The World's most Overpowered Side-Character

Chapter 94: The full image.

The cinders of the campfire mimicked reverse stars as they arose and faded into the sky, hypnotically dancing to the every whim of the gentle wind that walked by night.

After everyone had eaten and settled down the party was graced by another of Sara's soft songs.

"Is it really okay, are you okay?" Eris asked Han, approaching him to get an idea of the person he had become after Sol's merciless torturing and an apparent month living in his personal hell.

"Stay away from me, Eris." He answered her with his eyes dimly trained on the darkness. "I have a task, I don't want to be distracted."

"Han-"

"Fuck off!" Han snapped after she touched his shoulder, and it was Sol who had been watching her since her recent complaints that grabbed Han's hand when he spun with his sword and nearly chopped her head in two.

"Sol!"

"Are you stupid for real, what are you doing here? I told you not to bother him." Sol released Han who unapologetically turned around and continued with his role of night guard.

"He's not well, he needs help-"

"For fuck's sake." Sol pushed her toward the camp and rubbed his forehead to try and de-stress. "I never imagined you of all people would be the troublesome one, everyone else has come to terms with it but you're being a complete pain in my ass about this?!"

"Because what you did to him was wrong!" Eris spun and punched his shoulder with all her might, flinching when Sol did not even budge much less make a face that registered her punch as anything more than a casual slap from a leaf in the wind. "You... Monster." Eris dropped her gaze and balled her fists again before swinging a punch and hitting him square in the jaw.

"How could you do something so cruel to your friend!" She punched him again, and Sol stood there passively staring at her after she had drawn the attention of everybody successfully ruining the mood.

"Eris-"

"How could you do that to him!?" She punched again, but Sol caught her hand and bent it causing her to scream out in pain and slump in front of him.

"There she goes again." Dina sighed while Usami and Bruce looked at her weirdly for saying something in support of Sol's recent villainous acts, but it made sense since from their perspective after her depression from being left out she would side with him when he finally started giving her attention and even shared personal time with her.

"Honestly, it is becoming rather irritating now." Arla agreed with Dina, nodding.

"Have you calmed down now?" Sol stood opposing Eris unapologetically.

"I am calm!" She used [Heal] on herself and swung her other fist at him, but he caught that fist too and sprained her wrist with a twist causing her to groan in pain and slump as he now had both of her hands.

"If you attempt to kick me I'm the groin I will hurt you for real, Eris." Sol stared down at her. "How do you think this world works, tell me, how do you think the current Argom has remained intact after all these years of resisting the demon god, even if she wasn't trying to destroy anything just yet?" He asked, and she stared up at him hatefully with her teeth grit.

"That's what I thought, you constantly try to compare earth and Arkadia, or worse, you have this idea of a fantasy world in your head and you haven't gotten to the truth of your situation yet even after everything you've done and seen; you're entitled Eris, and in the absence of a leader figure with any proper braincells to teach the 'hero' some common sense I feel obligated to force you to learn.

"Master Vestic, wait!" Arla intervened when she thought he was going to throw her into a nightmare prism, but he held out his hand and shook his head.

"Don't worry, I won't be harming her in any way, this will be purely educational." Sol picked up Eris by her waist and held her to his side like a kitten causing her to go silent in shock at his harsh manhandling, while Ikaris quickly joined him and stood at his side. "Han, if anything that you deem an enemy shows up, exterminate it with extreme prejudice, understood?"

"Understood." Han turned and walked closer to the others and summoned another sword as a feral expression crossed his calm façade and he slightly hunched.

"And Sara, if he fails, get them back to Argom as fast as possible."

"Yes sir."

"Do. Not. Touch. Him."

"Yeah... we got that." Usami nodded nervously watching Han enter a berserker state and stand passively.

Without another word Sol looked at Ikaris and she took his hand with a small smile as the three of them vanished.

Eris lost her ability to breathe for a few seconds as the teleportation sucked the air out of her causing her to gasp when she suddenly had air slam back into her lungs, and before her the scenery had changed from night to day, and the calm atmosphere she had been disturbing had been replaced by ruins, an entire city that had been reduced to ashes and broken structures, but more than that were the countless skeletons that littered the streets, warriors leaned against walls impaled by dozens of spears and arrows, bones piled up into mountains, it was a horrid scene from one of the last kingdoms that had fallen.

