“Gale! Vivian! Where’s the two of you off to?” Alise asked when she caught sight of the two children.

  “The forest! We’re going to the herbalist!” Vivian replied eagerly while leading the small boy behind her towards his mother.

  “To the herbalist? All the way to the other side of the river? Will you be fine with just the two of you?”

  “Yeah! Don’t worry, I’ll keep Gale safe with this!” Vivian said eagerly before brandishing her brand new steel.

  “Ooh... Well, if you say so, then. Do be careful still will you?”

  “I will, ma’am!”

  Alise replied with a smile.

  It’s reassuring seeing the girl so enthusiastic and confident about going to the forest. Though still a bit worried about two children going alone, she knew how talented Vivian was with the sword, and it was only to the herbalist and back, a place that the villagers of Carmul frequented. But there was still something else in her mind.

  “Gale, come here,” she said, waving her son closer.

  The boy left Vivian after she let go of his arm, and approached his mother. She crouched down to meet his eye and started fixing his shirt to hide the fact that she was leaning in for a whisper.

  “Tell your little friends to hide from Vivian, okay?”

  Her son replied with a nod.

  It's been some time since Robert came to first ask about Gale and she was sure that any doubts the man might have about her son having gained the favor of a Divine or more would have waned by now.

  But if Vivian were to catch sight of Gale getting help from fairies, word would no doubt reach Robert—and by extension, their lord.

  But she knew her son always listened to her, and she could confidently see them off into the forest, where the herbalist is. And two confidently went towards the forest. Or one of them, at least.

  On the village side of the river, the forest was still relatively young and the vegetation was not as dense as the other side, where more life flourished. And the fact became plainly obvious to the two children once they crossed the river.

  It became harder to find their way around as the sea of trees tightly woven together obstructed their vision and the earthy smell filled their nostrils. Even through the beaten path, the vegetation felt like they were actively getting in their way every now and then.

  “Don’t stray from the beaten path, Gale! Robert said wolves live in this forest.”

  Vivian was mimicking the way knights march as she walked. Her arms and legs moved stiffly in an exaggerated manner while she swung her new sword back and forth in the air. She strode confidently despite having only heard of such movements described by Robert, leading Gale along, until eventually, his footsteps stopped.

  When she looked back, she found Gale a little distance away, stopped in his tracks. With the wind blowing on him, brushing his hairs gently, while he stared blankly into the forest around him.

  “What are you doing?!” Vivian scolded him. “We need to get some salve for your arm!”

  No response came out of him. The boy kept his eyes on the trees, and his head would move about as his eyes too do so, as if he was looking for something behind the dense greenery.

  Soon, his behaviour beckoned Vivian to do the same out of curiosity, and she began following his gaze.

  The wind was blowing a gentle breeze on them, and Gale could hear them whispering to him. It was warning him that something was coming and he should be wary of it. And after sometime looking around, he found it—he found them.

  They were swinging from one tree to another, darting under the canopy of leaves as blurred silhouettes, before they finally found a good branch above the two human children to perch on.

  A moment later, Vivian saw them too.

  It was crouched in the canopy’s shadow, one arm grabbing the branch beneath it while the other dangled behind its back, absurdly long, almost as if a tail, which would have been easily mistaken if not for the clear fingers opening and closing into a fist at the end of it.

  Brown fur hid its body, all except for its menacing face. Its eyes fixed at the two youngs.

  Having found a couple of prey, it flashed a predatory grin and bared its sharp teeth.

  The ape-like creature then stood up and bent its absurdly long arm on its two elbows, bringing its hand to its rear where it collected a fresh dropping.

  While holding onto its own waste, it raised its tail-like arm into the air. Then, with a sudden snap, it whipped its arm, hurling the dropping in its hand towards its prey, and it flew down on them like a diving hawk.

  Vivian’s muscles twitched, and she threw herself to the side, rolling on the ground before stopping at a crouch, and she was largely successful at her attempt to dodge the thrown waste.

  While her arm was hit and was starting to hurt, only one out of the many waste thrown found its mark on her.

  When she looked back, she could see a number of stains on the ground and on the tree that was just behind her along with dry fragments of something resembling a brown colored chalk. And before long, the foul stench of waste that she recognized from her bathroom overpowered the scent of nature and filled her nostrils.

  Beyond where she was, Gale was leaning a little towards his side.

  Much like where she just was, the ground beneath him and the trees behind him were stained with brown waste, and it could also be found on one of the two wooden swords in his hand.

  The pack of apes above them then collectively let out shrill screeches that grated on Vivian’s ears. And with that as her signal, Vivian immediately bolted from a crouching start to grab Gale’s arm.

