Chapter 28

When we got there the Alpha was already bearing down on the boy, ready to attack. And the old guy is getting up, trying to run away, looking scared for his life. So he's just going to abandon the kid, huh?

At this moment, Gravel burst forward, rushing directly at the Alpha at full speed. I haven't even buffed her yet, but she's going just as fast, if not faster, than in her buffed state right now.

As she past me. With the short glimpse I as able to get, I could see an extremely serious expression. One I've never seen her make before. Cold and focused. She isn't planing to play around with her new spear anymore. There will be no mistakes here.

With in moments, she got right besides the alpha, and jumps above it. With a full power downward swing, she smacks it right on the head, pushing it to the ground before it could attack the boy. That probable didn't even make it bite its tongue, because it got back up immediately.

As it recovers and tries to attack again. Alice bashes it right on the head with her shield along with a stab to the side. It was a bit shallow, but that'll at least do some damage to it.

Alice is also fast, I didn't even notice her leave my side. Or was I just too focused on the alpha? Either way, I should do something too.

Following their lead, Piccy starts preparing her spells and I pull out my arrows. With four arrows in my hand, I quickly took care of the other four hounds with four rapid fire shots. And to my surprise, the new arrow I went right through them like a needle through cloth and hit the ground with great power. It penetrated deep into the ground but didn't throw up any dirt at all. Still, there is no doubt that that arrow had a ton of power behind it. It looked like they didn't even slow down at all from passing through the hounds. They quickly follow the arrows, dropping to the ground.

Piccy finishes her magic and suppresses alphas movements, as I pull out my lyre and start playing.

With my buff and Piccys support, Gravel and Alice easily finishes off the alpha with a quick combo. Ending with Alice knocking it up with her shield, giving Gravel the perfect opportunity to impale it right through the torso. Brutal.

Quickly, I went to the boy and asked him, "Hay! Are you ok?", but he doesn't respond. He only groans.

After they finished securing the area, they took and also knee with me and started to check on the boy as well.

Gravel, "This looks bad." The boy is pale. He's covered from head to toe with claw wounds and bite marks, and he's bleeding out. He only has 22 out of 90 Hp remaining, and it just keeps dropping. Fast.

Alice, "If we get him to the cathedral then they might be able to heal him. But… I don't know if we can make it in time. "

We definitely won't. Even if we run, from here it'll take us an hour at best to get back to town. I've tried to dress up his wounds the best I could, but he's still taking too much damage from the bleeding. If it keeps going like this, he'll bleed out in less than half an hour. And I can't imagine the rocky ride that'll come from us carrying him back to town will help any either.

Only one thing to do. Last time I gave Silvia a berry. That seems to do the job, but if I pull that out now, it might cause some more problems down the line. That's why I told Silvia and Piccy to keep it quiet.

This time, I'll try use a potion. An 'Hp Potion I' should be enough. It heals 250Hp. That's more than enough to get him back to full health.

Everybody already has an expression of defeat on their faces. They're probably already thinking that it's already too late to save this boy. That these's nothing we could do for him at this point.

C'mon! Try at least! Is what I wanted to say. But if I didn't have these potions with me, than I probably wouldn't know what to do either.

But as I pull the potion out of my bag, their faces light up. With a hint of confusion, but I'll take it. The faces they're making right now looks good too.

Yep, we can still save him.

I bring his head up onto my lap and put the potion to his mouth and say, "Here. Drink this slowly." I hope this works. I don't know if potions in the game will work here or not, but the berries did. So there's no reason for me to believe it won't. At the very least, stop the bleeding.

As I instructed, he drank slowly. One gulp at a time. And as he finishes the whole bottle, green streaks of light starts to appear, swirling and rising from the ground below him along with green medical crosses. The visual effects of healing in the game.

Well this is troublesome. I turn to look at the others to see their reaction to the effects, but they don't seem to notice it. Their eyes are fixed on the boy. Their expression the same.

Maybe only I can see it?

The bleeding stops and the wounds reseal like it was never there in the first place. His Hp is now full again. The boy who was barely keeping his consciousness a moment ago, springs to life backing away from me and right up against a tree. Bearing his teeth... with tears rolling down from his deep black eyes.

