The mabeasts were running at pretty fast speeds, so even though they were pretty far away from the village I knew I had to act fast.
I activated my Thought Acceleration and Mana Sense and started running to the village as fast as I could.
Why the hell are they even running here?! Are they following my Witch's scent or something?! Aren't I too far away for that?! So why the hell are they running here?! And why in the back of my head am I thinking that this is my chance to prove myself?! Quit with that MC bullshit! I don't need that kind of mentality right now!
I got to Chisou's house and put my fist up to knock, but something stopped me.
What if I'm wrong? What if I'm just gonna be interrupting their sleep for no good reason? That's gonna be so embarassing! I don't want that to happen! Maybe this is something normal? Do I really have to do anything?
My social anxiety got revived at the worst possible moment and it was stronger than ever. But I wouldn't let some weak excuses like that stop me from acting.
Just do it!
I knocked on the door with a lot of strength. I wasn't sure whether that strength was mental or physical.
Cylob: "Please wake up! Mabeasts are on their way to attack the village!"
I'm all done, right? Don't have to do anything else. NO! Do it to some more houses you lazy bitch!
So I did just that. I went to multiple homes and woke up their residents.
The first to come outside was Seira.
Seira: "What's happening?!" She said with a worried and surprisingly energized expression.
Cylob: "I saw a horde of mabeasts approaching the village! I don't know why they're approaching, but they are! I'm not sure what to do in this situation, but I decided to wake everyone up! Is this kind of thing normal?"
Seira: "No it isn't. The mabeasts usually don't go through the trouble to get here."
Cylob: "Can you please help get everyone together? I'll go ahead and hold of the mabeasts for as long as I can."
She looked at me with a concerned expression, but quickly abandoned it for a hopeful one.
Seira: "Alright. We're counting on you."
Cylob: "Thanks. And don't worry: I won't die."
After my reassuring words Seira seemed to get a little bit less worried.
But no matter how much I wanted to hold off the mabeasts there was something that I didn't want to happen more.
I don't want Chis's family to die or get hurt. But what can I do to make sure they stay safe?
I'm not sure why, but I felt like they would be safe no matter what. My instincts indicated that the best thing I could do to keep them safe was slowing down the horde of mabeasts.
I ran as fast as I could to the horde of mabeasts. Unfortunately, I had no way of drawing their attention like Subaru, but I hoped that due to my Witch's scent they would at least spare me a couple of seconds.
The distance between us was about 200 meters now and I could properly see that all kinds of mabeasts were there.
Ones that looked like hippoes, bats, dogs, cats, snakes, some of them were hybrids of multiple different species and some couldn't be described with the animals from my old world.
The fact that there were so many different ones once again made me confused on why so many of them would come together and raid a small village like Obuch.
As soon as the distance between us became about 20 meters, I stopped and got into my stance, but for some reason something felt... off.
Why do I feel weaker? The amount of mana I have is also a little bit less. My body enhancing is working like normal tho. I also feel... smaller, for some reason. Not by much, bit it's still there.
I wanted to keep thinking, but my instincts reminded me that I was in a dangerous situation, so I focused on the mabeasts which were now only 8 meters away from me.
As soon as they got close to me a lot of them immediately started attacking me from all sides, but thanks to Mana Sense I knew that some ignored me and kept going to the village.
Most of those who ignored me were bat-like mabeasts.
Flying enemies were the most problematic kind of enemies for me to deal with, as my main attack was with the sword, but that didn't mean that I had no ways of dealing with them.
As soon as I saw an opening in the mabeasts' attacks I used it to jump right at the bats. I managed to cut some of them down on my way, but that wasn't my main attack.
As soon as I got above the bats, I Enyan-ed all of the boulders except one that I had right above the bat-like mabeasts.
After that I just let gravity do the rest of the work for me.
To make sure that no mabeasts would be beneath me when I fall, I made sure that one of the boulders was right beneath my feet.
As soon as I landed on the ground I Beelzebub-ed the boulder beneath my feet and got an idea.
How about I do the stupidest thing possible?
Cylob: "I CAN RETURN BY DEATH!"
...
But nothing happened, except for the fact that some mabeasts got scared by my sudden shout.
Alright, second option.
