FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 303: Chapter 303: Kira’s Grief

Slowly, awkwardly, Sol reached out. He wrapped his strong, heavy arms around her shaking shoulders and pulled her against his chest.

Kira didn’t resist. She collapsed into him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her hands came up to grip the fabric of his torn tunic like a drowning sailor clinging to a lifeline. She cried her eyes out, the hot tears soaking into his skin, her athletic body wracked with violent, rhythmic sobs.

Sol just held her. He let the tectonic, grounding weight of the Great Badger flow passively into his muscles, turning himself into an immovable, stable anchor in the middle of her emotional hurricane.

He rested his chin on the top of her head, smelling the faint scent of rain and wild flowers in her hair, entirely ignoring the grime and dust covering his own body.

They sat like that for a long time. The only sounds in the room were the soft crackle of the dying fire and her ragged, exhausted breathing.

Eventually, the violent shaking subsided. The tears slowed, leaving her drained and hollow.

Kira slowly pulled back, wiping her swollen eyes with the back of her hand. She didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed firmly on the smoldering river stones of the fire pit.

“She was my friend, Sol,” Kira whispered, her voice hoarse, cracking on the syllables. “Lumi. She… she didn’t even have parents. I had heard that she was found helplessly all alone in the deep jungle.

The tribe raised her. I protected her. She couldn’t fight, she had just reached Layer 1 after such a long time, but she always had a big smile. She always brought us water when we returned from the hunt.”

She swallowed hard, a fresh wave of agony twisting her beautiful features. “And I got her sold to a monster.”

“You didn’t sell her, Kira,” Sol said firmly, his voice rumbling in his chest. “Thorne did. The elders allowed it. Gorr demanded it.”

“Because I lied!” Kira snapped, turning her stormy, tear-filled eyes toward him, the guilt eating her alive. “Gorr wanted me! If I had just accepted it, if I hadn’t panicked and claimed you as my partner… Gorr would have taken me. I am a warrior. I have a strong core. I could have survived him. I could have found a way to kill him in his sleep.

But…. I was a coward. I pushed the target off my own back, and it landed directly on Lumi. She sacrificed herself to cover my lie. She walked away with that… that rotting corpse… because she knew if she didn’t, the Zharun would leave and the tribe would burn.”

She dropped her head into her hands again, her fingers tangling in her hair. “I am the Warchief’s daughter. I am supposed to bleed for them. And instead, I let an orphaned girl pay the price for my survival. What kind of warrior am I?”

Sol looked at her bowed head, the heavy silence of the room pressing down on them. He understood the survivor’s guilt. It was a universal poison, transcending worlds and dimensions.

He reached out, gently wrapping his fingers around her wrists, and pulled her hands away from her face.

“Come here,” Sol said quietly.

He stood up, keeping one hand wrapped warmly around hers, and pulled her gently toward the wide, open eastern balcony.

The night air was cool, carrying a slight, refreshing breeze that cut through the stifling heat of the room. They stepped out onto the polished wooden floorboards.

Sol didn’t look down at the tense, panicked settlement below. He looked up.

In his true vision, the sky was a terrifying, chaotic canvas of nine massive, multi-colored moons, dominating the heavens with gravitational impossibility. But he knew Kira couldn’t see them. To her, there was only one.

“Look at the moon, Kira,” Sol said, pointing his free hand toward the bright, solitary silver orb that she perceived, hanging peacefully above the canopy of the Great Orrath.

Kira sniffled, her eyes following his gesture. She stared at the silver light, the gentle illumination catching the tear streaks on her pale cheeks.

“Lumi didn’t step forward to cover your lie,” Sol said, thinking back to Lumi’s determined eyes, his voice entirely devoid of pity, replaced by a calm, grounded certainty. “She stepped forward because she understood the brutal reality of this world better than any elder in that High Hall.

If you had gone with Gorr, the tribe would have lost an Elite warrior, the Warchief would have been emotionally compromised, and the Zharun would hold the true heir hostage.

The tactical disadvantage would have destroyed the Veynar from the inside out.”

He turned his head, looking at her serious, beautiful profile illuminated by the moonlight.

“Lumi knew she couldn’t hold a spear,” Sol continued gently, channeling the modern, pragmatic philosophy that had defined his own survival since his transmigration. “So she made herself the shield. I know it’s brutal. It’s so fucking unfair. And it’s an absolute tragedy.

But… it was her choice, Kira. If you sit here and drown in guilt, claiming you are a coward, you are cheapening her sacrifice. You are trampling her determination and self sacrifice ”

Kira looked away from the sky, turning her stormy eyes toward him. The raw grief was still there, but the chaotic, self-destructive edge of her guilt had paused, caught off guard by his perspective.

“This world is a bone‑crusher, grinding all who walk it into dust.” Sol stated, his silver-crimson eyes reflecting the pale light, a profound, ancient cynicism lingering in his gaze. “We are thrown into this absolute absurdity without our consent. The rot, the beasts, the warlords, the politics… it’s all a chaotic, meaningless storm that just wants to crush us. We don’t get to choose the tragedies that happen around us.”

He reached out, his thumb gently wiping a stray tear from her cheek. His touch was warm, carrying the faint, comforting warmth of his newly awakened Level 1 core.