CHAPTER 78 - Gone wrong
The skeleton in front of me is now missing its right arm, but it doesn’t affect it too much other than helping me avoid his right strikes. The monster keeps throwing punches at me with the other arm, and I can already see the first signs of regeneration on the right one, where the bones start growing back.
‘I guess when you are dead and kept alive with mana, mana is always the solution to everything.’ Knowing that I need to go over the threshold of regeneration of the monster if I want to beat it, I get serious.
I catch its other arm on its next attack, holding it firmly with one of my arms to avoid an escape as I charge up a strong punch of my own.
The monster tries to escape, but we are evenly matched and I have a better grip on him, so it is unable to move out of the way. It resorts to try and bite my head off, which results in my punch blowing up its head to bits that scatter everywhere.
Knowing that these guys tend to have a core somewhere, even if I can find it in this one, I charge yet another punch, aiming to disassemble its whole body to wait and see which part does it regenerate from.
The head is out of the equation as it keeps moving without it, and the right arm, so I hit the left one next. Once that’s done, I check that the core isn’t located in its left arm either and examine the torso and legs with a quick pulse of mana.
I cycle it around its body, searching for a place where mana gathering intensified, and soon enough, I found it, hiding in one of its ankles, inside one of the bones. Feeling like it's the perfect opportunity, I grab it for myself without the rest of the team knowing after smahings the rest of its body to assure them of its death.
I hide the core inside one of the pockets of my pants after making sure to get rid of all the bones that were glued to it.
It was hard to find pants with pockets here, but it is hard to not have any room for safekeeping other than pouches, even more to someone like me who used them all the time. That’s why I invested quite some time to buy some clothes before going to the guild the day before. It’s not like I could go around in a measly cape, I could get reported, I don’t want to end up in the dungeon of some lord on another planet for being half naked.
That being said, I check the core every few minutes, just to make sure that it doesn’t have enough mana or remaining will to do anything dangerous.
“.̷̖̭̼͗̕ ̶͕͉̠̱͓̾͐͒̅̈̐͊͛ ̴̫̠̜̮̗̯̙̱͉̉̇̽͂̄͘ ̴͇̼͕̦̲͂̀̐͋ ̷̙̙̼̓̈́̏̌̏̿ ̵̨̧̧͇̳͍̥͈͇́̈̾̇͠ͅ.̵̡̛̓̆̀͋͒̂̇̑̈́ ̴̹̖̍̂ ̸̰̼̗̘̹̙͔̘͕̼͗́ ̷͖̮͛̀͗̅-̶̨̞̟̖͊̅̏ “
“.̸̠͚̪̜̯̭̫̀ ̸̡̻̗̣̙̼̜͖̉̈́̉́̆̚ ̴̡̼͎̱͔̝̝͈͊͊͐̎́͋̇̈́̅͝´̴̼̳̅̓́͐̄ ̶̧̘͖͕͓̪͍͓̀̌̐̍̈́͂͗̋̕͝ ̸͓̈̾͝ ̸̨͖͙̥̬̯̪̩̞̫̇̏̒͘ ̴̖̪̾̾̔`̵̘̯̲̹̥̱̪͕̠̍̆̓̾͛͛̈́̔͑ “
I hear my group members murmur in the background.
“¡Hey!” I get their attention.
“Ceci ist lejos от over meine petits cachorros!”
//This is far from over my little pups!
Turning to them, I warn them with my shouts as I scan the area again, only to discover a group of three coming our way. I don’t have time to prepare, but I don't need it either, the only ones who should be taking positions are the rest of the team.
The presences get close at high speeds and my group gets behind my back again, this time more confident and trusting than the time before as we wait for the enemies to arrive.
As the group of three get close, I stop being in guard, noticing though another, more complete and detailed scan that they are, or should be humans.
Sure enough, three people in combat gear poke their heads from a group of bushes. As soon as they see us all okay they leave their hiding spot, saying something to my group, who answers in turn, pointing to the remains of the skeletons laying around the place.
There are a lot of bones scattered in the area, and the whole place is full of craters and fallen trees. The three of them look at us suspiciously, but in the end they talk with the swordsman of our team about something before leaving.
In the meanwhile, I take Bruma into my arms, petting her head and calming her. She is scared of something. I am unable to point out what is causing her to feel such a fear, but there is something about this forest that’s weird, I am sure of that, and Bruma being scared only makes me more anxious of what we might find here.
After a short talk with the three guys I can decipher what they might be talking about. They are from the mercenary guild too as their badges are in plain sight, and they must have been dispatched to warn people of something that the main groups, the ones that were supposed to get to the center of the forest in a straight line.
They are probably reinforcements sent to weaker groups to help them back off after noticing that the threat of the monsters is superior to what they expected. They wouldn't send my group alone if they expected such a strong monster to appear, right?
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The high hopes of my team for the mission are quickly dismissed as we are forced to go back to the main group before bumping into another dangerous enemy.