Cylob: "NATSUKI SUBARU CAN RETU-"
The whole world stopped.
My whole body did too, but my mind was still conscious.
My instincts started ringing all the possible bells in my head, but I didn't need their help to know that I was in a dangerous situation.
And that's because, as soon as the whole world stopped, I started to feel the most pure and unfiltered fear that I could.
I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED! I'M SCARED!
I have never ever felt as much fear as I did in that exact moment.
And it got worse when the shadows got close to me and started torturing me.
PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN!
I couldn't think about anything other then the unending fear and pain.
Is this what dying feels like?
That was the only other thought in my mind besides 'Pain' and 'I'm scared'.
It felt as if death itself was covering my entire body.
Something like Lye's torture was nothing compared to this.
The whole world felt blank and I couldn't even feel my instincts anymore.
Every ounce of my body was filled with the feeling of death.
And then it suddenly stopped, but that didn't mean my mind was fine now.
The lingering fear and pain didn't go away.
Unfortunately for me, the mabeasts wouldn't wait for me to get back into shape.
All of them pounced on me with more ferocity than before, but I couldn't move my body at all, I was still in a state of inaction.
Thankfully for me my instincts started moving my body to make sure that I wouldn't die. But instincts are just basic moves, they can't do something like stances or sophisticated moves, this meant that If I was in control of my body I would be able to attack, dodge and block more properly, but I didn't have time to think about that. My mind was in the worst place right now.
My mind was slowly brought back from despair as I slowly started remembering the situation I was in.
My body was slowly getting more and more scratches, but the pain from them was so much less than what I felt that I didn't pay attention to them at all.
My mind was still filled with fear, but I knew that if I didn't get my shit together soon, I would die, so I had no choice but to take control of my body back from my instincts.
As soon as I did, a giant snake started dropping it's tail on me right in front of me.
I immediately dashed to the right while cleanly slicing through the dog-like mebeast that was there.
I felt multiple bats starting their descents on me, so I Enyan-ed some stones into their directions. Turns out that whenever I Beelzebub something I can choose whether it keeps it's momentum or not, which means that I can throw some stones as fast as I can, Beelzebub them, then use them as pseudo bullets later in combat, aka 'stone-bullet'. Keeping the momentum of an object takes more mana and calculating than deleting its momentum tho, so it's not always the best choice.
The stones that were sharp cleanly sliced right through the bats bodies, but the ones that were blunt were aimed at their wings instead, to make them lose their mobility.
I feel like I'm getting better and better at calculating as time goes on.
That was the only non-battle related thought that I could afford, as right after I had that thought, five cat-like mabeasts charged at me from all directions at the same time.
I chose a random one and dashed right at it, as I sliced through it I noticed that there was a huge dog-like mabeast right behind it ready to bite my head off.
I was bewildered at the fact that a mabeast was there, as I didn't feel it with my Mana Sense, but I quickly regained my composure.
The mabeast jumped at me, but I transformed to my slime form and used my small size to slide underneath it. Then I quickly transformed back to my human form and used my sword to slice open it's belly from beneath.
Then I felt mana moving in the ground.
I thought it was magic, so I covered my back with Predator with just enough mana to eat the ground, but I was wrong.
Instead I felt sharp claws tearing into me.
A MOLE?! You gotta be fucking kidding me! How can anyone catch and eat that?! Answer me Daphne!
Unfortunately for me, there was no one to answer my question, so I had to ignore the pain, stand up from my sliding position and stone-bullet some more bats coming my way.
A snake lunged at me from behind, so I turned as fast as I could and sliced it in half.
Unfortunately, that move left me open, so another dog-like mabeast ran at me with an open mouth from my right, but I ate the earth right beneath one of its legs which made it lose balance and gave me enough time to recover and dodge its attack by jumping backwards, which also made me dodge an attack from a cat-like mabeast right in front of me.
I really need a break!
If a slime could get headache that was what I was feeling right now.
The amount of information I had to take in, process and then act on, was too much for my mind to handle.
But even through that amount of information I got a bad feeling in my gut.
I jumped as high as I could, while ignoring all the wounds that I recieved from mabeasts by doing such a reckless action, and looked to the direction where the village was.
