Lucas ran as fast as he could without consuming any mana, but it still wasn't enough for Belinda. She didn't pull ahead of him at any point, but her hand remained latched onto his and she set a pace just fast enough that he was constantly on the verge of stumbling--much of his focus set to the task of preventing just that.

They weren't the only ones running. Many other villagers were either returning to their homes, or heading toward the village center to seek refuge. Many guards were also cutting through the panicked crowd, but they were far too few in number. The screams weren't getting any quieter.

"Come on," Belinda tugged on his arm and Lucas had to devote his full attention to making sure it didn't overbalance him, "the guards can handle it. We are almost there."

We should be helping them, not running away, Lucas thought. The further they pulled away from the south gate, the more the guilt began to overtake him. He'd left his own mother behind, running toward danger, when he could help as well. The guilt was a physical weight closing in on all his sides. But he didn't voice any of this. He just trailed behind Belinda and did his best not to slow her down any more than he already was.

"What's happening?! What's going on?!" a young man standing on the side of the path and looking to the south yelled at the people passing by.

Belinda didn't stop to inform the man, and Lucas didn't see anyone else do so either, so he yelled back, "Get somewhere safe and make sure your family is okay! I think it's an attack!"

The two of them turned a corner before Lucas could hear or see the man's reaction--all he could do was hope he ended up okay. Hope everyone ended up okay. Hope mom ends up okay.

Finally, Belinda stopped before a house completely unremarkable from all the others surrounding it, though a bit taller at two stories. She let go of his arm as she practically collided with the house's front door and burst inside. Belinda yelled out for her parents and two voices rose up in answer.

Lucas didn't follow after her. For a moment he remained frozen before the house's threshold, but that ended once he heard Belinda and Eugene's parents and got some confirmation of their safety. But after that, there was just no way that he could stick around while other people were in danger. Not when he could do something to help.

"Sorry, Belinda," he whispered to the open air. "I'll make sure you don't take any blame for this once everyone is back and safe." Then he turned away from the house and dashed off as fast as he could--first out of sight around a corner and then down the most direct path back to the south gate as possible.

People were still running to find safety as Lucas sprinted in the wrong direction. A couple tried to stop him, yelling out what was likely a warning. He didn't listen in the slightest and dodge around their grasping hands, his pace barely slowing for a moment. It was commendable that those people had tried to look out for him, but Lucas was now on a mission and would not be stopped. The couple didn't chase after him.

Belinda and Eugene's family lived pretty close to the south-west corner of the village walls, and Lucas's path took him right by it. Once he got closer to the midpoint of the south wall, he began passing [Archer]s roosted atop the built-in posts, firing down at some unseen host of enemy's. From the guttural screeching each of their shots produced, he knew the attackers to be monsters of some kind.

Are goblins raiding the village? What about the guards' hunting party?

Those worries weren't going to do Lucas any favors right now, so he did his best to cast them out of mind. Unfortunately, his mental Skills did not help with that at all--holding back each and every unruly thought was incredibly difficult when they sprung up at enhanced speeds, all thanks to [Hyper Processing]. Lucas swore then and there to try to fold in some sort of selective concentration aspect into the Skill's later evolutions, if at all possible.

Where mental discipline failed, however, physical strain prevailed. Lucas took the briefest possible moment he could to dump his free stats in the regular distribution as he could, and then pushed himself for all the speed his newly heightened STR and DEX could eke out and started overcharging his mana.

The screams grew louder as he drew closer, but with the rise in volume he was able to discern something strange about them--they didn't sound like they were coming from people. It was like several dying carolfs doing their best to out-scream each other.

Upon arrival at the gate, he was soon clued into why that was. Lucas stopped just before the space between the gate and the central path dividing the village, where a line of hard-pressed [Warrior]s were doing their best to beat back a tide of small, sickly looking imps. The screams came from these monsters--both the dying and the frenzied that continued the attack.

[Goblin - level ??]

[Goblin - level ??]

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...

[Goblin - level ??]

There are so many...it's a horde.

Lucas quickly looked around for somewhere he could chip in, only realizing then that he didn't even have a weapon on him. Despite the tide of goblins, though, the smaller half-circle of [Warrior]s were pushing them back through the gate, one step at a time. Goblins went down seemingly with every stroke of a blade, but the guards seemed to shrug off any and all injuries.

Lucas watched an armored woman take a slice from a crude spear to the face and lose an eye. Though she cried out at the pain, the woman counterattacked at the offending goblin immediately. Before its body even hit the ground, her eye started slowly repairing itself.

