Chapter 747: Journey Onward
Things ended quickly following Northern's disengagement from battle. By the time he arrived at the right side of the cargo, Gareon had dealt with the second abomination.
The man threw him a smile of approval and thumbs up. Which was strange; Northern had never been looked at in such a manner before.
So much respect brimming in the man's eyes.
'If he knew me and how many deaths I've caused, he wouldn't like me that much.'
His gaze drifted along the corpses that morbidly littered the white snow. His days at the dark continent and the countless deaths that followed suddenly became more apparent than ever before.
And honestly, he felt nothing thinking about them... just a slight distaste in his mouth.
The rest of the mercenaries dragged the bodies to the side of the road, all with dark and somber looks in their eyes.
They placed the pale and lifeless bodies side by side and counted six deaths.
Out of twenty-two mercenaries that started the journey, they had barely journeyed for three hours and six were dead.
Northern suddenly felt his blood grow cold.
'We've not even gotten to half the distance.'
He observed all of them one by one. There was the lady that had been weird earlier. The old man, the guy with a rough face, one other one bald with a strange blonde mustache, and many others.
Were they all going to make it?
Northern shook his head slightly, throwing the thoughts away.
'I don't care. Everyone is responsible for their lives. Rather...'
He turned his gaze to the corpses of the monsters, which Gareon was now harvesting cores from.
'How did they know to lay in ambush...?'
The creatures' behavior had been too intellectual and strange. Was this how field monsters were?
Because they had broken out of the rifts and managed to escape slaughter, they blended with the environment and were able to act differently from usual.
Was this really what it meant?
If so...
'Doesn't that make them more dangerous than rift monsters?'
If they were going to be encountering field monsters, that means he would most likely have to abandon all he had learned about monsters and look forward to their element of surprise. The thought of it suddenly felt very unpleasant.
Causing him to grimace bitterly.
'I don't like surprises.'
Gareon approached him just at that moment and extended a bag towards him.
Northern looked at the cores, his blue eyes glinting faintly. He nodded and accepted them. "Thank you."
Gareon beamed with white array of teeth.
"No. We have you to thank more. If you hadn't joined the fray in time, we would have counted more lost. I am really grateful, Mr. White."
The captain bowed his head slightly, giving Northern one more strange look in his eyes before turning away.
'I don't like the way he looks at me.'
There was a lot of awe and silent hope shining in the soft light of the man's eyes. He beamed with respect and expected more.
Maybe their whole caravan would be able to survive because of him.
Northern could tell that those were the insidious and deadly thoughts the captain's mind was feeding him.
Indeed, his presence with the caravan would most certainly make a magnifying difference. But he would not be tasked with the useless responsibility of saving anyone stupid enough to dare death.
'Like that damn girl.'
Northern turned towards the girl he had initially saved. She was there, standing and burning the corpses with a very sad look in her eyes.
Then the girl turned her head slightly and caught Northern's for some reason, deadly, piercing, and hateful gaze.
She shifted uncomfortably, rubbing her arm with one hand as she stood in silent respect for the dead ones.
Gareon's voice soared across the caravan, his words heavy with the weight of sorrow and their current state of reality.
"I wish we could spend more time to give them a befitting burial, mourn for them, if possible find a way to respectfully send them to their families. But we all knew what we were getting into when we accepted this job. The pay is nice, but it's not going to be easy."
He stopped, his face going soft for a moment, before hardening with a light of resolve in the depth of his sharp eyes.
"Lathia is one and a half day's journey away. We just need to pray to the stars that they guard us on this journey and make careful use of our time to cover as much distance as we can during the day and rest at night."
Despite his speech, the mood of the caravan still felt dark and sour.
'What's with the faces, did they think they'd be singing songs and dancing peacefully while they escorted a damned cargo to a blockade?'
Northern had no idea what the mercenaries had expected, but it seemed they were very disappointed and dispirited from their first encounter with monsters.
Regardless, all of them slowly returned to their positions as the cargo resumed movement. Luckily, none of the wheels of cargo were damaged.
The mounts too, were tamed monsters of some sort, so they did not run away, scared to death - although the explosion did startle them at the beginning.
Northern continued walking with the lady, both of them silent for the first few minutes.
After a while-when the caravan had traversed deeper into the depths of the forest-she took
a glimpse at Northern and finally spoke.
"I never thanked you properly for saving my life."
Northern shrugged dismissively.
"You don't need to. You can just consider my debt to you paid."
The lady smiled faintly, the smile seeming pale for some reason.
"You know, now that I think about it, I think I might have embarrassed myself before you. I am sorry, for jumping to conclusions about you... from the alley and before we got attacked." Northern raised his hand, giving her a thumbs up just as the captain had done to him.
Hopefully that would keep her quiet for the rest of the journey.
The chances were, she was going to die sooner or later. Probably.
And maybe, she wasn't another Raven. For one, she did seem like she knew when she was
wrong, and she knew how to apologize too.
He really hoped she would live.