skin, blood, everything.
After three hours, he found Recons body. It was decayed and there was a maggot eating out his eye, flies laying eggs in his lungs. Parts of his body were crushed from the weight of the bodies that laid on top of him.
"You fucking bitch, why." Himmel fell to his knees.
For the first time, he had thought of death. This was unlike Abbot who had betrayed him or unlike Madam Kimpa who sacrificed herself, Recon was a young man who has problems. He failed again and again but he kept trying, he had loyalty and he had pride.
Yes, he may have done some considerably selfish things but he had good intentions. Recon needed guidance, he needed help and yes he denied it when it was given to him. But I should have done more, I should've watched from the distance to make sure he wouldn't fuck up like this.
So that he wouldn't die in a pile of shit, blood and bodies in a room with no grace. Himmel then used his key to open up his subspace, inside was the crimson blade, the other half of the scissors. "I was supposed to give this back to you," Himmel then held the blade and crushed it, letting the shards fall onto his body.
In this moment of enlightenment, he learned the will of fire. In this room was not just Recon, it was the body of hundreds of other slaves. Each one of these souls were misguided, they were forced into their positions in one way or another. As Himmel sat mourning his friends, no, his brother's death he was interrupted.
"Excuse me but we need to cremate the bodies."
Huh, that's better, I guess. Instead of maggots and other decomposers eating on the flesh and parts of these people, they can rest in peace in a blaze of fire.
A pulse, Himmel's blue electricity. The attendants stepped back, in a bit of fear. Then another the electricity lit a body in fire. Himmel watched the fire grow and he held his hand to it. Slowly it turned with him, he made the fire climb the walls until it hit the ceiling. Then the fire transformed, it turned back into Himmel's blue lightning.
At first it took up a small portion of the ceiling. Then it pulsed to grow, now it took more of the ceiling and then another pulse. And another until it took the ceiling and the walls. After a few minutes, the pulses made the electricity take the up the room in its entirety.
Then boom. The electricity turned all the bodies to ash. The maggots the bodies of the dead, the death was no longer there. But in Himmel's mind he can still see his brothers body. How the skin fell from his face and seeing his tongue and the meat of his body being eaten. His intestines were out of his guts and parts of it weren't there. There was mold and more, he could even see the brain matter seeping out of his skull.
"You're body wont rot in a casket, rest well in the after life."
Himmel left the room and walked to the receptionist again, "where are his belongings."
"Gone," the receptionist said quietly, his fingers drumming once against the wooden counter. "His items were to be returned if he lived. But since he didn't…" He hesitated, eyes flicking toward the floor. "They were sold."
The silence after that felt too loud.The smell of ink, stale smoke, and iron filings filled the small office. Himmel didn't blink—his gaze hollow, his pupils small, like something behind them had cracked and spilled out.
The man swallowed. "You found his body, didn't you?"
"Yes," Himmel said. His voice was dry, stripped of tone. "And it felt wrong. To see him like that. Decaying."
He pressed a hand over his face, fingers trembling slightly. The air left his lungs in one long, uneven sigh—the kind that carried both exhaustion and grief.
The receptionist shifted in his seat, uncertain. "Look," he said after a pause, "people die. There's no bringing them back. You just… mourn, and keep going. That's all we've ever done."
He stood, the chair legs scraping the stone floor. The sound was small, but in the stillness it echoed like a closing door. He moved to stand beside Himmel, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The smell of tobacco clung to his uniform.
He fished a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it with a trembling thumb, and offered one out.
Himmel glanced at it, then shook his head.
The man shrugged, placed the cigarette between his own lips, and inhaled deeply. The ember flared—brief orange light painting the lines on his face—and then the exhale came, slow and gray, curling toward the ceiling like a ghost too tired to rise.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Outside, someone laughed. Another shouted. The muffled world went on.
They sat there together for nearly an hour—two strangers anchored in the same moment of quiet despair. Somewhere during that time, the man began to talk. Not in confession, not in comfort, but simply because words were all he had left.
He talked about his life in uneven pieces. About being born to a regular family near the southern marsh. About breaking his leg in a fight as a boy. About a woman he loved once, who left when his hours grew longer and the bottle grew lighter. He talked about the years he'd spent behind this same desk, counting bloodied tokens and broken dreams, until his own voice sounded like another form of dust.
Himmel listened. Every word. Every pause.
The smoke hung between them, twisting into the yellow lamplight like fog. Himmel's eyes drifted toward the doorway, where shadows of passerby stretched and bent—lives moving past him like waves he could never stop.
What if that man's a trash picker, he thought. What if she lost her parents? Are they happy? Will that girl hanging by the door still be alive tomorrow?
The thoughts piled up, heavy, suffocating. What if I lose this war? What if when I die, my princess dies too? What if Texan dies, and everything we built dies with him? What if the world forgets us—like it's already forgotten him?
And then: What about Kirra? I told her I'd build a world where she could live without fear. I can't die before I make that real.
The smoke curled again, soft and gray.
He looked at the man beside him—the same one who had handed him a cigarette, who shared his silence, who talked just to keep him from drowning in it—and thought: A stranger stayed and mourned with me. Maybe that's enough proof that there's still something worth saving.
Himmel stood. The chair groaned against the stone. He looked down at the man and managed a small, tired smile.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "Truly."
The man took another drag and smiled back through the smoke. "Take care of yourself, friend."
As Himmel walked away, the faint echo of his boots faded into the hum of the pit beyond. The man watched the doorway for a moment longer, then exhaled one last stream of smoke.
"Damn," he muttered. "Maybe I'll start a flower shop. He'll get flowers for free."
Himmel found Texan near the exit, surrounded by the echo of applause and the sharp scent of polished armor. The elites had gone; the air still hummed with their perfume and coin. Texan turned, grinning wide.
"Wow, that was a lot," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "But hey—I got them to back the princess."
Himmel didn't answer.
Texan's grin faltered. Himmel stepped closer, and for the first time, Texan realized how much taller he'd grown—how the boy he once towered over now stood like a monument of something heavier.
"Hey, man," Texan said, voice dropping. "You good? Did something happen to Recon?"
Himmel's throat tightened. His jaw trembled once before he could stop it. Then a single tear slid down his cheek—clean, silent, the kind of tear that carried too much to say aloud.
Texan didn't ask again. He just pulled him close.
For a long time, neither spoke. The noise of the arena faded—the bets, the laughter, the crowd.
And there, in the hollow between them, the silence sounded of not weakness or rage, but the kind of sound that breaks quietly—like a world cracking along invisible lines.
Himmel Wept.