“In the Name of Courage, I will defeat you vile demons!” yelled out one of the village children, all bedecked in the glory of her toy swords and armor as she gleefully ‘charged’ at a group of other children similarly wielding all sorts of toy weapons. It was a common sight in human villages, apparently, according to the Zikeal natives.
When Esperanza thought about it, it was really not that much different to kids pretending to be cops and robbers in her world, although the children in this world tended to be far more active and surprisingly, violent even in their play. She saw at least a few of the children walk to their homes with bruises from the play, as their toy weapons, while edgeless and made of wood, would still hurt to get hit with.
Where parents in her old world would have kicked up a ruckus at such things however, in Ephemera it was considered normal and even encouraged, especially for children who came from warrior lineages or had dreams of becoming warriors in the future. The play-fighting would grant them more options along those lines when they reached adulthood and their second tier classes.
It made sense, but the sight of young children fighting each other to the point of bruising and crying still tugged some heartstrings regardless of what Esperanza thought.
“Reminds me of… dammit… it’s just months ago, wasn’t it?” quipped Resitia from her side. Resitia had also been watching the human children at play with a rather melancholic look on her face. With the girl’s matured looks, it was all too easy to forget that in her heart Resitia was still just a ten year old or so child who had been forced to grow – figuratively and literally – beyond her years.
“Uh-huh,” noted Iryl with a nod from where she sat on a nearby bench. Since there were six of them they booked two rooms at the village’s inn, which conveniently enough were larger rooms each with two bunk beds. Murad, Mora, and Tiara took one room while Esperanza, Resitia, and Iryl took the other. The rooms themselves were sparsely furnished, with just a long bench and a table set by the window, the beds, and one chest to store the traveler’s belongings by the foot of each bed. “Just a few months ago. How things have changed since then…”
“Funny how life could be sometimes. Here we are on a mission from the Deities themselves along with their messenger, so much like the tales grandpa used to tell me when I was younger… I just wish that things that lead to this could have been less… painful, I guess,” noted Resitia quietly with a shake of her head. “Just a few months ago we were little different to those children out there.”
“It is how it is. There are many things I wished could have gone differently, but there’s no changing our past so we have to live with it,” said Iryl. She was one of the older of the children back then, though that just meant she was only a year or so older than Resitia at most. “That said… I hope the sights you’ve seen today won't affect you when we have to fight some of the humans… You know they would treat us they way they did demons, or even worse.”
“No need to worry about that,” said Resitia. “I’m well aware that the humans would have done just as the demons did to us had they been the ones to find us back then. Just because I’ve seen some of their children at play doesn’t mean it would stay my spear when the time comes to fight,” she stated confidently. “Also, mister Murad said that this is one of the better places in the region… so I’m rather curious to see what the worse places are like.”
“You girls know? That’s actually going to be our next destination after we leave tomorrow,” said Esperanza with a slightly saddened voice. She too had wished for the children to be able to remain as they were, to enjoy their childhood normally, but fate had disagreed and forced these children to walk a path strewn with hardships. The least she could do was to watch over them and lead the way.
“Anyway, since we came here to spy on them, what do you two think of this place so far?” she asked afterwards. “The other three visited the human villages and towns frequently already, so their understanding would naturally be different. I’m curious what you two in particular think of this place in general.”
“Well… It sorta reminded me of home, of Navef. It’s got that same small, tight-knit group of people feel to it, if that makes sense?” said Resitia after some thought. Iryl nodded in agreement to her words and let the younger girl continue instead of joining in. “That said, there’s some bits that are different, like with the priests and all. We respect the priests back home too, but not to this extent. These people… they look almost like they worship the ground those priests walk on. That’s kinda disturbing, even when the priests we saw so far are nice people.”
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“Agreed with what she said, for the most part. They’ve also been raising their children to hate demons from young by the looks of it, but I expect that to be something normal in the Human Kingdom,” added Iryl. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything related to us in particular, but we probably don’t show up often enough to be a problem they prepare for.”
“Sounds about right. From all I’ve read and heard so far they would only mobilize against people like us if they happen to stumble upon one of our hideouts. I don’t think they actively search for us anymore these days,” noted Resitia. “The folks from Zikeal also said that in general we’re pretty safe in our hideouts. Navef would probably have been safe as well had we still lived deeper in the jungle, but luck was not with us.”
