Ceaser ran out after the messenger as Adrian followed. As the father and son rushed down the stairs, the first thing that hit them was the excruciating smell of iron and blood permeating their noses as they neared the main hall.
The atmosphere was suffocating as it was filled with almost half of the entire lower ranks of the guild. About 60 heavily injured hunters lay groaning in pain. Some were missing feet, others missing their hands. 2 of them were crippled for life, having lost both their hands and one of their feet.
If their brothers hadn’t carried them back from the city borders, they would have been left there to rot and die, never to return to their families.
Ceaser ran to the nearest hunter who was injured and immediately ordered Adrian to inform the healers of the nursing home and everyone in the guild who used light magic to come over as soon as possible.
Adrian was about to say something, “Father, these people………”, but as soon as he saw his father’s serious look he decided against it and left for the nursing home to fetch the healers.
As he returned, his father asked him where the healers were. Adrian replied that they will be coming in around half an hour. Then his dad handed him a stack of towels and some bandages telling him “Till they come, you’ll have to do it. Go and help the injured and treat all the minor injuries you can.”
Adrian got to work helping the hunters to the best of his abilities. As he wiped the wounded areas and poured medicine to disinfect them, he occasionally looked at their eyes, and he could see nothing but desolation and a look of longing.
Their eyes were devoid of life as they still had the sights of the battle and bloodshed burned into their eyes. He could feel the desolation in their voices as they muttered under their breath, “Did we win?”, “Are we home yet?”.
Even as they lay surrounded by their brothers, they gave off an aura of loneliness like their consciousness was somewhere far away. This was the reality of a crex horde, a sight that even made the most battle-hardened beast horde veterans reconsider their abilities. The true curse of the blight.
As he continued repeating the process, slowly becoming more and more aware of how much of a burden lay on his father’s shoulders, he had almost reached the end of the line.
Suddenly there was an inrush of a crowd of mourning people crying for their dead husbands and brothers, wives and sisters, and above all, sons and daughters. The pain felt by the child passing away before the parents is something only they could understand.
Like a cold chill gripping every person in the room, and an aura of despair resounded in every heart. Adrian neared the last person in the room. A little girl was kneeling beside the man. She was shedding silent tears, without a single sound coming from her throat. The hunter lying beside her seemed to be her father, and he was barely breathing. With a single glance, Adrian knew he wouldn’t live to see another day.
The little girl looked up and gripping the sleeves of his shirt, asked with teary eyes, “He will be fine right? M…My father will be fine right? He….he is everything I have. Even mo……mom passed away in the previous raid…… ”, unable to complete her sentence, her voice finally gave away and she let out a heart-piercing cry.
Adrian just stood there unable to move, for even if he pondered for days, he would have no answer that he could give this desolate child, who had been left alone in this world, with no parents, now an orphan.
He simply bent down and held her in his arms as she cried her heart out. He knew that there was nothing else he could do. He was powerless in this situation. As the girl’s cries rang in his ears, he was slowly getting angry.
He was angry at himself, at his worthlessness, at the fact that even as this innocent little girl had become an orphan, there was nothing that he could do. As the girl’s sobbing slowed down, her guardians arrived. They looked at the sight and the woman, who was probably her aunt, took her into her arms and the girl started crying afresh even as her eyes were already red.
At that moment, Ceaser called out to Adrian and shouted, “Move your hands brat. Don’t you dare laze off at this moment!”
These words caused him to snap out of the deep thoughts he had fallen into. He immediately went back to work and started distributing loaves of bread and saddles of water around for the starving hunters.
That night, after experiencing what he could only think of as the face of misery, Adrian was unable to sleep a wink. It was as if every time he closed his eyes he could hear those screams and cries ringing in his ears.
This was the first big crex horde that had appeared in nearly a decade, yet the sight of desperation and despair just wasn't ready to leave his mind. He just couldn't rest.
With all these thoughts, Adrian got up from his bed and grabbed his sword. After putting on his cloak he jumped out of the window and headed towards the outer plains by sneaking past the city guards.
Having no mana, he had always concentrated on developing himself in other aspects. And his deception and stealth skills were top-notch, allowing him to slip out without alerting a single soul.
Once he was out, he headed straight towards the grasslands just outside the city borders, as he knew that's where the low-level crexes were and he had to let off some steam.
As he reached the open fields he spotted a herd of rabbit crexes, these beasts were usually not that dangerous, they were like normal rabbits but with enhanced strength and speed and absurdly sharp claws because of the blight.
Adrian slowly headed towards them while unsheathing his sword. As he sneaked around, he reached them without getting noticed. The first thing he saw was the herd busy gnawing on what remained of a rabbit that seemed to be unaffected by the blight, taking the chance of the distracted beasts he swiftly closed the distance between them and landed a straight slash killing one immediately.
