Chương 44: People? (2)

(2) (2) Henry swung his blade, slamming it into the chest of one of the closest bloodspawn. He hated the damn creatures. He didn't have too many problems with mold or blood individually, but together? As a living, deadly creature? Something about that just disgusted him. And now, here they were, trying to get to the little girl hiding behind him. Trying to get to his daughter. Henry cursed.

He knew he shouldn't have brought her along, but with how dangerous the area was, It would've been too dangerous to leave her behind. Still, she wouldn't be in so much danger if she would've just listened and trailed a bit behind them when they entered the caves! He looked down at his weapon. The sword had been sharp not too long ago, but the constant fighting had quickly dulled it, and now it was little more than a bludgeoning weapon.

His opponent stumbled back from the blow, but as it did, it lashed out with a clawed hand, aiming for his face. Letting out a cry of surprise, he brought up his blade, blocking the strike. But he wasn't quite fast enough, and the bone claw nicked his shoulder. Henry felt a stab of pain, but gritted his teeth against it. It wasn't that big of a deal, just a small wound. Focusing back on his enemy, he continued trading blows with the creature until, finally, an opportunity presented itself.

Smiling slightly despite the surprisingly painful wound in his shoulder, he lunged. His blade may have dulled, but with enough force behind it, it would still do its job. The sword stabbed into the bloodspawn's neck and then kept going through the other side. Bringing up a leg, he kicked the creature in the chest, pushing it off his blade. The humanoid fell to the floor and twitched for a few seconds before going still.

[You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn - Level 6] [Level 7 → Level 8] Before even reading the notifications, Henry spat on the fungal abomination's corpse. Then, as he turned his attention to the screens before him, he breathed out victoriously. He'd gained a level! Now, he was one step closer to the day when he would be able to get a class. But there was no time to waste. He assigned the two free points he got with the level to strength and dexterity before looking around for his next opponent.

Most of the creatures were already dead, with only eight remaining. Of those, six of them were already being taken care of by his companions, so he turned his attention to the only two he could. All around him lay the corpses of bloodspawn, but not all of them were from his group's work. No, nearly half of them were the work of that strange man. He'd seen him for only a brief moment before being pulled back into the fight, but he'd been fending off half a dozen of the creatures at once.

And then, just like that, he'd disappeared along with the majority of the horde. But Henry could think about him later. For now, he had to focus on the two blood—he froze. One of the creatures was already on the floor, a glowing blue dagger embedded in the bag of its neck. Before he could so much as react, the other bloodspawn leaped at him, but a split second later, it was sent flying to the side by… a ball of chains?

A moment later, the glowing dagger extracted itself from the beast's head and flew towards the nearest fungal amalgamation, tearing into it. Henry watched in fascination as the blade leaped from bloodspawn to bloodspawn, aiding his allies in taking down their opponents. With the flying dagger helping them, his group took down the remaining creatures with ease. But one question remained: Where had the blade come from? Remembering how the ball of chains had come from further down the tunnel, he turned his head.

And there, covered in blood and chains, was the same mysterious man from earlier. — Rowan faced the group, unsure of what to say. He'd been alone for so long that he wanted nothing more than to just sit and talk and laugh with them. But at the same time, he was paranoid. What if they were like Hannah? She'd seemed okay, if a bit eccentric at first, but she had thrown him to the chimera without a second thought the moment she thought it might give her a better chance at survival.

The fact that there was a little girl with them did soothe his worries a bit, but he couldn't help but wonder what she was doing in the middle of a battle like this. He tried to bring up their levels, one after another, but the System didn't comply. It seemed that he would have to ask if he wanted to know more about them. Thankfully, he was spared from having to break the awkward silence as one of them stepped forward.

"Who are you?" The speaker was a large, older-looking, bearded man. He was bald, dressed in sweatpants and…a leather shirt? His top didn't seem well made, so Rowan assumed that he or someone else in the tutorial had created it with parts from beasts that they'd slain. Peeking out from behind him was a young girl. She looked to be around ten years old. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Seeing no reason to lie, he answered, "My name is Rowan. And you?"

"Henry." The man spoke in a short, clipped tone. After a few more seconds of awkward silence, the little girl stepped out from behind Henry.

"I'm Cynthia." Following her lead, the group members introduced themselves, one after another. To his surprise, Rowan actually didn't have much difficulty remembering what they were called, even though he'd been bad with names back on Earth. Perhaps his stats or all the practice with [Mana Manipulation] was affecting his mental abilities. Once the rest of her group had introduced themselves, one of the women, Eren, spoke once more.

"Why did you save us?" Taken aback by the question, Rowan considered his response. Why wouldn't he have saved them? He didn't know anything about them that would make him not want to do so, and he had the power. Realizing the party was still staring at him expectantly, he replied, "Well, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't have saved you. I mean, I don't know who you are, so until you prove otherwise, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're all good people worthy of saving.

