When the sun started setting, Rowan could see the village's situation. Didn't need to look too closely. The village entrance was quiet and empty, and the blood clinging to the bright, freshly-cut wood color caught his eye immediately.
'Shit hit the fan.'
The first thing he did was head for the ranch. He didn't take the long way around. He took the risk, moving fast, close to the palisade wall, circling the village. His mind was on his father, Haldanak, and his eldest brother, Sernhac.
He grumbled on the outside, but father and sons had gotten along pretty well without a mother.
Just living together builds affection. Rowan couldn't leave his siblings and father behind. There's no brother who doesn't cry at the death of a sibling who never celebrated a birthday with him. Human hearts need more than just being good to each other—the years spent together are enough.
The ranch was farther than the blacksmith's. It needed lots of land, and the door was already torn off.
'Fuck.'
The curse came out naturally. He didn't approach carelessly. He circled around, scouting thoroughly. No sign of anyone inside. He entered through the window. Knowing the layout better than anyone, he got in without a sound.
Slide.
Carefully hooking a dish with his foot and pulling it inward, Rowan went inside without making a sound and checked the first floor first.
Quiet. No footsteps from above either. He slowly drew his dagger instead of his shortsword and swept through the second floor and attic.
A sticky texture met Rowan's hand.
His expression hardened as he climbed the rickety attic ladder. With creaking sounds, the ladder broke, but Rowan had mostly climbed up by the time it fell.
'Goddammit.'
Signs of a fight. Lots of blood. Rowan, breathing hard, quickly calmed down.
'If there were bodies, they'd have left them.'
Since they didn't, it meant they'd been dragged away alive, whatever happened. Rowan jumped down to the second floor and left the ranch.
His next stop was obviously hunter Geric's house. He was an excellent fighter, and since Rowan had a reason to rescue his family, Geric was the person Rowan needed most.
'A body.'
Finding a corpse inside, Rowan swept the whole house, but Geric was nowhere to be found. He looked at the corpse more carefully. Right in the back of the head, shot from above to below to smash through the skull for sure.
This showed hunter Geric's know-how from failing to shoot animals' round heads many times. The skull near the crown was a weak point. For any animal, it was the last part covered by the skull, so it penetrated more easily than other parts of the skull.
'Same goes for humans.'
Swallowing hard, he scanned where the arrow had been shot from. There was a deer taxidermy, and he could see dirt on the head area. Hunter Geric had definitely killed him. But he wasn't here.
'Arrows. Where are the arrows?'
Rowan quickly searched the house again. He found a few arrows but didn't see many others. Only five arrows in a hunter's house? That's ridiculous.
'Lots of arrows missing. He took as many as he could carry.'
Arrows weren't mass-produced as modern folks might think. They needed at least five different materials, so they were expensive and not treated as disposables.
Hollowness sank into Rowan's heart as he grabbed the arrows.
'He's gone. He ran away.'
"Dammit..."
Rowan clenched his fist and narrowed his eyes.
'That bastard, he's gonna save his own ass and leave?'
Wham!
He slammed the table. Couldn't swallow his anger.
'Rakson!'
He had lots of physical assets here. He'd heard that from hunter Geric too. If anyone, he'd be hiding somewhere, trying to turn this bandit situation into an opportunity.
Circling behind hunter Geric's house, Rowan took off running.
Above his head, the crow Kaiya appeared in the sky. Looking out for Rowan as he ran, and if any of the bandits tried to notice, Kaiya would draw their attention instead.
The brown wolf Dono was outside the village. An obvious decision since Rowan would avoid combat situations here as much as possible.
Rakson's house was completely trashed too, with nothing to gain. The bandits had already collected everything.
Rowan climbed up onto the palisade. With the setting sun at his back, the other bandits wouldn't see him. Rowan was hiding in the intense sunset light. He knew all about backlighting.
His sister had chewed him out hard for taking family vacation photos on his smartphone. The dummy who didn't know about backlighting was gone, replaced by a seasoned hunter hiding in the light.
'Rakson might've run too.'
Even Geric, who looked like he could easily kill a few people, had run. Expecting anything from Rakson—he was too experienced a retired veteran. Couldn't trust him. With the sun at his back, Rowan had a bird's-eye view of the village, and something caught his eye.
'They're moving them.'
He saw men and women being separated. Just ten bandits controlling dozens of people. And in the distance, someone obviously way bigger than everyone else—looked like the bandit boss. Rowan couldn't take his eyes off him.
A black desire bubbled up.
The ugly desire that ran wild in capitalist society was on a different level from the people of this world. Modern folks who enjoyed countless goods among tens of thousands of products, floating in abundance, able to enjoy tens of thousands of cultural experiences. Compared to this place, that was just massive greed.
The villagers here who did manual labor and lived with what they had or without what they didn't—their desires were on a different dimension from Rowan's.
Just like Rowan found living in this mountain village boring, but others couldn't.
'If I get him, I'll have the black dream.'
The bizarre dream that taught him Goblin Beast Taming, let him handle wolves, and made him learn goblin language and writing.
It always came to him when he killed something and saw blood. Had to be someone pretty significant too. If he got that big guy, he'd definitely have the black dream.
