After Roy and Robb separated, the latter went solo hunting while Roy made his way toward Karthus’ house. The only in his mind was how he would face, Karthus’ kid, Lorenz. The boy most definitely believed that he was the murderer of his father. Both the village chief and the noble John, had accused him of the crime. Thus, even if Lorenz did not want to believe the accusations, he would be forced to by the other villagers. In fact, those who did not believe that Roy was the killer were part of a small minority.
As Roy walked towards his destination, he avoided any fight with the packs of goblins that roamed around. Even though he was able to kill them with ease, it would take too much time. The last thing Roy would want to happen was for him to reach Karthus’ house and find Lorenz’s body still warm. That would haunt him for life.
Roy dashed across the streets and alleys of the village’s market before reaching the residential area. He could soon see Karthus’ house at the end of a long road. The problem was that goblins filled the street—thirty of them to be exact. They trashed the vegetation and flowers that decorated the road, broke into houses in search of prey, and destroyed everything they could set their eyes upon.
Fortunately, they hadn’t made their way towards Karthus’ side of the street yet, but that would not be for long. After scanning his surroundings, Roy counted five tall variants scattered amongst the pack. The rest were just small goblins.
Roy rushed towards the sea of monsters, starting with a group of three that were breaking into a house next to him. He stabbed the one that was standing at the front door first, before entering the house and facing the other two. With quick movements, Roy slashed the first goblin’s torso open and followed it with a stab to the chest of the second one. Just as he finished off the group of three monsters, a scream came from under the table right in front of him.
Roy looked down, and to his surprise, he found two little kids crawling on the ground with their hands over their heads. A girl and a boy, no more than eight years old of age, their hands were shivering as they sobbed silently.
Roy scratched his head, not knowing what to do as he looked at the two kids “Hey, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Hearing footsteps and shrieks of goblins from outside, Roy looked at the pair of siblings and said, “Just wait right here. I will be coming back very soon.”
Roy walked out of the house only to find half a dozen goblins charging at him. In his eyes, their movement was slower than a snail. As each goblin pounced at him, Roy slightly slid to the side and countered with an attack of his own. With each strike, a goblin fell down to the ground, dead. Soon, the small group of goblins had all been killed.
As the commotion from his battle grew, more and more goblins noticed him. Seeing their comrades dying one by one, the monsters decided to overwhelm Roy with numbers.
Even though all of the twenty-one goblins that were left charged at him, not all of them could attack him at once. Practically speaking, Roy only had to handle four different goblins at each instant. With ghostly speed and precise movement, Roy parried the monsters’ slow attacks before counter-attacking with ones of his own. Like a death reaper, he claimed the lives of the goblins like he was a farmer harvesting his field.
By this point, not even the tall variants posed a challenge or a threat to Roy. For him, they were just bigger targets that were easier to accurately strike. Soon, most of the group of thirty goblins laid dead on the street, and the few that didn’t, scattered and ran away in fear of the bigger monster that was Roy.
With the street clean from any danger, the young man went back to the first house where he found the two kids. As he had instructed them to do, they were still hidden below the table in their living room.
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“Just like I promised you, big brother has come back.”
The two kids crawled out from under the table and looked at Roy with scared eyes. The latter sat down and dusted off their clothes before asking them, “Where are your parents?”
The young boy hesitated for a few seconds before replying, “Mom and Dad went out to work yesterday, but they still haven’t come back.”
Thinking for a second, Roy knew that the chances that they died were high. It was either that, they were stuck somewhere and couldn’t move, or they were in John’s group. None of those options were any good. Of course, there was still the slim chance that their parents were part of the villagers in Roger’s house, but that possibility was so improbable that there was no need to even take it into consideration.
As Roy was lost in thought, the two kids’ stomachs grumbled.
“Are you hungry?” Roy chuckled.
The two nodded at the young man’s words. For them to be hungry after they hadn’t seen their parents for a full day was only normal.
Unfortunately, Roy hadn’t brought with him any food or snacks. He also hadn’t eaten in two days. Neither he nor his friends were given any food when they were imprisoned by the guards and the noble’s knights. However, Roy did not feel hungry, he was energetic instead. Since he had awakened, the feeling of hunger had subsided and he felt a strange energy powering his body. That energy only became stronger when his status updated, and he crossed from a Initiate to a Sentinel rank.
Roy looked with serious eyes at the two kids. “You know this place is not safe.” Roy pointed with his eyes at the corpses of the two goblins that were still laying in the living room. Their smell was putrid and their looks even more horrifying. “I will not force you to come with me—you can stay here if you want. But if you do come with me, I promise to protect you with my life. We will go to Roger’s house, where there are many villagers that we saved. Maybe your parents are there. But even if they’re not there, I promise that we’ll look for them.”
The little girl looked hesitantly at her brother while the boy was lost in thought. After a few seconds, he finally said, “If you promise to look for our parents with us, we will go with you.”
“But Danny, Mom said we can’t go with strangers.” The little girl nudged at her brother with a scared look on her face.
“I know,” the young boy gritted his teeth. “But we can’t stay here forever. We need to go and look for mom and dad! Plus, if he wanted to do something bad to us, he wouldn’t need to talk to us at all, since he is so strong.”
He then looked at Roy with the most resolute and determined eyes. “I trust you.”
“Thank you,” Roy smiled at the young boy. “Since now we’ll be going together, let’s introduce ourselves. What’s your name?”
“Daniel!” The young kid replied enthusiastically.
“Jeanie,” The young girl said with a sheepish smile.
“Nice to meet you, Daniel and Jeanie. My name is Roy.”
With their introductions over, the new group of three made their way out of the house. When they got outside, Daniel looked around at the carnage that Roy caused in shock.
“Were you the one who killed all of them?”
Roy nodded his head at Daniel’s words. “Yeah, I did.”
“Wow, that’s amazing! How did you get so strong?!”
Looking at the young boy’s sparkling eyes, Roy couldn’t help but chuckle. “You see those words at the corner of your vision?”
“The ones that talk about killing monsters and whatnot? I thought we were going crazy and we were the only ones who saw them.”
“It’s like those words say. After I killed ten of those monsters, I awakened. That’s how I became so strong.”
As the trio made their way down the street, Daniel kept asking Roy all kinds of questions about monsters, powers, and awakening. Roy made his best attempt to answer all of them.
Soon, they reached Karthus’ house. Roy took in a deep breath before he knocked on the door.
“Is anyone here?”
After knocking for around a minute, a voice finally came from within the house.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
Lorenz, a young tanned boy who was similar to Jaimie in age, opened the door and looked at Roy in surprise. His look of surprise turned into shock before rapidly morphing into a rage.
Boom! Lorenz slammed the door shut on Roy without any words. The latter could only sigh and think, Well, this is going to be a tough one.