Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

Light flashed for the last time in the girl’s eyes.

“Damn you,” she croaked, breathing her last breath.

Her hands dropped to her sides. Empty eyes stared into nothingness. Ash put his hand on her face, pulled down her eyelids, and got up. He walked away without looking back, knowing that he did what had to be done.

“Such is fate,” he thought, placing his hand on the aching left side of his chest.

Morning of the same day

“So, it was the sister’s fault,” Blackbeard mused.

The group was going in the direction of Zadastra, a town bordering the Forest of Shadows, the last hotbed of civilization, beyond which only the most dangerous and vile creatures roamed.

“I don’t get it,” Lari said. “She loved her brother so much... I was sure that the mother was the culprit...”

“You’re all blind,” Mary said, patting her horse. “Her father didn’t care about her. Her mother ignored her. Her brother was her only family... And then this baroness came and captured everyone’s attention. Jealousy combined with the sweet nothings that the stranger she had mentioned to Ash whispered to her... It’s strange that we hadn’t noticed it sooner.”

“Though, I don’t get why she kept kidnapping people... And why always in pairs...”

“Yeah, that’ll remain a mystery it seems...”

“Oh, oh, I know! I know!”

No one was surprised to see Ash waving his hand enthusiastically as if he was a student trying to catch his teacher’s attention. Mary gave him a stern look but nodded.

“Everything has its reasons,” Ash muttered. “People are not born werewolves; they become werewolves on a full moon. Thanks to spells, the castle was under the influence of the full moon every night.”

“Explain to me then why there were so many corpses in the castle,” Mary said.

“There were a lot of werewolves in the castle.” Ash winked.

“What do you mean?”

“The food was mixed with poison that turned every guest at night into a werewolf. People would lose their humanity during the period when they were in the guise of a werewolf. In addition, no one knew that they, too, had turned into a monster. They thought that everyone else was a monster. Having met each other, people in the guise of werewolves began to fight and then killed each other. That’s corpses always came in pairs.”

“So that’s why the victims had such deep wounds. What happened to the Ternits then?”

Ash shrugged. “Simple, the young marquise was supposed to kill everyone who wore the coat of arms of the detachment. She carried them to the cellar, where they died. In the same place, she hid for those twelve hours, during which she was in the guise of a werewolf.”

“When you changed your toast,” Mary muttered. “She shuddered. She remembered everything that had come before.”

“Bingo!” Ash grinned.

“A lot of things still don’t make sense,” Lari said. “Why did you sleep with her? How did you even come up with this plan? And how the hell did you defeat a werewolf on your own? Wait... Is that why you didn’t eat with us?! You knew about the potion?!”

“A mage never reveals his secrets!” he replied with a grin.

The Stumps rolled their eyes. Mary slapped her forehead so hard that it left a mark. Ash just laughed. He hadn’t done that in quite some time... Not since the night that his entire Legion was killed.

What the Stumps didn’t know was that somewhere in a castle at the foot of the Fire Mountain, a real monster was trashing about. Was it afraid that its trap didn’t work? Or was something else on its mind?

Well, that’s a story for another time.

Chapter 24

14th Day of Zund, 322 A.D., Age of the Drunken Monk, Kingdom of Arabist

M ary opened her eyes, glad to breathe in the fresh air of Arabist instead of the musty stench of Soles’s slums from which, if the king’s task was completed, she’d finally be able to move out. It was no secret that most Ternites lived off the coin they received from Ernite missions. It was ironic in a way.

Sitting up, she put her hair into a tight bun and secured it with a hairpin. For a swordsman, there was no worse enemy than long hair and fluttering cloaks, both of which could easily be tugged on or obscure one’s view during a crucial dodge. She could’ve had it cut off, but she liked her locks too much to part with them.

Despite everything, the morning in Arabist was wonderful. It wasn’t often that they had the chance to sleep in a cozy hayloft instead of leaky tents and bedrolls full of holes. Alice was sleeping curled up in her cloak. Blackbeard and Tul were napping back to back, weapons at the ready—a habit of experienced adventurers. Lari, lying at the entrance, was muttering something to himself in his sleep. However, looking around as she might, Mary couldn’t spot Ash. The last hour and a half were his watch, so he had to be nearby.

“Mary,” Alice mumbled, “please, get off my hair...”

“Sorry,” Mary whispered and got off the chestnut bush that would become lush curls once the little one was done combing them.

Slowly but surely, the rest of the Stray Stumps woke up. Blackbeard cursed out of habit but was immediately drowned out by Tul’s monstrous yawn.

“Where’s the troublemaker?” Mary frowned.

The guys looked around but there was no one else there except the still-sleeping Lari. Unless, of course, we don’t take into account the pot-bellied cat perched on the support beams. Enjoying the morning sun, it lazily waved its ginger tail.

“He’s asleep again,” Tul sighed, shaking his head as he looked at Lari.

“I’m not,” the archer protested and jumped to his feet. Grimacing, he began to pull straws of hay from places where they should definitely not have