Chapter 31: Life or Death. Choose

Mira and Maria went to find a place to sit away from all of the women here. Mira then started focusing on trying to recover her injuries. She realized that her injuries got pretty bad in that last fight. She had a lot of fractured bones. Both forearms were slightly broken and she had some pretty bad gashes on her body. She also noticed some internal injuries. She can now focus on using the Rank 2 Rejuvenation Pill to heal her injuries. It had already healed the giant gash on her chest, but the rest of her injuries may need more time to heal.

Maria decided to ask Mira a question though.

"Mira, what is the reason you chose that woman from earlier to kill? I know it wasn't random." Maria asked curiously. Mira wasn't known to do things on a whim.

"You could say she was something like a kindred spirit. If I didn't kill her now, she would've killed herself. If I kill her, at least I can maximize the benefit that her death will bring. Also, at least in the afterlife, she can rest easy that her death was at the hands of someone else instead of her own." Mira said still recovering from her injuries.

Maria had lots of questions as she didn't understand what she meant, but seeing that Mira didn't explain she left it at that and went to get Vulcan. Vulcan was just waiting outside for someone to get him. Seeing Maria come towards, he was extremely excited. He also did his job well, maybe Mira will praise him!

Maria hugged him tightly and went back to Mira with Vulcan in hand.

Mira saw Maria walk back next to her and asked Vulcan.

"Did you kill everyone that tried to escape?"

Vulcan just repeatedly nodded his head. Mira just nodded her head and went back to focusing on healing her injuries. Maria just played with Vulcan as they waited for an hour to pass.

The women didn't really know what to do. Some of them didn't want to die yet, but most of them had no idea what they should do. They didn't want to be the cause of everyone else's death, but they didn't know how they could continue living after losing everything living. At the same time, the more they thought about their inevitable death the more scared they got. If death was certain then they could accept it, but they could choose whether or not they wanted to die and the threat of death can be quite terrifying.

Unsurprisingly, the woman that spoke up to Mira before was the one to try and take charge. She was trying to convince these women to stand up and fight, to live for their dead loved ones, to strive to take control of their lives, to escape the forest, she was trying everything but there were still a lot of hesitant or unsure people. She was starting to worry, she was actually just captured and taken here yesterday. The bandits killed her parents which were both the head of her village. She has yet to be taken advantage of yet, and even though she hated that her parents died, she was not ready to die. She was rather young at 18 years old. One could say that she was pretty for a village girl, but she had no noteworthy features to her other than she was a bit above average. She had brown hair that went a bit below the shoulder and brown eyes. She was around 170 centimeters and was full of life and vigor. She tried to bring the women together, but she wasn't able to unite them. Now an hour had passed. Mira stood up as soon as an hour passed and released a frosty aura. She looked terrifying with her black mask, black robes, and cold aura. You could also see her red eyes through the slits of her mask.

Mira took out her scythe and it only made her look like the goddess of death. They could only await her judgment. Mira walked over to them and the village girl from earlier spoke up.

"We want to live! We want to get stronger! We want to escape this forest and try to move on!" She said.

"I didn't ask you. I want an answer from everyone." Mira said and waited for an answer from everyone.

"But how is that fair!? I want to live! How is it fair that I only get to live if everyone here wants to?" She tried to complain.

"When did I claim to be fair? I'm stronger than you, if I want you to die then all you can do is die. If you had strength then we could talk about terms, but alas. You. Don't." Mira said and started to wait for an answer from everyone. The young lady could only grit her teeth and hope that she lives past this.

"I want to live!"

"Me too!"

A couple of people came forward with conviction and determination. More and more people started to want to live and get stronger. Almost half of the women spoke up, but after that silence reigned into the room.

"I see. Barely half." Mira said and walked over to a lady that didn't speak up. She looked young but was probably mid-twenties or early thirties. Mira guessed that she probably lost her husband and maybe even a kid. Mira stopped in front of her and the woman couldn't even look up as she was scared out of her mind. Mira grabbed her in the shoulder and punched her in the gut. The woman vomited blood. Mira then dragged her in front of everyone and made her sit in front of everyone.

"Since you want to cause the deaths of everyone here, then I will, of course, oblige. However, you will die last. I want you to know that the deaths of these 500 people is your fault, so you will watch as I kill them all. After I finish, you will be the last one. Let me make myself clear once more. I will accept no less than a 100% agreement." Mira said and began walking toward the group of women, gathering momentum in her scythe.

