My eyes landed on the girl from earlier, who retreated several steps and lowered her head to avoid eye contact.

I was never one to defend against verbal abuse since it always led to making the situation worse, especially with people like this. They took my silence in favor of the guy’s story anyway.

“Stop, if the military hears of this, both of us will be in trouble.” Veera spoke up guessing the gist of what transpired that day.

“We responded to an emergency flare your group activated and saved you. You should be happy he even offered half of the monster parts since you would’ve been dead otherwise.” Veera didn’t stand for the prejudice, becoming angry and turning her carts to leave.

Someone blasted the cart to pieces scattering all the materials we had gathered so far, “I told you to leave the mats” The burly leader declared again.

Veera sustained many cuts being nearest to the impact. The wood that splintered off the cart ended up spraying in her direction creating a bloody mess. Alexa and Eris rushed over to her aid. Dirt and scrapes covered her arms as they helped her up.

“See what you did, now we have to pick everything up-” It startled everyone to see my dagger pushed against the leader’s neck. Not a drop of blood remained as it absorbed into the dagger. They stood in disbelief staring at a gouging hole left in the guy’s throat.

“Kill them!” They shouted for our deaths when I killed the one who injured Veera. Eris protected the others covering the two in her mana barrier. Alexa activated her blinding flash spell to support my onslaught.

Many of them yelled, covering their eyes in pain completely disoriented from the bright light. Coupled with the fear of losing their sight many casualties stacked up from their own wanton friendly fire. They dug their own grave. I wanted to see how many I could get rid of before the blinding wore off. Focusing on the ones still standing, attempting to fight back.

Their numbers dwindled to a handful that remained standing before being able to witness the carnage that ensued. One of them shot rock shards while the others ran for their lives. The shards were easily swatted apart, leaving the guy with a disabled leg and aiming to handle the runners first. Those that ran were caught up to and ruthlessly stabbed in the back as they were sent off to the afterlife. The body count was at twenty-eight and now twenty-nine after coming back for the disabled guy.

I spared those that didn’t fight back and got on the floor from the beginning, among them was the woman from earlier who first noticed me. Killing those who didn’t fight back broke my bottom line. There were about six from the previous large group that remained alive. Some of them plead for their lives and another shivered into a fetal ball.

I ignored their pleas, checking on Veera to make sure she was okay. Eris had already healed her injuries and was walking away to do something that felt familiar. Really, that’s the first thing you do after I massacre a group of people? It took a while before Veera realized what she was doing and her face showed signs of horror from the mass of dead bodies. Alexa soon joined Eris after figuring out what she was doing and helped to gather up all the valuable belongings.

I wanted to comfort Veera, but she veered away from my hand, unintentionally or not I must have startled her. “I’m sorry.” I turned my attention to the ones still left alive, motionless, and awaiting my decision for their fate.

“Tell a soul what happened here and I’ll come for you as well. Now go!” I could feel their relief by the change of expressions.

“No one will know!” One of them cried out before leaving as others left without a word in a scurry.

The woman from before stayed behind though kept her dead down avoiding eye contact. “I wanted to thank you for saving us from the flame trike. I’m sorry for our group’s actions on both occasions.” The woman stuttered her words to completion, making eye contact then leaving to join up with the others that left.

I figured if we left the area, monsters would eventually hide the evidence of the bodies. We started picking up the fallen monster materials, placing them onto the other carts along with the belongings from the dead hunters and the broken cart pieces. 

There was no reason to stick around any longer and asked Veera if it was okay to stop by our home first, before heading back to the outpost. She didn’t mind and probably thought it best to stay away from the outpost, in case someone lied and told everyone about what had happened.

Volatis

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