Chapter 44 – People? (2)

Chapter 44 – People? (2)

Henry swung his blade, slamming it into the chest of one of the closest bloodspawn.

He hated the damn creatures. He didn’t have too many problems with mold or blood individually, but together? As a living, deadly creature? Something about that just disgusted him.

And now, here they were, trying to get to the little girl hiding behind him. Trying to get to his daughter.

Henry cursed. He knew he shouldn’t have brought her along, but with how dangerous the area was, It would’ve been too dangerous to leave her behind. Still, she wouldn’t be in so much danger if she would’ve just listened and trailed a bit behind them when they entered the caves!

He looked down at his weapon. The sword had been sharp not too long ago, but the constant fighting had quickly dulled it, and now it was little more than a bludgeoning weapon.

His opponent stumbled back from the blow, but as it did, it lashed out with a clawed hand, aiming for his face.

Letting out a cry of surprise, he brought up his blade, blocking the strike. But he wasn’t quite fast enough, and the bone claw nicked his shoulder.

Henry felt a stab of pain, but gritted his teeth against it. It wasn’t that big of a deal, just a small wound. Focusing back on his enemy, he continued trading blows with the creature until, finally, an opportunity presented itself.

Smiling slightly despite the surprisingly painful wound in his shoulder, he lunged. His blade may have dulled, but with enough force behind it, it would still do its job.

The sword stabbed into the bloodspawn’s neck and then kept going through the other side.

Bringing up a leg, he kicked the creature in the chest, pushing it off his blade. The humanoid fell to the floor and twitched for a few seconds before going still.

[You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn – Level 6]

[Level 7 → Level 8]

Before even reading the notifications, Henry spat on the fungal abomination’s corpse.

Then, as he turned his attention to the screens before him, he breathed out victoriously. He’d gained a level! Now, he was one step closer to the day when he would be able to get a class.

But there was no time to waste. He assigned the two free points he got with the level to strength and dexterity before looking around for his next opponent. Most of the creatures were already dead, with only eight remaining.

Of those, six of them were already being taken care of by his companions, so he turned his attention to the only two he could.

All around him lay the corpses of bloodspawn, but not all of them were from his group’s work.

No, nearly half of them were the work of that strange man. He’d seen him for only a brief moment before being pulled back into the fight, but he’d been fending off half a dozen of the creatures at once.

And then, just like that, he’d disappeared along with the majority of the horde. But Henry could think about him later. For now, he had to focus on the two blood—he froze.

One of the creatures was already on the floor, a glowing blue dagger embedded in the bag of its neck. Before he could so much as react, the other bloodspawn leaped at him, but a split second later, it was sent flying to the side by…a ball of chains?

A moment later, the glowing dagger extracted itself from the beast’s head and flew towards the nearest fungal amalgamation, tearing into it.

Henry watched in fascination as the blade leaped from bloodspawn to bloodspawn, aiding his allies in taking down their opponents. With the flying dagger helping them, his group took down the remaining creatures with ease.

But one question remained: Where had the blade come from? Remembering how the ball of chains had come from further down the tunnel, he turned his head.

And there, covered in blood and chains, was the same mysterious man from earlier.

—

Rowan faced the group, unsure of what to say. He’d been alone for so long that he wanted nothing more than to just sit and talk and laugh with them. But at the same time, he was paranoid.

What if they were like Hannah? She’d seemed okay, if a bit eccentric at first, but she had thrown him to the chimera without a second thought the moment she thought it might give her a better chance at survival.

The fact that there was a little girl with them did soothe his worries a bit, but he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing in the middle of a battle like this.

He tried to bring up their levels, one after another, but the System didn’t comply. It seemed that he would have to ask if he wanted to know more about them.

Thankfully, he was spared from having to break the awkward silence as one of them stepped forward.

“Who are you?” The speaker was a large, older-looking, bearded man. He was bald, dressed in sweatpants and…a leather shirt? His top didn’t seem well made, so Rowan assumed that he or someone else in the tutorial had created it with parts from beasts that they’d slain.

Peeking out from behind him was a young girl. She looked to be around ten years old.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author’s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Seeing no reason to lie, he answered, “My name is Rowan. And you?”

“Henry.” The man spoke in a short, clipped tone.

After a few more seconds of awkward silence, the little girl stepped out from behind Henry. “I’m Cynthia.”

Following her lead, the group members introduced themselves, one after another. To his surprise, Rowan actually didn’t have much difficulty remembering what they were called, even though he’d been bad with names back on Earth.

Perhaps his stats or all the practice with [Mana Manipulation] was affecting his mental abilities.

Once the rest of her group had introduced themselves, one of the women, Eren, spoke once more. “Why did you save us?”