Grey silently tapped his fingers together, allowing the silence to form a complete chain of events. He didn't rush to conclusions. First came the facts. Then the causes and consequences. Only at the very end came judgment.
Step by step, he replayed every action the group had taken, as if arranging pieces on a board.
Given:
The enemy: thirty adult cultists. The terrain: a desert where even the smallest mistake cost lives. Restrictions: chains binding everyone. Guards. A shortage of food and water. Participants: Garen, Reus, Kai, Leo, and Alen. An unexpected ally: Achilles. An uncertain factor: a hundred terrified children. Available resources: sleeping medicine and metal staples.
Result:
Panic. Reinforcements. The death of a companion. Fifteen lives saved out of a hundred.
Although Garen was considered the group's formal leader, it was Reus who had taken that role during the escape. He was the one making the choices: wait or act, take risks or stall for time, save a small group or try to pull everyone out.
Grey had insisted on this back in the slave camp. For an operation like this, the leader shouldn't be the strongest person, but the most reliable one. Someone capable of waiting, thinking, and acting with a cool head. Reus was the perfect fit. Which meant the responsibility for the outcome of the escape rested primarily on him, as did the evaluation of his decisions.
Looking at it objectively, Reus had done everything he could.
Yes, they spent too much time dealing with the staples. Yes, they failed to prepare the others, failed to bring them under their command, failed to maintain silence. There had been many mistakes, far too many to ignore.
But all of those mistakes were visible only now, from the safety of hindsight.
In a moment of danger, there is no luxury for analysis. There are only a few breaths to make a decision that determines life and death. And if you make the wrong choice, it is no longer theory. It is blood on the sand and the life of a companion.
Grey had learned that through personal experience. Did he even need to remember how his own escape plan had ended, the one where he made every decision and controlled every step?
He had completely screwed it up. Only a miracle had saved him, Sheryl, and Lily from death.
The difference was that no miracle had come for Reus. Leo had died a hero's death, leaving everyone behind with a sense of helplessness and grief. Eighty more children had shared the same fate. Such a burden of responsibility would break anyone.
Without realizing it, Grey felt a chill run down the back of his neck.
He compared. Put himself in Reus's place and tried to understand whether he could have done better. One person deciding the fate of a hundred. Not seasoned warriors, not adults, but children. Chained. Exhausted. Terrified.
Could he have achieved a better outcome himself?
Grey honestly asked himself that question and found no quick answer.
They could have acted on the first day, when the city had still been close. They could have escaped with a small group and left the children to die. They could have identified the most nervous ones in advance so panic wouldn't spread to the others, established an order beforehand instead of relying on the slim chance that the crowd would remain manageable.
But every "could have" carried a price.
And almost always, that price was someone's life.
Reus had acted exactly the way Grey had taught him.
He hadn't charged forward recklessly or relied on luck. He calculated everything, weighed the risks, and acted with extreme caution.
That approach wasn't wrong. On the contrary, it was rational.
Reus didn't view the escape as a personal chance to survive. He treated it as a task where the objective was to get as many people out alive as possible. Given the conditions they had been working with, it could be said that he had achieved the best possible result.
But even the right decisions did not guarantee complete success. Now Reus had to live with the consequences.
Leo was dead. Along with him, dozens of other children they had failed to save. It didn't matter that everyone would have died without the escape. It didn't matter that the outcome they achieved was almost impossible. For the person making the decisions, other people's lives were never just numbers.
Grey slowly exhaled.
He could see the guilt in their eyes. In the way they avoided looking at one another. In Garen's sharp, almost rude words. In Kai's clenched teeth. In Reus's distant, almost lost gaze.
Their morale was at rock bottom.
No one said it aloud. But each of them blamed themselves.
Until today, they had lived on the edge, chasing a single goal: survival. But now that they had reached relative safety, they had come face to face with something impossible to escape from: regret. If this continued, they would remain stuck here, trapped in reflection, imprisoned by a pit they had dug for themselves.
And he didn't need broken children.
He needed children who could keep moving forward and achieve results.
He stopped tapping his fingers and raised his head.
"I can see it," he said calmly. "You're unhappy with the outcome."
No one answered.
