The battle ended with Hector down to fifteen percent in his reserves. He didn't improve that estimate all that much in the single hour Fred allowed for their recovery. Fortunately, he had time to cultivate while riding on the rover. They received a hero's welcome after reporting their victory, which included another feast and Hector receiving another special invitation from Mila.

As he lay beside the Strigoi, she broached the topic of the Ogre once more. "Are you still willing to help with our situation? I know you have done so much for us already, but I do not think my village can survive the threat represented by Cataclysm. If she comes for us, and I believe she will, we won't be able to beat her alone. And I cannot abandon my people."

"I will try to convince Fred to help out."

"And if he isn't willing? You could stay behind, could you not? Everyone who knows demon lore agrees that the Xian are warriors without peer." Mila traced imaginary patterns on his skin while looking up at him like a vulnerable child.

Manipulating him. He knew it. And she knew that he knew it. Deception wasn't the real game here. Mila understood how he thought. She'd ensured he would grow fond of her village. Her words now weren't to convince him of anything, they were to force his moral crisis before he left her village behind and the inertia of events could take him away from her problem.

He'd long since been convinced the Ogre had to go, so her efforts were hardly necessary. She may have bedded him in exchange for something he would do for free. "I have to go with my squad when they leave. If I can't convince Fred to help, I promise to return on my own once the monster threat is dealt with."

Mila studied him intensely. "I cannot tell if you speak truth or a comforting lie."

"I don't give promises casually."

"I hope not, Hector. The people of this village need help."

Misfit Squad departed in the morning, leaving the way they first arrived to reverse their journey. They even had Hunter with them again, the man sent by Mila to ensure Hector could find his way back to Breadfruit Village again. Everyone else took Hunter at his word that he was guiding them as a gesture of gratitude.

Knowing he would need to fight again, Hector spent much of the trip cultivating on top of Fred. When they reached Crossroads Village, site of the massacre by the Ogre Cataclysm, Hunter guided them along the path of destruction back the way they came from. Three days of travel along that desiccated trail brought them out onto a plain not far from where the initial rift and the battle with the goats had been. They were out of water again, so their timing was good.

Fred found someone from command to deliver his report to. After that, they were given rations of food and water. Hunter settled in with them, looking like he suspected someone would come along to punish him for his presence at any moment.

The man whispered a question to Cleo. "How many demons came here?"

"Twenty thousand, I think," she said.

"They came just to fight the monsters?"

"Monsters are the enemies of all humans."

Hector watched the interaction between Cleo and Hunter. He couldn't be sure, but he suspected that there was something going on there. Something more than a one time hookup. Sitting there, surrounded by Misfit Squad, who had become his brothers in arms, Hector felt a pang of loneliness. He'd found plenty of friends since leaving Earth behind. Many of them closer than he let anyone get to him before he received memories of another life.

Yet as he watched the budding romance, Hector realized he had no one truly precious to him. Jen bewitched his cold heart, once upon a time. She got him to be someone different for a time. Then the initial fire faded and he went back to his fundamental nature, focused on the things he could measure to the detriment of things that actually mattered. For the first time, what he had done to the person he once loved most in the world became clear to him.

Why had his career mattered so much to him? More than his wife? It was not just wrong, it was casually cruel. Jen had been a ray of sunshine in his life before his coldness drove her away. And he'd never tried to win her back. He stubbornly insisted on his own righteousness while she walked away from a toxic situation.

How was he any better than the hateful Volithur, who despised Khana in his thoughts?

Growing powerful through cultivation would never stop being one of his goals. He wouldn't let anyone stop him from going to war on behalf of humanity, either. But he had to change. If his fundamental motivation was improving things, then he had to turn that on himself. He already worked towards humility and charity, even if imperfectly and inconsistently. Those virtues were to counter the worst tendencies observed in the Xian lords. But what of the worst tendencies already part of his nature?

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The predisposition to value goals over people was a character flaw. If the loss of his mother and father taught him anything, it was that human connection mattered more than anything else. He needed to ingrain that moral impulse into the shape of his thoughts. What virtue would serve? The first word to come to mind caused him to balk.