"Wait! I don't want them to die! Just kill me! I have no reason to live in this world without my husband and child, but these other people want to live!" The woman that was dragged to the front said.

"You dying here is the same as killing them later on. I'm only speeding up the process. You lot living or dying is of little significance. I get nothing from helping you weaklings other than wasting my time to try to train you. You have 5 seconds to convince me before I start slaughtering." Mira said as she walked toward the young village girl that spoke up first. After the first second, Mira's Ice Dao was released and the temperature of the entire room started to drop at a rapid rate, the next second she unleashed her killing intent, the third second she added the second blade to her scythe, the fourth second she reached the girl and Mira was about to strike.

"OKAY! I'm sorry! Please don't kill everyone because of me!! I may not know how to live, but I can't be the cause of all of these deaths!" The woman tried to tell convince Mira not to kill them as she was bawling her eyes out.

"Not good enough." Mira said coldly.

"AAHHH! Please don't!! I don't know what you want!! I'll live, okay?! I'll live to support the people that went through the same thing as me if they can support me and help me live!! Okay?! Just please stop!" She yelled and started crying. She couldn't speak anymore as she was crying too much.

"You should've started with that. I almost killed her you know? I guess I'm through with you. I will check with the rest of you to see if your answers can satisfy me. YOU! Come here!" Mira said and pointed at another woman that hasn't spoken yet. Almost all of the women here were crying and covering their eyes. When they heard Mira speak they opened their eyes and the woman that Mira was pointing at started crying more as she walked over to her. Mira was still releasing her Ice Dao and Killing Intent releasing this suffocating pressure. It wasn't enough to hurt or kill them, but it was enough to give off the feeling of death to these normal mortals. The woman made it over to Mira before she started speaking again while pointing at the women that haven't spoken yet.

"Let's get to the main dish now that we have finished the appetizer. For every 30 seconds, you lot keep me waiting for an answer, I will remove something from her body. Unless you want me to provide proof, you better start speaking." Mira said in a cold and domineering tone. Maria was listening in on this without saying because she thought that Mira wouldn't do something like that, but now she wasn't sure. She had a feeling that if 30 seconds went by, this lady would lose something.

All the women were bawling their eyes out now while speaking out.

"We understand! *sniff* We will live as a big supportive group! Just please help us! We don't want to die. Especially not like this!" The rest of the people that haven't said anything yet said something similar to this.

Mira stopped releasing her killing intent and Ice Dao and nodded her head.

"Very good. I'm glad that you lot finally decided on what you want. I will discuss specifics with you later. Get yourselves together for now. My companion here will also be helping me with the training you all will be doing, so if you have any questions or want anything then please bring it to her. I will be right back as I have loot to collect. I will be back to give you your first order after that." Mira said and then walked off to collect her loot from the bandit leader and his house.

It took a minute or two for the women to try and calm down. The young village lady that tried to unite everyone earlier walked over to Maria after calming down a bit.

"Hello, my name is Alicia. It seems you are that person's companion." Alicia tried to talk to Maria.

"Hi! My name is Maria Zaria! And yeah, you could say that I'm her companion. I guess we will be working together. And please don't hate my friend because of this, I know her method was a bit... Evil? She's really not that bad." Maria said with a smile.

"Really? I mean she did kill that lady and use her death to strike fear into everyone and force them to choose between living with everyone or dying with everyone. She was also ready to torture people just to get an answer quicker. I feel like we just made a deal with the devil just now." Alicia said with a bitter smile.

"Hmm, you're probably right. You guys might actually die from her training. It will be efficient, but you will live in a constant state of near-death. The only blessing you have is that there are a lot of you, but she might find a way to turn that into a curse. Well anyway, I was able to get to where I am today thanks to her and her training!" Maria said with a bit of pity.

"Really? What kind of training did you have to go through? How long have you been her companion?" Alicia asked curiously, but with a hint of fear too. She had no idea what they would even do to train.

"Eh? I've known her for a couple of years now and she made me do all sorts of training. She made me workout with giant boulders, she would then beat me black and blue when we sparred and wouldn't let me stop until I couldn't move my body, she through me in a frozen hell pond to make me temper my body, she threw me into an actual hell which was a lava lake, she also made me fight beasts that were stronger than me. Now that I think about it, these past few years have been nothing but torture without much of a break. I will give you one piece of advice though. Don't make her mad and just do as she says. She might actually kill you if you don't." Maria said as she pondered on her experiences with Mira so far.

Alicia was now able to confirm that they just made a deal with the devil.