"...I really need to find another healing spell," Glenn grunted, emptying the contents of a gourd of water in his throat. He was covered in sweat, and completely exhausted. But, in exchange, he had done a good action! It had taken a while, a lot of pain, and even more swears from him, but eventually, all the kids were rid of the mark of the Thorn's Cult. As he treated the wounded one by one, the kids surrounded him, watching with wide-opened eyes, some with awe, some with admiration. They all shared the same surprise, though, the same disbelief.
The leader of this not-so-small group of runaways, Kora, was the most disturbed by Glenn's behavior.
"It looked..." Kora hesitated as he spoke to Glenn, "... very painful. Why would an adult—" He clenched his teeth, his face hardening as he forced himself to continue, "—why would an adult go so far to help us?"
Glenn breathed in and out, slowly gathering his strength back. He didn't reply, only taking a few sips here and there while looking at all the kids he healed. In total, it had thirty-three kids, all aged under fourteen, that had been scarred by the goons of the damned cult. The young man rubbed his temples, wondering what was the point of it all.
Why would they carve their emblems on so many kids' chests? And why would they just let them go then? Did they just let them go?
"Kora, I'll need some explanations as to why that happened to you all," Glenn turned toward the scrawny leader. Kora flinched and gazed at his previously wounded friends with a difficult expression.
"I...We don't know. Not so long ago, I was living with my parents, my dad a clothes merchant, and my ma' a handmaiden to the Mayor," Kora began, looking into the distance as he reminisced. Glenn's chin leaned on his fist as he listened attentively. The scrawny kid looked at his friends, who all nodded silently.
"My pa' always told me I should read books and learn how to speak properly, so I could have a better future." He glanced toward his friends, before shaking his head, "We were all living with our families, some having it a little harder than others, some a little better than others, but it was..." Kora smiled slightly, "...it was perfect back then."
"But then..." Kora's expression darkened, and a few kids spat on the ground, their hands tightening around their sticks and rusty tools, "...they arrived. They came with promises of a better future, of a prophecy of fire and blood, and of a Savior that would save us all."
Kora sat on a nearby crate, fists clenched, "...No one believed them until the monsters they told us of appeared, things o' nightmares, things that would lurk around in the darkness, waiting to strike. People disappeared, one by one, until a few kids did. The nice people of the Church of Onnea couldn't find much and blamed the gangs. But the problem wasn't the gangs..."
The kid rubbed his wrists, catching Glenn's eyes as he did so. The young man squinted, finding scars wrapping around the wrists.
'Rope? He got kidnapped?' He wondered, not saying anything.
"Then, adults stopped disappearing. Kids like us, though, kept on going missing. But strangely, the parents never tried to find them again. All of them bastards wore guilty expressions, talking about doing what's necessary and whatnot, while more of us disappeared."
Kora looked at his trembling hands, hissing through his teeth.
"Then, it was my turn. The darkness got me, and brought me to that place you're looking for, Devil." He glanced up at Glenn, the rage in his eyes dimming down slightly.
'Haha, now you're the plain Devil! Excellent!' Diamanes laughed. Glenn's eyelids twitched, and he gritted his teeth in order not to curse at the entity.
"I...The monsters of the darkness, they were men since the start..." Kora spat, "...They took me somewhere dark and humid, with lots of other kids."
Glenn nodded slightly. So far, it was nothing too surprising. Kidnapping was much more of a human thing and less of a monster's one. The monsters just eat people, generally.
"They fed us scraps and rotten water, and when one of us was sick, they'd take him somewhere and we'd never see him again."
"One day, they gave us a choice. Either we willingly accepted to give our lives for their "cause", or they'd let us rot in our cells. Everyone here chose to rot, just to fuck with these monsters!" Kora spat as he grabbed at his chest. Glenn eyed him silently, secretly shocked at the kids' toughness. After all, there wasn't any older than fourteen here.
"After we refused to listen to them, they carved the thorns on our chest, marking us forever. We were supposed to die in those cells, but a few days ago, some priests of Onnea managed to get into our prison and free us secretly." Kora sighed and looked at his comrades.
"He didn't follow us on the way out, to hold back any pursuers. We all owe him our lives. Thank Onnea..." He bowed his head and gently rested his hand against his chest, devout. The other kids followed him, almost earning a sneer from Glenn.
