Chapter 96: Survival (1/2)

Snow was falling heavily now. Three months had passed since the elven attack on Dawntree had started and the land of Elos was covered in white. Sulivhaan stood on top of a mountain overlooking the city of Ravenhall. ‘Hello old friend...’ he thought as he looked upon the stone walls of what he considered to be home.

The defenders at Dawntree had managed to lure some of the elves inside the city and finished them off at great cost. Both property wise and with human life. None of the highest leveled people in Dawntree or his squad of the Hand had come to substantial damage but as soon as one trapped an elf inside of a human city, it will not fight honorably against the defenders.

Two weeks after his arrival the elves had turned back. Immediate discussions among the Dawntree nobles sprung up as to why the elves had come and gone but Sulivhaan didn’t intend to find out the enemy’s reasons. He had already wasted enough time of his life to figure that out and what he learned was sobering to say the least.

Whatever elf was sent to the front-lines was either a marvelous actor and liar or simply didn’t know anything about the plans behind the attacks. After so many tortured creatures Sulivhaan had come to accept the latter. The elves would not easily be understood and their plans would not leave wherever they had their military bases. If such a thing even existed. Perhaps some of the theories were right and the species was simply fueled by bloodlust and simply lived for the fighting and killing.

The attacks were too coordinated though and with the decades of experience Sulivhaan had he just couldn’t accept something like that. He was tired, tired of fighting an enemy that didn’t seem to take humanity seriously. How could they? Whatever rabble they send to die in the human cities don’t even know anything about their plans. The young sent to test themselves against a worm they didn’t even consider worth fighting.

With the infighting and squabbles over land and policy that color the lands of humanity it didn’t come as a surprise either. Sulivhaan was sure that most people would sell their neighbor to an elven torturer for a single coin of gold. ‘These are dark thoughts.’ Sulivhaan forced himself to smile. He was home and though many of the surviving elves had remained inside the human territories it would only be a matter of time until they were hunted down by elite forces of both the hand, the adventurer guild and the kingdoms and empires looking to improve their soldiers and standing.

Many had declared the destruction of the western cities as unprecedented but Sulivhaan had considered their colonization as risky at best. Many of the cities were built and left behind previously but just as much as an innkeeper doesn’t care about the monsters luring inside dungeons, a pioneer leaving an overcrowded human city doesn’t care about the history behind his next home town. Living in ignorance and safety is something deeply ingrained inside humans and in times of peace this feeling got stronger. People look towards others for safety and find not their own strength and fire to be the one fighting back.

Sulivhaan hoped that through the thousands of dead some will find their own fire. To stand up and show Elos what humans were capable of.

“Getting teary?” Rock had finally climbed the last bit of the mountain and was now standing next to the squad leader. No answer was expected and Sulivhaan was glad that he had his squad to rely on. Even the new member who had been added to their team before they had left Ravenhall for their long mission had grown quite substantially. The rogue was standing quietly nearby, a quality she had learned from Navalis to be sure.

The ranger was nowhere to be seen but he knew she was close enough to fire an arrow should it be necessary. That was who she was and he accepted that. Not one for people.

“Let’s go.” Sulivhaan said and started flying towards the city, the two members behind him following on the ground. ‘I hope you haven’t changed too much Viscera...’

“Do I h… have to?” the pleading eyes of his daughter didn’t dissuade him.

“This is part of getting strong Lily. I’m truly sorry that you have to do this so early but it’s the only way we will survive.” Roland was holding down the dying beast he had fought against for the past twenty minutes. It wasn’t usual to get a class before the age of sixteen but Roland had heard of enough cases to try. It was cruel he knew but he felt it the best way to prepare his last surviving daughter for her life in this cruel world.

Two months ago they had been let inside one of the outer cities in the Kroll kingdom. Luckily the refugees weren’t robbed immediately, mostly thanks to Valery and of course the hundreds of other refugees flooding the town. Salia hadn’t been the only city which was attacked and it wasn’t the only city that held survivors. Survivors who didn’t quite felt like staying inside the now monster infested fallen cities.

“Do it Lily, it’s a monster and it would do the same to you in a heartbeat if it could.” he appealed to the girl with logic and was glad to find she followed through. The blood colored her black dagger a deep crimson as the smell filled her senses. The beast continued to struggle but he didn’t let it slip from his hold. The cut had been thorough and the level 90 horned lion would bleed out in mere minutes.

Roland would find a safe place to sleep for the girl soon and he would hunt more of the lions. Neither him nor his daughter would ever stagnate again. Even if she didn’t get a class early he could teach her to hunt, to fight and to survive. Killing was simply a part of it. Of course he wouldn’t be so cruel as to have the girl fight a human or beast with a high level of intelligence but there was enough she could learn from him.

Staying inside a city filled by refugees with inflated prices for even the most basic of goods wasn’t going to be very helpful for her. Roland slowly let down the dead monster and closed its eyes. Removing the dagger from its neck, he cleaned it on the beast’s fur before handing it back to Lily. The girl was still staring at the dead animal with slightly teary eyes. An experience that would stay with her but a necessary one.

“You did well.” he said and handed the clean knife back to her. A gift from Ilea. He wasn’t sure if they would’ve died inside that hideout or if a stray elf would’ve hunted them down were it not for that squad of the Hand and Ilea herself who knew where they were hiding. He saw it as another chance. To make things better, to not live as carefree as he had before, traveling around with a family safe behind a city’s walls.

A loud growl sounded too close to him and Roland’s eyes blinked open, his hands on his axes and immediately on his feet when the beast was upon them. ‘Couldn’t hold back could you...’ he thought as the monster pounced on him, his axes cutting into the beast’s shoulders as its claws dug into his leather armor. The two fell down, the monster’s weight resting on his axes and its claws ripped through his protection, drawing blood.

The beast suddenly jerked to the left, giving Roland enough control to rip out the right ax and smash it into the lion’s head. Another two hits and the beast lay dead on top op him, bleeding onto his face. He received a couple messages from the fight but ignored the new information in his mind, using his full strength to push away the carcass. A frightened girl appeared behind the dead beast, getting closer to check on her injured father.

Roland reassured her that he was fine, checking his injuries himself. ‘A day at most...’ thinking on the time he would need to heal. Less if he found anymore beasts to kill. He looked back to Lily, who was wishing her hand before her face with confusion apparent on her face.

“Good job, you saved me Lily.” Roland said and got up before he hugged the girl tightly.

“D...dad there is something here, there was a noise and now there are words I can read...” the girl said and he hugged her even tighter, smiling to himself. She would have a head start after all. He hoped dearly that this was the right decision, thinking on their portion of the Salia gold in his pack. A new life to build somewhere far away. First they had to improve, at least enough to fight back against the world.

‘ding’ ‘Lightning Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 18’

The message reverberated through Maria’s mind, ripping her out of her meditative state and reminding her that she was still alive. ‘Another one...been a while...’ she thought, opening her eyes and looking at the mage before her. Blood dripped down onto the cold stone ground below, lost in the permanently crimson colored cell floor.

Her face reacted automatically to the levels of power used in her tormentor’s attacks, distorted in a grimace of blood and pain. Only that there was no pain. She had reached the second stage of Pain Tolerance a long time ago and to her confusion and luck somehow not even the noble houses of Lys knew about what exactly it did. She repressed the smile threatening to show on her face as she did many thousands of times before and simply waited through the ordeal, her only solace being the resources lost in this endeavor.

Another hour or two and an interrogator would join her to ask the same questions she had denied knowing anything about four years ago already. They would learn nothing today either.