A familiar pattern had passed through the ambient mana currents a moment prior before immediately cutting off. It was so quick and sudden that Lucas nearly missed it, but now that he was looking, he spotted the pattern again and again, and he was able to trace back the patterns' rough trajectory to another party of guards standing further behind the rest. From between the [Warrior]s' raised shields, he got a brief glance at familiar ashen hair and glowing blue mana.

[*ding [Vigilance] has reached level 26--

Not the time for a notification, System, Lucas immediately dismissed the alert and did his best to shove down any others that might distract him. However, there really wasn't much he could do right now. The guards and his mom had things well in hand as the last goblin was pushed out the gate, then further as they followed it out. Seeing that, at least for the moment, he wasn't needed there, Lucas looked elsewhere for a way he could help.

His eyes found an elderly woman, lying to the side and wounded beside a fallen laundry basket.

In a flash, he was there. Blood had soaked through the back of her clothes and coated the side of her head, but careful probing did not reveal any open wounds at either site. His mother, or perhaps a guard with minor healing, must have given her just enough treatment to make sure she would hold out till they could return, but not enough to fully heal her and waste mana just yet. Well, Lucas's mana wasn't being put to any other use, so he channeled [Arclight Renewal] and focussed first on the woman's head.

After the scabbed over site on her back faded to scars, and he had dumped enough mana into her head to at least be sure she wasn't in critical condition, Lucas carefully lifted the woman from her awkward positioning on the ground and retreated further into the village. He found a good spot amidst a house's garden to set her down, then immediately went back and looked for his next patient.

After the elderly woman was a young one. And after that was a small child hiding behind too little cover. Lucas found everyone that had remained nearby and either put them with his first patient or otherwise got them away. For each one, he didn't he healed their partially-tended wounds as best he could in as little time as he could. Each patient didn't take all that much mana on their own, but after the tenth, he got a little worried that he would run out before he got to everyone. That worry festered right up until he took a quick look at his status, and came away astonished.

[MP: 874/1000]

Then only a few seconds later, it ticked up.

[MP: 875/1000]

And a few seconds after that. Lucas didn't waste any more time and simply thanked the System for [Rapid Regeneration], then found his next patient.

"Thank you, [Healer]," the fourth woman Lucas had seen to said when he delivered the fifteenth patient to that same garden, "the guards can take it from here. Why don't you get some rest?"

She approached him and tried to guide him down to the ground, but he pulled back and just stared at her. "No," he furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No, I have to keep going." Then he turned and ran.

"Son! You're just a kid, you've helped enough!" she yelled after him.

Who the hell does she think she is? This isn't the time to be holding anyone back!

Lucas returned to the gate and looked for someone else to heal, but the only thing remaining before the gate was a carpeting of goblin corpses that were already starting to smell--he looked away from those quickly before his stomach could finish turning. The guards were all on the other side of the wall now, and the small group protecting his mom was right before it. Two of her bodyguards had moved to the gate's door and prepared to shut it, but had thus far refrained for some unknown reason.

Lacking any clear direction, he slowly approached his mom's position while watching out for any errant arrows or any other dangers. On a whim, he picked up a fallen goblin's short, crude spear so he at least had something to arm himself. Then he closed in right behind his mom.

"You shouldn't be here, Lu," she said before he even announced himself and without even looking behind her.

"You knew I was here?"

Of course she did, he immediately thought, I wasn't exactly being stealthy while running around, healing people.

"Of course I did," she threw out another one of those packages of healing mana and said, "now I need you to get back to safety!"

"I can still help--"

"No, damn it! Lu, someday you will be the person out there, keeping everyone safe, but that day is not today," she hunkered down and the shield-bearing guards closed ranks as a volley of arrows came at them. Mary took that brief moment to look back at him and stare into his eyes. "I need you to stay safe. Please."

Lucas looked between her and the direction in which the guards were still fighting several times before stopping back on her. "I can't just do nothing here..." he almost winced as she squeezed his shoulders hard enough to bruise "...but I will stay back until I'm needed."

Mary squeezed his shoulders again but gave him a reluctant nod, then she pushed him back and turned back around. "Go."

He listened and retreated back to where he could keep watch. However, there really wasn't much he could see and keep an eye on from here--just his mother throwing heals, really. Lucas looked around and spotted an unmanned post atop the wall down on the right. There weren't even enough [Archer]s around to fill the nearby posts, but in this case, it worked in his favor.

Lucas picked up as many crude spears as he could hold on the way over to the post and climbed up awkwardly with one hand before setting most of them against the stone sides up top. He stayed low in order not to become any goblin [Archer]'s target, and just barely peaked above the cover so he could keep an eye on the battle.

On the other side of the wall, Lucas beheld utter chaos.