And (N)one Shall Remain

“That’s about the situation, I guess. I could either go to the village and look for survivors, if I can drive out these… hunters, while you all wait deeper in the forest, or I can directly escort you out of here. The choice is in your hands,” explained Esperanza to the group of huddled children and two youths who might not be that far apart from those children themselves in age. “Qué va a ser?”

 

“I- I would choose to leave as soon as possible, Honored One,” stated Kvar-Litu even as he choked down sobs. The young man still cradled the dead body of his grandfather in his one working arm, his head bowed down with both shame and anger. “I… I know I sound like a craven cur right now, wanting to leave those still in the village to die… but… What if you failed and perish as well? We would not survive in this jungle without your aid!”

 

“Kvar-Litu!” scolded Eda-Zil with a scandalized look on her face. She either had more faith in the Deities of Yore and believed that it was blasphemy to insinuate that their messenger wasn’t all-powerful, or was angered at Kvar-Litu’s selfish but understandable choice. What Esperanza caught from [A Glimpse of Understanding] suggested at both of those possibilities at the same time. “Honored one, please have mercy on him! He- He’s still in shock over what has happened and is not in the right mind!”

 

“Tómalo con calma. I understand that all of you are under great stress at the moment. I will not hold that against you,” said Esperanza as she soothed Eda-Zil and helped her rise from where she had prostrated herself in obeisance. “And while I might not be invincible… There should be nothing that can kill me permanently around. So once again, I ask you. What will it be?”

 

“There are hideouts in several places at the village,” said Eda-Zil once she raised her head. Her eyes gave a determined look as she met Esperanza eye to eye without flinching. “I know that some of the children were evacuated there before we ran. The elders only took us, father, and those old enough to run alongside us in the hopes of finding you, Honored One.”

 

“You would like me to save those still in the hideouts, I assume then?” Esperanza asked back. She had unknowingly adopted a more formal speech pattern with the villagers, probably somewhat influenced with how they kept treating her with so much respect and obeisance. She just felt wrong to talk in a crude and informal manner with them because of that. “Speak your mind freely.”

 

“If possible, Honored One,” replied the young woman.

 

“And what about you all?” Esperanza asked the group of children. “What do you think I should do?”

 

“P-please help the others, Hon- Honored One,” said one of the children, the oldest boy amongst them, with a nervous, stuttering tone. “My sister is still in the village. So many others are still back there…”

 

“Comprende,” replied Esperanza. “Do the rest of you think the same way?” she asked the rest of the huddled children.

 

A series of nervous nods answered her question, and she tried her best to give a non-threatening smile at them as she nodded her own “head” in return.

 

“You are all brave little children, though you should have prioritized yourself in this sort of situation. I wouldn’t always be around, sabes?” she replied while gently tussling the hair of the closest child. “All right now. I want all of you to follow Dali and Gordy, then stay where they brought you to, unless there’s an emergency. I will head to the village. Eda-Zil, you’re in charge.”

 

“Understood, Honored One,” replied Eda-Zil firmly. 

 

“Dali, Gordita, lead them away and clean up the area around their destination, then come to me,” she said to her dogs. She received a feeling of acknowledgement and reassurance from them in return, as they led the group deeper into the forest, Gordy leading the way while Dali covered their sides. As for Esperanza herself, she made her way towards the village, but this time going at a more measured pace, with her [Gauze of Oblivion] and [Aura Control] working together to erase any trace of her presence.

 

During the time she also glanced at the notifications she had ignored in the past while, and was rather surprised at seeing the unexpected detail she discovered there.

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Adan-Zil]! 272/2000

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Avalanusi]! 273/2000

You have defeated [Hunter’s Child Lvl20/Ranger Lvl20/Ranger of Ner’vhok Lvl5]

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Barek-Iva]! 274/2000

You have defeated [Hunter’s Child Lvl20/Marksman Lvl20/Shooter of Sorrow Lvl7]

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Labril-Sav]! 275/2000

You have defeated [Soldier’s Child Lvl20/Warrior Lvl20/Blade of Ner’vhok Lvl8]

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Nadirealev]! 276/2000

You have defeated [Orphan Lvl20/Scout Lvl20/Thousand-Mile Eye Lvl 4]

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!
You have leveled to level 7! +2 Free Major stat points gained! +1 Constitution Gained, +3 Wisdom Gained, -2 Sanity Gained!

[Soul Storage] has secured [Soul of Ecaravia]! 277/2000

 

The souls of people were labeled differently from those of the monsters she took down along her way. She could specifically make out Adan-Zil, Avalanusi, and Avec-Litu’s souls, though the souls of the four she killed felt mostly similar. She had no idea which was which, which she attributed to her lack of familiarity with them.