"Then all of you, follow me. To the yard. Formation in five minutes. Anyone who doesn't come out, I'll throw out personally."
After giving the order, Grey didn't even bother looking them in the eyes. He couldn't care less that many of them were injured. He simply picked up a chair and walked outside.
In the yard, Grey placed the chair in the middle of the open space, sat down cross-legged, and waited.
If not for the dark circles under his eyes and his torn clothes, he could easily have been mistaken for a young master from a noble family. The kind who had stepped outside with a cup of tea to enjoy the fresh air and relax, not to give orders to half-dead teenagers.
The children didn't dare disobey him. Before even half of the allotted time had passed, they had lined up in formation.
Even those who were injured tried to stand straight. After all, they had eaten their fill and gotten some sleep last night. Grey had even spent valuable potions on them. He wasn't asking for the impossible.
After sweeping his gaze across the teenagers, he began his opening speech.
"I can see it. I can see it. All of you blame your failure for ending up in this situation."
He spoke quietly and didn't even rise from his chair, yet the full attention of all fifteen teenagers was fixed on him.
The same unspoken question could be seen in their eyes:
What kind of future awaits us under this little tyrant's rule?
"More than that," Grey continued evenly. "You blame me. For not being there with you. For not suffering alongside you. For taking advantage of a moment of weakness and forcing you to obey me."
His gaze lingered on Reus for a moment.
"Some of you still believe in a miracle. You're hoping your companions survived."
He smirked like a third-rate villain.
"Let me free you from those illusions. Allow me to be the bad guy."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Everyone who isn't standing here right now is dead. That's a fact. Stop comforting yourselves with false hope. The cultists killed them. Whether it was quick or slow no longer matters. They're all dead. Leo included."
A pause. The boys stared at him without blinking, unable to understand how he could dare say such things to their faces.
"And I'm alive," he added. "And I'm living a whole lot better than you are."
"And do you know why?"
An answer wasn't necessary.
"Because I was better prepared," Grey said without the slightest trace of remorse. "Because I used my head instead of my ass. Because when the time came, I ran away and left the trash to deal with their own problems."
Garen abruptly raised his head.
"You..."
Grey slammed his fist against the armrest of the chair. The wood let out a pitiful crack, and one of the legs split. The sound echoed through the small courtyard. Several teenagers flinched.
"That's right," he cut him off. "I won't even try to justify myself. I abandoned you. Left you to die while I enjoyed a luxurious life at someone else's expense. And I'm not ashamed of it in the slightest."
He slowly swept his gaze across the crowd of ragged children.
Each word was harsher than the last. They came one after another like slaps across the face, without pause and without mercy.
"Because their lives were never as important to me as my own."
"When I trained Garen's group," Grey continued, "I knew they were expendable. Out of five..." He raised a hand and began folding down his fingers. "I expected at most two of you to survive. Three would have been good luck. Four..."
He let out a short laugh.
"That would have been a result I wouldn't even have dared hope for."
Reus clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white. He felt betrayed.
"You bastard..." he hissed through gritted teeth.
Grey's smile widened.
"Maybe. But I'm an honest bastard. And a very alive one."
He straightened up.
"And now for the most interesting part. All of you are my subordinates now."
He spread his arms as if he had stepped onto a stage and was waiting for thunderous applause.
"Funny, isn't it? Deep down, you hate me. You want to hit me. Blame me for everything. You're thinking: why did this pathetic cripple survive while my brother, my friend, my companion died like a dog?"
He tilted his head and smiled.
"Isn't that right?"
Several people looked away.
"But guess what?" Grey continued. "It doesn't matter anymore. Because you're alive now. Which means you're useful."
He chuckled softly.
"You have no idea how happy that makes me."
All fifteen teenagers stared at him with open, undisguised hatred. But Grey had no intention of stopping.
"And when I look at you, all I see is a pile of trash. Useless garbage that's difficult to make use of."
Achilles stepped forward, his face barely concealing his restrained anger.
"Kid, what exactly do you mean by saying things like that? My friends already agreed to become your subordinates, but every one of them is a survivor. You can't even imagine what we've been through... Even if you helped us, you have no right to insult us!"
Grey burst out laughing.
