Chương 46: People? (4)

(4) (4) Rowan and everyone else in the cave just stared at Cynthia.

"What did you just say?" Henry asked, face full of concern.

"I said that I wanted to be here!"

"So, you chose Apocalypse?" She nodded.

"Yup!" For a few seconds, no one spoke until Eren asked, "But why?" Cynthia tilted her head and thought for a few seconds. Then, her face brightened, and she practically shouted, "Because it sounded fun!" Henry let out a low groan and put his head in his hands. Then, he gritted his teeth and spoke.

"Well, that's one mystery uncovered, ain't it?" Eren and Lucas both chuckled halfheartedly, and no one else said a word. Rowan didn't even need to try to figure out what they were all thinking; it was just too obvious. Cynthia was just a child, and right now, she could've been in Easy Difficulty playing in the flowers or whatever the people in there did. Before anyone said another thing, Rowan froze as he looked at Henry's shoulder.

The man had been wincing and rubbing it for a while now, but he'd assumed it was just a normal injury. It had mostly been hidden behind his makeshift leather jacket, but it had lined up so that he could perfectly see the wound beneath. And now that he looked more closely, he could see that the flesh was turning gray." Henry," Rowan snapped, immediately bringing the man's attention towards him.

"Is that wound from a bloodspawn?" Henry nodded tentatively, panic growing on his face.

"... yes? Why? Is something going to happen? Is it like a zombie bite? Am I going to turn into one?"

"No, nothing like that," Rowan replied, trying to calm the man down.

"But their claws are poisoned."

"Shi—" Henry cut himself off and glanced towards Cynthia, who was poking at the mold growing on the wall with her finger.

"Will I be fine?"

"Hopefully, yes. Why didn't you tell me about it sooner? The flesh is gray! It wouldn't be as bad as it is now if we'd known right after you received the wound."

"I…I can't see my shoulder very well from here, my beard makes it impossible, you know? I just thought it was a bad wound, not poison! Damn, if this had been a few months ago, I would've gotten it checked out immediately. The Tutorial really changes people, huh?" Ignoring the man's nervous babbling, Rowan released some compressed mana, taking control of it before it could shoot outward and hurt someone. Then, he formed it into a small blade.

"I'm going to have to cut it out before it eats away any more of your flesh." The bearded man gulped and nodded, sliding his leather top off of his injured shoulder, revealing bare flesh. Looking around, Rowan found that everyone was staring at Henry with concern and alarm. Everyone except Cynthia. She was staring at the floating mana construct he was going to use on her adoptive father.

"Wow…how did you do that?" She asked, eyes wide. He ignored her question, but a moment later, Henry spoke to her.

"Why don't you look away for a bit, Cici?"

"No! I wanna watch!" He opened his mouth to protest once more, but Rowan cut him off.

"Just let her watch. We don't have time to waste." As he spoke, an idea came to him, and he turned towards the rest of the group.

"Someone find a piece of cloth I can use as a bandage. If you have to rip your clothes to get it, then do." Henry watched the others trying to decide what article of clothing to sacrifice before, with a reluctant nod, he presented his shoulder. The man gritted his teeth and looked away, continuing to watch as his group members found him a bandage. Rowan took a deep breath and prepared to cut out the wound.

Henry's body had a small layer of fat all around, which, thankfully, meant that the necrotic rot hadn't yet reached his tendons or bone. Then, he began to cut. Henry began breathing heavily and groaning through gritted teeth the moment he began. Rowan was working as fast as he could to minimize the man's suffering, but he could only go so fast if he didn't want to risk cutting too deeply. Doing his best to tune out the man's groans of pain, he kept cutting.

A few seconds later, the blade passed through, and a chunk of flesh fell to the ground. He called out, and Eren immediately tossed him a length of fabric. Nodding his thanks, Rowan grabbed it, tied it around Henry's wound, hoping to stem the bleeding as much as he could. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The bald man spent a few seconds staring at the piece of his shoulder lying in the ground, getting a good look at the gray, rotting flesh for the first time.

He looked distraught, but a moment later, Cynthia walked over and wrapped her arms around him. Henry's face lightened, and he hugged his daughter back before turning to Rowan.

"Thank you. I would've died without you, huh? That's the second time you've saved me today." Rowan nodded.

"Well, you would've survived, but I'm not sure if you'd be able to move your arm or shoulder again. It's my fault, too, honestly. I should've told you what the effects of attacks from the bloodspawn were." Internally, Rowan cursed. In his panic to get the group away from the incoming hunting parties, he'd simply said that wounds from the bloodspawn were extra deadly, not bothering to elaborate.

If he'd mentioned the poison and spent a few more seconds elaborating on it, Henry would have certainly realized something was wrong with his shoulder. In the end, though, he supposed it hadn't gone that badly. The man's decision not to mention his injury was a bit stubborn, but he seemed nice enough. Henry smiled.