"This is what you're trying to prevent," this was once the most prosperous city in the elven kingdom, where Idria lived, I'm sure you've asked her before and she has refused to talk about her origins, there's nothing to talk about, they were massacred and either corrupted into demonkin or left in piles of bodies." Sol gestured as he floated above the city with Ikaris doing the same next to him.

"I don't get what youre-" Eris's breath left her body a second time as they vanished and appeared in an evening setting.

"The Dwarven Kingdom." Sol gestured beneath them again. "From what I know, they were the first kingdom to fall because they initially held the highest offensive power and proved to be hard to conquer, but just look at them now." He grabbed her cheeks and pointed her in the direction of yet another hellish scene of skeletal piles.

"The demons destroyed everything, any dwarf that lives today are descendants of those who weren't in this kingdom, nothing survived here, not even the land, this is a desolate place where nothing can ever grow again.

"...I-" She tried to speak again but was whisked away a third time.

"The beastman kingdom was the largest, and they fought the hardest, but they also died the fastest and were mostly all corrupted and turned into demonkin." Sol landed this time in a forest with trees growing through houses, small critters running around and corpses bedded into overgrown foliage; another scene of thousands of bodies piled together to form mountains of skeletons after time had washed the flesh away.

"What are you getting at!?" Eris snapped struggling in his grasp until he threw her down. "I already know all of this, it makes no difference if you show me!"

*Snap*

She though she was going to be attacked by some kind of abominable force when she heard that terrifying sound, but instead the trees started disappearing and the skeletons grew flesh as time seemed to reverse around them taking them further back, hundreds of years in the past until she was looking at the arrival of the first demon, hundreds of thousands of people running for their lives as they were butchered and thrown into a grinder on the creature's back and spat back out as demons seconds later.

She saw in a lapse of time the civilization rise up against the demons desperately only to be further destroyed as more demonkin appeared one after the other, until only one beastman remained, it was the one Sol had thrown her down next to, he had a missing arm and bloodied fur all the way down to his toes.

"I wish... for this world to burn, for you monsters to burn!" The man growled as he was surrounded by hundreds of demonkin that were once beastkin. "This wretched world, I want it destroyed, I pray that someday you vile creatures be smitten by a divine hand!" He roared before his throat was torn out by a child that had been demonized.

"The laws of Arkadia have not changed since then." Sol watched the scene sadly, remembering his friend from Atla dying in the same manner. "The people are desperate for heroes, but what they got were shells and pawns, I'm correcting that, it's not my place but that's exactly why I'm doing it." He stared at her.

"You were hopeful in the beginning, you had a goal, you had purpose, the others looked up to you, but the more time passes the less purpose I see in you, it's one thing to be afraid, but it's a whole other thing when you try moralising a world full of nothing but hate and death, the strong devour the weak, physically and mentally, get that through your thick skull." Sol snapped his fingers again and the scene of the besatman being devoured disappeared.

"You ask what's the point?" He folded his arms. "Arkadia is forsaken, there's no hope left, the moment the demon-god decides that she's had enough it's all over in an instant. "You're worrying about a single person who is refusing your help when there's an entire last civilization that needs you."

"Han doesn't need you to help him, he's atoning for his mistakes and crimes back on earth and here on Arkadia, he's accepted that, do you honestly think he's being punished unfairly after trying to take advantage of a woman who was so smitten by grief that she had no resistance against his obvious advanced and attempt to rape her against her lapse of resistance and judgement?" He asked.

"Are you even aware that Han has already raped multiple times back on earth, and then here using his title of hero as a cover and an excuse, he's killed men, blackmailed women; stolen their lives for his own greed and pleasure and he hasn't even been here for any portion of time, he's been doing a lot of evil shit behind your backs for a very long time- I know this because I grew up knowing him!"

"But because this word is so cruel, I decided to ignore it; to ignore him... but he crossed the line when he tried to do the same to Ikaris who he knew at that point is pregnant, your judgement so far has been two-dimentional, but now you see the full image..."

"I didnt-"

"Do you think I'm an evil person, Eris?" Sol asked, and she bit her lips and averted her gaze.

"Be honest, do you?"