Dawn- An age of Darkness

Chapter 175 - One Step At A Time

Once we were in the open field I'd tried to run and make sure my body wasn't going to crumble under pressure. It didn't. Everything felt natural but the lack of the arm bothered me a lot more than I thought. I forgot on more than one occasion that I actually didn't have an arm.

"By the way, did I mention that I know a guy in Galbatia, who could heal that arm of yours and give you a new one?" Dick smirked. He was up to something.

"This isn't a ploy to get me there, right?" I asked, skeptical.

"No, no, of course not." He tried to act all serious. "I mean, all you'd have to do is sleep with the guy for a night but-"

I sighed. "Pass." I passed him and walked faster.

"Oh, come on! That was just a joke." He chuckled and came after me.

"Yeah, I don't care." I still had my pride, my needless, worthless pride. But there was something in the distance. "Lianne, can you let me handle this one?"

Lianne had already drawn her bow. "Yeah sure. Don't overexert yourself."

The thing far away was a goblin. A lone one and pretty small too. I didn't know how this body would have held out in a real fight but this was my chance to find out. Besides, I still didn't know how much I could accomplish with just one hand.

When the goblin spotted me, it groaned and hid within the grass. This one was good. And a second later, a fireball came towards me. This one was very good.

I dodged the fire and located the little thing. My body moved faster than I anticipated, and I almost fell to my death yet again.

Calm down!

"Pay more attention to where yar standing ya moron!" I remembered the words of the old man and calmed my nerves. 

The goblin scrambled and hid in the grass again. Since when did single goblins give me so much trouble?

This one's a mage type, huh?                                                                 

"You good?" Dick yelled.

"Mostly." I still kept my eye out. 

And as if to live up to its name, the little purple thing jumped up in the air and tried to bite me. 

"Poor choice." I slashed it with my sword and it writhed before going cold.

But this achieved two things for me. First, I was nowhere near my original fighting capabilities, and second, this body needed a lot of getting used to. But one thing was for certain, I still had my original skills and experience. I could fight.

Which meant- I can get better.

***

Sometime later, I tried to poke the crystal. It was on my mind for a long time but I never really got around to it.

No one was around me. They were too busy setting up camp and all that.

"Hey, Dick. How do you use this thing?" I opened the cloth and tried to touch the gem. It was oddly cold. But it did look fairly normal.

"DON'T TOUCH IT!" Dick screamed furiously. It almost sounded like a shriek.

I quickly covered the crystal with the cloth but now it felt like the cloth was cold. It wasn't freezing but it was cold and so was my finger.

"What?"

"Remember when I told you, people go crazy when they touch it?" He walked towards me. "So, if you really want to use it, please use it in situations when you think you can kill everything in sight without any worries. Unless you want to kill us all-" He had a very annoying smile on his face. 

But I did understand him. "Alright." And so, my poking session ended in failure. "But how come you're wearing one?"

"First of all, this is small. Second, when this glows, that's when things go bad. And third, how many times do I have to tell you, yours is too damn big!"

I didn't want someone named Dick to tell me that. With a sigh, I just stared at him blankly and a second later he realized what he just said. 

But the guy just chuckled away to the campsite, setting things up.

***

We arrived at a village by the afternoon. On our way, we fought some goblins. Lianne sniped them from far away, so none of us got to exert ourselves. Dick was pretty unhappy that he didn't get to show off his skills though. I actually wanted to see what he was capable of. 

The village wasn't all that big and the walls were made from wood. It was probably more of a makeshift village. We went in. the houses were all made from wood. The road was pretty rough and the place looked kind of bland. No one had any smiles on their faces and they all looked troubled: gloomy. 

"That's strange. I didn't think there was a village here. The one we were supposed to enter was a little further down the road…" Lianne pondered with hands on her cheeks.

But before I could think we heard some shouts.

"Who do you think you are!"

"Cut it out already! You're no hero! And your father's a loser!"

"Face it! You're dad's dead! He ain't coming back!"

"Loser!" "Loser!" "Loser!"

Kids were yelling at a distance. Judging from what they were yelling I was sure someone was getting bullied.  We walked towards the sound. A kid was surrounded by a bunch of other kids. The kid in the middle was scrawny and the brats around him were all bunch of fat morons. Most of them were wearing rugs though. 

"I guess there are pigs like that no matter where you go." 

"Boys will be boys… let them handle their shit." Dick chuckled.

"Unfortunately, I hate those kinds of boys who prey on the weak!" I glared at Dick. My anger was misguided and he meant no harm. But bullying was a horrible crime in my eyes. My sister suffered for it and so did my whole family. I hated bullies.

"Hey, you!" I shouted on top of my lungs and walked towards the brats.