“Hijo de Puta!” cursed Esperanza vehemently as she looked over the carcasses of the dead monsters with her [Gaze unto the Abyss] in hopes of gleaning some information on how they had slipped around their guard so easily. One look at the information of the smaller of the dead creatures – both of them were variants she had never seen before – easily told her why.
[Arachnoid Skulker Carcass]
The dead body of an Arachnoid Skulker, a variant of Arachnoid known for its ability to keep its swarm stealthed from prying senses. Its ability improved the fewer members of its swarm it needed to keep stealthed along with itself. Weak combat capabilities compared to most variants.
All at once she realized that this one creature must have been the reason why the beasts managed to slip in so close to them before being noticed. At that point, it was probably too taxing for it to keep the entire swarm stealthed, or the others were left in the open as a distraction while it circled around the fighting together with the other dead creature to strike at the children.
When she looked at the other unfamiliar dead arachnoid, Esperanza also noticed that the most distinguishing feature of that one was its head – that Nalihimatu was still angrily stomping on – which was nearly twice as large as the other variants she had seen. One look at its information clued her as to why that was so, and what purpose it served.
[Young Arachnoid King Carcass]
The dead body of a Young Arachnoid King, a rare breed cut down before it could grow to be a power in its own right. While relatively weaker in combat prowess compared to other variants, the Arachnoid King was the brain of the swarm, its presence allowing its swarm to coordinate their actions to its whims even over distances.
It turned out that the second dead creature was a commander-type. No wonder the other creatures were fighting in such a coordinated manner, with some of them even using the weaker members of the swarm as meatshields early on. In fact, Esperanza caught on to the [Arachnoid Fledgling Queen] because it suddenly paused in confusion during the end, which might just be due to the death of the [Young Arachnoid King].
The change from the mindless swarming the arachnoids usually did into a more coordinated assault had caught their group off-guard, and they paid the price for it.
One of the younger boys had been killed, likely the first target the creatures had struck when they came upon the children. The ones on guard must have failed to react on time before the poor boy was sheared in half by the wicked mandibles of the creatures, a terrified, surprised look still plastered on his face even in death.
Other than the young boy, five of the six older children who had undergone forced maturity from reaching their second tier but did not receive a Progeny of Yore class had also perished in the fighting. From the story the survivors told her – often broken up with sobs and wails – they had fought courageously in an attempt to keep the beasts away from the younger children, and paid the ultimate price in doing so.
Esperanza knelt down by the body of a young Ma’Varok girl and gently closed her still-opened eyes with trembling hands while holding in her own tears, or maybe that was the wrong term. She definitely felt like crying, but it seemed like her monstrous body lacked the physical ability to do so normally, so she was left with a feeling as if her tears had already run dry instead.
It was an uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling, but in some ways she thought it fitting, given the guilt she felt in her heart.
All these children had been under her guardianship – while technically she was only voluntarily helping them reach a safe place, and everything else from the route and whatnot were their own choices, she still felt like she had failed them regardless – and now many of them were dead. All due to circumstances that should have been avoidable.
If only she had left more capable guards with the children. If only she had detected the stealthed creatures as they skirted the fighting. If only they had made their way through the dungeon a bit faster. If only they had chosen to take the detour instead. All the “Ifs” tormented her, even though she knew that when they made those choices, those were what seemed the most sensible at the time.
Hindsight was always 20/20, as the saying went.
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Other than the six dead children, there were still other victims as well. Mel-Ivas was crouched next to Eda-Zil and Kvar-Litu, both of whom were heavily injured, and was trying her best to heal them with her skills. On the ground next to them lay the only survivor of the six older children, a young human girl named Iryl, who had many freshly healed wounds that still had an angry red shine to them all over her body.
Eda-Zil laid on her stomach, as Mel-Ivas tried to heal the massive wound on her back. The wound seemed to have originated from the claws of the dead creatures, raked across her back from the right shoulder to near the left side of her hips. It was bleeding profusely, despite Mel-Ivas’ best attempt to staunch the bleeding and knit it closed.
Kvar-Litu was even worse off. He was missing his left arm at the shoulder, which looked as if the monsters had literally ripped it apart from his torso, and was holding onto much of his intestines with his remaining arm, as the creatures had also landed a disemboweling blow on him. He was coughing up blood, and his breathing was weak, his eyes looking delirious, as if he was barely conscious at all.
Esperanza was no medic, and neither Eda-Zil nor Kvar-Litu were human, but unless healing magic in this world was the sort that was really powerful, or that their admixture of heritages gave them particularly robust vitalities, the injuries they suffered looked life-threatening to her. Eda-Zil probably took some damage to her spinal cord given how deep the wound on her back was, while there was no need for her to even elaborate on the seriousness of the injuries Kvar-Litu suffered.
