End of a Promise

Josiah got so obsessed with him unlocking a new ability that he could barely sleep. On the next day he quickly finished his chores at the farm so that he could stay free to practice his newly acquired skill. He was willing to check the extent of the power of his newly acquired weapons.

‘Apart from inner strength was there something else? What if the bound weapons generated by the blood reaction also gave other weapons powers as well? That would be the best!’ he thought.

Josiah knew the quockpete he fought that day over a year ago lived in a swamp near the farm, ever since that day he moved out from the woods after he killed its partner. Thomas had told him not to go there until he was ready, but every once in a while, the stubborn Josiah would disobey and try.

It took him over a year, but lately, he had been able to almost deal with it. Although he didn’t have much confidence in his win since he would win 1 or 2 out of 10 battles in his current state.

This time, however, Josiah had another plan in mind.

“I wonder what those daggers are all about?”

The location was a small pond, in a glade surrounded by medium-sized trees, on a lower area of the forest right out of the farm limits.

Carrying on in each hand, he approached the creature’s territory.

“Now, stupid roach, let me see if we can work something out.”

Josiah advanced without showing too much worry. The quockpete as usual waited until Josiah was close enough before extending its frontal pincer in order to try and catch him. But Josiah changed his trajectory in the very end, anticipating it, and tried swinging the dagger from an awkward angle, while he tried to escape from the creature’s reach.

The test was successful., The dagger actually did a small cut on the lobster roach.

The enemy, feeling threatened started crawling toward Josiah, leaving very little room for him to move his body as to repeat the move. That’s when Josiah knew he had to run away from the swamp, leaving that thing behind on its place.

“Stupid roach, stay there, already,” Josiah said as he made an angry face at the thing before it ceased to run after him.

‘One day I’m going to thrash five of these things with a single blow.’ He thought.

But Josiah still didn’t have enough. He wanted to test that strength on other opponents to get the hang of it. Therefore, ignoring Thomas’ advice for the first time in the last one and a half years… Josiah left the farmsteads limits and ran to the woods on his own, without waiting for his mother’s loyal servant to supervise him.

“It’s ok… A year ago I was frail, but now I got the handle of the nearby enemies. Plus… if I see something I cannot deal with, I can just run. I just need to stick to the creatures I know.” He kept telling himself along the way.

He followed the usual path: deviate to the left of the hill path, reach the small stream, jump, and go to the right to the denser woods.

As soon as he got to the river he noticed some tracks on the floor. Footprints, damaged trees…

“This is a human’s trail. Is someone around? I’d better get the other path, I don’t want to run into…”

“Eeeek”

There was a loud scream coming from afar. Josiah could tell by the pitch is was a woman’s. Maybe a young girl?

“It’s coming from there!” Josiah noted.

He proceeded to follow the tracks to try and reach for the lady.

“Help!!”

The screams would turn louder and louder as Josiah ran through the forest.

At some point, the screaming stopped, but not the trail. He had to follow it for some more minutes before he reached the point where they ended or were too invisible to be tracked.

‘Judging by the screams it’s a wild monster and not humans who captured her, otherwise, they would have silenced her at the first shout… Since the trail ends here, it means the animal got her here and then proceeded to move to its nest. I need to find the nearest nest of something around...’

Josiah tried moving o the direction where the woods were denser, and it took him but a minute before he found the origin of the screams:

There were two quockpetes. One was carrying a little girl, smaller than him. She was screaming before but was unconscious now. The other one was not carrying anything.

“Damn it! Not those things again! And… Two of them!?”

Josiah started trying to approach with care.

If he made too sudden movements, the quockpetes could run with the girl and outrun him through those dense woods. Judging by what he knew of them, it’s probably something they would do. He had to anger one of them so that they both would attack him.

“What a stupid thing to do… But I have no other choice.” He thought.

Josiah picked up one of his daggers embedded with his bloodborn power. At least he had already seen their cuts sliced through a quockpete’s body.

‘This time I cannot mistake… I need to throw it right at the thing. I have an idea.’

Josiah charged toward the quockpete carrying the girl, and as predicted, the things found it better to secure the food they had instead of fighting for more. As Josiah missed his wide swing for the quockpete’s speed he threw the dagger on the direction of the second one, managing to damage its carapace, cracking it, and opening a hole.

The thing let out a whining screech. It was the first time Josiah heard the voice of such a thing.

Following their nature, the pair of quockpetes got angered and started rushing forward.

“Crap. What now?”

Josiah could barely deal with one of them, it was useless trying to outfight then both. Plus, the new weapon knocked on the carapace and fell on the floor, so Josiah only had his sword in his hands.

‘All I can try is waking her up…’ Josiah thought.

When the thing carrying the girl approached, Josiah let out a desperate strike to its pincer, which he knew it would dodge anyway. But he was aiming at the little girl being carried instead. Since the creature didn’t mind the food being hit, Josiah’s hit struck her back, with which her body fell to the floor.

“Run! Ruuun!” Josiah shouted.

The girl slowly started opening her eyes.

Her first instinct was to cry due to the pain, but as her sight adjusted to two huge insectoids crawling in front of her, she switched to screaming instead.

‘Sh*t, She’s not going to react on time. I need to do something.’ Josiah though.

Before the monster in front of the girl caught her, Josiah came swinging his blade as fast he could, hoping he could at least make them back off.

But the quockpetes were fast and used to the art of piercing enemies amidst blade rushes. Josiah got pierced just like in his first encounter with one of the things.

Josiah could still move his head. He looked back at the girl:

“Run! I’ll hold them here!”

“But… You…”

“Go!”

The girl, stating she couldn’t do anything better, started running away.

Although his body was being compressed, Josiah still had his wrist free, and the sword hadn’t been knocked of this time. He used his opportunity for a last striking attempt:

“Take this, you piece of sh*t!”

He swung as best he could with half his arm immobilized. In fact, the swing was so strong he felt he dislocated something inside.

But the swing was strong enough to let the enemy set him loose.

‘Thankfully my blade has a couple more levels this time.’ Josiah thought as he was falling hard on the back above the grass.

The girl was saved, but now he had a fallen body, a dislocated arm, a lost dagger, and two enemies in front of him.

The pain of the dislocated arm started growing from the extremities to the center, and Josiah was grunting to not let the sword fall off.

‘Please, not now…’ But he couldn’t stand and let the heavy sword fall off.

The closest quockpete started moving to his direction.

“Damn it! What now? Wait, I still have one of those other daggers in my back pocket. I caught only one of them the last time…”

With his non-numb arm, he embraced the weapon and struck quickly right at the inside of the things pincer, in a beautiful clean hit.

He could feel the dagger’s power resonating with his blood once again. But Josiah withstood the dizziness this time.

“This again? What happened now?”

It seemed the quockpete was slightly damaged due to the attack, but as it tried charging to him again, it started shaking its body in a bizarre fashion, like an insect in contact with poison.

The thing’s body suffered some spasms and after a while, it crawled and laid on the floor. The other quockpete, witnessing that effect, crawled away, abandoning the area.

“Did it die…?” Josiah asked himself.

Josiah gathered some strength to get his body up, then he heard a voice coming from his back.

“Are you okay?”

The girl was still there.