He carried Drak back to the entrance to Crater town, still holding him in a tight bear hug. There was still fighting going on but the town itself had not been breached and was probably doing more fighting than his people at this point. Eli called over Lucy and Bethany and told them to follow him as they started walking toward the barrier for the safe zone. His Avatar, Tara, and Beau seemed to have the mopping up in hand with Cody and Stevens in support. He did not explain himself as they slowly walked to the barrier while he was still holding their recently defeated enemy in a bear hug. Bethany and Lucy trusted him enough to just go with it and didn't ask questions.
When they got to the barrier, Eli gave them instructions, again not explaining himself as he set down the half pulp half person that was their prisoner. Bethany took off in a devastating sprint, her highest stat was reaction which made her very quick, Eli suspected she had more in that stat than he did. He also suspected that she liked that stat because of how lean and flexible it kept her body, she really was incredibly sexy, the thought striking him like a hammer to the brain. Standing perfectly still for a second he let those thoughts dwell, only for that second, then he shook his head until the thoughts dissipated. He did not have time to dig into those feelings right now, he knew he was more than just physically attracted to her, but he refused to examine those feelings further yet. Just because Tara was intermittently emotionally distant, didn't mean he could act like her feelings didn't matter.
Lucy returned after having just stepped inside the barrier for a few moments and took out some things she had bought from the system shop. Some magic inhibiting manacles, a length of rope, and a sensory deadening hood were now on the ground, Eli slammed his prisoner to the ground and together they chained and tied him up and put the hood over his head. Then all they had to do was wait for Bethany to return, so Eli decided to strike up a conversation with Lucy to pass the time. It was probably going to be a few hours until she returned anyway.
"Any thoughts on how my people behaved during the fight?"
Lucy snorted, "Pff, that wasn't a fight. Those guys had levels but they had no idea how to utilize their stats or leverage their skills to effect. It was clear they did not have a lot of fighting experience either. I'm glad to see that this system does not reward easy power like that."
"Ok, so it was easy, but what does that tell you about the situation we are in?"
"Like, this immediate situation? Or are you asking me about a more generalized situation?" Lucy asked, she was a bit nervous and clearly wanted to give an answer that he approved of.
"Both."
Lucy thought about it for a couple minutes before answering. "Right now it means that these guys were set up by the system. They probably didn't even know their strength was hollow, and from what Stevens said about the people in that safe zone, I bet they had relatively easy monster hordes, or their power was only good on monsters. If I had to guess, the system was punishing them for looking for easy power shortcuts and turned them into plump fodder for someone like you to come along and collect."
"That is kind of what I was leaning towards as well." Eli said as he put a hand on her shoulder. He felt a flash of pleasure shoot through her magic as he agreed with her and even more when he touched her reassuringly. He ignored it and continued, "What about things more generally?"
Again she thought for a bit before answering. "If we take our assumption and generalize it, it would mean that the system wants people to struggle for strength. If we aren't pushing ourselves near death to gain power, I think it will manipulate things so that the struggle finds us, or we become someone else's fodder."
"I think you are half right," Eli said to her again, patting her shoulder. "Struggle for strength is correct, but I do not think the system gets involved with everyone. From what I have been able to gather it only cares about the strong. Take the lord system for example. As your lord I have a lot of power over you, not just my strength versus yours, but the system actually can step in if you are plotting against me or something. But that's not true if you recruit minions, the connection and systems involvement is far less. Why do you think that is?"
"A reward for the strong, forcing loyalty?" Lucy said as a question more than a statement.
"I don't think so," Eli said in a soft voice so she didn't think he was chastising her. "My guess would be that the system wants the strong to focus on getting stronger. So the lord system is just a way to aid the strong in their hunt for more strength. There is something else too but my guess on it is completely without evidence."
"Well, what is your guess? Is it some kind of gut feeling?" Lucy was intrigued by the conversation and Eli could feel in her magic that she was enjoying the conversation with him more than she probably should, but again he pushed on.
"I think the system also uses the lord system to help the strong maintain their humanity. The kind of power I have now will be nothing to me in the next few months. I don't know how to act with my current strength, but as I grow, my identity as a human, as a social animal, will be hard to hold onto. I'm going to need people like you to help me keep perspective or I might end up killing an entire city because someone from there insulted me."
"My father used to say, strength doesn't change people, it reveals them."
"That might be true when our differences were on a smaller scale, but that's not the case anymore." Eli paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. "Do you think the lord in this safe zone feels strong enough to do whatever he wants while I am living this close?"