  “Run!” She shouted before she began to drag the boy away from the apes above them.

  While pulling the boy along, it didn’t take Vivian long to realize that she was moving much faster than he could.

  With legs much longer and stronger than his, her strides were much more powerful than his, and if she kept going at the same speed, she was going to eventually leave the boy behind.

  But it became apparent to her once she slowed down that it’s impossible to lose the apes chasing them. Rather, the apes were quickly gaining on them, slowing down only when they closed most of the distance, and were beginning to surround their flanks.

  On all sides except right in front of them, the apes could be seen swinging from tree to tree while bringing their tail-like arm to their rear.

  Not seeing much chance she could outrun the volley, Vivian abruptly stopped to turn around, faced their pursuer with her sheathed sword and Gale followed suit. And immediately after, the volley came.

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  A dozen or so hard balls of waste filled the air, flying at them with incredible speed from all around.

  Vivian was able to deflect one with her sheathed sword, but was unable to do anything about most of the ones that came her way, especially the ones that came from her flank.

  When it hit her, the dropping broke apart. It was so dry and brittle, yet somehow hit as hard as stone, leaving the parts of her body that were hit throbbing in pain. While not the worst of it, it also left a stinky brown mark on her skin.

  Gale fared a lot better.

  He deflected one that came his way and twisted his body out of the many projectiles’ trajectory. But despite his reflex and small body, one of the waste balls also hit him, leaving a clear disgusting mark on his shirt where it landed.

  Immediately after the volley stopped, Vivian turned around and grabbed Gale’s hand before she began running again.

  “Come on! Run faster! We need to get to the herbalist’s place! He can use mana arts, so we’ll be fine once we find his house!”

  Is what she initially thought. But in her escape, something came to her realization.

  The girl looked down at her arm, one of the places that had been hit by the apes’ initial volley, and she felt almost nothing. It throbbed a little the few moments after she was hit, but surprisingly it didn’t really hurt that much after.

  The girl then began to slow down to properly inspect her arm. She opened and closed her fist into a fist, and bent her elbow. Nothing felt wrong, and her face showed a slight confusion.

  “Nevermind the herbalist, Gale! These monkeys aren’t strong at all!” she suddenly exclaimed before she bent down mint sprint to grab the first rock she spotted.

  The girl had slowed down enough for her protege to overtake her. But, without paying it any mind, she kept her eyes on the apes around her.

  Soon enough, her pursuers began to once again slow down to grab more dropping from their rear. Shortly after, they had to stop to take aim, and the moment they did, Vivian quickly made use of the opportunity to also stop and take her aim.

  When the ape threw their waste at the two, Vivian let go of Gale and threw the rock in her hand at one of the apes closest to her.

  A couple of the waste the apes threw at her completely missed, but most hit their mark, who just stood and took it through gritted teeth.

  Gale on the other hand, swiftly rolled on the ground to dodge all of the projectiles aimed at him, though a couple still grazed him and left their mark on his body.

  The ape that was targeted by Vivian was able to see the rock coming and dodged it. But in its panic, it lost balance and fell off the branch it was perching on.

  Before touching the ground, it was able to grab onto a young branch that snapped off under the ape’s weight. While it didn’t stop the ape’s fall, it slowed its momentum enough to avoid fatality on landing.

  Unfortunately for it, surviving the fall would do it no good, as Vivian was already waiting for it right where it landed, with her sword not only in hand, but brandished and pulled back, ready for a thrust.

  The still spotless steel found its way clean through the ape’s soft body, and it let out a loud final screech before going limp on the ground.

  The girl pulled her sword out of the now lifeless ape, and pointed it towards the other apes still perched on the trees.

  In response to her taunt, the apes let out a series of screeching cries. They resonated with each other, and Vivian could feel it in her ears. The anger and grief in their voice for their fallen pack member, and oh, how wonderful it sounded in her ears.

  The girl felt so elated that she couldn’t help but let a smirk play on her face for her first blood. These animals that took her as prey would soon regret their decision once she brought her blade down on every one of them.

  But then, something odd happened.

  The tip of her blade seemed to have split into two, then three, then more—multiplying as her vision blurred. A moment later, she began to feel the strength leaving her body. The sword in her hand slipped away from her grasp before her knees buckled beneath her, and sickness churned her stomach.

  When she felt her breakfast rising from, Vivian hunched over to let it out. But instead of half digested food, dark blood pooled on the ground beneath her with more slowly dripping down from her lips.

  When it finally came to her realization that she had been poisoned, the girl turned her head to look at her protege.

