Chapter 49 - Let's Return Home
The amount of monsters lying on the ground, wounded or dead, was really enormous. Arthur spent another hour collecting everything, until he felt satisfied, his ring was now filled with two great mountains, one for wounded and the other for dead monsters.
If he wished, he could let the wounded monsters heal, but he didn't do that. he needed first to be sure these monsters would lose all the desire to fight or struggle, something that many of the wounded monsters still didn't have, apparently, as they roared, tried to move on their feet, and even ran for couple of steps before falling again.
Arthur left them inside, and decided to wait for as much it would take, as these rebellious monsters were all double horns, monsters higher than his pythons from before.
"be ready, we will leave here," Arthur suddenly yelled, to make the three around him ready to retreat. Amelia had, constantly, used her spell over and over through the past hour, and she never experienced a breakdown. That was due to the meat she was eating, as Arthur gave her a great amount from the start.
She didn't rush to eat the meat all at once, as she just ate it over time, allowing her body to endure the spell after effects. That was something she never experienced before, and the questions inside her mind about Arthur and his group had increased by one.
"We can't make it, we won't make it!"
Gregory suddenly yelled, in a tiring tone from the constant fighting for the past couple of hours. Although he ate meat Arthur gave him and Clovert, he was still exhausted, as the meat the two had was already limited.
Arthur glanced at the three, seeing the wariness over the archer and the swordsman, knowing that they wouldn't be able to climb the hill to the top.
"Fine," he sighed, helplessly, before waving to Lily, who understood his meaning. She moved her Birdy closer to the ground, while Arthur moved.
Arthur's body disappeared, to reappear beside Gregory. He held his body, then moved again towards Birdy. This didn't take seconds to happen, but the effects of these seconds over Gregory, then Clovert, was big. They never thought they might be moved, like babies, without any will or resistance at all.
As for Amelia, she knew what would happen, and this time she made sure she wouldn't lose her focus, and try to understand how this youngster could do it.
But after she touched the feathery back of Birdy, she didn't succeed in getting any clue about the way Arthur used to move like this.
"Don't be this shocked, big brother Arthur is much more shocking than this," Lily chuckled over the funny shocked expressions over their faces. They looked at her and remained silent, before Arthur instructed:
"Let's go back."
"Are we done here?" Lily asked, as she noticed the look of content over Arthur's face. Arthur didn't know if he should continue here or leave, but at least he knew how to determine the answer to that question.
"Was there anyone else beside you here?" he asked Amelia and the other two. Arthur realized when he was focused here, the messy situation must have attracted the attention of many, the three included. He wanted to make sure of it, as if there were others, then it would be wise to leave here.
"There were a lot like us," Gregory replied, as he was panting, leaning on the back of Birdy, feeling the sweet breeze of air hitting his face.
Arthur knew they were discovered, and he didn't want any observing eyes to notice any of his secrets. They discovered enough already from watching the fighting style he was using.
"We will leave here," he finally decided. Once they reached the camp, things there weren't that easy looking like they thought. Many monsters were stopped downhill, but many managed to ascend and attack the camp. The situation, though, wasn't that dangerous, with no monster able to breach the walls yet.
"Be ready to depart," Arthur yelled, as he went ahead, jumping from the back of Birdy, towards the carcass of that old monster. He just touched it, and the body with the heavenly treasure and the python eggs vanished.
As the body of the huge monster disappeared, shocking the three new members of his group, the flood of monsters towards here suddenly stopped.
They were like being possessed, and now everything regained its clarity to them. Arthur just stood there, watching their reactions, before the monsters started to disperse, in every direction, without causing any considerable pain to them.
Only few decided to complete their charge towards the camp, and those monsters were welcomed with explosions, and merciless wooden arrows and spears.
In less than twenty minutes, the whole world that was filled with monsters was now cleaned up, with no single monster in the vicinity. There were many monster corpses, or wounded monsters lying motionless on the ground, so Arthur said to the rest:
"Go on Birdy's back, and wait for me."
Everyone exchanged silent glances, as they had three strangers now without knowing who they were, and Arthur persisted on going down there and collecting the meat. They already knew how important the meat was, but they saw him stash a huge number of monsters into his ring.
What they didn't know was that they were being watched, and this wasn't good for them.
Arthur was thinking, once he returned to the clan, he would assemble those potential mages and send them to train in the forest, after giving them meat and pets from his ring. However, he had to change all that, he had to lay low, keep off sight, and abandon any plan for now.
He had to keep everyone safe first, and grabbing strong mages attention wasn't in his intention at all. He was still unable to decipher the abilities Amelia was using, and he didn't know if there was another list of abilities he didn't know of.
So, to be safe, they had to retreat, not only from this place, but from this whole forest. They also had to lay low, and consume what they had for the upcoming month, before their journey to the academy started.
If he wanted to only support his little group, then what he had in the ring was much more than enough, but though he abandoned the plan to train others now in the forest, he would never abandon the feeding plan he had in mind, he would never abandon the kids in the clan territory.
He planned to grab any monster, as all the meat counted for the well being of the children. So, he went down there, grabbed every single monster he could find, and he did that along the whole body of the hill, extending to some distance away from the base.
Once he finished, after almost an hour, he waved to Lily, to bring her Birdy close to his position, before he jumped to its back, and then Birdy started the journey back to the village.
Arthur noticed the cold looks that his old friends had towards the three new ones were now gone. It seemed Lily did the introduction, and she explained what happened, and how Arthur trusted them to join the team.
So, everyone else had no objection to that, after all if not for Arthur, they would never have stepped a single miniscule step towards what they just accomplished.
"Are we really going home?" Madly asked, with some pain, as she didn't want to return, not yet.
"We have been watched," Arthur said, as he was worrying so much about this topic.