Lucy tapped her chin, "Well, he knows you can't go inside, so even if your strength scares him, I do not think it's stopping from doing anything."
"All of human behavior is a slippery slope, you do something small by accident or because of some bad situation you find yourself in. If there aren't any consequences, or a perceived threat of consequences, it's more likely that you will do that thing again, maybe a little bigger next time. If nothing is guiding your morality except your own notions of what good and evil are, then you can slide down a slope ending up in some terrible places."
"That sounds like it might be true, but not for everyone, most people are good people." Lucy said that last part with total and unshakable conviction.
"You may be right, maybe I've seen too many bad things in my life and it's making me only notice the bad in the world. However, it is also true that 'most' can mean 51 percent, leaving 49 percent of people one mistake away from being a terrible person doing terrible things if there isn't a check on it."
Lucy sat down on the ground and thought about what Eli had said. She wanted to have the right answers the next time Eli brought this up. He seemed to enjoy this kind of conversation and she really enjoyed the one on one attention she got from having it so she needed more of this to talk about so she could be ready next time. After five minutes she couldn't come up with anything on her own except even if a minority of people are bad, it is easier to destroy than it is to create. Another one of her fathers sayings, she had always expressed to her father that she wanted the Konzak prince to be able to rely on her for anything so she wanted to be taught wisdom. Her fathers only answer to that was to give her a bunch of sayings that might help her, or at the very least help her sound wise.
Without being able to brainstorm anything new she did her best to commit everything they had talked about to memory as best she could so she could think about it more later. Eli had been standing perfectly still while she meditated, so still it was a little eerie, like a person turned into a statue. Their prisoner was sitting and would struggle against the binds or adjust his position every minute or so, but Eli did not move. Lucy got a message from Tara that the fighting was over and no one was seriously hurt, they let around 40 or so get away and Crater Town itself ate the dead ones, increasing in size again, if only a little. While this was sent to her over several messages while she had been brainstorming, now that she read it, she felt like she should fill in Elias on the fact that their town eats dead bodies.
Lucy went to get his attention, but stopped right before she touched him, there was a faint shimmer around him. It was slight and only an inch or so off of his skin, but it was there, and she could feel it on her skin right before she touched him. Unsure of what this was or what he was even attempting to do, she went to check on their prisoner, making sure he was still tied, the hood was still on, and the manacles were still working. Everything seemed to be in order except he seemed very still when she was close to him.
Several things then happened at once, the ropes tore, Drak stood up and swung his body in an attempt to get ahold of Lucy. While Lucy watched this with shocked eyes she saw Elias appear from nothing a couple inches in front of her. All she could see was the back part of his cloak since he was so much bigger than her, but she could hear a loud crunching sound and a squishing tearing sound that made her a little queasy. Hopping around him to see what was happening, she was now more than a little queasy, she threw up on Eli and fell to her knees.
Drak had broken the rope and spun to kick Lucy with both feet, Eli had blinked over to intercept the hit well before it would have hit her. He had been probing Drak's magic with his magic sense and felt right when he decided to make his move. Because he was able to get there quickly, and Drak was still bound, he was able to grab one of his legs and break it above the knee. Then Eli placed his knee on the break and pulled until the leg tore off, leaving mangled flesh on both sides of the leg with blood spraying everywhere covering both of them. As if that wasn't gruesome enough, Eli plunged his hand into Drak's chest and ripped a couple ribs off, spraying more blood and exposing his insides.
All the damage and blood spray had been while Lucy was behind Eli, so her first look at the situation was right after all of that had happened. She felt embarrassed about vomiting on Eli, but this was a level of brutality that she had never come close to experiencing. She didn't know what to do except take a few steps back and hope that he didn't notice since he was covered in blood. It was hard for her to tell from his body language what was going on in his head, he could be angry, upset, or completely calm, she just didn't know him well enough yet to read him while he was wearing his mask. Her father had told her to pay attention to moods so she would be better at serving him, but this seemed like an intense situation and she still just didn't know him well enough.
"Lord Ash?" Lucy said trying to get his attention but she spoke so softly because of how scared she was and she wasn't sure he heard her because of all the screaming coming from Drak.
"I let you live, and you try to kill one of my people!" Eli yelled so loud it echoed off the distant trees.
Between coughing and screaming, Drak managed to get one word out, "Bastard!"
"You're probably right about that, but now I can't kill you, that would be too easy." Eli paused and made it obvious that he was looking at Lucy, who to his dismay flinched away from him a little. "However, since this member of my group is new I will let someone else handle you."