His small hands hesitated before grasping the loaf. His eyes widened, as if he had never held something so precious before. He looked up at me, tears still falling. "T-Thank you, good sir."
As he ran off to distribute the food, something inside me snapped. A familiar, gut-wrenching memory resurfaced. The day when my orphanage was burned down by a noble, and the children had the same look on their faces as I am seeing right now. The day when my parents were murdered in front of my eyes. And now—these children wore the same expressions of despair that I once had.
My fists clenched, trembling with rage. "I will kill them."
'Those beasts, the ones responsible for this suffering, would not see another night.' I turned away and took off toward Syler Forest, my speed doubling. As I ran, the wind screamed past me, but my mind was locked on one thought.
"Because of those beasts, small, innocent kids have to suffer."
"Because of those beasts, another village lost its families."
The aura in my body surged, my focus narrowing on one goal—to exterminate them. Then—
I felt a presence behind me. No, there were multiple presences. I didn't know who they were, but their movements were synchronized, their speed steady. I ignored them. Whoever they were, I had no time to waste on them I ran faster toward the next village, where the beasts awaited their reckoning. 'They wouldn't escape my wrath. I will kill them both.'
….
….
I arrived at the next village just before noon. The scene before me was far worse than I had imagined. This place was barely clinging to life.
The air was thick with the stench of rotting wood and dried blood, a silent testament to the horrors that had unfolded here. The dirt roads were littered with debris—broken carts, discarded belongings, and splintered doors hanging off their hinges. But it was the people who truly told the story of the next village's suffering.
Hollow-eyed and weary, they moved like ghosts, their faces etched with a fear that had long since settled into their bones. No one spoke. No one called out for help. They merely existed, their gazes shifting warily to the stranger in their midst.
Toward me. They didn't look at me with hope but with only suspicion. My eyes roamed the broken settlement until they landed on a lone man slumped against a shattered cart. He was different.
His black hair was unkempt, his clothes worn, but his eyes, unlike the others, held a sharpness, an awareness that hadn't yet dulled under the weight of despair. He wasn't just another broken villager. He had seen things. Done things. As I approached, I noticed the subtle shift in his posture. His fingers twitched slightly toward his waist—toward where a weapon might have once rested. A habit, ingrained over time.
His voice was low, rough. "What do you want, kid?" I stopped just short of him, keeping my stance relaxed but firm. "What happened here? There is dried blood on the road?" He said, "It is the blood of the people who came here running from the next village." I nodded. "I need information." I met his gaze without hesitation. "About the beast attack."
His expression flickered, a momentary widening of the eyes before suspicion settled in. "Why do you want to know?" I reached into my coat, pulling out a small metal plate and holding it up. The insignia of the Adventurer's Guild gleamed faintly under the midday sun.
"Because I'm an adventurer." He scoffed. "A kid adventurer? Tch." He shook his head. "Listen, don't go looking for death. Those beasts… they're nightmares." I exhaled slowly. Fear, Resignation. I had heard it all before this was nothing new for me. In my previous life many of the people had this.
I dug into my pouch, pulled out a few copper coins, and flipped them into his palm. The dull clink of metal filled the silence between us. "Just tell me what you know."
He stared at the coins for a long moment, his thumb running absently over their surface. Then, with a sigh, he rubbed his forehead, closing his fingers around them. "Fine." His voice was quieter now. "But don't say I didn't warn you." I crouched beside him, the dust beneath me swirling slightly with the movement. "I'm listening." First, he Introduced himself. His name was Krent. After waiting for a movement, he started explaining. "The beast attack was strange."
Krent's fingers curled into fists, his knuckles turning white. His voice was low and rough, carrying the weight of something he wished he could forget. "We've had beast troubles before, but this one… it was different." I narrowed my eyes. "How so?" He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as if afraid something might overhear. "It wasn't acting like a normal beast." His gaze darkened. "It was hunting deliberately."
A chill crawled up my spine. "Deliberately?" He nodded. "That A-rank bastard… it never attacked groups. It waited and stalked. It picked people off one by one, always when they were alone. But it didn't just kill them." His jaw tightened, and when he spoke again, his voice was strained.
"It would eat them in front of us. Bit by bit. As if daring us to stop it." The air around us felt heavier for some reason. I thought, 'A-rank beasts had intelligence, but not like this. They were vicious but not cruel. At least not like this.' Krent continued. "One time, a kid—a little boy—wandered too close to it. The beast… just stared at him." I frowned. "And then?"