People were already moving out of it, away from the mabeasts. Unfortunately, the bats were making that goal harder.
ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵖᵉᵒᵖˡᵉ ʷᵉʳᵉ ᵃˡʳᵉᵃᵈʸ ᵈᵉᵃᵈ
I saw multiple people use bows and one even use magic to kill bats that were flying in the sky above them.
Surprisingly it seemed like all ground mabeasts were focused on me, so only bats were attacking the people.
But even seeing the good situation the bad feeling in my gut didn't go away.
And soon I saw why.
A bat bigger than the others was flying right above Chisou and his family, and I saw ice being formed in the air near it.
Magic?!
I knew that some mabeasts could use magic, but that was very rare, so to see a flying one use magic just seemed too unfair.
And the magic was fired directly at Chisou with inhuman speed.
So fast!
I got worried for a second, but for some reason I felt as if I could Beelzebub it. It was completely illogical, I mean, I was more than 250 meters away!... but I felt like I could do it.
So when the icicles got close to Chisou I focused on the coordinates where it was and... ate it.
It... worked?! It didn't take that much mana either! How the hell did I do that?!
Not long after, the giant bat got hit by a fireball which killed it. As soon as the giant bat died, the bad feeling in my gut went away and I realized that I was falling to the ground at stupid speeds.
Shit!
Right beneath me were a lot of mabeasts with open mouths ready to eat me, but I had other plans.
I Enyan-ed the second to last boulder right beneath my feet and right before it hit the ground, jumped from it to the direction of the village where there were no mabeasts.
But the mabeasts, ignoring their now crushed comrades, followed right after me, which made me use my last boulder as another foothold to jump even faster and further away.
Shit. Now I have no footholds. This is gonna get so much harder now.
As I'm flying through the air I think about all the options I have right now.
Can I perhaps make some kind of trap? Or maybe some kind of territorial advantage? The only thing around me is flat ground, so I doubt I could use my Beelzebub or Predator in any other way other than eating the ground right beneath their feet. I could try to Enyan some dirt into their eyes, but that doesn't seem that plausible as their eyes are way smaller than the rest of their bodies and the amount of mabeasts means that it would be less effective... but I guess that's the best I've got right now.
I land on the ground and start Beelzebub-ing some dirt while getting into my stance.
Goddamnit! Is there really nothing else?! My skill isn't good enough to hold against so many of them without some kind of trick! I still have a lot of my mana left, so I can easily spend some extra! I just gotta come up with something! Think! Think! Think! THINK!
But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't think of any kind of advantage I could give myself. I tried to observe the mabeasts to maybe find out some of their weaknesses, but instead of noticing weak points I noticed something else.
They don't care about me anymore.
Even though they were running in my direction, their eyes and attention were not on me, but the village. And it wasn't as if some of them were on me and some were on the village - no - ALL of them were focused on the village.
What the hell happened?! Why are they so fo-
?: "How delectable, appetizing, delightful, enticing, exquisite you are! ~tsu!"
That voice of despair made my mind race at ultra speeds.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! What's he doing here?! Why is he here?! What the hell is his mission?! What good is there in attacking this village?! There's nothing here except for...
...
...me.
That realization made my mind go blank.
It's... all my fault isn't it? This wasn't an attack on the village.
This was an attack on me.
...
And now, because of my stupidity, a lot of people will die.
All the signs were there. I was just too stupid and lazy to think about them... No, not lazy - slothful.
All the puzzle pieces are starting to fall together now.
The excessant mabeast attacks. Vodil's dissapearance. The fact that no merchants have been passing through here. It was all pointing to this. And once again I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!
I just keep making lives worse! Can I ever help anyone for once?! Can I ever do anything right?!
'Thank you.'
...
Huh?
'Thank you! Thank you so much!' A face full of tears appears in my mind.
...
I did do something right. I did help someone.
Even if I didn't do much, I still did something.
If I do nothing here I will just waste the two months in which I trained.
I can't let that happen. Everything I've done until now hasn't been useless.
Surprisingly, not much time has passed since Gluttony's arrival.
Thought Accelleration does wonders, huh.
I turn to Gluttony.
He had the same scar I gave to him in our last battle, so I knew it was Lye.
Cylob: "It's you again. Why are you so persistent on following me?"
