Hours later, the destructive nature of a bloody afternoon was finally replaced with the tranquility of the night. The remaining villagers who survived the attack were cleaning the mess around the hamlet; discarding debris, mourning and burying the dead, and already attempting to plan and rebuild parts of their village. While the denizens were busy restoring the area, Cyrene was hard at work restoring her brother’s health. Immediately after the fight, she brought him to her room and rested him on her bed. She used the limited medical knowledge procured from her brother to apply plenty of bandages and curative ointments to strengthen the healing effect. After an hour of vigorously attending to his wounds, she finished. Her room was left a mess with scattered bloody rags and empty medical supplies. She took a seat beside her bed, watching her once-pained brother sleep peacefully on her mattress. A shroud of sorrow blankets her eyes when she gazes over at the unusual blade she brought back; the weapon sits in the dark corner of the room. She turns her attention back to her brother. Cyrene gently clasps her brother’s hand, rubbing her thumb softly against his knuckles. 

“All of the villagers are cleaning up pretty nicely," she said gently. "You should be doing fine if you rest up, but knowing you, you'd probably be up the next day like nothing happened..." 

The young woman eyes her brother's wounds. 

"Why do you have to be so damn careless? You've always come home beaten up, but this is the worst it's ever been."

She takes a deep breath and then exhales. Her mind recollects her encounter with the peddler. 

“When you told me to go into town to look for a new weapon, he ended up giving me one for free, but after I went to the Cliffside to kill another monster, he was there again. He did something to me… something that was like the explosion you talked about with our mum and dad,” she says, briefly glancing at her brother. "When I came to, he was gone; even after I searched the town for a bit when I was done fixing you up, I couldn’t find him hiding anywhere.”

She raises her left arm and eyes the palm of her hand. 

"I don't know what he did to me, but when I was protecting you, a sword popped up in my hands. I tried to make it show up earlier, but it doesn't want to show up..." 

She opens and shuts her hand. 

"It's weird... a sword coming into my hands doesn't even sound possible, but it just feels right; I don't know how to explain it. Still, it doesn't excuse him for what he did...!"  

Her voice trembles. She clutches her brother’s hand more tightly while closing her other hand.  

"That weird guy... that merchant... every time I think about him, how he almost got you killed... how he ruined our village..."  

A slight hint of fear within her voice transforms into a hard rage. 

"I'm not gonna let him get away with that...!" 

Her grip lessens. She looks back at her brother, a tenacious resolve suddenly possessing her.  

“I know he went to the Silent Grotto, so that's where I'm going! I don't care how many monsters I have to go through, he’s not getting away with what he did to me, to you, or our home!"   

Cyrene moves in closer to her brother, passing her palm against his cheek, wiping away a spec of dirt underneath his eye. Cyrus' peaceful expression managed to muster a weak smile on his sister's face. 

“Hopefully, I won't be gone for too long. Once I'm done, I'll come running back, I promise."  

She kisses her brother on her forehead and smiles. 

"Love you."

She stands and heads to the doorway. Before leaving, she gets another look at her brother. A soft smile forms on her face before shutting the door, enveloping her room in total darkness. 

Cyrene leaves her home posthaste, rushing toward the direction of the Silent Grotto. As the cool night sky shrouded the valley in its shadow, the huntress dived into the unknown, willing and eager to hunt another monster.

"You're not getting away from me that easy!"