It was respect. And his immediate reaction was that he didn't disrespect people. He wasn't some smart-mouthed kid out to get one over on others. Except that wasn't the only way to offer disrespect. In fact, it wasn't even the worst way to do so. The mouthy kid cared enough for other people's opinions to go out of his way to trigger them. True disrespect wouldn't even recognize someone else had needs or desires if they were inconvenient.

The logic was inescapable in that moment of clarity. Respect would be his third virtue. As for how to cultivate it… listening? He doubted it would be so simple. It seemed like he wasn't seeing much progress with the first two, making him doubt his moral journey altogether. He undeniably had made some improvements. The most obvious example was during the tournament when he decided to follow his morals even in the face of death.

He would have to refine his process over time. Quitting wasn't an option. If he managed to one day become a great man without first becoming a good man, then he'd failed to put in the reps on his moral development. He couldn't let that happen. There were too many Xian tyrants already.

Hector realized that his quiet brooding was bringing down the mood of his squad. That wasn't very respectful of his friends. He shook his head and looked towards Leroy, who had just been complaining that he didn't do very much during the final battle.

"Leroy, I saw you knocking down all those trees to trip the crane."

The Arahant Savant pondered that. "Fred did all the cutting and building. I just kicked the supports off when he told me."

"Oh. So Fred could have kicked those supports while he was backing up as fast as he could?"

"No, probably not."

"And no one else could get between those trees fast enough. You were leaping like that," Hector snapped his fingers.

Leroy smiled down at his lap. "I guess I was jumping pretty good that day."

"The five of you all tied for first place that day," Fred declared.

"I'd say all six of us," Hector countered. "My idea almost got all of us killed the first battle, then you developed a plan that addressed every issue we faced. Grade A leadership, in my opinion."

Ajax thumped his chest. "Now talk me up, Hector."

"You're the prettiest guy in the squad, Ajax."

Nestor immediately objected. "Hey!"

"And Nestor is the strongest."

"Oh, that's fine then. I'd rather be strong than pretty," Nestor said.

Cleo held up her hands. "I don't know what's gotten into you, Hector, but I don't need my ego fluffed up. I want to opt out of the compliment game."

"Good, because I would be annoyed if I had to point out how effective you are as a scout who never even has to stand up to work. Doing your job effortlessly makes the rest of us look bad."

Cleo shook her head. "Right. Shame on you guys for having to work to slay monsters."

Hector turned to Hunter then. "And you. Your village is gone and you don't know what to do with your life. Consider starting over on Union Central. There are Alfar there, so you will be able to find work. If you have nothing to go home to, why not start a new adventure?"

Ajax leaned over to peer down at Hector's tin of meatloaf. "Did any of you put something in his rations? Hector is acting different."

Fred made a humming noise. "I know you're joking, Ajax, but I think I know what is going on. Mila convinced Hector to help out with her Ogre problem last night. Didn't she, Hector?"

Taking a deep breath, Hector shrugged. "I'm not leaving you guys yet. But I do plan on staying behind after the task force leaves to help all the villages in the area."

Nestor tilted his head to study Hector. "You're going to stay on Eden?"

Hector shrugged. "I'll get back to Union Central on my own. I have a transit sphere."

"I'm gonna miss you, Hector. I don't think Xian are bad no more, even if one killed my dream mama," Leroy said.

"I'll miss you too. All of you. But we'll be able to stay in contact on Union Central."

Ajax shook his head. "Me and my brother are going to Aes as soon as we get back. We only ever leave the Reconquest so we can recover from the miasma."

"Then maybe I'll see you there," Hector said.

"All right, don't make me cry or I will short out my circuits."

Leroy turned towards Fred with concern. "Don't cry, Fred! Think of something funny instead!"

They continued joking around late into the night. The following afternoon, the commanders of the task force opened the first of many gates that would be needed to move everyone back to Union Central. Fred already reported Hector's intentions to stay behind and ensured his pay would be in his account when he returned home.

Hector said farewell to Misfit Squad and laughed as Hunter decided at the last minute to run through the gate with them. He waited until the entire army was gone and the gate to another world winked shut. Then he sat in the middle of the space and began to draw the residual chaos of the area through his mental aperture.

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