Lye: "You already know, as you should know, as you probably know, as you definitely know! Gluttonous drinking, ~tsu! Gluttony, ~tsu!"
I understand I'm a good snack, but is that really the only reason? Does Pandora want me dead because I'm an unknown element or something? That could be the reason.
I should probably stall as much as possible by talking. But I don't know how much information I should disclose to get the most out of the conversation. Should I say that I know about Pandora or not? Will that be worth the time that I will buy?
Cylob: "I know that you want to eat my name and memories, but that can't be the only reason, can it?"
Lye: "..."
It's uncharacteristic of him to keep his mouth shut.
But then I felt something really bad with my Mana Sense.
Shit! The mabeasts are already really close! And from the way Lye and they are acting, I don't think I can draw the mabeasts' attention.
The mabeasts kept going in my direction, but as soon as they got close to me and Lye they just avoided us. As if forming a circle for me and Lye to fight in.
I was completely surrounded by mabeasts, but this time I wasn't their target.
I can't let them get to the village! But how do I draw their attention?! I can... No, no, no. I don't want to do that again. I don't want to... but what other choice do I have?
...
I won't die. I know that for sure. That's the thing I take the most pride in.
So why am I so scared of the pain and fear from breaking the taboo?
Sure it it's REALLY scary and painful, but it doesn't do any lasting damage.
My pain and fear are nothing compared to real human lives.
...
Fuck it! I'm gonna do it!
Cylob: "NATSUKI SUBARU CAN RETURN B-"
The world stopped once again.
The shadows started consuming once again.
But since this time I was prepeared for it, I managed to get something else out of all the pain and fear.
Someone is... sad.
I wasn't sure why Satella was sad, but I didn't have time to think about that.
The world started flowing once again and all the mabeasts started going berserk once again.
Lye: "How did you do that?" He looked at me with a threatening emotionless face.
Even through all the fear and pain, the ecstasy I felt when I saw his face was enough for me to get in a couple of rational thoughts.
So even he can make faces like that. The fact that he dropped his accent means that he didn't expect this at all. I got one over him again! Hell yeah!
Unfortunately, I knew that in just a little bit all the mabeasts will start attacking me and I wasn't in any kind of condition to move, so I had my instincts take the wheel once again.
The biggest problem was Lye, as he could easily kill or incapacitate me if he wanted to.
The fact that my instincts had to fight not only the mabeasts but also Lye, worried me, which made me recover from my despair faster.
As soon as I started percieving everything around me again, the first thing I noticed was the fact that I didn't have the left half of my face anymore. The 'scar' was in a crescent shape, meaning that whatever hit me was circular. I also had a lot of claw marks all over my body.
The next thing I noticed was the fact that Lye was standing right in front of me with one of his legs being slightly corroded.
I could also feel some extra people cutting down some mabeasts. From the way they fought they didn't seem like knights, but they had excellent teamwork and skills nonetheless.
?: "Be careful! Make sure to keep going at the same pace! We should preserve our stamina as much as we can!"
I can't understand what he's saying, but the tone of his voice doesn't seem like a bad person's. Did I get some unexpected help?
But I knew I couldn't think about that. There was an Archbishop right in front of me after all.
Let's try to stall again.
I get into my stance as he immediately starts attacking me.
Cylob: "Why the hell are you even doing this Witch Cult nonsense? You have excelent abilities, but you use them to do crimes instead of helping people. Why is that?" I say as I block/dodge his attacks.
I thought he would at least stop for a little bit, but instead he kept attacking me.
Lye: "To eat all the meals we can! We can eat, slurp, devour all the meals we want to! The world is an unjust and cruel place, so why should we be kind? It doesn't make sense. It totally doesn't make sense. Why should it make sense? To us it makes no sense. It doesn't make even a little bit of sense. So we don't, ~tsu!"
Stalling didn't work, but I think I have another idea. He's still underestimating me, so it could work. He's probably seeing how much I've improved since our last battle. Thank you so much! Thank you for being so dumb!
While attacking me, he seemed to be especially wary of touching my body or my clothes, but he didn't mind touching my sword.
He thinks that he knows how my Predator works. But he's wrong!
