One Last System

I wanted to talk with Mia. Have a proper discussion during which I would reveal the details about my past that I omitted during our earlier conversations. Bring her fully up to speed in regards to my past life.

Then, I would love to hear her opinion on the problems and questions that I struggled to answer myself.

All of that was a simple desire of mine, coupled with my need to spend some time alone with her, borne out of the heated atmosphere of the recent fight and its violent outcome.

I wanted to make all of that happen right away… but I couldn't.

"They really can't do much unsupervised," I muttered when I turned around, a mere moment after giving the otherworldly cultivators their orders.

They were supposed to count and then gather the deceased, get rid of all the fires, and map out all the devastation that came due to the attack.

Three simple tasks with the addition of patrolling the area in case of another group of invaders or maybe monsters coming our way.

And yet, barely anyone managed to move.

"I guess we will have to put it off for later," I muttered, not paying any mind to hiding the annoyance in my voice.

"Huh?" Mia twitched, finally tearing her eyes away from the bloody sight before her and turning her face to the side to throw a glance at my face. "Why?" she asked in a tiny, fleeting voice.

Then, for exactly three seconds, she stared at my face. She moved her eyes and spent two more seconds looking in the same direction as I did.

"Hehe," Mia then giggled, her face relaxing as she brought her right first up to cover her mouth. "I see," she said in a normal voice after taking the reins of her laughter. "I guess they won't move unless we make them."

Mia's mood took a drastic turn in a time so short I genuinely started to worry about the health of her mind. She turned around and marched off, only to force the cultivators to move with shouts, screams, kicks, and punches.

'Still,' I thought, gulping my saliva down, 'it's better to see her like that than to watch her brood over what happened.'

I took a deep breath and slapped my cheeks twice before joining Mia and adding my own two cents to her shouting and kicking that finally managed to force the cultivators to move.

First came the topic of gathering the corpses and counting the dead. Thankfully, contrary to how big the damage appeared to be when I approached the town, there were only a total of seven dead.

The first three of them died during the initial clash, three more fell while trying to stall the enemies and before Levi joined the fight. The last unfortunate victim was truly… unfortunate, as he ended up caught up inside one of the buildings that the dragon hunters set on fire.

'If I put greater focus on letting all of them improve their cultivation, this death could be avoided,' I thought while staring down at the charred body of a relatively young lass.

This loss was two-fold, given how there were a lot more male cultivators in the town than females. And between the charred corpse and the row of six of those who fell in battle, the town suffered a loss of a total of two women.

For me, personally, it was a loss like any other. But for the remaining cultivators in the town, the competition for courting the few females left in the future suddenly turned all the harder.

"I don't know how you guys are going about burials in your world," I spoke once everyone gathered around the corpses, "but in this world, we either burn them," I bit my tongue when I noticed the faux pass, "or bury them."

I raised my head and waited in silence.

"We should bury them," one of the cultivators got the hint after only about… a minute.

"For now, leave them be. But I need five of you to clear out the ruins of one of the burned-out buildings so that we can establish a proper cemetery," I gave my orders. "As for the rest of you…"

The funeral had to be put off for a little bit later. Since I wanted to make some sort of ceremony for those who fell in this invasion, it couldn't be done right away, without any sort of preparation. And what was even more important…

The city was still burning.

It wasn't on the level of a disaster that could consume the entire town. But some of the buildings were still smoldering, putting the rest of the city at risk of catching fire as well.

As such, putting down all the remaining fires became the next priority task during which I came up with a new, seemingly stupid idea.

When it came to buildings, only every other one would see any attempt at saving it. In this way, the formerly tight construction of the town where one building would nearly touch the other was removed along with the risk of future fires easily spreading.

'It's only the prior devastation that this town suffered from the monsters that we have to thank for those fires not consuming the entire town,' I realized not long after giving the aforementioned orders.

Lastly, by the time it was well into the night, came the proper burial ceremony.

One of the spots formerly occupied by some sort of mansion now turned into a completely empty plot of land. In the future, I would be sure to put some sort of fence to mark it out and keep people from walking over the graves.

But for now, there were seven holes dug out within the darkened ground of the burned-out building. And after a short ceremony, given how there were hardly any friendships among the group of people that we saved, we laid the seven fallen to eternal rest, giving their bodies to the nature of this foreign world.

"Tonight marks the first loss that our small city sustained," I spoke out once all the ditches were covered up and then decorated with a smile, carved out stone. "A loss that could be prevented if we were more vigilant or simply stronger," I continued for a moment before allowing the silence to reign supreme.

"May this sorrowful day be a lesson for us, never to let something like this happen again."

There was no need nor use for lengthy speeches. We only knew each other for a few days so there was hardly anyone who knew enough about the fallen to offer their own speech.

Even my words came out not from sympathy but from my obligation as the leader of this ragtag group of otherwordly cultivators.

Yet, as sad and near depressing as the funeral was, it also marked the end of the priority tasks that had to be taken care of. And so, after spending some time washing all the exhaustion and dirt off our bodies, I quickly ran away with Mia to the confines of our private room before anyone could bother us with another job.

"It's been a long day," I said once I finally got the chance to sit down on the bed, soon to welcome the pleasure of Mia sitting right away on my lap. "But we finally have some time to talk."