"Ahahahaha. Insult you? No, no, no. I'm only speaking facts. Do I have any reason to insult you? Are you even worth insulting?" He pointed at them with a finger. "Do you feel offended? Do you want to hit me? Fine. I'll allow it, if even one of you can argue against what I'm saying."
Every teenager's breathing grew heavier. Their eyes were bloodshot with rage. If he hadn't been the one who had healed them, fed them, and given them shelter, they would have rushed him and beaten him on the spot. Even Reus, Kai, Garen, and Alen looked at Grey with open hostility.
He immediately continued in the same icy voice.
"Let me enlighten you as to why I called you trash. All of you escaped from the cultists' grasp. Good. A worthy accomplishment. But how did you live afterward? Hiding. Starving. Slowly dying."
The teenagers stared at Grey with empty eyes.
Can that even be called an argument? We were wounded and on the run. What else did he expect from us? To live like nobles?
"You couldn't even steal food," he continued. "Only Reus tried, and even he screwed it up. Excellent result. Nothing more needs to be said."
Reus clenched his teeth tightly but said nothing. Grey leaned slightly closer.
"You're an incompetent commander who failed the people under him," he concluded coldly. "The most dangerous combination."
"Garen."
Grey shifted his gaze.
"The team's formal leader."
Garen ground his teeth.
"Do you know why I insisted that Reus be in charge?" Grey asked. "Because you're only good at waving your arms around and shouting loudly. When it's time to take responsibility and think, you're completely useless. If you had been the leader, I'd bet every coin I have that there wouldn't be a single survivor."
Garen took a step forward.
"Shut up..."
"Get back in line, trash!" Grey snapped.
And Garen lowered his head.
He didn't even understand how it happened.
"You're too used to having others make decisions for you," Grey continued. "First your tribe. Then the overseers. Then me. Then Reus. You're an executor. Convenient. Not very bright. Replaceable."
"Kai, Alen," Grey didn't even turn his head, yet both of them felt blood rush to their faces. "An archer with attitude and a swordsman with iron principles…"
Kai let out a bitter sneer, while Alen clenched his fists.
"You get angry faster than you think," Grey said under his breath.
"Kai. You're an archer. You were supposed to know the terrain. Escape routes. Cover. But what happened instead? You became nothing but a burden, dumped all the problems on Reus and just drifted along. Am I wrong?"
Grey didn't even wait for an answer.
"And you, Alen… A talented swordsman, a skilled fighter… Let me guess, you got injured the same way Garen did. Your warrior honor rejects strikes from behind, so at the critical moment you hesitated. Am I wrong? And Leo went to draw away the pursuers instead of you."
He looked straight into his eyes.
"You're the first one who'll break and get everyone else killed if you're not kept on a short leash. You're worse than Garen."
"And finally, Achilles," Grey looked at the handsome young man with a hollow, contemptuous gaze, devoid of any interest or respect.
Achilles frowned, but quickly regained his composure. He replayed all his actions in his mind and found no mistakes, so he straightened up and puffed out his chest.
Go on, his expression said. Let's see what you've got to say now.
"I know you less than the others," Grey began calmly. "And you're not my subordinate, so I can't really judge your actions."
A short pause.
"But let's just look back."
He swept his gaze across the line.
"Everyone here respects you. Many consider you a true leader. Some even place your contribution to their survival on the same level as Reus's. But what do I see?"
He didn't raise his voice, yet his eyes remained just as contemptuous, a mocking smile playing on his lips.
"I see a self-satisfied boy who found a hole to hide in and decided his job ended there."
Achilles clenched his jaw, but didn't even get the chance to respond.
"You brought them into the slums—not to save them, but to delay death. You didn't think about what they would eat. Didn't think about medicine. Didn't think about what to do tomorrow," Grey tilted his head slightly. "All you did was dump the responsibility of finding food onto Reus. And kept playing at being a leader."
Achilles' eyes narrowed.
"And now—the interesting part," Grey continued to press on. "When I appeared."
"You sold out your companions so they would obey a stranger. Quickly, without bargaining. You asked for yourself. Not for them. So why are you so self-satisfied?"
Someone in the line barely flinched, but Grey didn't take his eyes off Achilles.
"Did I speak something wrong?"
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