The rest of the Progenies of Yore had returned by then, and like her, they too expressed their dismay and anguish upon seeing the dead bodies of their fellows. It was another painful reminder to Esperanza that merely a month ago, those eight were also just children who were living happily in their little village, until reality came knocking on their door. A couple of them broke down in sobs, while others busied themselves asking if there was anything they could do to help the injured.
In the end, however, it was neither Esperanza nor the children who changed the situation at hand.
With bleary eyes, Kvar-Litu turned his head, looking towards Mel-Ivas and the injured Eda-Zil next to him. According to the children, Eda-Zil had been injured as she leapt in front of a child, shielding them from the creatures with her own body, while Kvar-Litu had fought to defend her until he was at his current state. It was only when Dali returned that he fell at last.
“Heal… Eda… Instead…” he managed to murmur, barely audibly given how weak his breathing was. As she saw how he looked while he said those words, Esperanza felt with dreaded certainty that at the moment, Kvar-Litu was like a candle that was giving out one last brilliant burst before it burnt out. “Don’t… waste… your… time… on… me… any… more… My… time… has… arrived…”
Sure enough, he closed his eyes after he uttered those last few words, and before long, his already weak breathing came to a halt as well.
Esperanza could see how Mel-Ivas struggled to hold back her tears as she shifted her right hand from Kvar-Litu’s body to Eda-Zil’s. The girl probably felt that she failed as a healer, because she only managed to save two of them in the end. Under her more focused ministrations, Eda-Zil’s injury closed somewhat, but not fully, and the young healer applied a paste made from several herbs over the wound before wrapping them with bandages.
Wordlessly, some of the other Progenies calmed the younger children, while the rest started digging into the soil of the clearing, clearly unwilling to let their friends face more indignities after death. At that point, the risk of staying to dig the graves had likely fled their mind, and Esperanza couldn’t argue against it either, as she had the same sort of feelings. In the end, she sent Dali and Gordy to patrol their surroundings, while she did the same from above, to guard the remaining children and those digging the graves, as well as to take her own mind off the horrible feelings she was experiencing.
She returned to the group at dawn to see that the children were just finishing up the last of the crude graves they made for their lost compatriots.
Esperanza joined the children as they paid their last respects to the dead, quietly mumbling prayers under her breath – she had no idea if the prayers were heard for various reasons, like being in a whole different world, but she prayed regardless – before laying down a stalk of white flower she found in the forest over each grave.
Then she turned around and led the remaining members of the group – the eight Progenies of Yore, Eda-Zil who they carried on a makeshift stretcher, Iryl, and the remaining ten younger children – away from the graves, towards the border of the dungeon, through it, and finally out. After five days and four nights under constant assaults, they were finally out of the dungeon itself.
It was not like the forest that surrounded the dungeon area was that much safer, but dealing with creatures that came at them one or two at a time was better than dealing with the frequent groups of arachnoids in the dungeon, and besides, the level of the creatures outside were relatively on the lower side. The higher leveled ones, they either avoided, or Esperanza and her companions put them down with extreme prejudice before they came anywhere near the children.
They never left the children without at least half the progenies guarding them now.
While their journey became easier as they traveled further – the arachnoid “dungeon” and the territory of the high level dinosaur-like beast they avoided was near the center of the forest – the mood of the group was a somber one. All of them couldn’t help but be reminded of the people they lost, from time to time. Often, Esperanza would find some of the younger children crying at night, as they had nightmares from the gruesome sights they had witnessed back then.
She did all she could to calm them down, but she knew that those sights might well haunt the children for the rest of their lives.
What was done, was done, however, and no amount of regret would bring back the six dead children, or Kvar-Litu for that matter. Eda-Zil ended up paralyzed from the waist down due to her injury, but given that healing magic existed in this world, at least she had some hope of getting better should they manage to find a good enough healer to help her.
The rest of the distance towards their destination – a trip that Oldies estimated would have taken another month of time – proved to be easier. The level of the creatures they encountered started to lower, though never to the level of the beasts that were around the village of Navef. Still, by that point, the eight Progenies of Yore were already capable of handling just about any second tier creature on their own, and could take on lower leveled third tiers with relative ease as well.
Naturally, a drop in the level of the creatures they fought meant lower experience gain, but none of them cared. All they cared about at that point was to get the remaining children and Eda-Zil to their destination safely.
Everything else could damn itself to hell for all they cared.