Casualties

Listening to the words that came out of Vera's mouth, Valyr's expression darkened, being reminded of the dark side that came along with defending against a monster tide, or participating in any event that involved battling in general.

Death.

Taking in a deep breath, he could not help but wonder if anything would have changed if he and the others were in any way stronger than they were earlier. Would the number of deaths have decreased? Would it have stayed the same? Such questions lingered in his mind for a bit as the drive to get stronger was faintly rekindled inside him.

Nevertheless, as he thought about it for a bit more, he could not help but let out a sigh. Sure, the number of casualties could be reduced to a minimum, perhaps even zero if all odds were in their favor. However, even if they tried their hardest to make sure everyone was safe, a person or two would still find a way to defy expectations and meet their maker, even if unintentional.

With that, Valyr lightly nodded in response to Vera's request as he scratched his head, turning around to head outside the village, where all of the casualties were. "I'll try to get the information back to you as soon as possible."

"Take your time." Vera nodded, thanking Valyr as she refocused her attention on the injured soon after, continuing with her duty as the village's only doctor.

…

Once he had gotten past the village gates, Valyr was quickly greeted with a gloomy atmosphere that greatly contrasted the joyous atmosphere they had seen earlier when they had arrived. Looking around, he noticed that a few people were congregating around certain spots. Some of them had tears streaming down their faces, while there were those who looked downward with an apologetic frown, trying their hardest not to cry in front of the others.

Letting out a slightly long sigh, he then made his way to where the people gathered, confirming his hypothesis that these people gathered around the corpse of their loved one. Giving his condolences to the people surrounding the corpse, he quickly made a mental tally of the number of casualties before heading to another spot and doing the same thing all over again.

Eventually, he had passed through all of the spots where people gathered. But with how gloomy the atmosphere around the outside of the village was, he had a feeling that there was more. With that, he utilized a bit of his AGI to speed up his pace, finding out that the corpses with people surrounding them were the minority. Instead, the majority of the corpses were left alone on the ground, their bodies left to rot with no one to grieve over their loss.

Feeling a bit of heartache over this realization, he stood before these unvisited corpses for a while in silence, closing their eyes if they had died with their eyes open. After that, he would move to search for another unvisited corpse before doing the same thing. By the time he had finished tallying up the casualties around the village gates, he could not help but let out a sigh filled with relief and disappointment that the number of casualties had reached double digits.

"At the very least, the number isn't any higher." Muttering these words, he then gazed out into the blood-soaked battlefield, heading in its direction as he had a feeling there might be one or two casualties there that people would have missed.

Surprisingly, just as he was about to head in the direction of the battlefield, a familiar person had appeared beside him, carrying a box of what seemed to be empty glass vials.

"Damian? What are you doing here?" Naturally, seeing Damian outside the village at this moment greatly bewildered him, thinking that the man beside him would have been helping out inside the village instead.

"Off to deliver a box of glass vials to Tristan, of course." On the other hand, Damian found nothing weird with what he was doing, thinking that he was doing something normal since he had already done this a few times in the past. "How about you? Why are you heading in the same direction as I am?"

"Vera told me to tally up the number of casualties for this monster tide," replied Valyr, instantly making Damian go silent as he could not help but feel a hint of sadness from those words. Fortunately, it did not take long for him to return to normal, focusing his gaze towards the Tidemother corpse from afar. "Now that I think about it, what are you guys planning to do with the glass vials?"

"Collect the Tidemother's blood," said Damian, making Valyr's eyes widen in slight confusion. Knowing that the man before him would be confused by the statement, Damian quickly explained. "Well, we've only been collecting the blood of the Tidemother pretty recently. Though, we've figured out that Tidemother blood actually has some good effects when mixed in during forging or during a concoction."

"As to how we found that out, it was birthed from a mix of immense curiosity and immense boredom." Finishing his explanation, Valyr could not help but look at Damian weirdly, wondering what was going on inside their heads at that time to experiment on something like the Tidemother's blood. Nevertheless, to say he wasn't interested to try and use the blood for himself was a lie.

"Ah. We've reached the battlefield." Saying those words, Valyr stopped in his tracks before utilizing the entirety of his PER to check if they were any corpses. Surprisingly, Damian had stopped as well, his expression pensive before changing to that of realization as a thought surfaced in his mind.

"I almost forgot to tell you, but we'll be having a celebratory feast at the village inn later this night to celebrate how we survived through yet another monster tide." He looked at Valyr, who was still in the midst of looking for any corpses they might have missed. "In fact, some people have started moving the monster corpses from the tide into the village after we returned, carving them up for the feast later."

"Then again, with everyone having a lot to do for the next couple of days to return the village back to normal, it's no surprise everyone wants to eat a lot. Fortunately, we have a surplus of meat because of the tide, so everyone can eat their fill." Letting out a hint of laughter, Damian then went ahead and bade farewell to Valyr to head to where Tristan was. But just as he was about to take a step forward, Valyr stopped him and asked him something.

"Er… if it's not too much of a bother, could I get the rewards from the emergency quest right now?"

Hearing Valyr's question, Damian stopped in his tracks as he looked at Valyr weirdly for a bit. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he placed the box he was carrying down on the ground before a screen appeared in front of his field of vision.

"Well, you did contribute a lot to the tide, so I don't see why not."

Ding!