 

More importantly, when she channeled the souls for [Soul Bolt], she noticed that she could choose which soul to use for that. Esperanza decisively placed the souls of people she knew to one side, where they would be safe from accidental use, her gut feeling telling her that she might want to preserve these souls for the future.

 

She had no idea if there was anything like revivals or resurrections in this world, but it never hurts to prepare just in case.

 

Once Esperanza reached a distance where she could see the situation in the village while remaining mostly invisible – the dense forest canopy and the newfound sharpness of her eyesight in this new body of hers helped – she immediately took a quick glance to ascertain the situation there. What she saw made her frown.

 

There was a literal pile of corpses in the center of the village, an open area where the villagers used to hold their celebrations. They were naturally the inhabitants of Navef, while a group of people dressed similarly to the four Esperanza killed earlier were dragging and throwing more corpses to the pile. It looked like most of the villagers had been accounted for.

 

Though at least she couldn’t see bodies of the really small children the others said were still hiding in the village, so maybe they were still safe for the time being.

 

Esperanza counted around forty of the armed and armored people. They seem to come from the same races as those that inhabit the village, with a few marked differences. For one, there were no mixed-race individuals in sight amongst them. For another, none of them were human, just one of the other races instead.

 

All of them wore similar clothes, the same sort of chainmail shirt on top of fabric, and carried various weapons. A quick glance told Esperanza that the majority of these armored people were either in their late second tier or early third tier levels. Without exception, every single one of them had classes that were obviously more focused on combat, most of which seemed to be higher rarity than what the villagers ever had, too.

 

Some of those armed people were still ransacking the houses in the village, perhaps in search of survivors. The majority were busy dragging corpses and adding them to the increasingly taller pile in the center of the village. A small group were dressing their wounds at the side, and Esperanza noticed how some of the others seemed to have mocked those injured.

 

Apparently the villagers hadn’t gone out entirely without a fight, after all.

 

They might not have been able to take one of their killers down with them, but at least their efforts left more than a few bruised egos.

 

Esperanza naturally did not rush in. There were too many of the armed and armored people, which she thought was likely part of an army, given how similarly dressed they were. They also seem to go about their tasks with discipline ingrained from long periods of training, which was another telltale sign. Besides, she was still waiting for Dali and Gordy.

 

She was confident that she could make short work of most of the enemies below. Their levels were mostly on par with the four she killed earlier, or even lower. The problem was their numbers. There were so many of them that they could potentially overwhelm her simply by using their numerical superiority. That, and besides the first strike, these people would likely be alerted to her presence and thus not be prone to a surprise attack. The village was also too small for her to contemplate leading them around in a cat-and-mouse game of chase.

 

It was while she was thinking on how she should go about things when Esperanza noticed another small group of armored people she had previously missed. They were watching the others, relaxedly leaning their backs against a still intact section of the village’s palisade, where they were shaded from the afternoon sun by a house nearby.

 

At a glance, there was nothing special with those five, other than that four of them had relatively higher levels, with the highest being a level 10 third-tier. It was the last member that caught Esperanza’s attention and instantly set off alarm bells in her mind, however. 

 

That last member was a Ma’Varok, what the race with greenish to grayish skin and tusks called themselves. He was a tall, impressively muscular, and gray-skinned specimen of his kind, with a large bow slung across his back. A large machete and a quiver full of arrows hung from the belt at his waist, and given how clean his clothing were, Esperanza thought that he likely had not fought against the villagers for some unknown reason.

 

She also noticed that he watched the activity going on in the village with an obvious distaste and not a little disdain. That said, he also simply stood where he was and had clearly not done anything to help the villagers, even if he found their being massacred distasteful. That, combined with how the obviously bored and uninterested look in his expression was impossible to fake, made Esperanza wonder what was going on.

 

Esperanza was not sure what the man thought, as he was too far for [A Glimpse of Understanding] to skim the surface of his thoughts, but she thought that whatever it was, she might be able to work with it somehow.

 

After all, that man was not just another soldier or random killer. He was far more important than that, something evident from how the others seemed to give him obeisance despite their notably higher levels. Esperanza was new to this world, and while she deeply regretted the demise of so many of the villagers, there was a silver lining to the disaster.

 

Namely that it had aligned her trajectory into a first meeting with someone else in a similar situation as her own.

 

While she was too far to catch on to the man’s thoughts, [Gaze Unto the Abyss] still managed to identify his classes even from the distance. The result it gave showed Esperanza just how important a personage this man she had inadvertently crossed paths with was.

 

[Champion of Ner’vhok: Sübügätäi Lvl20/Örlög Baghatur Lvl2]