He shows a clear opening, which I know is a trap and would normally not go for, but I decided to use his misunderstanding of my ability to my advantage.
I sliced at him and he gracefully parried - that's what he thought would happen.
I coated my sword with Predator while using 50% of my leftover mana, so my sword goes straight through his knife and, before he leaped away, also manages to give him a vertical scar across his face.
When I looked at him he now had a cross shaped scar on his face.
That's what you get for underestimating me!
...
Wait... I want him to keep underestimating me! Why did I do something as stupid as attacking him?! I just had to hold out until I got help and attacking him made that objective become 10 times harder! I'm so dumb!
I could feel that the fighters were slowly killing more and more mabeasts, but the sheer amount of them was too much for them to get through quickly, so they would only be able to get here in about 3 minutes. That didn't seem like a lot of time, but when fighting one of the strongest people in the whole world, it seemed like an eternity.
The mabeasts don't seem to be interrupting the fight between me and Gluttony. Is he controling them to make sure that doesn't happen? Can I somehow use that to my advantage?
Before Lye could recover I tried to run through the mabeasts to the direction where the knights were, but as soon as I got close to the mabeasts they immediately started attacking me.
That's still better than fighting Lye tho!
I backed off a little bit and then focused all of the mana in my legs and jumped - is what I wanted to happen.
But instead I felt Lye approaching me at a speed which I could barely react to. He was planning to cut off my legs again, but I wouldn't let him do that.
I transformed into my slime form which allowed me to just barely dodge Lye's attack, by transforming into the air and leaping just above his knife.
I could feel Lye's movements stop for a bit as he seemed to be extremely surprised, so I took that opportunity and Enyan-ed some dirt in front of his face to block his vision and fired two stone-bullets at his eyes.
All the weird things that happened made Lye jump back to be as ready as possible for yet another trick, but the trick didn't come as he saw me standing on one leg in front of him.
Thankfully, my cut off leg was close to me so I managed to recover it quite easily.
I was too slow. What do I do now? I'm all out of tricks. He doesn't know about Beelzebub yet, but that wouldn't slow him down by much no matter how I use it. All I have left in my stomach is a little bit more dirt. I also have... that. But releasing that would be the stupidest decision in my life. Too much destruction would follow.
Lye wasn't attacking me as he was wary of me pulling another trick, but that wouldn't last forever so I had to come up with a plan fast.
As I observed Lye, hoping I could find something to take advantage of, I got an idea on how to escape.
It was a gamble, but it was a better idea than taking the torture of Lye head on.
As soon as I thought it out in my head I excecuted the plan.
I Beelzebub-ed a lot of the ground beneath Lye's feet, Enyan-ed all of my dirt between us to block his vision, turned around as fast as I could and sliced off the horns of three mabeasts.
Cylob: "Delay Lye!"
I jumped into the mabeast horde with all my might and transformed into my slime form to slide as fast as I could to safety.
I tried my best to dodge whatever came my way, but I couldn't dodge everything as my main priority was being fast.
I'm not sure whether Lye can control mabeasts that got their horns cut off, but let's hope that he can't. Now he knows of all of my abilities, so our future encounters will be harder on me, but I didn't want to take his torture. I am getting better at ignoring pain, but only in situations in which I can at least move around, taking pain in a situation in which I'm already useless is much harder for me for some reason.
Not long after jumping into the horde I started feeling a lot of mana gathering into the ground right in front of me.
He's obstructing my path, isn't he?!
I wasn't wrong. Some walls started popping up in front of me.
I could feel where the mana would go, so I could pretty easily plan ahead and choose paths where there wouldn't be any obstructions, but Lye was tricky and he made sure that the paths I would go through would have more dangerous mabeasts in the way.
Sometimes I even had to eat through the walls, as the other paths were too dangerous.
After a while I felt a sharp object being plunged into me. The object didn't have any Mana in it, so I had no way of dodging it, as I couldn't have known where it was.
This isn't some kind of magic, as it doesn't have any mana in it, but where did he find such a sharp object?... No way! Is it the knife I cut off?! The problem of not being able to see or hear is clearly showing it's disadvantages right now! Maybe I should add an eye or ear? No, that would make me go slower. Right now I'm using all of my body to move, so that would detremental.
