33 Chapter 33 - They came at nigh (1/2)

Kenji waited in the dark, Hartog having ordered every candle and lantern to be covered.

A dozen ranged Guild members waited in their strange tree forts, while a dozen more had mostly vanished into the night. Distantly, Kenji heard clacking bones nearing, the sounds of screams piercing through the night air and his pounding heart in his ears most of all.

”Tenko, Violet, we go all out tonight. Understood?”

Both nodded.

”Kenji, we should send them away,” Tenko whispered as she pulled at his sleeve.

Turning, Kenji found several children clutching kitchen knives, saucepans and old farming equipment. The oldest was the buck-toothed kid, but the youngest couldn't be more than four years old.

”She's right you know,” Kenji said fully aware of how keen the senses of this Guild's adventurers were. The buck-toothed boy just stuck out his tongue while he clutched his stave. At his side the wicked girl with a thing for knives muttered in their ears quickly, swatting one or another until they rearranged their grip and nodded approval when they finally got ready.

”Leave the fighting to us,” Kenji insisted, the girl finally turning to him with the deepest hatred Kenji had ever seen. Her eyes were filled with poisonous derision, a milder version reverberating in the other child soldiers.

”And allow our family to be butchered in there, then raised again? Not on your life - outsider.”

Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.

Kenji lowered his shoulders, the term having hurt quite a bit more than he had expected.

”You don't know what you're doing, you're as likely to get in the way as to help. Please, head inside,” Kenji said, forcing a smile, needing them to heed his words as the horrible sounds of fighting grew nearer. A man's sudden shriek that cut off as quickly as it come unnerved him greatly, and yet the children held firm, their eyes too hard for their age.

”You weren't here during the plague years,” the wicked girl hissed and pointed a jagged knife at him. ”You weren't here when people died all over, and kids had to watch their parents turn into monsters. You weren't here when the Plague King appeared, and the King Thundberad had to send in the Royale army to stop this whole region turning into a gigantic festering pit of death!”

Kenji stepped away, the intensity of her eyes, the hoarse nature of her voice, and the determination of the children, too much to bear.

”We are the orphans from that time. No matter how many found work in town, there wasn't enough when half of everyone - half of our world - turned into a monster! You call us kids, well some of us killed our parents when they tried to eat us! How about that, what have you done to be so confident of protecting us?”

Kenji strode forward and put a hand on her knife.

”[Blessing-Fire],” Kenji muttered...and yet no flame appeared.

The girl snarled at him.

”[Blessing-fire] [Blessing-fire] [Blessing-fire] what the hell is going on?” Kenji pulled his fiery hair back as he looked over the annoyed child soldiers. ”Sorry, I had meant to set your weapons on fire so that you could fight better. It's always worked before...”

A sudden light swept across the land, and another, and another.

Turning around, Kenji's mouth fell open and his eyes became filled with pure, blazing, all-consuming fury. Seven flaming crucifixes had lit up the night, their non-human sacrifices screaming like banshees as the fire ate at their bodies.