…
The village lacked its ever-present hustle and bustle as Peter stepped out and shut the door behind him. Bodies littered the streets as He slowly turned his head to survey the village. These used to be people, just walking around doing their business.
Peter wrinkled his nose, the stench of rotting corpses hitting him like a physical blow. So many of them lay in front of him, humans and monsters alike. Death greeted him everywhere his gaze travelled.
Shaking his head, Peter walked to the nearest house. Even inside, signs of a struggle and clash were evident. Scattered, broken furniture, and unrecognisable half-eaten pieces of a person. Peter clenched his fists in anger before he took a calming breath and relaxed them.
‘What is the point of getting angry now? All the perpetrators are dead already,’ he sighed, expelling his anger. Undying Vitality flared, soothing his taut nerves. “I came here with an objective. Better to focus on that,” he murmured to himself.
Ignoring the state of the house, Peter started looking around. He searched each room for survivors. He found no one with a pulse left. Disappointed, he changed his objective. Knowing very well that travelling required resources, he started to gather whatever money he could find, taking it with him as he exited the house.
The search for survivors continued. As time passed, it became clear that no one remained in the village besides them. Faced with this reality, Peter started to pull the human corpses out of the houses and gathered them in a pile. Whenever he would encounter a house without any living people inside, he would drag the human carcasses out while cleaning it of small valuables. The dead did not need money.
In the end, Peter didn’t find a single living human left in the entire village. All that he found were the bodies of people he knew and cherished dearly, mangled so badly that he had difficulty identifying them. Left bitter and grieving, Peter made his way towards the barns where farmers kept their horses and livestock.
With a destination already in mind, Peter needed a carriage for the journey. All his relatives from his father’s side had died long before he was even born, but his maternal grandparents were still alive.
Peter recalled seeing Mariah pass letters to travelling merchants whenever they visited. Unable to hold back his curiosity, he ended up asking her about them. Mariah was happy to tell him about her parents, who lived in the commercial capital of the kingdom’s eastern front.
‘In such an important city, there would surely be someone who could solve mother’s afflictions,’ he thought while opening the barn.
“Whoa!” he quickly stepped aside as frightened sheep swarmed outside of the confined space. Once they were gone, Peter looked inside to see a few sheep and kobold corpses. He craned his neck to watch the rest run around on the grass fields and breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Thankfully, the kobolds were not able to kill all the animals inside before Deathknell killed them,’ he thought, walking inside.
Horses neighed anxiously to make their displeasure known from the stables. Unlike the sheep, they were hitched, and the gates were locked, making it impossible for them to escape. Peter glanced at them and noted that only half a dozen horses were left. A few of them had marks on their bodies from failed escape attempts.
While remaining in front of their gaze, Peter approached them. He waited for them to acknowledge him before raising his palms to caress their necks. Without them, Peter would have had to pull the carriage by himself. Thankfully, these animals had much better luck than the humans who lived in the village.
Only a few died, and the remainder either sustained minor injuries or were left unscathed. Peter noticed a chicken coop beside them in a corner.
‘These poor creatures will starve if I don’t release them.’ Peter thought, opening the fences for the chickens and horses. ‘Their caretakers are already dead.’
“Shhh… It’s alright. Everything is fine,” Peter said, petting each horse’s nape. “The bastards have been taken care of. You are all fine.” he grabbed their reins and slowly led them out. Once outside, Peter set them free to roam and graze.
They whinnied before nudging Peter’s tiny frame with their heads. Peter chuckled and caressed their manes, while the sheep bleated in greeting. Once they all calmed down to some degree, Peter left the horses and sheep in the grass field to graze before bringing food to the chickens.
He planned to take only a pair of sheep, two pairs of hens, and all the horses with him. That still left close to fifty sheep and dozens of chickens. Peter was sure that someone would come to check on the village in the next few days, so as long as they were allowed to graze on the farmers’ fields, they would live.
‘That only leaves a couple more things to take care of before we can move,’ he thought, with a gloomy expression.
…
Leaving the animals behind, Peter made his way toward the forest with his trusty sword and a shovel tied to his back with a length of rope. A glance at the sky revealed the orange ball of fire still right on top of him. He followed the trail of hundreds of footsteps in reverse.
‘I need to confirm it with my own eyes,’ he thought, with a heavy heart. ‘What happened in the forest? How can I leave without finding out what happened to dad? What if he is just injured and waiting for someone to rescue him?’Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
In a way, it was the easiest journey Peter had ever made through the forest. Kobolds had flattened the undergrowth on their path to the village and forced any creatures to flee from the area.
In another way, it was also the hardest journey Peter had ever made through the forest. The farther he travelled inside, the more his chest tightened with worry. He could feel his shoulders stiffening and his jaw tensing, but Peter forced himself to march onward. The hope inside his heart flickered, fighting not to be extinguished.
The sight at the end of his journey left him speechless. Numbness spread from head to toe as Peter observed the carnage before him. The remains of the brutal last stand lay on the forest floor in the form of hundreds of kobolds and more than a dozen humans. Peter fell to his knees, his breath turning ragged.
Peter broke down in a fit of sobs and heaving, falling to all fours and repeatedly slamming his fists into the ground as tears fell from his eyes. He didn’t want to believe it, but the truth lay right in front of his eyes. Still. Broken.
He screamed, facing the sky as his sorrow invited anger, “Ahhhhhh!” Winds howled as a blue shimmer coated him all over. With eyes red from tears, Peter looked at the half-eaten human limbs scattered everywhere. Palms slammed into the ground, clenching the soil. He gritted his teeth when he failed to tell which limb belonged to whom.
Peter's eyes fell on a sword buried halfway into the ground, standing out in the field of death. He stilled. He knew that sword. It was Joseph’s sword. He hastily stood up and ran to it. Standing before it, that flicker of hope within Peter sputtered out. His father was dead.
From the kobold remains scattered around the place, it was easy to tell what had happened. He died bravely, fighting to protect everything he held dear to his heart. ‘Not just him,’ Peter corrected himself, ‘All of them.’
“I-I’m sorry, Dad. I could- couldn’t do anything,” Peter stuttered out, grabbing the hilt of the sword. Guilt clawed at him.
“I should have been more prepared. I-I am so sorry. I couldn’t even protect one person properly. Mom… I even ended up injuring mom,”
“I’m not a good son. Both of you cherished me so much—,” he cried harder. His skills tried to numb his pain, but Peter shut them down. He needed to feel this. He needed to let it all out.
“—and yet all I did in return was distrust you both. I kept lying and lying…hiding my secret,” Peter wiped his eyes. “Even today, even to the very last moment, I failed to act. As people fled for their lives, all I did was be afraid. Afraid of what they would do if they found out about me”
“I am a coward, Dad. Your son is a coward,” Peter forced a smile on his face, regardless of how ugly it looked. He felt ashamed.
“I may not be a good enough son for you,” he said, “but I promise, I-I promise to do better from now on. Don’t worry, Dad,” The hands holding the hilt shook. “I’ll take good care of Mom.”
“You can watch us from heaven, if there is one. And if there is… I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a long time before you can meet Mom again,” Peter chuckled, then cried even harder, falling to his knees and hugging the sword.
“I’m going to take her to her parents in Rosefall. You once told me that they have a large cathedral dedicated to Avaris. There’s bound to be someone there who can heal her, right?” Peter spoke, carefully pulling the sword free.
Peter stayed like that for a while, whispering his secrets to the sword. It was only after making peace with reality that he stood up. It was time to say goodbye.
Peter spared a glance at the sun, noting that there were still a few hours before it would sink into the western horizon. With a lightened heart, he picked up the shovel he had brought with him.
Moving to an open area nearby, he started to dig. His slowly assimilating stats made the work easier. He worked tirelessly, bleeding his raw emotions into each motion.
Once the grave was large enough, Peter carefully gathered all the human remains he could find from the battlefield. It didn’t matter to him anymore which limb belonged to whom — they had all fought together, died together. They would rest together.
When it was done, he filled up the hole. After some searching, he brought a large boulder and put it on the freshly packed earth. Flooding his father’s sword with mana, Peter wielded it on the rock to carve out an epitaph.
It read: “Here lie the brave guardians of Simon village, who stood as a shield against the monsters until their final breaths, so others might live.”
“Goodbye, Father, and my brave uncles and aunts,” Peter whispered, his voice hoarse but steady.
Having nothing more left for him to do, Peter made his way back to the village. It had been hours since he left. He didn’t want to keep his mother waiting any longer. They had to leave the village in the morning.
….
When Peter reached the village, it was already evening. He decided to cook one of the mortally wounded sheep as dinner. When he found Mariah, she was pulling her hair with an anxious expression, eyes swollen from tears. She rushed and hugged him tightly as soon as she spotted him.
“Shhh… It’s alright. I am fine. I am here,” Peter said, stroking her head. Peter ordered Deathknell to bring the sheep carcass downstairs while he calmed her down. She calmed down, but was unwilling to let him out of her sight. Peter’s eyes softened at her behaviour.
Bringing her downstairs with him, he made her sit down in front of the kitchen. With Mariah waiting patiently in the back, Peter got to work. His hands moved with expert precision, aided by his newly increased Dexterity stat, as he roasted the legs over the stove.
Halfway through the process, a ping echoed in Peter’s ears. He opened his status to check.