But even through the pain of being stabbed I had to keep going.
It was then that Lye finally stood in my path.
I wasn't too far away from help now, so he knew he had to stop me before I got to them.
He didn't hesitate and immediately started cutting me up.
I tried to dodge some of them, but the result was... unsatisfactory to say the least.
I knew that if I had a big enough amount of mana left then I could live, so instead of dodging the attacks, I started transfering my mana from the parts that were about to get cut off. But I didn't transfer the mana to my healthy parts, I transfered the mana to my stomach.
The attacks started becoming faster and more rash, as he was getting more desperate and more annoyed at me for still being alive.
Was this job THAT important to Pandora or something? Will he get some kind of punishment if he doesn't kill me? Because that's the only reason that could explain his desperation.
After a small enough part of me was left, he grabbed me into his hand and started draining my mana out of me, but I didn't have much mana left (not counting the mana in my stomach), so he was done quite quickly.
I once again had to fight off my sleepiness, but I trained for this kind of scenario so it was much easier than last time.
Then he threw me onto the ground as hard as he could.
When he was cutting me, his attacks were meant to kill so they didn't hurt much, but that throw to the ground was really painful.
I thought that I could recover by using the cut off parts of me that were still on the ground, but I noticed that Lye was starting to gather mana.
Then, multiple fireballs appeared around him and were sent right at me and my parts.
I thought that I was done for, but I got an idea.
Just before the fireballs hit me, I ate some ground below me and then covered myself with it. That way it would look like as if I died from the fire, so I should be safe.
I kept giving myself the minimal amount of mana I needed from my stomach. I was worried that if I gave myself too much mana at once, Lye would notice.
After the fire 'killed' me, Lye went into the direction of the fighters.
He's going to eat their names, but I can't do anything to help them. Just as I thought: when it really matters, I'm useless.
...
Or am I? I mean, if it weren't for me the mabeasts would've killed everyone in the village... But at the same time if it weren't for me the attack wouldn't have happened in the first place.
So... am I helpful or not?
Goddamnit. Even after talking with Shurua and Seira I still can't get my feelings in order. I'm so... I don't even know the right word for it. Even my lexicon is lacking. *sigh* I'm a disappointment no matter which point of view you're looking from.
To distract myself from bad thoughts I decided to think about how I would get out of my current situation.
I'm pretty sure I can just eat through the earth, kinda like a mole. My size is much smaller now, so it won't take too much Mana either. Actually, considering the amount of cells that I have compared to my remaining mana, I have a lot of mana.
Yeah, let's burrow to the village. I feel like there's something there that will help me recover faster... for some reason.
.▓▒░▒▓▒░▒▓▒░▒▓▒░▒▓▒░▒▓.
?: "Mommy I'm scared!" A little girl hugged her mother for comfort.
These kinds of sights were pretty common.
Everyone was slowly moving away from the village in order to put more distance between themselves and the mabeasts.
They were planning to send their fastest one to call for help, but by sheer luck a carriage with some mercenaries came by. The mercenaries were apparently called the White Dragon's Scales and right now they were holding back the mabeasts with their excellent ability. A person by the name of Bokun, who was the one with the most experience in driving carriages, took the carriage of the mercenaries to notify the Argyle estate of the situation.
The mercenaries were the ones that helped calm the whole village down as well. They put the village elder in charge, who would lead everyone away from the village, and then went to hold off the mabeasts.
Of course that didn't mean that everything was completely fine. Children were still scared, some people died, other people were skeptical whether the mercenaries were powerful enough to beat the horde and a certain family was worried for a young boy who went to slow down the mabeasts by himself.
Chisou: "Mom. Where's Cilob?"
Shurua had a complicated expression on her face, before going to her usual smile.
Shurua: "He went to slow down the mabeasts sweetie."
Chisou: "Is he going to be fine?"
Seira: "Of course he will be! He's strong! You've seen how strong he is yourself, right?"
Chisou: "Back when I saw him train, he was so cool!" He thought.
Chisou: "That's right! Cilob is strong! He won't lose to the mabeasts!"
Seira: "That's right!"
Seira had a hopeful and happy expression, but everyone who wasn't a child would notice the fact that she was mostly faking it.