Rowan suddenly shivered. A sensation like something black, sticky, and cold entered his heart for just a moment.
'What was that?'
When he tried to think about the strange sensation, the evening wind blew hard. His body trembled with cold.
'Chills?'
Rowan hung off the outside of the palisade, lowering himself as far as possible before letting go. He rolled with the fall and stood up.
'Gotta save Dad and my brother.'
Thinking that, Rowan ran into the forest.
"Woof."
With a short sound, Dono burst from the bushes in an instant. Scratching the front of his chest and the back of his neck, Rowan moved quickly. The forest darkness came even faster.
'Can't work up a sweat.'
Rowan stopped running and steadied his breathing. If he ran around sweating in the forest wind, he'd tire out fast, and his stamina wouldn't hold up when fighting at midnight.
Rustle.
Leaning against a naturally wave-curved spot where dirt had eroded away, Rowan decided to check his equipment while there was still light. Dim, but he could tell what was what, and he needed to remember now what was where in order to navigate his belt by touch.
'Crushed herbs.'
A secret medicine he'd gotten while helping with hunter Geric's traps. Of course, the effect was ordinary. But he should be grateful for that. At least it was a fine medicine with no poison or side effects.
'Pain relief, paralyzing powder, and hemostatic powder mixed together.'
Additionally, through birds and mice, Rowan had learned crude herbalism for pain relief, paralyzing powder, and hemostasis. The powder he'd ground and mixed was in another small leather pouch.
'Three throwing daggers.'
Dagger throwing he'd learned as a backup, since he couldn't smoothly calculate things like angle reduction based on arrow distance. Now he shot arrows pretty well, and of course, he could throw daggers like lightning.
'Dagger.'
Longer than a knife, a short melee weapon with a hilt between the grip and blade that could block enemy attacks—that was a dagger. Good for tight spaces or brawling, ready to pull out and turn things around if you got the chance.
'Shortsword.'
The weapon Rowan used most often and worked hardest to make. For Rowan, who hadn't finished growing, it was like a longsword.
'Would've been nice to have a round shield...'
An inseparable defensive item from the shortsword. It wasn't at the ranch. The bandits had collected everything valuable. More than anything, nothing beats a shield in close combat, so it was a real loss.
'Bow and nine arrows... plus five makes fourteen.'
Five arrows hunter Geric hadn't managed to take, and the nine left over from hunting.
'Jerky and a leather pouch with water. Better leave these.'
Thinking that, Rowan rehung the jerky on his belt, then hesitated when putting the water pouch in his leather backpack and pulled it out again. He drank all but half the water and ate all the jerky on the spot.
'No second chances, Rowan.'
He'd save his family. There was a reason he couldn't run like hunter Geric. He didn't think about the black dream.
"Dono. Find the wolves. Let's go, let's go!"
Rowan followed, seeing only Dono's outline. Everything got dimmer and dimmer until it turned pitch black. Tonight there was painfully little moonlight.
Slip!
"Whoa."
His heart sank. Slipping like that, Rowan's heart pounded like crazy.
The forest was full of darkness, letting in scant moonlight that got blocked by trees, so you could only see outlines. The ground, you couldn't even see that. It showed only the visibility of being trapped in an underground cave.
"Hah, hah."
Dono came over and licked the back of his hand.
"Yeah. Let's go slow."
Rowan flailed around, tore off a thick branch, drew his dagger, and instinctively pushed it through to make a walking stick. Relying on it, he wandered the darkness-filled forest.
Sniff sniff sniff sniff!
He could hear Dono's loud snorting as he flared his nostrils to catch scent particles, and occasionally the crow Kaiya's wingbeats. The nearby insects quickly shut up at Rowan's presence since he was just walking without hiding, so it was quiet.
'Dammit.'
He'd wandered for over three hours but only gathered three wolves. That was even with howling. He couldn't go deeper into the forest—might attract other nocturnal beasts and monsters.
'Four wolves.'
Not enough to turn the tables. But at least no trouble rescuing Rowan's family. Haldanak and Sernhac were definitely locked up together. He'd seen them separating men and women before coming here.
Unable to think of anything else, he returned to the village outskirts. Rowan gulped down the rest of his water. No sentry at the village entrance, and the palisade top was quiet.
They figured they'd caught everyone, and even if they hadn't, nobody would dare attack them.
'Of course.'
Rowan could realize that painfully well too. Where was Geric? Ran away. Rakson? Either ran or locked up. Either way, Rowan hadn't linked up with them and hadn't seen any other villagers.
Ten enemies—too many for a lone escaped villager to attack.
More importantly, the villagers were still alive, so it was hard to commit. The bandits might just loot and leave.
"Whew!"
Shaking his head hard to wake himself from weakness and constant self-rationalization, Rowan entered the village.
The noisy sounds naturally came from Rakson's mansion. The men and women were separated and locked in Rakson's empty warehouses. Two bandits sat at a table outside with village women, drinking and periodically patrolling.
'This is tough.'
At a glance, the two food warehouses and Rakson's mansion were close together. Mess with them, and it wouldn't end well.
He had to make a decision.