Insulator

1.6 Piercing & Impact Damage

I was just walking alone through a quiet forest, the melancholy and lonesome atmosphere following me wherever I went. My mind was basically asleep as my body moved unconsciously along the path. I was still so tired and weary of existing...

I was now lying on my back. It took me a second to realise what happened, and I saw an arrow on the ground next to me. A few more arrows were fired at me, but like the first they didn't pierce me.

There's an ability my father taught me, something he used to survive so long as a pacifist, a defensive skill. This ability prevents one's body from being pierced, and the higher you level it the stronger sharpness is required to cut or pierce your skin. It was an ability that was unheard of for normal people to learn, as the side effect was that the impact damage it became was increased, so for most people they would be better off just taking the arrow or cut. However, if you were to have a significantly high impact resistance, like my father and I trained ourselves to have, then it made it extremely difficult to injure them in any significant way.

I continued to lay there, too lazy to move or do anything, just waiting for them to stop. They were surprisingly stubborn though, and kept firing at me. I imagined that they were quite inexperienced and low-levelled archers, and were unaware that I still had most of my health remaining.

My father told me that the key to surviving is through defence, not offense. As long as you didn't hold much of value or make enemies of those around you, then even accidents and misunderstandings wouldn't be enough to take your life. Many times, I had seen my father be beaten down by archers or even those of our own kind. Not once did he ever retaliate. Since he was able to survive it all, they ended up leaving him alone. He just had a small farm in the middle of nowhere, and it was easy to tell that he had no offensive abilities that would be a threat to anyone, and just wanted a small and peaceful life.

I eventually pulled a bottle out of my bag, and got it ready.

He really was out of place in this world. We lived in a world of constant wars where a lone stranger would get attacked for no reason when simply walking through a forest. When I was really young, I thought I would follow in his footsteps. It's only because of this unique ability I discovered I had that I ended up straying from it to a path of destruction.

But it was too late, now. My father was pure and had done nothing wrong. I was far from innocent like he was.

I closed my eyes and simply waited for the destruction around me to begin. I felt a few more arrows hit me, but it was just a minor annoyance I slowly was able to ignore.

You could say that my father had no significant desires. He didn't wish to change the world, or even be a big part of it. He just found a way to continue existing, detached from the chaotic world we lived in.

In a way, I had that same disinterest in the world. I just happened to have an ability and unfortunate past that led to my ability to destroy. These days, I usually only act out of self-defence. I have no altruistic goals of saving the world, destroying the archers or the varied. I just wandered around aimlessly, existing...

I may as well not be here... Part of why I did was because of something my father said that always stuck with me.

"Once you're dead, it's over. The future is such a big unknown, with infinite possibilities within it, so it's never worth it to leave this world early. It may be a long and painful road, but there may exist something in the future that will make it all worth it for you. The possibilities of what could be there for you will always be infinitely more than the short-term struggles or reasoning to disappear."

In a way, it felt like empty words. My father didn't do much with his life. He didn't accomplish anything or find anything of worth, that I was aware of. But, for some odd reason, it made sense to me. From an early age, it was the one thing he said that stuck with me the most, that I could never imagine not believing in. It was basically a habit, at this point. My mind and soul were so tired that I existed on the border between life and death, but this one thing he said was why I would continue to move.

The bottles I threw around me finally went off, exploding and destroying the surrounding forests, and likely some of the archers that were after me, too. I never bothered to check, though, so for all I knew, they all escaped unharmed...

But it was doubtful... I knew full-well the destructive power that I had...

It was ironic, really. The words of a pacifist continuing the existence of someone that caused destruction everywhere he went...

Why was I the one of us still here...