Chapter 11.2

During the night, we stumbled on a ditch shattering one of the wheels. We could hear some sounds like raindrops, it then stopped after a few seconds.

"Must be a light shower outside" Cullis confident in his comment.

With the caravan immobile, the only thing we could do was wait. With Lahn outside since they had changed over earlier, Cullis and Lyndia look at each other and then at me.

"What are you looking at. Fix your own problem"

Lyndia gave me a nasty look while Cullis smiled awkwardly. Closing her eyes, she let out a long sigh.

"I guess I'll check out what happened"

She departed the caravan. After waiting for a couple of seconds, a large scream came. Cullis dashed out following Mark. With Mark leaving, I had to follow. Walking towards the front, all that was before me was the immense amount of blood and a slumped headless merchant and a headless Lahn. Cullis and Lyndia were in a shocked state. Their faces fully conveying their disturbed state. She fell to her knees sobbing.

"Mark, do something! You're a healer aren't you!" Cullis begged Mark while tearing up. Knowing the truth that no healer can undo death, he still persisted anyways. Mark took a step back, not knowing what to say. His face showed sign of guilt that he couldn't heal his companion. As he took a step back, Cullis approached him and I had to interject myself between them.

"Do not lay a hand on him. Get your shit together, she's dead. You still have one client still alive in the back! You took on a mission, see it to the end."

The face of Cullis looked like his soul had been sucked out. A face full of disbelief and rejection.

"Kaiser…" Mark have been staring at me, he was angry at my insensitive approach. I was only trying to do my job. Why he would be mad at me only made me more frustrated at having to deal with these people. Cullis finally accepted it although he was still a bit shaky. He trotted and knelt beside Lyndia.

Finally getting freed from the drama, I was able to finally scan my surrounding. As soon as I looked to my left, A black tentacle struck me, denting my armor that shielded my ribs. Flying into the side of the caravan from the impact of the blow, that hit was excruciating painful, I wasn't even ready! And the impact from hitting the caravan definitely was no joke to my back. All I could see while the air was knocked out of me was Cullis getting into stance while Mark went behind him to support him. Lyndia was mentally out of the fight.

I struggled to get up but my body gave out. None of my limbs wanted to respond to me. A human figure approached. A non human face, with only the features of nostrils and a large purple lipped mouth with sharp teeth rowed all around inside. It's skin was very dark green. The monster shot one of his eight total tentacles to Cullis. He had side stepped around it. The thought that Mark was behind him did not cross his mind at all as Mark was pierced in the abdomen because of him. He had no situational awareness. To give up the healer was an outrageous move. Mark was coughing up blood as he fell on his ass against a tree.

My blood was boiling. I had wanted to shout but nothing came out of my mouth. Slowly recovering from the impact, I got up sluggishly.

Cullis paid no attention to what had happened earlier. He had charged, raising his sword overhead giving a war cry. It had reminded me about the soldier I had killed a battlefield earlier. His charge was even sloppier than that person. The war cry was also weak, it was probably meant to bring the last ounce of his courage to keep his shaky legs moving.

It was to be expected, the war cry immediately ceased as the monster leaped high above Cullis devouring his head in his saw mouth in an instant. Using Cullis' body as foot stone, he propelled himself off the headless body and landed next to Lyndia. Slowly inching to her face as Cullis body fell to the ground. The blood had squirted far and some of it got onto her face. It could sense the immense despair coming from her.

It was an unfortunate event, but it had bought enough time for me to recover. Quickly unsheathing my sword, I threw the sheath at it's head. Successfully hitting, it shifted it's gaze at me. The killing intent was quite powerful, it now focused solely on me, the only threat in the vicinity. It shot it's tentacle at me. One after another, barely being able to dodge it. These tentacles were extremely fast, it was hard for me to keep track of them. Especially all eight of them. I could also hear the tentacles scraping my armor.

While dodging, I had took a step forward each time I dodged one. Closing in, I swung my sword to the right side of the monster. Stopping midway, my attempt to feint it to try to block my initial swing was successful. Thankfully the monster wasn't too bright and had try to block the attack with all of it's eight tentacles. Pulling the sword back, all effort was then made to pierce. Prodding it directly where his heart should be.

It should had died if it was a human but all it that had happened was that it oozed out light green fluids. It didn't seem like it had done much damage as it moved fine. It had jumped back to readjust its position then started to curl. I had no clue on what it was going to do next. To be cautious, I had moved the sword in front of me to be able to counter the monster from all directions.

A shrieking noise came out from it's mouth, I could feel the vibrations. The monster had then launch itself towards me. Thanks to being cautious as soon as it got halfway to me, my brain had finally processed it's movement. Barely making it, my right hand shifted towards the top of the blade to hold the sword bracing for impact. Using the monsters own charge against itself as I held my position, it had split itself in half as it flew into the blade. The cut wasn't clean since my blade was a bit dull. Regardless I was still covered in it's green ooze. It had stopped properly functioning but it's organs was still pumping, not yet registering that it was set to die, it worked harder to survive in vain.

Turning to my side, I could see Mark losing incredible amount of blood. A puddle had already established under him. Stepping on the pile of blood, I help straighten him up against the tree as he was slumping. What I needed to do was get him to stay conscious. Drawing Mark's attention by lightly tapping him continuously, he finally looked up at me.

"It's over for me isn't it… Please don't lie to me"

I didn't want to lie him.

"Focus and chant the healing magic for yourself."

Mark slowly shook his head as blood gushed out as he coughed. With the amount of blood loss, he was unable to correctly chant the spell. We were two days away from the nearest town since the horses were killed off. Quickly patching him up, he wouldn't survive for the walk to a healer. I didn't have any mid tier potions and copper adventurers were too poor to carry any. Another loss mission for me. Putting him out of his misery seemed better than attempting and living the rest of my life knowing I dragged on the pain to a kid while it was futile.

"I'm sorry I failed you boy."

Picking up my sword over my shoulder, readying to decapitate him. Tears trickled down his face as he knew what was awaiting him in less than a few seconds. He then shut his eyes awaiting his fate. My hands trembled. Although I had killed so many already, it would be my first time killing my own client especially only a kid. My throat was sparse and a weak voice could only come out.

"I'm sorry I failed you"