It did pain me seeing her like that, and it was really difficult to not immediately get up and being comforting her... it took a lot from me to not do that, but I wasn't heartless, just being practical.
We had just killed two patrolling members of this mercenary band, which numbered somewhere in the twenties; this was a significant amount of fighting power for them to lose, so I needed to make sure they weren't just left here to be found right away.
Any amount of minutes I could buy would be worthwhile, so with my 'newly' empowered Earth Mana I began to form narrow yet deep pits for the bodies to fall into after I finished rummaging around.
Retrieving the arrows first and making sure that Aethisia wasn't shutting down completely, I nodded to myself and gave her a moment to grapple with what just happened while I did that rummaging, which netted... not a lot.
Some coins, a nice looking dagger, some questionable Emberleaf cigarettes and then a couple of unknown potions that I wasn't willing to risk ingesting, but would be nice to potentially sell if we could.
I don't know why I was trying to scavenge for things to make us money but... I had the space and it was something that I had been taught to do during my time with the military, so whatever...
When I had taken everything off of them I rolled them into their graves before filling it up with earth and making sure the area wasn't overly obvious; there wasn't much I could do - that I knew of - to get rid of the lingering mana signature, but the dirt itself was able to be smoothed out and made to look natural.
It took me about a minute, during which Aethisia continued to grapple with what she had done, though by the time I was standing up and facing her she wasn't looking at me with a blank look, just... a somewhat mournful, slightly scared one.
Carefully hiding the arrows behind me, I clapped her shoulder with my free hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze before pulling her close, gently knocking my brow against hers as I murmured "Look at me and focus, Aethisia."
Her breathing had been somewhat labored, her eyes were watery, but upon hearing that she took a deep breath and just nodded, staring into my eyes and trying to push away those thoughts.
"It had to be done. They were bad people; you saw what some of them were doing to the citizens of this town. On top of that they are our enemies; that alone is reason enough, because if our positions were switched they wouldn't hesitate to do the same exact thing we did."
Attempting to appeal to her logically did seem to help, though she took another labored breath and muttered "But... there was no... what if they-", to which I cut her off and said "They were bad, Aethisia. You don't just take over a town like this with good intentions and then proceed to lord yourself over the populace.
And again, they are our enemies. Anyone who is unknown to them were their enemies, and they only do two things to enemies; they kill them or they capture them. We just acted before they could even know we were there. If it's an honor thing bothering you, then just... stop."
She gulped down what she wanted to say immediately and nodded again, her red eyes still wet with various emotions; a few moments passed before she asked "Do you not... feel... anything for them..?", which made me smile wryly.
"It's not pleasant, nor do I enjoy it. It doesn't get 'easier', you just get better at coping with it. I don't want to go out of my way to kill people, but if there is a choice between just incapacitating them - where they then go on to do harm in the future - or eliminating them completely, I won't hesitate. You don't just join a mercenary band on accident."
Cradling the back of her head, I knocked against her brow again before placing a kiss on it as I added "You did good. Your aim was true, though like I taught you with animals... try to go for instant, painless kills. Until we see someone do something heinous, it is the least we can do for them."
Switching over to a more logical and analytical side helped shock some of the negativity away from her, drawing a frown onto her face as she puzzled over what I meant and how she could have improved the shot she had taken.
Suddenly the Emberleaf cigarettes were looking a little more appealing to me, though the idea of using a drug to dull the ache of what she had just done wasn't that appealing once I began to think it through...
Maybe later, or maybe when she seemed to accept this more and wasn't showing any worrisome signs; until then, I guess we'll just need to pray that one of the citizens we save is going to be so relieved they'll want to thank us with their bodies.
Sex tended to be my go to thing to distract me from what I had done, though whether she would want to bang some random person after everything that happened back home was up for debate too...
I knew I was going to want someone to help take the edge off when this was done, so I was definitely praying that someone would be that thankful for me saving them~!
"Alright, you ready to move on? We can't just mope around too much; they'll be noticed as missing sooner rather than later, so we need to get going."
She was staring at their 'graves' when I asked that, and it took her a few seconds to give me a nod, but when she did she took another deep breath and steeled herself, even going as far as to take one of the arrows back from me.
Her hand trembled a little as she did so, but it found its way back into her quiver, reassuring me a little as I began to stalk through the forest with her right behind me again, heading for the tunnels once more.