Chương 42: Licking Wounds

Rat broke off his attack and stumbled backward, confused, frightened even. Breathing heavily, Evan looked around, trying to find the source of Rat's strange behavior, and saw that Bear was doing the same thing.

"What's going on?" Evan asked.

"I dulled their senses," Jasper said.

"They can't see or hear very well right now, but it'll only last three minutes. We need to take the chance and flee." Oliver stared at Jasper with wild eyes.

"Never!" Luca quickly took Jasper's side.

"Come on, man, they're destroying us. We can't beat them."

"We can attack them right now. They're vulnerable!"

"The effect stops immediately if they take damage," Jasper explained, "That's how the skill works. It's meant for emergency exits, not for fighting."

"I'm not going to run. Those are my people. I grew up with those folks. My family is here. I'm not going to abandon them!"

"Olly…" Evan said softly.

"No!" Jasper puffed his chest, walked over and grabbed Oliver by the shoulder.

"Listen, they're not here to kill the villagers. We know that. They're taking them alive. If we end this fight now, we can follow their tracks and free the villagers they abducted. All of them, not just the ones from Silvercreek. If we die here, they're all lost. No one else but us knows what's going on, and it might take months before another team figures it out."

"But—" Jasper's jaw tensed. He might not have the fighting prowess of a rank 8 warrior, but he still carried himself with a certain authority.

"Listen, Oliver, either you come with us voluntarily or I'll put you to sleep and we'll carry you out." Oliver was breathing heavily, looking to Evan for support. Support Evan couldn't provide. As much as he wanted to protect those people, he knew Jasper was right. If they died here, they couldn't help anyone.

"We bought the people time to flee," he said.

"That's all we can do for now, Oliver. We're simply not strong enough to beat the Beasts. Not yet. Don't see it as abandoning them. It's a tactical retreat." Luca nervously glanced at Rat and Spider, still stumbling around blind and deaf.

"Could you hurry up? Time's ticking down. They're going to be so pissed when they come back to their senses, and I'd like to be as far away as possible when that happens." Oliver looked around the destroyed marketplace, despair written all over his face. Evan could see the internal battle in his eyes.

"Promise me that we'll come back. Promise me, Jasper!"

"We'll come back, I promise. We'll follow their tracks, find where they're holding the people prisoner, and free every last one of them." Oliver's jaw was set tight, but he nodded.

"Okay." It was a wild dash through Silvercreek's streets, now mostly deserted. Whether that was because most of the villagers had gotten away, or because Spider had taken them, Evan didn't know, and he had no time to think about it. Rat and Bear had woken up from their dulled state just a minute or so after they'd started running. They could hear them rampaging behind them, looking for them.

Jasper used another of his abilities to camouflage them, making the Beasts' search futile, even after they'd nearly run into Rat coming at them from a side street. The man had simply run past them, without so much as looking at them. They sprinted until they reached the forest treeline and then some more until the forest was dense enough to hide them. Only then did they allow themselves to pause and catch their breath.

"We need a safe place to hide," Jasper said, panting heavily.

"I'm almost completely out of mana." Luca looked up.

"Maybe we can climb up the trees? If we're lucky, they're dumb enough not to look up."

"I have a better idea," Evan said. His mana reserve had refilled to almost half already, but that helped little with the physical exhaustion from fighting for his life.

"The Scrapmaw burrow." Luca looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Uh… what about the Scrapmaws in that Scrapmaw burrow? They're not especially cuddly companions." Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Oliver and I killed them all a couple of weeks ago," Evan said.

"Yeah, more or less," Oliver said.

"We killed the queen and most of the grown Scrapmaws. The juveniles have probably either died or left to find a new queen in another burrow to sustain them."

"How sure are you about that?" Luca asked, still unconvinced. Evan grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Listen, it's not a luxury hotel, but it's safer than standing around and waiting for the Beasts to find us." Jasper nodded.

"I think it's a good plan. Show the way, boys." They trudged through the forest, trying to make it to the burrow as fast as they could without making too much noise to avoid drawing the Beasts' attention. Evan had no idea if and how long the Beasts would search for them. He knew they were doing some kind of work for hire. They were supposed to deliver the villagers to a guy named the Professor, so hopefully they wouldn't linger too long.

Oliver knew the forest surrounding Silvercreek like the back of his hand, so he had no problem finding his way back to the burrow entrance. They hurried into the pitch-black darkness of the underground burrow. Just a few steps in, Luca nearly stumbled over the skeleton of a dead Scrapmaw. Evan pulled the light orb out of his inventory, but before he could power it up, he felt Jasper's hand on his shoulder.