Seira: "You said you wouldn't die, but I'm not sure how good you are at keeping promises." She thought bitterly.
Actually, almost all the adults were making strained expressions to keep the children from getting nervous. Even though it was night, the moon was shining more brightly than usual, so the kids could still see expressions.
All the adults were thinking about a lot of things right now and some were in their own little world.
It was then that Chisou noticed something strange that made him let go of his mother hand.
Chisou: "What's this?"
He was poking... something.
He wasn't sure what it was. He had never seen anything even remotely close to it, but the way it was shining in the moonlight immediately caught his eye.
It was soft, but wasn't fluffy. It was solid, but looked like a fluid. It was full of contradictions. It almost felt like something that shouldn't exist in nature.
After the third poke the weird thing moved.
Chisou: "Woah! It can move?!"
That shout made his mom break from her stupor.
Shurua: "Chis, what are you doing?"
She looked to where her child was and saw something unbelievable.
Something was moving near Chisou and he was playing with it.
Her motherly instinct kicked in and she immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him away from... that.
Shurua: "Get away from that! It could be dangerous!"
Chisou put on a painfilled expression due to the forceful pull.
Chisou: "Ow! But mom! It's harmless! And it's so cute! Just look at it!" He put on a pleading expression.
As soon as the attention was directed back at the... thing, it started moving again.
It was jumping around and doing all kinds of other stuff.
Shurua: "On second thought. It does seem harmless."
She let go of Chisou's hand.
He went back to-
Chisou: "Bolis!"
That was the name that the little creature eventually got.
It was now sitting atop Chisou's shoulder, who was running with his mom to catch up with the rest.
Seira: "There you are! I was getting worried, you know? Don't run off like that again. " She said as soon as Chisou and his mom caught up with everyone.
Chisou: "I'm sorry."
Chisou seemed to be truly sorry, so Seira forgave him pretty easily.
Seira: "Well, everything ended up fine, so not too big of a problem. Who's this little guy?"
Seira poked Bolis, at which point, it quickly slid onto her arm and then into her pocket.
Seira: "Whoa! So fast! What are you trying to do there, little rascal?"
She put her hand into her pocket and when she pulled Bolis out, it was now bigger, barely able to fit in her hand.
Chisou: "So cool! Bolis became bigger!" He looked as if stars were in his eyes.
Shurua: "Did you have something in your pocket?"
Seira: "No I didn't. It became bigger on its own."
Seira and Shurua were both puzzled, but Chisou didn't care about the reason Bolis became bigger, he just cared that it did.
Bolis jumped from Seira's hand back to Chisou's shoulder.
Chisou: "You're a little bit heavier now, hehe."
Even though Chisou said that, he actually didn't mind the extra weight. Hell, the fact that Bolis became bigger made him happy.
As Chisou was playing with Bolis on his shoulder, he noticed something weird in the corner of his eye and when he looked closer, his suspicions were confirmed.
Chisou: "All the Mabeast's are fleeing!" He pointed to the mabeasts.
Everyone reacted to his words and looked in the direction where he was pointing, and when they did, their eyes went wide.
The boy was telling the truth. All the mabeasts were running away from the village.
Everyone was left puzzled. After all, why would the mabeasts run away before they had their meal? It made no sense.
Everyone started searching for the mercenaries that greatly helped them. They could see a bunch of red and white colours that were close to each other.
Everyone: """They're alive!"""
All of them immediately judged that the mercenaries were the ones to drive away the mabeasts.
At that point, everyone as if they were one entity started cheering.
Everyone: """YEAAAHH!"""
People started crying from the sheer joy.
Everyone, no matter whether they were enemies or friends, were hugging each other, laughing with each other.
That, coupled with the sunrise, made an incredible picture.
Everyone was happy.
That is if we ignore the three extremely kind people who were still worried.
All three of them were happily hugging each other, but the anxiety was still there
That is until their attention was brought to where Bolis previously was.
It was still there, but there were letters written into the ground next to it.
The letters spelled: 'I am Cylob'.
Logically it made no sense. Biologically it made no sense.
But what it did make sense in... was emotionally. And that was all they needed it to make sense in.
Without the need for any other words they immediately understood that it was him, so their anxiety went away and they could truly enjoy the moment.