But the trouble had just begun, as now the rest of the herd was alerted. Fighting one rabbit crex isn't any trouble at all but a bunch of them together are a nuisance to deal with as landing a hit is troublesome with all of them jumping around all the time. Instead of trying to focus on them all at once, Adrian chose to target them one at a time while trying to avoid the others clawing at him.
As he finished a single rabbit, another hurled its little but ferocious claws at his shoulder. As the fight dragged on, Adrian became helplessly aware of his utter weakness and powerlessness.
It pained him.
The face of the little girl came to his mind again and he immediately let out a howl and slashed another rabbit crex in half. He was now holding back tears. Tears of frustration, tears shed for all the men who had died in the battle, for every brother of his who has become crippled for life, tears…for the child who had become orphaned forever. And yet, he couldn’t do anything to help them. Unawakened as he was, he couldn’t even hope to join them in the battle to help ease their pain.
With pain and rage simultaneously filling his mind, he gave off a cry of desperation as he finished off the last of the rabbits. He was sweating from head to toe after just fighting a few rabbits. Those beads of sweat were a constant reminder of the shameful fact that finishing a bunch of rabbit crexes is all that he was worth.
Kicking the ground as hard as he could, Adrian collected himself steadying his breath. As he was about to leave Adrian heard something in the distance. A high-pitched screech filled his ears as he covered them with his hands to block out the ear-piercing screech in the distance. He turned to look where it came from and what he saw made his eyes open wide in dread.
It was a huge crow crex.
Crow crexes are usually considered a grade 2 crex not because of their strength, but because of their ridiculous speeds and their ear-piercing screams which disoriented their targets. Plus they are way larger than normal crows, this one in particular being the size of a human.
Adrian quickly picked up his blade and was about to run, when he noticed the glowing red eye staring right back at him. The crow had already noticed him. It was too late to run. The crow would just follow him into the city.
Adrian gripped his blade and took a defensive stance, with a single breath he got ready again. “I have had enough of running away, now it’s just you and me”. With that, Adrian rushed forward while letting out yet another howl.
The crow charged forward at an incredible speed, Adrian however, quickly parried its beak with his blade and managed to dodge the attack. He turned back facing the crow again as he reflexively swings his sword down. The crow suddenly flapped its wings strongly causing the gust of wind to knock Adrian’s hand back.
As he tried to regain his composure, the crow reached its claws out grabbing Adrian by the waist as it prepared to take flight again.
Adrian knew that as soon as they were in the air that he would be done for. He tried his best to struggle out of the crex’s firm grip but all in vain. They were already soaring. “Now it’s this or nothing,” Adrian thought to himself as he reached his hand out to get a better grip on his blade, with which he slashed the crow’s leg causing the crow to let go of him.
Adrian quickly held on to the crow's claws hanging on with all his might. He started swinging himself forward with all the strength he could muster and managed to swing onto the crow's back.
The crow immediately started letting out another ear-piercing screech, trying its best to throw Adrian off its back. Adrian, unable to handle that high pitch sound, grits his teeth and stabbed the crow in one of its wings. The blade lodged itself firmly into the beast’s flesh as the crow let out another screech. The next moment both of them were hurling down towards the ground.
Adrian managed to cushion his fall by holding on to the crow’s back, as both came crashing onto the grass. The crow now bleeding from one of its wings let out another screech to ward off Adrian as it managed to fly off limping on one side.
Adrian lay there in the middle of the plains, exhausted, unable to move a muscle from having fought off the crow crex.
“A grade 2 crex huh?, and I couldn't even manage to finish it off.” Adrian said to himself as he broke off into a burst of maniac laughter, “All this time and effort and I still am useless” he said to himself while laughing like a madman, tears rolling down his face.
As Adrian wiped off his sweat and tears, he pushed himself up onto his legs and staggered a bit as the blade felt heavy in his hands after the long session of swordsmanship. As the blood flowed down drop by drop from his blade, he found the small stream of water nearby he usually visited on his sneak-outs and cleaned his sword.
As he watched the blood diluting in the clear water of the stream, he was reminded of the bloodshed he had seen in the guild hall earlier today.
Reminded of this, he sheathed his sword and made his way back to the guild slowly. The sun was peeking from the horizon and the gentle warm rays caressed his face giving him a feeling of peace that he severely craved since the last day.
He reached the city walls and as the guards recognised him, they stated: “Oh out on the late night strolls again huh? You should still be careful though Adrian, even though the hunters just got done with the latest horde, doesn’t mean that there aren’t still a few out there”.
The guard stopped with what he was about to say next, as he thought to himself for a second before continuing “Also shouldn’t you be with the guildmaster right now? guess you don’t know what’s happening at the guild then huh?”
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