'I guess the Church of Onnea has a few more believers, now. I guess the Church's forces came to try and rescue that man?'
'It would make sense. Even though he's probably dead,' Diamanes commented, unfazed.
"It'd be nice if we could find the priest and show him to the kids. I do wonder why they didn't go to their parents, though." Nelg pondered, raising yet another question, which Glenn didn't wait to ask.
"Why didn't you go back to your families?" He questioned as he sank his hand in his dimensional pouch and took out the Exan-Egg, watching for the time. Some of the kids gulped, while others evaded his gaze, fearful. Kora bit down on his lower lip, the knuckles of his fingers whitening visibly as he clenched harder than ever.
"We did go back. My pa' was gone. My ma'..." He looked at the floor with bloodshot eyes, "...she works for the Skinners now, in their "adult house". I don't know what happened, but everything changed while we were gone."
"After looking into it, we all found out that our parents were either missing or working with the Skinners in some morbid way," Kora's face suddenly drained of all blood and he hid his mouth behind his hand, retching.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"...I found me dad, and the dad of some others, hanging on hooks, carved for meat. That sausage you almost ate back then..." The skinny kid couldn't speak anymore and turned away, leaving Glenn to ruminate in silence.
Human meat? Human meat?!?
And he almost ate it? Glenn felt his insides churning, expressing their willingness to escape his body. He held himself on the ledge of the crate and stood up, walking a few steps to try and get rid of the feeling.
"Holy shit, first the whole skinning issue, and now fucking cannibalism?!?" Nelg shouted with disgust.
'It doesn't make sense. Why would they do that? Out of nowhere, too? Hey, am I the only one with flashbacks from Palancar?' Diamanes suddenly interjected, throwing a cold on Glenn's heart. He thought back to the tragedy of the small village taken over by an evil god. Ain't no way he was going to let those Thorn's Church bastards get away with it.
"Shit, cannibalism is still..." Glenn hurriedly closed his mouth, drawing a deep breath in as the color on his face turned to a sickly shade of green. And he almost bit into it, too...
The young man gave up and hurriedly went into a corner of the warehouse, puking his insides out. After relieving himself of his disgust, Glenn returned to the group of children, Kora having come back to his senses. The young man quickly used Mundare to make any filth on his mouth disappear, trying to keep his serious "Devil" persona. They were kids, and even if they were tough, they were easily impressionable. He still needed their help, and, in all honesty, it was kind of fun to flaunt his strength and play the act of the "Devil's Hand".
Playing the act was fun, being called the Devil's Hand was a little less so, though.
"Thank you for stealing my sword from me, then, Kora," Glenn gave the kid his thanks, who nodded wordlessly. The young man looked at the ceiling riddled with holes, the sun still high in the sky. He looked at the kids, before checking his Mana reserves.
"Is this place safe?" He questioned as he looked at the ruined warehouse. Kora nodded slowly.
Glenn stretched and made his neck crackle. Treating the kids had taken a good portion of his Mana, and he'd rather be at full capacity before heading for the "house" where everyone disappeared. He had one last question that bore through his mind; what the hell was Redan doing in this whole story?
Why would they need Redan? For what twisted reason?
Well, there was no point wasting time on it for now; he'd eventually get all his answers once he found Redan, after all.
"All right, then. I'll sit there and gather my strength back, then I'll call up my friends and we'll go burn all of the bastards who made this place what it is down. Just knock on my sword if there's an emergency, all right?" Glenn smiled gently at the kids, who nodded slowly in response. Kora stood up and dusted his clothes off, before bowing at a perfect ninety degrees angle.
"Thank you, Sir, for treating all of my friends."
Glenn looked at the scrawny kid and shrugged.
"Whatever, a deal's a deal. You still have to upkeep your end of the bargain, though. Give me half an hour, and we'll see to it."
And without another second, he closed his eyes, Meditating his Mana back. He should try and find a way to Meditate while moving around, just to make his Mana recovery passively better. Having to close his all senses and sit for an hour and a half each time was a bother he'd rather skip.
Half an hour later, his eyes flashed open, his Mana Heart brimming with power. It felt like he had a little more Mana than usual as if his capacity had grown despite not going up a Circle. Perhaps that was the way to break to the Fourth? Spending and recovering Mana, exhausting himself to try and level up?
