Daryl looked up at the night sky as his daughter rested on his chest. The soft snoring a soothing tone that he had missed for the week that she was missing. He hoped that his hand and body’s warmth was going to keep her warm overnight. Thoughts of his recently dead wife filled his mind. What would she think about this adventure he was unwittingly sucked into? That was if he didn’t just knock himself into a coma and wasn’t dying in the woods without anyone there to help him.
Daryl hoped this was real and he wasn’t just having some dying dream. That he had found his daughter and she wasn’t just lost in the woods. Deep breaths made his chest rise and fall the weight of his daughter nothing more than a feather on his chest. He let his mind drift to his equipment and wondered if there was any way for him to learn more about the rules of the world. The strange built in modesty and so far the complete lack of needing to use any bathroom flooded his mind with questions.
Did people in this world just pop up out of nowhere like the monsters? There was no way that he could find out without asking some of the locals and he sure didn’t want to do that with Cindy in tow. His mind was running too fast for him to find sleep just yet. Going over the fights against the boroclops. How natural it was starting to get with activating skills. Unlike Cindy’s spells Daryl just had to activate the abilities in his head.
Letting his analytical mind take over Daryl broke down his gear and what if offered. The set bonus he could get from maxing out the boroclops charge ability and if the poisoning knuckle was going to be easy to trigger. Without using skills he could use a lot of his martial arts training. Though using that against animals was a lot harder than facing a human opponent. The Jiu jitsu training was practically useless against the animals. There was no leg locking a giant boar. Though at least the kicks and punches had come in some use. That with the super strength given to him by being this big was the biggest factor in it all.
Cindy stirred in his hand, “No mom, please, I’ll be good. Don’t go…” She shuddered and Daryl looked down at his daughter, a sudden worry about everything going on filling him. The councilor’s words on how grief worked filled him. It was obvious Cindy was ignoring her thoughts and feelings about her mother’s recent death. Slowly he stroked her back with his thumb setting her down as she pressed her face into his chest.
Daryl looked up at the sky and started playing the last year in his mind. The cancer diagnosis. Chemo, radiation, being told that it was terminal and there was nothing left to do but prolong her suffering. The sadness that crushed his chest, having to power through it all in order to support Cindy. The week of weeping of the two while he made sure to take care of everything else. Holding them both while sleep finally took the exhausted pair.
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Having to bring his wife to the hospital when her pain became too unmanageable. The desperate need to balance pain medication with keeping her lucid enough to enjoy spending the last month with her family. Then the final moments. Grasping cold hands with Cindy crying. The stillness that came with death. Cindy begging to keep the nurses away to keep them from saying the final words.
The only thing that truly mattered was their last words with each other. The final ‘I love you' was exchanged between the family before it was broken. Tears welled in his eyes. Cindy had seemed fine until the funeral. The words of the priest, the missing family members that were estranged. Images of Cindy sprinting into the woods in her black dress. Sobbing and tear streaked Daryl had just taken a moment of extra time in the bathroom to compose himself when he heard the back door slam closed.
Hopeless days of walking until he couldn’t anymore yelling himself hoarse for his daughter. Those large tears began to run down his face. Crushing sadness over it all had been able to be set aside when he was looking for Cindy, then saving her from monsters. Daryl kept his chest from shuddering so he wouldn’t wake Cindy up. He filled his mind pushing aside the grief and sadness with the new reality of his situation.
There was some Demon King somewhere, they wouldn’t be able to go home without defeating him. Who was this person? Where were they going to get more information about what needed to be done in order to defeat him? Would there be a need for them to stay around to help the world stabilize?
If this was a game he was in the starter zone. Where the fights were supposed to be easy before they slowly ramped up into more and more danger. Each with greater rewards to be sought. In the next town they would learn about new monsters while they geared up for this final confrontation. The fact that these people in this village seemed care free for a world plagued by a great evil. However small villages in medieval times isolated from the world would truly know of the power struggles in the upper echelons of society.
Daryl’s mind started to wind down. The exhaustion of the day was settling in. Though his stamina bar was full, the mental load of having to deal with everything all the time finally was kicking in. His breathing was getting deeper and longer as sleep encroached on him. The heavy feeling of his eyes closing as he listened to his daughter sleeping soundly now that she was soothed. Warm memories of holding a baby, his wife sleeping in the rocking chair near a crib. Cindy’s green eyes staring up widely at him as they stared at one another. The giggling of her childlike glee filled his mind with peace.
The sadness faded away as he sunk into a dream of his family happy and together once more. Raising a daughter with the love of his life at his side. Healthy, happy, and full of life. All of it playing in his mind for a pleasant dream.
Tomorrow they will make their way to this new town. Hopefully Cindy wouldn’t want to spend a whole month grinding for gear. Hopefully most of that was already done. Though with her recent day of gathering bugs and fish did speak that there were other ways to get gear besides fighting monsters.
They woke up refreshed, gathered the last of the materials they could before stepping out of the town to head to new grounds. “Let’s go Badger. Adventure awaits.”