"So, are you guys also bandits?" Kyle asked.
The two women looked at Kyle in terror and didn't answer.
They were focused on the blood all over his clothing.
"I'm a Fighter from the Stark Brotherhood," Kyle said. "I'm tasked with dealing with the bandits, and well, I'm done. So, yeah. Not sure how you feel about that."
The eyes of the two women opened wide.
"Y-you killed them?" one of them asked with a shaky voice.
"I mean, yeah. Just did my job," Kyle said as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I guess."
Then, the two women looked at each other in shock.
The next moment, the woman with the baby started to cry as she hugged her baby tightly.
'Sucks to lose a loved one, I guess,' Kyle thought as he awkwardly looked at them.
"Is it true? Did you really kill them?!" one of them shouted in shock.
"I mean, yeah," Kyle answered awkwardly. "So, you need an escort or something?"
These two women did not feel the least bit dangerous.
It was clear that they had no power whatsoever.
They were just normal humans.
"Jullianne," one of them said to the other through tears. "They're dead."
The other one just kept crying without saying anything.
Kyle just looked at the side, not sure how to handle the situation.
"They're finally dead!"
'Finally?' Kyle thought as he looked back.
"We're free! We're finally free! I told you someone would come to rescue us! I told you that we just have to survive!" the woman shouted as she hugged the other woman.
"You hear? We're free! We can go back! You can see your husband again!"
"Aaaahhh, I get it," Kyle said. "You guys are not here voluntarily, are you?"
"No," the first woman said, shaking her head quickly. "We were kidnapped."
Kyle sighed in relief.
'This could've become really awkward. Lucky me!'
"Alright," Kyle shouted. "Pack your stuff! We're going back to society!"
The woman with the baby kept crying helplessly while the other one quickly grabbed their essentials, of which there were not a lot.
After some minutes, they followed Kyle out of the camp.
As they walked past the corpses, the first woman lost control of herself.
She charged over to one of the corpses and kept kicking it.
"This is what you get! You deserve this! I hate you! I hate you!" she kept shouting.
The other one kept cowering in the back, looking at the corpses in horror.
"She always like that?" Kyle asked the woman with the baby, who didn't answer.
"Alright, that's enough," Kyle said after some seconds. "We gotta keep going."
The first woman looked at the corpse with hatred before following Kyle again.
After about a minute of slow walking, Kyle became impatient.
"You know, it's like a couple of kilometers to the street and a bunch of kilometers to Gelden. It's easier if I just carry you."
After some logistical issues, the lone woman clung to his back like a baby monkey.
Due to the baby, Kyle had to carry the other one in a bridal carry.
Yet, when he extended his hand to the other woman, she fell back in terror and just looked at Kyle's hand as she started hyperventilating.
Kyle groaned. "I know that you probably went through some shit, but we're in the middle of the forest. There could be beasts everywhere. We don't really have the time."
Kyle moved forward, but the woman kept backing away from it in horror.
"Oh my god," Kyle groaned. "I don't have time for this shit."
The next moment, he just grabbed her and put her into a bridal carry.
The woman's body froze, and she didn't dare to move while protecting her baby.
"Alright, let's go," Kyle said as he slowly accelerated, making sure not to go too fast.
"Happy there are only two of you. No idea how I would carry a third one," Kyle commented.
There were a couple of seconds of silence.
"There used to be three of us," the woman without the baby said.
"Ah, yeah, I get it," Kyle said. "Sucks."
Kyle ran for a couple of minutes in silence, and eventually, he saw Tracy standing on the road, his equipment in front of her feet.
Tracy wanted to act like she was still mad, but when she saw the two women, she ran over.
"What happened?" Tracy asked, stopping in front of Kyle.
"Well-"
However, before Kyle could say anything, the woman with the baby struggled out of his grasp.
She fell to the ground, protecting her baby the entire time.
Then, she charged to Tracy and hid behind her, looking at Kyle in horror.
Tracy noticed this, and she glared at Kyle with hatred.
"What did you do?" she asked coldly.
"Nothing," Kyle answered. "She probably went through some shit. Apparently, they've been abducted or something."
However, Tracy didn't believe him.
"He didn't do anything," the other woman spoke from Kyle's back, still clinging to it. "The only thing he did was save us!"
Tracy was still suspicious, and after several minutes of interrogation, she was finally convinced.
Kyle had already put his armor back on when they were done.
The woman with the baby stayed closely at Tracy's side while the other one kept clinging to Kyle.
"Mission accomplished. Let's return," Kyle said.
Tracy tried to lift the woman with the baby gently, but she backed away in horror.
When Tracy saw that, her heart nearly broke.
She could feel the immense fear and terror the woman was feeling.
They probably went through hell.
"I'm going to escort her back on foot," Tracy said.
"Sure, you do whatever. I will report to the client," Kyle said.
"Wait!" the woman on Kyle's back said.
"Yeah?" Kyle asked.
"I want to stay with Julianne," she said. "She needs the help. Thank you so much for everything you've done."
"Sure," Kyle said, putting her down. "Anyway, time's money. Gotta report and shit."
Tracy grimaced in disgust.
Why did he have to tell them that he had to defecate?
That was unnecessary!
"See ya!" Kyle said before running towards Gelden.
The three of them watched Kyle running away for a while.
"Sorry about him," Tracy said.
"He…" the woman with the baby spoke slowly.
"He's not right."
"He feels dangerous."
The other woman put her hand on her shoulders to reassure her.
"He saved us," she said. "Without him, we would still be in the forest."
Julianne remained silent for a while.
"She would have also saved us," she said, looking at Tracy.
When Tracy heard that, a deep feeling of guilt appeared in her chest.
She had the power to…
But would she have done that?
If it were up to her…
She would have canceled the mission since she didn't want to kill more humans.
When Tracy saw the two tortured women, she felt disgust.
Disgust towards herself.
Disgust towards her own hesitation.
She had refused to do the right thing because of her own feelings.
"Let's go," Tracy said.
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