“Bad things happen in life, often to people who don't even deserve it happening to them,” said Esperanza in a wistful tone. “Fact of the matter is that all too often some people, be they human or demon, from this world or another, might bring suffering upon others just to satisfy themselves in some way. More often than not their victims could only take it in silence, unable to fight back. In some ways, you girls are both lucky and unlucky.”
“You’re unlucky in the sense that you have had such suffering happen to you through no fault of your own, yet you’re also lucky that now you have the power to fight back,” she continued. “That is something far too few victims ever had the chance to do.”
The sunset slowly fell over the quaint little village while the girls mulled over what Esperanza had said to them, and they were left with those thoughts over the night as evening turned to night to morning again. They woke up around dawn the next morning, and after some quick and simple breakfast at the inn – some local black, grainy bread and soup that was mostly vegetables and bits of salted meat – bid their farewell to the innkeeper.
It was normal for travelers to depart early in the morning so that they could travel further during the day, after all.
To most of Farnham’s Hold, the visiting strangers were just more of the usual slew of visitors they got from time to time. None of the locals even thought that much about them. Murad and Mora were familiar faces, especially to their frequent business partners in the village. As for the others, some lamented the misfortune that they had suffered and directed some prayers for them, unknowing that those prayers would be less than useless for the people in question.
From the quaint little village, the group first returned to the forest where the rest of their people awaited them and relayed what they had seen in the village. The younger children were quite surprised that the village in the Human Kingdom had been so normal, though they naturally trusted the words of their compatriots, much less Esperanza’s.
The next place they intended to visit was one of the less nice places in the region, however, so this time the group decided to just send Kurt and Leo, together with Resitia there. They chose to do so because they wanted to minimize the possibility of conflict for the time being, and fewer people would attract less suspicion than many.
It was rather unfortunate that the people of Ephemera did not seem to have tamed wolves in their past, and thus had no habit of keeping dogs as pets or partners. Otherwise Esperanza would have sent Dali or Gordy with the group for additional security. Beastmaster-like classes were also rare and almost always on higher tiers, so it would have attracted attention to pretend to be one.
Amusingly, on the way to their next destination, the group ran into a bunch of outlaws that had just finished their business with some unfortunate small-time merchants. The merchants looked to be a middle-aged couple with their son and daughter, all of whom had met with grisly ends at the hands of the outlaws, especially the daughter who had the misfortune to be abused as well by them.
The bandits were still ransacking the family’s wagon in search of valuables when Esperanza’s group noticed them, and while it has nothing to do with them in particular, none amongst the group liked what they saw. As such, they quickly came to a quiet decision that sealed the fates of those bandits, all of whom were unaware of the disgust they had garnered by accident.
Moments later, after the group had encircled the area – and removed a couple bandit lookouts in the process – to ensure that none of the bandits would get away and tell any tales of their presence, they struck. Many of the bandits never knew what hit them, and were dead often before their bodies hit the ground. A few others saw what was happening but had no chance to even make a sound before they too were silenced eternally.
A lucky few who were not killed in the first wave – there were nearly forty of the bandits which was massive overkill for robbing a wagon with just a family of four – turned tail and ran when they saw more than half their group killed on the spot by what were unmistakably demons, but they weren’t spared either. Their lives were reaped before they even managed to take a few steps.
After the killing was over, the group carefully carried the dead bodies of the poor family and buried them in simple graves by the side of the road. They might hold no particular sympathy for people of the Human Kingdom, but it was just common decency in this case. It was not like the unfortunate family was the one responsible for their ordeals, after all.
The ruined wagon, they similarly moved to the side of the road. It was a narrow road that was more a forest path – albeit one large enough for small wagons to traverse – than anything, and probably one of the few roads to connect the village they had just been in to other places. It was the least they could do to at least keep the road unobstructed.
After all, the people who lived simple lives often already lived hard lives, there was no need to make things worse for them when a little bit of courtesy would spare them the trouble.
As for the bandits, however, the group gave no such courtesy. They just tossed the corpses to the side of the road for the animals to feast on later. Should another person reach the site in the near future, all they would be able to tell was that a group of bandits likely ran into a powerful person or persons who frowned upon their actions and wiped them out before burying their victims and little more.