Chapter 29: It’s human.

The cold wind whistled through the air as Kalon dragged his feet across once damp mud, which soon became frozen as he continued on his journey towards the mountain pass. The cold air grazed the tips of his fingers as shards of ice whipped against his face.

He covered his hands with the sleeves of his jacket and tried to hide his face with his hood, but that didn't stop the cold from penetrating through his clothes and freezing him down to the bone. But Kalon didn't let that discourage him. He was on a mission to save his mother from a life of solitude, and that was what he had in mind as he continued walking despite the weather becoming an obstacle for him.

"I won't turn back. I can't turn back. Even if I do, I will have nowhere to do. I doubt that father would forgive me for going back on my word, and I won't be able to rescue mom if I don't do what the court has decided for me." Kalon said through chapped lips as he tried his best to carry on walking.

It was tough for him even to move, let alone walk, so he found it surprising that his body seemed to move on its own as he allowed his mind to focus on something other than the cold.

He peaked out from under the hood of his coat to see that the mountain was still a distance away, and the cold seemed only to become worse the further he headed towards it. It discouraged him a little bit to see that he was still far away, but he swore that he wouldn't let anything stop him from carrying on.

No matter the distance and no matter the cold, he wanted to carry on for the sake of his mother, so he continued to walk.

Until the soles of his boots began to rub against the bottom of his feet until the cold turned the tips of his fingers blue and until the snow wore down his skin as he tried to cover his face.

No matter what happened to him, Kalon continued to walk for what felt like an eternity until his foot hit something hard for a moment and then gave way below his weight.

'What was that?' Kalon thought to himself before looking down to see something black surrounding his leg.

"Huh?" He said aloud as he tried to figure out what he had stepped in. But as he looked down at what seemed to be a black substance surrounding his leg, he screamed out in terror as it occurred to him what it was.

Long grey matted fur lay across the ground and covered the snow around him. It was frozen and gave a crunch as he stepped on it without realising. Swords and other weapons were scattered around the bodies of many monsters lying lifelessly on the ground.

'Is this?' A single thought ran through Kalon's head before he looked down to see the best man's face just a few inches from where his foot had stepped into his chest cavity.

"Agh!" Kalon screamed out in horror as he realised that his foot was stuck inside a dead body before pulling backwards as hard as he could and falling over into the snow while looking down in shock as the nearly frozen blood dripped from his leg.

"What is this place? There are so many bodies." Kalon thought as he looked around at the hundreds if not thousands of monster corpses. He couldn't believe his eyes.

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"Did the humans do this?" He thought to himself in disbelief. His whole life, he had felt the stories Ranwald had told him about humans were exaggerated so he wouldn't lose faith for being so weak, but it was beginning to seem like they were, in fact, true.

But as Kalon sat on the floor, he soon realised that it was much colder down there than when he was standing, and he began to feel light-headed. His fingers hurt, and his legs were numb. All the strength suddenly faded from his body before he decided to lay back.

'Why did I think this would be a good idea? I need to rest.' Kalon thought to himself as the long walk in the snow had gotten to him, and he began to close his eyes before drifting off to sleep.

As Kalon lay sleeping on the ground, a layer of snow began to cover his body as It dropped from the sky, and he was quickly starting to lose heat, But there was nothing he could do. The extreme cold had made his body tired beyond belief, and his life force was soon running out as the snow lowered his body temperature.

Until suddenly, the sound of metal clanging together rang out before slowly approaching Kalon's, who was lying defenceless in the snow.

"Why are we always stuck patrolling? When I went to officer school, I thought I would have a nice cushy job in the capital, but then they decided to put me out here in the cold. What is up with that?" A man called out with a muffled voice, sounding as though his mouth was covered with fabric as he made his way through the snow.

His footsteps crunched with each step as he stepped on the frozen ground, which was soon followed by another set as another man called out behind him.

"I think they probably want to make an example out of the newbies. You don't see any of the other officers out here in the snow, do you?

They are probably hoping that this kind of treatment will make us fall into place in the hierarchy and figure out that we aren't anything special just because we studied a few extra years at the academy," The other man said with a breathy voice, tired from walking in the snow.

"Yeah, I get that, but this is just unfair. They could at least give us a day off, but no. They send us out here every day, and for what? All we ever encounter is the occasional troll or yeti.

I get that we are supposed to keep the border safe from attacks but do we need to do this every day? There hasn't been an invasion attempt in over a year already. Can't we hope that they have given up and call it a day?" The first man to talk complained again about the unfair treatment he had received.

"That's a pretty naive way to look at things. You know just as well as everyone what happens when the guards at the border let their guard down. Didn't you say you came from Darren town? That's where the monsters managed to overthrow thirty years ago, isn't it?" The other man asked with a little bit of frustration at where the conversation was going.

"I guess so. But I wasn't even alive at that point, so I don't know what it was like back then. I just heard stories. I hope that something happens soon, though. I can't wait to climb my way through the ranks." The first man said with a smile as they continued to walk around all of the dead bodies lying on the ground with their noses too frozen to smell the stench coming from them.

"Wow, don't tell me you're one of those Hero types who want to come to save the day for just a little bit of recognition and fame?" The second man mocked him for a moment before they both stopped in their tracks after hearing a weak sounding groan.

The men both looked at each other to confirm that they had definitely heard it before drawing their swords and prepared for combat.

"There shouldn't be any monsters this close to the base, should there?" The first man whispered, surprised by the noise that had shot through the wind.

"Mmm." The groan called out again.

"What is that?" The second man ignored the question and asked as they both heard the same noise once again.

He began to walk forward slowly toward the noise with his sword raised and ready to attack anything that moved, but as he did so, the sound became more consistent and clearer.

"Mom." He got close enough to hear clear as day as a weak child-like voice called out for his mother before averting his eyes to a large bump of snow on the ground and then immediately ran towards it with a lantern in his off-hand.

"Burt! Get back here!" The other man yelled out before running to catch up to his friend, who had left him in the snow, to head towards the child's voice.

As he finally caught up to the second man, he saw that he was hunched over on his hands and knees and had begun to take his jacket off.

"What are you doing? You're going to freeze to death." The man warned Burt as he put his jacket down to the floor before fiddling with it in front of him and then standing up and turning around to look at him with a look of shock in his eyes.

"Is that what I think it is?" The man asked with his vision slightly obstructed by the blizzard that was encircling them.

"It's human," Burt called out as the cold began to affect his body now that he was exposed to the elements.