System...



Congratulations! You have unlocked a new skill: Cooking.Would you like to accept it?
[Yes] [No]




Peter shrugged, deciding to just take it. A new skill was added to his status screen at the bottom. Instantly, various ideas flooded his mind on how to improve his cooking.
Following the advice from the skill, Peter cooked the nicely seasoned meat for an appropriate amount of time. When Peter tasted it, he found that it was decent enough.
Both Mariah and Peter ate their fill, with Peter eating nearly five times more than usual due to the ongoing process of stat assimilation. Once they were done, Peter helped his mother to bed, making sure she slept soundly.
He decided to leave Deathknell in her shadow. As a spirit, it sustained itself via the mana provided through their bond, so he didn’t have to worry about it too much.
Peter grabbed his shovel and made for the village square.
He began digging with the intent to create a large mass grave. Then, with quiet determination, he buried the gathered remains of the villagers together.
Some of them were barely acquaintances. Others were close friends — people Peter had lived with during his childhood. Aunt Amelia. Uncle Tom. David. Seeing them all gone weighed heavily on his heart.
‘If only he knew... If only he had been more prepared...’
The guilt threatened to consume him, but Peter understood one thing clearly. The past could not be undone. He spent the whole night saying his final goodbyes to them all.
When morning came, he rose with a new goal in mind.
…End of Volume 1 => Foundation: Growth