Food for thought, for later. Now, he needed to call up the other bastards. He stood up, a few kinds startled by the sudden movement, and came out of the warehouse. He sighed as the sunrays touched his face, and glanced at the time, the Exan-Egg ticking for each passing second. It was 3 P.M.
Certainly, this whole matter will be over before the night, right? Glenn moistened his lips, before casting Gravity Manipulation and jumping on top of one of the houses.
'The name isn't Gravity Manipulation anymore! It's...It's...' Diamanes stammered, before giving up, '...I don't know what it is, alright? This spell is too wide to be called simply Gravity Manipulation! Fuck!'
Nelg laughed at Diamanes' frustration, not adding anything. Glenn shook his head and looked at the sky. What spells could he use to get the attention of everyone...? Hey, wasn't that an opportunity to try and create another spell?
"Let's see, what could be very visible in the cosmic domain...?" Glenn rubbed his chin, before looking down from the house at Kora, who, along with a few other kids, were watching from down there.
"Hey, kid," He shouted, "...When you think of the sky, and of something very flashy, what are you thinking of?"
Kora looked at him weirdly, before pointing at the sun. Glenn's lips twitched.
"...Smaller stuff, please!"
Kora looked at his friends, before coming back with another suggestion.
"...Would a shooting star work?"
Glenn looked back up, smiling. Yeah, a shooting star would certainly work. Now, what was a shooting star again...? A chunk of rock that fell through the atmosphere and caught on fire doing so, right? The fire was from how fast it entered the atmosphere and the friction and all that, and Glenn wasn't sure he could shoot a rock at a speed high enough to make them catch on fire. Well, he could just flare them up before shooting them, that could work too. He already had Sun's Touch for flashiness, and Gravity Manipulation to send the projectile. He just needed to rip a chunk of...something, and shoot it!
That'd surely work, right?
The young man glanced at the ground and used Gravity Manipulation to pull chunks of stone out of the ground, before the astonished eyes of the children, and compact them into a single piece of rock three times his size in both height and width. He pressed his hand against the massive projectile and imagined the Sun's fire covering it. It used a good amount of his Mana, but since the flames were only covering the rock, it wasn't that expensive.
Glenn aimed at the sky, wondering if the spells protecting King's Rise would do anything, before shooting it upward with Gravity Manipulation. The rock accelerated, leaving a trail of fire behind it as it flew toward the blue sky, shining brightly over the Eastern Town. Glenn watched proudly as his projectile kept on rising, until it hit some kind of invisible wall and exploded into pieces, in a magnificent fiery show.
"Fireworks, then. Diamanes, don't struggle with that one, I'll just call it Shooting Star." The young man chuckled as he saw the small chunks of stone turning to ash before falling on the town. He could technically do flashier than this one, with Nitrogen Lance for example, but the advantage of Shooting Star was that it was considerably less expensive Mana-wise. And, even though it would need some more testing for him to be sure, Glenn believed that if he reduced the size of the projectiles to, let's say, bullet sizes, the spell would probably be as cheap as his old, forgotten Magic Bullets.
The young man sat and let his legs hang above the ground, letting his Mana refill up as he waited for the others to arrive. Soon enough, Sahro, jumping over the houses' roofs, arrived and stood next to him. His face indicated he had many questions, even more when he looked at the group of kids below, but he remained silent for now.
A dozen minutes later, Javier and Milena showed up. Glenn jumped down from the roof, landing next to the group of kids, Sahro closely following behind. Javier and Milena approached them while glancing at the scrawny kids surrounding them curiously.
"...Glenn, why are there so many kids here?" Milena asked worriedly, smiling gently at the children. One of them grinned back, his hands shooting out to steal a small pouch of money from the girl's waist. It had been so fast she didn't even notice it. Glenn did, though, and he used Gravity Manipulation to pull the pouch back to its rightful owner.
Sahro watched with a scowl, grimacing at any kids daring to approach him too close, his thunder-blue arm crackling threateningly.
Glenn sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Alright, team, I found something out. I sure hope you didn't eat any meat coming into town, though..."
Milena and Sahro's eyebrows rose confusedly, while Javier was still as silent as ever.
Thankfully, no one ate meat.