Morning has brought a new sense of relief for the caravan.

After a sleepless night, the sunlight was truly like a saviour, who came to chase away the scary darkness.

People were terribly tired, even though the workers didn't suffer any injuries, seeing the dead bodies, and hearing their dying screams.. messed with the minds of everyone around.

Among all, Refrigerators were the most pitiful.

Monica and Berta were on a constant watch alongside Max and Iler, as they were the only ones in the team who didn't bear an injury or didn't lose themselves in existential questions. They had enough sanity to stay focused for a while.

Four people out of seven, some would say that it is a good number for a party that survived an ambush, but if you start to look at it from a closer perspective, it is a terrible number. Having close to half of your team in terrible physical or mental health that renders them useless and makes the team unable to fight as a whole, as most of the healthy ones would need to look out for the injured. And you have to remember that not all fighters can defend their compatriot without suffering damage themselves, for example, Max and Monica, who are purely long-distance fighters, with no defensive abilities. Well, Max could potentially make a shield from his metal, but that would put him in a passive position, unable to retaliate. So he was useless either way without someone accompanying him.

Watt and Kyll suffered terrible injuries, rendering them useless for weeks to come. Excessive movement would only worsen their injuries, not to mention fighting. Watt's situation was even more miserable, one of his legs was nearly crippled at the moment, with a stab wound poking out of both sides. Even with this outcome, Watt could be considered lucky with that injury, as the bandit's sword didn't touch his bone.

A broken bone would be a lot harder to heal, and much more susceptible to maltreatment, and in consequence, the possibility of becoming a cripple would be way higher.

Adam on the other hand, was defeated mentally, instead of physically. After waking up in a pool of his own puke, the first thing he did was puke again. Then, he sat down in silence, leaning against the wagon's wheel and thinking. He was silent the whole night.

Just a few hours ago, he killed a human for the first time, not one, but two of them even.

He always thought he would become an adventuring archer. A person walking around the kingdom and solving people's problems for money, sometimes venturing into dungeons, helping the local population against forming monster hordes alongside raising in ranks.

It's funny how all his dreams featured merciless slaughter of monsters, but killing other humans, or other intelligent creatures appeared as if he never thought of humans as being capable of evil, or his enemies who he would need to kill.

But now, when he was finally outside of his town, outside of home as full of memories of love as of memories of misery and loss. Now every bad thing he had done and saw being done was associated with humans, not monsters as he previously thought.

Bandits attacked the caravan, but no one knew what caused it. Maybe for money, to kill Max or to steal the wood. But the most important thing to remember was that they were humans and they started to kill their kind seemingly without a purpose. Without a higher goal, or careful planning, just like monsters in stories, savage and inhuman. Despite being humans, race thought of as emotional and intelligent.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Adam has never seen or heard about monsters or animals fighting each other without a purpose, or even a goal that others may see in their actions. The beasts thought about every hunt, they approached their prey carefully, even if it was way weaker than them. Maybe it was life in constant danger, in a hungry wilderness which didn't tolerate mistakes that made them like that. In contrast, the relatively safe early life humans lived made them reckless and thoughtless.

The bandits could state their demands and then attack, not only would it be less dangerous, but it would create an opportunity for them to evaluate the battle prowess of their victims. Their reckless behaviour caused them to stand against two mages, which couldn't be a good idea, even if they were barely in the first realm. Their inherently greedy and reckless behaviour caused them to die unnecessary death, which any sane animal would be able to avoid.

The whole reason that The refrigerators took the journey, escorting the caravan and the workers to the camp was the kingdom's need for wood. While cutting down trees to make something out of their wood wasn't inherently evil thing, it was evil if you took the perspective of animals living inside the woods, who lost their homes, and sources of food. While it was humans who orchestrated the whole thing, it was a lesser evil, as the cutting had a deeper purpose and was necessary for the civilisation to prosper.

But a thing that couldn't be forgiven was the merciless murder of the beast around Viscount Jared's mansion. They just lived around a place they probably never saw in their lives, a place chosen by humans for the beauty and isolation of the forest, their forest, a forest in which their packs and tribes may have lived for ages before humans arrived. Humans didn't like them to disturb them during some celebration and ordered the hunt.

Not for their hides, bones or meat. Not to make space for farmlands or homes of their kinsmen, it was a merciless slaughter caused by the whims of powerful humans. Merciless and unnecessary.

'What causes humans to make such greedy, foolish decisions? Why do we have to kill and die, while we can coexist in harmony with each other? And why did those guys have to die, moved by their stupid minds to attack us? Why did I have to kill them? Could I have solved the situation without bloodshed?' Numerous questions formed inside Adam's mind, and with them resurfaced the memories of his victims.

A face, soaked in blood, Icicle sticking out of its forehead. His eyes were lifeless, but filled with fear that the man experienced in the last moments of his life.

Eyes looking down, towards its torso. His heart was clearly seen through the transparent ice of the stake that ruptured his clothes, pierced his skin and spread apart his heart. Eyes filled with bewilderment and a face that didn't manage to follow the mind's emotions, still expressing a battle frenzy directed at Adam's friend.

In the deep night, when no one from the caravan slept, Adam couldn't come close to Watt and Kyll, as soon as he saw blood, the visages of his victims resurfaced. Mangled faces and lifeless bodies. Alongside them, Adam saw other bandits, who also died meaningless deaths, killed by his compatriots. And their foolishness to attack.

He saw the Archer, the one who dealt the most damage to the party, his torso adorned with a gaping hole left by Iler's sword.

He saw those two victims of Max's, iron shards still sticking out of their throats, and their bodies punctured in some places by Adam's own spells.

He saw the bandit who arrived at the camp first, with his throat pierced by Kyll's spear, a bloody pool colouring the ground around his head.

He saw the bandit who lasted the second longest, his eye gouged out by an arrow and his guts spread on the floor around him.

All those pictures couldn't stop appearing in Adam's mind, every time he saw blood, they resurfaced.

In a vain attempt to lessen the guilt that attacked his mind, when dawn arrived, Adam organised some workers to dig a grave for those bandits. They probably didn't deserve a burial, but Adam didn't care, even if the funeral was as pointless as their deaths, he still wanted it to happen, at least so he would feel better about them.

Eventually, the bandages were covered, no longer showing their redness to everyone around, and the caravan started to move again.

They physically moved on, leaving the ambush behind, but mentally, some still lingered on the small battlefield inside a circle of wagons. Some minds couldn't leave the clearing filled with blood, where arrows swished above their heads, visible in the light of a campfire.