Chapter 29: Changes

**POV: Eirlys**At that instant, I felt the edge of the axe approaching my neck, as despair and helplessness flooded my mind. I managed to avoid being completely cut off my head with my sword, but it was clear that I was in a dangerous situation my mind was blurring and my sight was dimming. Numerous memories of my whole life and the memories of what brought me to this situation were going through my head, I would say it all started about a month ago.That night my older brother changed, I don't know what happened to him after his awakening, but he changed his way of being, acting and even talking, sometimes he talks as if he was an old man. For the first week after his awakening, I was a little confused about approaching him, because he seemed like a different person and I was a little afraid to confront him. So I watched him from a distance and followed his every word.This was something that everyone who spent enough time with him noticed, except Clayton. That birdbrain is so dumb that he didn't even notice this change, despite being one of our oldest friends. I even went so far as to ask him directly what he thought about it, but his response was as simple as I expected: ("What do you think of the boss's change?.... I don't know what change you're talking about, the boss has always been the boss.").I don't understand how this guy is big brother's right hand man. Sometimes he's so dumb and simple it's frustrating, but he follows big brother's words to the letter and has a good memory. I don't know if he's dumb or a misunderstood genius, and I've long since stopped wondering.The problem arose when big brother went hunting and left Clayton and me in charge. It was the first time we had been separated for more than two days, and at that moment I understood that my attachment to my brother was greater than I thought.So the time he was gone was very hard for me to cope with his absence and the frequency in which I thought about my older brother increased, and every day that passed I missed him more. I could only sleep due to the fatigue I was getting from gathering information and training.At this point I understood that I no longer cared who he was or what had changed; the weight of my brother in my life was enough to ignore those questions. Therefore, when he returned, I demanded that he let me sleep with him. At first, he didn't seem to understand me, but after a while he realized what I wanted, so he allowed me to sleep with him.At that moment, I realized that although he had changed, deep down he was still the big brother who had been with me for as long as I could remember. Since then, every night I sleep in his bed to make up for lost time.One change I especially noticed is that before his goal was to keep all the children in the group alive and survive in the slums, but since he woke up I noticed that something changed in him, and now his purpose is to make us stronger. He even brought more children so that they would not suffer a similar fate. That is something I appreciate, as my brother's kindness still exists. I can't stay behind either.I don't want big brother to abandon me and go to places I can't go, so I put my all into meeting his expectations and trained even more than he asked, and even trained secretly when he wasn't looking.When we went hunting, I was happy that this time my brother brought me with him it was my first time out of the marginal areas and we even got to ride a car that I had only been able to see a few times in the poor areas it was also the first time I entered a forest at first I was excited, but from time to time sounds were heard of which the origin was unknown causing fear in me.But the worst was when I saw a beast for the first time, I could not help but be afraid. I had spent my whole life within the walls of the capital and had never seen a beast. Still, I swallowed the fear I felt and, after seeing Clayton take the initiative, I followed him and we stood in front of something that was eight feet tall, had gray fur and two large fangs.According to the picture book the brother showed us, that was a forest boar. At that moment, my hands were shaking and my mind went blank. I didn't know what to do; everything my brother had taught me disappeared from my head.I was petrified, only reacting when I heard Clayton's scream coming from my side. The guy had his eyes closed and advanced with the shield in front of him. "Ho," I could hear a small sound of astonishment coming from my brother, who was behind me. Not wanting to be left behind, I started running towards the boar. As I ran, I heard my brother's voice."...It's really impressive that they take the initiative, but that's beyond what they can handle.""Click," I heard a snap of fingers after my brother spoke and the boar in my vision suddenly collapsed and took Clayton's blow without resistance. Clayton, who was not looking, stumbled and rolled a distance before getting up and looking around. When I saw the limp creature on the ground a smirk formed on his face,"You saw that, boss, that creature was no match for me," he said as he arrogantly placed a foot on the creature on the ground. Then I noticed the creature started to shake and Clayton, who was stepping on it, noticed it too, so scared he jumped up and ran towards us. I looked at my brother and he had a smile on his face, although it was brief. Then, when Clayton reached our side, the brother explained."First of all, that creature in front of you is a creature of a star, something that is beyond your reach at this time." The brother began to explain that our first objective was for everyone to kill a beast, not defeat it. When he finished his explanation, he asked for a volunteer and I raised my hand.Even the reckless Clayton hesitated, but intuitively I knew this was something I had to do if I wanted to stand by my big brother's side. So when he asked, I didn't hesitate to volunteer. Taking a deep breath, I approached the fallen beast that was still struggling to get up and with trembling hands I raised my sword as high as I could and brought it down as hard as I could.I knew that if I hesitated it would be worse, both for me and the beast, so I tried to make a clean cut. But, even so, blood splattered on my face. I endured the nausea that was generating inside me, and when I saw the creature's corpse, the nausea became stronger, but I endured and returned to where the others were. After a while, the brother continued to incapacitate all the beasts we encountered and made sure that each of the other children killed one. When this was finished, he said:"I know it's hard...but now that everyone has killed a beast, we'll move on to the next phase."