"No light. We don't want to draw attention." Evan nodded and put the orb back. With one hand on the damp earth wall, they slowly made their way deeper into the burrow. Evan's eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness, but Jasper seemed to be the only one who could see well, so he took the lead. No squeaks or the scratching of clawed feet echoed through the tunnel, so it was probably safe to assume the burrow was indeed completely abandoned.

The only sound was their breathing and an occasional cracking sound whenever one of them stepped on the frail bones of a dead Scrapmaw. A musty smell filled Evan's nose. It wasn't as bad as when they had fought the queen, but despite the monsters' absence, their stink lingered. It wasn't a very comfortable hiding spot, but at least Jasper allowed Evan to activate his light orb after they had passed the third turn in the tunnel.

"I think we're deep enough inside now," Jasper said.

"Let's rest and tend to our injuries." They all sat down on the rocky ground. Evan leaned his back against the tunnel wall and opened his ledger to check his status. He had barely paid attention to his health and mana bars and his system alerts during the fight and the hasty escape from Silvercreek. His mana bar was recovering quickly, but his health bar was down to less than 20%. No wonder he felt totally wrecked.

[Status Condition (Injury): Mild Concussion] [Status Condition (Injury): Fractured rib (2x)] [Status Condition (Injury): Major laceration shoulder] [Status Condition (Injury): Major bruise (x4)] [Status Condition (Injury): Minor laceration (x5)] [Status Condition (Injury): Minor bruise (x13)] Evan let out a long breath. His body wasn't exactly in pristine shape, but none of his injuries appeared to be life-threatening.

"Does anyone require a healing potion?" Jasper asked. Luca shook his head.

"Nah, only a minor laceration and a couple of bruises. I'll live."

"I'm good too," Evan said.

"My list is a little longer, but nothing I can't heal from with a good night's rest."

"We don't have time to rest for the night," Oliver said sharply.

"We need to follow the Beasts. Jasper, give Evan the potion, so he can heal quicker and then we go—""No," Jasper said sternly.

"Healing potions are expensive. I only brought three, and it's not wise to waste them just because you want to save time."

"But we need to go after them before their trail turns cold!" Jasper looked Oliver straight in the eye.

"Oliver, I'm a tracker. There's no such thing as a cold trail for me. In fact, it's better to wait a little. That way we make sure they don't notice we're following them." Oliver's shoulders slumped. He looked at his feet and swallowed.

"I don't even know if my family got away. My little sister, she's only eight years old… she can't run very fast."

"If they couldn't get away in time, we'll find them," Evan promised, although he didn't say the second part of his thoughts out loud. The Beasts had already wiped the floor with them once. Even if they managed to follow their tracks and find the abducted villagers, he doubted the criminals would just let them go if they asked nicely. They had another fight on their hands, and he had no idea how to win it. Maybe if they trained like crazy? Got Evan and Oliver to rank 4 and Luca to rank 2? How long would that take?

And did they have that long? The consideration made him notice several status alerts from his system he'd missed because he'd been distracted by the list of his many injuries, but before he could access his menus, Jasper had pulled his rolled-up tent out of his inventory. Luca's eyes went wide, and then a wide grin appeared on his face.

"With all that life-and-death fighting, I had almost forgotten you had this. I was fully prepared to sleep on the cold, hard ground, nestled between decaying Scrapmaw corpses." Oliver watched Jasper put the tent up with an unhappy face. It wasn't hard to guess his thoughts.

"Your family isn't going to be any safer if you sleep on the ground tonight, Olly."

"It just feels wrong," he mumbled.

"Cozying up in Jasper's cottage while they're paralyzed, on a wooden cart, on their way to… to who knows where."

"You don't even know if the Beasts caught them. We'll rest for the night, lick our wounds and recover, and tomorrow, when we can be sure the Beasts have stopped looking for us, we go to your farm and check on them, okay?" Oliver nodded reluctantly, but Evan still had to give him a little push to get inside the tent. He went in after Oliver, and when he stepped inside, Jasper had already started a fire in the fireplace.

"I'm going to cook us some dinner," he said.

"Food helps mana regeneration, so we need to eat well tonight." Oliver fell into one of the armchairs in front of the fire and crossed his arms.

"I'm not hungry." Evan slumped into the chair next to him.

"But you need to recover your mana, so you'll eat anyway." Oliver glanced at him and sighed.

"Yes, I'll eat anyway." Satisfied, Evan leaned his head back into the soft cushion of the armchair and opened his menus to finally check out those system alerts.