"Don't be like that, yeah? You were busy trying to save us all from being swarmed by even more bloodspawn. Speaking of, I don't think we ever properly thanked you for that. So, thank you for saving all of our lives." The sentiment was echoed by everyone else, even Cynthia and the siblings. Rowan just nodded in return before standing up and walking back to the edge of the tunnel.

It was a bit surprising that none of them, except for Cynthia, had asked about his mana, but it seemed they really took the whole 'not asking strangers about their powers' thing to heart. That was probably why they hadn't asked about his chains, either. Then, with a sigh, he sat back down and leaned back against the mold-covered stone wall. As he rested, cycling mana within him, he took in the appearances of the group.

He hadn't paid close attention to any of them since he'd met them, only getting a general idea of their appearances. For some reason, he found it hard to focus on just getting a better idea of what they looked like. Compared to what he'd been doing nonstop for however long he'd been in the Tutorial, it was so… mundane. The only things he'd done since he'd gotten stuck in the caves were training and fighting.

Even when he was resting, he was constantly practicing with his skills or checking his surroundings for bloodspawn. Even just earlier, he'd been on high alert, trying to cut out a rotting infection from Henry's body. And now that he wanted to concentrate on something so normal, so unimportant to his survival, his brain kept trying to search for threats or start training once more. It was almost as if the ages he'd spent alone in the caves had rewired his brain. So Rowan forced himself to relax.

Truly relax, for the first time in far too long. Breath after breath, he forced himself to calm down, to stop constantly checking for threats. He even slowed his internal mana cycling down to a crawl. And then, he looked at the six figures sitting around him. Cynthia's dark, auburn hair stood out against her pale skin as she rocked back and forth, staring at the ceiling with a smile. Henry, who was her father in all but blood, sat right beside her, nursing his wounded arm.

He was a slightly heavy-set man with a kind face and a long beard that was just beginning to gray. He was armed with a longsword in a leather sheath at his side. As for his hair, well, he didn't have any. The siblings sat in the back, as silent as ever. Everything about them seemed normal except their hair, which was the darkest black that he'd ever seen. They had several daggers each, the sheaths strapped to or hanging from their bodies. Lucas, on the other hand, had bright, blonde hair, his face shaved clean.

His features were angular, and his brow sharp. Rowan thought his eyes were blue, but he couldn't be sure, though; the glow of his chains made everything look blue. He had a sword similar to Henry's, if a bit shorter. He turned his attention to Eren, who was munching on a piece of jerky. She had black hair, just like Rowan and the two siblings in the back, while her complexion was darker than the three of them. He couldn't quite place it, but she looked East Asian.

At her waist were two tomahawks, both still coated in blood from the recent engagement. Her facial features were sharp, though still softer than those of Lucas—he paused. A three-inch-long scar ran down Eren's cheek, looking freshly healed. As Rowan continued to watch them, truly looking at the details of everyone, he realized that the scar on Eren's face was nothing special. Scars marred the bodies of everyone in the group. Everyone but Cynthia.

Curious, he checked himself for scars, and while some former wounds were too covered in dried blood to see, he found them in other areas of his body. But none of them were quite as bad as the ones the party sitting around him bore. Even some of the ones where he remembered the wounds being much larger seemed to have shrunk down. Perhaps it was his vitality? He probably had a higher vitality than all of them. Speaking of stats, Rowan realized he didn't know what happened when you leveled up without a class.

Did you gain stat points? Probably. He'd seen the people around him fighting the bloodspawn. That wouldn't have been possible if they weren't gaining stats. As he continued thinking, he realized that gaining a class at level one had probably given him a decent advantage over everyone else. As curious as he was about how leveling up without a class would work, Rowan didn't ask; if he did, it would give away that he'd had a class from the beginning.

And, while everyone seemed nice enough, he wasn't going to share that without thinking about it, especially not after Henry had just told him that everyone was murdering each other back on the surface. Before his thoughts could continue, he was interrupted by Cynthia getting to her feet and wandering over to him. She poked him on the arm a few times before speaking.

"You look really cool! Thanks for saving him!" She smiled and kept poking his arm.

"What level are you?" He ignored her question, focusing on the first thing she'd said.

"You're welcome for saving your dad, but I look cool, huh? Not scary? Even with all the blood on me?" Rowan raised an eyebrow as Cynthia nodded enthusiastically. She was a strange, strange child. Still, it was kind of nice. Then, he sighed. It'd been nice to just relax for a bit, but they'd been sitting here for too long. Clearing his throat, he asked, "So, what do you intend to do now? If you're planning on returning to the surface, I'll happily come with you."

Henry, who seemed to be the leader of the group, spoke first.

"Well, I didn't tell you this earlier, but we didn't just come down here because the bloodspawn took Isabella. We had something like a mission, you know?" Hearing that, along with the look on Henry's face, told Rowan everything he needed to know. It was time for a story, and a long one at that.