"Plus, killing all of those bloodspawn was enough to level up, so it was a win-win situation." To his surprise, the group looked at each other in confusion before stepping closer together. What they were saying was probably not meant for him, but with his stats, he still managed to pick up on bits and pieces.

"... he killed them all?"

"Maybe he's actually a good guy? He doesn't seem…"

"... it doesn't matter. We have to find Isabella…" Rowan tilted his head. Isabella. None of them had introduced themselves as such. Then, he remembered the body he'd seen one of the hunting parties carrying. That must've been Isabella, and the party was here to save her. But the last he'd seen her, she was dead. Interrupting their whispering, Rowan grimaced and spoke.

"I hate to say it, but I think your friend may be dead."

"What?" One of the men, who'd introduced himself as Lucas, sputtered.

"How do you know?" Trying to recall her appearance, he replied, "She was wearing jeans and a pink top, right?" Lucas nodded.

"I saw her earlier. She was being carried by a group of bloodspawn. And trust me, you do not want to follow them to their destination." Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but after a few seconds of silence, he closed it again. The entire party seemed at a loss for words, but after a few more moments, Eren broke the silence.

"But she was alive when the bloodspawn took her! She was still fighting! How can you be sure she was dead?" The people around her immediately began to nod, a bit of hope appearing on their faces. Even a confused Cynthia nodded along enthusiastically, which only made it harder for Rowan to keep talking. But still, he spoke.

"Did she have any wounds on her body when they took her?"

"Yes," Eren replied, "But nothing fatal! She had a pretty bad gouge in her stomach and a nick in her neck, but that was it!" Hearing something, Rowan looked behind him and saw more bloodspawn approaching. Cursing to himself, he turned back to Eren.

"Listen. I'm sorry that your friend died, but there isn't time for this. Wounds inflicted by the bloodspawn are particularly deadly, and even if she survived, do you really think the bloodspawn wouldn't have just decided to kill her?" One of the men opened his mouth, but Rowan interrupted him.

"We can talk about this later. There are more bloodspawn coming from behind me, and I don't think any of us want to deal with them right now, you understand? We can talk once we get somewhere safe." Much to his relief, the party nodded, albeit reluctantly. Gesturing for them to follow him, Rowan took off into a nearby tunnel, jogging at a reasonable pace.

A few of the group members lingered at the scene of the battle, staring regretfully at where their friend had been dragged off to, but after a few seconds, they followed him. Several minutes later, Rowan was satisfied with how far they'd gone. Coming to a stop, he waited for the rest of the people to catch up to him. Most of them seemed fine, although the large man, Henry, was panting. Rowan shrugged. Henry probably hadn't put many points into dexterity. It wasn't like he could blame him, though.

He wasn't putting that many points into the stat either. Once they were all there, Rowan refrained from speaking as they all sat down. He expected that the group would need some time to process the loss of their friend, but to his surprise, Eren immediately spoke up once more.

"... she's really dead?"

"Yes." Eren didn't respond as a look of acceptance spread throughout the group. It did make Rowan feel a bit better since they at least weren't in denial. Still, he was caught by surprise as, less than a minute later, Cynthia spoke up.

"What level are you?" Rowan wasn't too surprised that it had been her to talk first, since she was just a child and didn't seem to have a full grasp of what was happening, even if she'd been in the Tutorial for quite a while. But before he could respond, Henry cut in.

"I'm sorry about her. She doesn't really grasp how the world works, yet. But, on the same note, can we ask you some questions? They won't be anything like that one." Cynthia speaking up hadn't surprised him much, but the man whom he presumed to be her father doing so? He'd still expected him to need some time to recover from the recent loss. Also, why was Henry acting as if Cynthia had insulted him? Was there something going on that he didn't get?

He took a look at the rest of the party and found that, while all of their faces had some level of grief, none displayed the amount he would've expected. Instead, they were all looking at him intently, waiting for his reply. If he'd had any good friends in here or even back on Earth, he knew for sure that he would've been in a much worse condition than any of these people.

"Sure, ask away," He replied.

"But can I ask you a few first?" Henry nodded, but Rowan didn't speak immediately. He wanted to know how they had been so distressed over Isabella, but the moment they realized she was dead, they'd been able to recover so quickly. Rowan knew that he probably wouldn't be able to do something like that if he lost a friend. Just what had they been through? Even Cynthia seemed to be perfectly fine, but perhaps she just didn't fully grasp what was happening. Still, he didn't want to be too blunt.

"Actually, do you want to just take a moment before we do this? I know it can't be easy to lose a friend." The party shared a few glances before one of them, Eren, responded.

"We're alright." She gave a forced smile.

"Thank you, though.

"We can mourn her later. For now, we have to focus. I've lost enough people to know that letting grief take over in situations like this is a good way to get yourself killed."