  He was still steady on his feet, warily watching their hunters that were still perched on the trees above. And when she lifted her gaze, though blurry and dim, she could see their figure jumping about in cheers. That is, before her vision began to flood with red as blood tried to escape from every orifice of her body.

  After puking out some more blood, she tried her best to push the words out of her throat. “Gale…” She said weakly, but loud enough to reach him.

  Upon hearing his name called, the boy immediately walked up to Vivian.

  “Nho… Rrrhun…” She muttered with all her strength to her voice that unfortunately was no longer able to reach the boy as she gurgled through the words.

  Gale quickly reached the girl despite her warning, with a face that, just as always, showed not much of anything. Where most would find themselves panicking, he was eerily calm, yet had no idea of what he should do next.

  And the apes weren’t about to let him figure it out, as they began making their way down from the trees and slowly approached them.

  The bigger one had succumbed to their poison, while the smaller one hadn't even registered as much of a threat. To them, he’s a young, much too small to defend himself yet. Thus, there was no need to be wary of him.

  When his hunters approached, Gale recognized the threat closing onto him. He had been trained for the past half a year, and both his mentors had always told him to run from the threat if he could. That is, except he had to protect someone behind him.

  Adhering to the teaching he’d been given, he readied his sword and went into a middle guard stance.

  While he did have a sword in each hand, he hadn't been trained in the art of dual wielding, and was quick to throw one of the two away.

  Still on the ground, Vivian could slightly make sight of an ape approaching Gale. She forced herself to glance up, and found him readying for the confrontation. In her mind, there was no way the boy would be able to win against this many apes.

  Even if they had little capabilities other than throwing waste, there was no doubt their sheer number would overwhelm him in no time. Having teached Gale just about everything he knew about the sword, she knew his current skill very well and she knew that it wasn't enough.

  With her consciousness slipping further and further away, Vivian’s mind began flashing back to one of the stories Robert told her. He’d told her numerous stories about the time he was still serving his lord, and in particular she had asked him to tell her over and over again about the War Goddess who he had the honor of fighting alongside of.

  But despite the number of stories about her idolized War Goddess that she still vividly remembered, the one that came to mind that instant was not one of such.

  It was the last day Robert ever stood in a battlefield. The day he lost his arm, and the day Vivian lost her father.

  Of all the stories he ever told her, this one Robert had told her with much more clarity compared to the rest.

  Face to face with an opposing knight, he had lost an arm to the enemy and was about to be dealt the finishing blow. And as he knelt on the ground, waiting for death to come, his friend—Vivians’ father swooped in instead.

  He put his own body between the enemy and Robert, and though he could deflect the initial blow, the gap of skill between them proved too large and it took no time for the enemy’s blade to pierce through his chest in a clean thrust.

  With his dying breaths, he flexed his muscles and held onto the knight’s sword hand with what little strength he had, and screamed with whatever remained in his lungs.

  “Stand!”

  A single heartbeat roared.

  From behind him, Robert picked up his own sword and maneuvered it around his friend and slipped it into the knight’s armpit—a weak point in their full plate armor, but still not a place steel could pierce through. But it was good enough leverage for him to wrestle the knight into the ground where he repeatedly pushed his sword towards the knight’s eye hole, and eventually jammed it inside.

  It was the battle that earned him his decoration, and his land in Carmul, but also the battle he lost his dearest friend.

  It was far from Vivian’s favorite story to hear about, yet it was the one that left the strongest impression on her.

  As the story filled her body with strength, her weak limbs felt invigorated, and the sickness left her stomach.

  Though her vision remained blurry still, and her head was constantly hammered with sharp ringing in her ears, she was able to pick up her sword and get back on her feet.

  The ape rushed towards Gale, its arm, twice its own height raised high into the sky, ready to bludgeon the boy. And at that moment, Vivian pulled his shoulder back, and pushed her way in front of him.

  With all her might, she thrust her sword forward, and it found the unguarded ape’s stomach before it could bring its arm down.

  When she pulled her sword back, the ape fell lifeless to the ground. The open wound on its stomach let out a stream of blood to pool beneath its body.

  “Raaarrrggh!” Vivian let out a war cry at the top of her now weak lungs, and the wind carried her voice far and wide. “I am Vivian! A War Goddess soon-to-be! And you will not lay a hand on my friend behind me!” she continued as she brought her hand that was on Gale’s shoulder to the handle of her sword, firming her grip on it.

  But despite her bravado, the small show of strength she showed was no more than an instant of adrenaline rush. Her body remained poisoned all the same, and soon enough, she fell once again to her knees.

  Moments later, her consciousness left her and she fell limp to her side.