Taking a shortcut, the three of them cover our backs as we make a diagonal path back to the starting point, getting there safe and sound with no problem at all. There, a lot of the other groups are already resting, but most of them are far from happy.
Wounds of all kinds can be spotted on everyone's bodies, lighter or heavier, all of them must have been caught by surprise and unmatched by a stronger foe they could handle. Some of the unlucky ones are missing an arm or a leg and are now currently receiving the essential treatment to make them survive till getting back to Turia.
The strongest mercenaries of the guild are nowhere to be seen, so I ask with the help of a few signs to the others for their location, and what I get in response isn’t promising at all. All of them are in the frontline, keeping at bay the enemies to give us time to retire.
Looking around, I notice that the missing ones are two of the best-known groups of the city. Both groups were composed of 4 to 6 members if I remember correctly, all around the mid to upper levels in the SW rank.
‘It would take far more than a few of the monsters like the one I just killed to defeat those guys.’
I ponder if I should go and take a look, but end up choosing to stay. Helping the wounded to get back safely should be a priority, and even if I go there I wouldn’t be that much of a difference. It's not like those mercenaries are amateurs too, some of them are arguably stronger than me even while giving my all.
Choosing to not blow my cover and play it safely, I help to carry the injured back to Turia, where I follow the rest of the mercenaries to arrive at one of the biggest monasteries I have ever seen. ‘It’s not like I had seen much though.’
I carry a few people inside and onto their respectives spots where the nuns and monks tell us to leave them. There is already a big group of nuns preparing the place, warm water and other types of things to clean the wounds and bandage them up all over the floor, ready to be disturbed to each patient.
What strikes me the most is the low amount of medicines there are. I obviously didn’t expect them to have at their disposal as much as I had seen in Earth's hospitals, but the scarcity of them shouldn't be so much. Half of my doubts are settled when the priest with the higher authority enters the place though.
Escorted by one knight on each side, he enters the building as if he owned the place, which in retrospect, is probably the case. Not wasting any time, he enters the first one of the rooms filled with the injured mercenaries, and I follow him. There, he waits for a while in the middle of the room, both eyes closed and meditating.
Not sure what is going on, I lean on the wall as I wait.
A while passes, and one of the nuns in charge of cleaning the wounds of the patients tells one of his knights that everything is ready with a slight nod. Both of the knights position around the priest, scouting the room for any sign of ill intentions. The priest, hearing the rattling of their armor, opens his eyes and reaches for something in his robe.
He takes out a golden statue of a woman that resembles a caring mother. She is represented as if holding something in the air with both hands in front of her chest and she lacks most facial features.
He grabs the statue with passion as he starts what’s most likely a prayer in their language, I can understand that much. In the glimpse of an eye, a weird energy is being channeled all over the room to the statue, which changes it into something else as it absorbs it. He finishes his prayer as he raises the golden figure of the woman in the air, releasing the new energy all over the room.
The energy seems to have some type of will imbued into it as it scours all around the room, searching for the wounded and entering their wounds on its own. The affected people soon show a peaceful smile on their faces, as if all their pain had been taken away, however, that’s it.
There is no healing or mending their scars and injuries, only the pain is gone. They all show gratitude as best as they can to the priest as he leaves into the next room.
‘...’
I don’t follow him anymore, I stay inside the room, trying to feel that weird energy flowing about, but there is none. Every single spec of what entered the now painless mercenaries is gone, nowhere to be seen. It all disappeared into their bodies as fast as it appeared, and just as fast, I was disappointed.
‘I have no time to waste on useless things while I am trapped in this world, I have better things to look out for.’
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After a long time of waiting, both of the groups of mercenaries that stayed behind got back. Most of them had sustained some injuries, but nothing serious, and more importantly, they haven't lost anyone. The only people that died were part of the smaller and weaker groups, with the exception of mine and the ones who were lucky and weren’t ambushed.
The people in charge of the expedition soon held a meeting, asking for everyone but the wounded to attend. It was a lengthy speech from a few of them, which ended up nearing the night.
I, as always, had no idea of what they had talked about. Luckily for me, being a new member of the guild, one of the people in charge came to me personally with one of the three mercenaries that I’ve met before while retreating.
‘Okay, I get it, more or less.’ Nodding my head, I leave for the day, heading to my inn with Bruma on top of one of my shoulders, now finally calm.
So, they mostly want all the mercenaries at the ready and patrolling the walls of the city, while the strongest of the bunch get more information of the current situation.
Some kind of alert has been made too, as I can see the farmers go back to their houses earlier than normal, probably scared by the news.
What was first approached as a simple and easy mission to eliminate a threat, similar to a culling campaign, was now starting to feel like a siege. We were now on the receiving end after losing the initial battle, waiting for an attack.
Worst thing of it all, it didn’t seem as groups in the front got any information either about what we are facing. Leaving us in the dark about what to expect in the following days.
‘Just my luck, I guess. It should be easier to maintain my cover with this though, everyone will be looking after themselves.’