Upon seeing the rapid healing, they were a bit surprised, but it didn't take long for them to adjust to it. Gravel and Alice get up, and moved towards him with their arms bare and extended, trying to calm him down. But it only made the situation worse. He started hissing. Like a wind animal.

I quickly pull them back. He was just attacked, so of course he'd be nervous right now. His wounds may be all healed now, but we can't just leave him here...

Slowly, I start sliding towards him on my knees. The others watching in anticipation. As I get closer, and closer. He looks like he's ready to hiss again.

Slowly... I reach my hand out, low to the ground, palm up. Then after a short pause, seconds that's felt like minutes, his expression starts to calm down.

As he slowly closes his mouth, small round ears start to rise up from his white hair.

I knew it! They blended in perfectly with his white hair, but I knew he was an animal person. At first, I thought he was a mouse after seeing those ears. But he doesn't have buck teeth like mouses do. He has four small but sharp fangs instead.

His appearance reminds me of a ferret... maybe a weasel? I'm not sure. Do they even have those in this world?

Anyway, that's probably why Gravel and Alice's approach made him more anxious. His instincts kicked in, telling him that they were potential threats, and who could blame him. These two just easily took out the alpha right in front of him and now they were walking towards him. If you were on the ground in this situation and these two were walking towards you like that, you'd also be intimidated.

If you're trying to approach a scared animal, you shouldn't stand over them with you hands looming above. You should make yourself look smaller and show them your open palm to tell them you don't want to hurt them.

Of course, I don't recommend anyone do this with wild animals. If you see a wild animal, please admire it from a distance. As a teacher, I'm required to tell my students this.

Even with normal pets like dogs and cats. If you don't know what you're doing and provoke them, you could get hurt. So leave it to professionals.

Now where was I...? Ahh..! He's calming down, and now that I can get closer look at him. He still looks pale... But I think that's just his skin color, and not because of blood loss. Thank goodness.

I stopped right in front of him. His eyes move between my hand and my face a few time before, finally, confused as he must be, he puts his hand on mine.

"Hehe... Hi. You're ok now." His eyes start to twitch a little, just a little... and they start to water again... slightly. So I slowly moved closer and gave him a hug. Looked like he needed it.

"So what's your name?"

"My... my name... Yuko..." he sniffles it out.

"Well Yuko, the bad monsters are gone now. You're safe. They can't hurt you anymore."

...

After balling his eyes out for while, he finally started to really calm down. Enough for the others to approach him and talk to him.

Alice sits down right next to him and pulls out some dried fruits for him from her front pouch.

So that's what that pouch was for. I got curious since she had never opened it before.

He's hesitant at first. Throwing me a glance. "It's ok." I nodded and gestured towards the fruit.

He looks back, still a bit hesitant, but slowly he reaches for the fruit on her hands. He brings them in close, and after giving it a few sniffs, he takes a small bite. That must have really agreed with him because he shoved the whole thing down his mouth the next moment. That, or he was just that hungry.

Probably the latter.

"Here's some water." Gravel hands him her water skin.

After comforting him and asking some questions. We were able to find out a few things.

First, is that he still can't talk very well and he can't understand if we talk to fast or use big words.

Second, is that he is only 10 years old. That being said, he's only a bit shorter than me, and he's already level 5.

Third, and probably the most important part... He's a slave brought here to be sold. And if we understand correctly, he wasn't the only one. A whole caravan of them are being smuggled into the town.

He managed to break out during the hound attack, but the rest of the caravan escaped. And the hounds went for him instead.

Looks like we just missed them.

"I thought slaves trade was illegal in this country."

Alice, "Yes, it is. But that doesn't stop those scoundrel from trying." You don't need to be a psychologist to tell... She is angry. That's a look I've never seen her make before.

Up until now I've only seen smiles, sunshine and rainbows on that face. But now that rainbow is gone and a storm is silently brewing inside.

"We should report this to that guards."

"We NEED to report this to the guards." Gravel, her expression is also fence an serious now. Completely the opposite the girl that was ogling her spear this morning. It's like that never happened at all.

"... Right."

Piccy, I can't exactly tell if she understands the situation or not, but she can obviously tell that it's not good. Her face tells me that she's feeling quite a bit of sympathy towards Yuko.