We arrived at my study. When I opened the door, everyone stopped what they were discussing and looked at me. Father was sitting behind the desk while Haktor and Marrione were sitting on the sofa.
"My lady." The generals stood up to greet me but I motioned for them to just sit.l
I sat on the chair in front of the generals and Sebastiene stood beside my chair.
"Is everything cleaned up?" I asked them.
"Yes, my lady." Sebastiene answered me.
"There seems to be something wrong with the demon beasts." I said narrowing my eyes. "They all died the moment we destroyed the portal. Is that normal?"
"No, my lady." Marrione answered her usual stoic face full of wonder. "That was the first time I saw it happened."
"Have you closed a portal before, general?" I asked her.
Marionne looked at me and nodded. Haktor's eyebrow twitched and his face went black.
"Can you tell us about it?" I asked.
She nodded and took in a deep breath.
"I once went to a mission with my brother." Marionne started to tell her experience. "We went to check out a village near the western border. We only brought fifteen other knights, all well-trained and highly skilled, with us. Only seven of us returned."
We looked at her.
"What happened?" Father asked her stoically.
"Start from the beginning." I told her.
"Three years ago, father received a report that a village in the west border was attacked by a heard of demon beasts. But the report was never verified so the other generals thought it was a prank and just sent a group of scouts. When no news came after a week he sent my brother there to check. I was fifteen that time. I asked my brother to bring me with him. He rejected me at first but I kept clinging unto him until he agreed."
Marionne let out a sigh before continuing.
"We thought it was only a regular mission to check a village on the outskirts so we bought just fifteen knights who wanted to earn some extra coins. Our squad merely consists of a general, ten commanders, two healers, a scout, me and two other regular knights who were good supports."
'That's a really good team.' I thought.
"We travelled smoothly with no problems. I thought that the reports must be hoax or a diversion. We even made fun of the situation."
She shook her head.
"When we arrived at the location, there was no village or demon beasts, only ruins surrounded by a thick forest. No signs of life, crops or anything."
She frowned.
"We walked around the ruins in pairs just to be sure. I wen with my brother and started to check the west end of the village. We saw some footprints of unknown beast. The footprints disappeared to the forest.
We were deliberating whether to follow the footprints into the forest when we heard a loud scream from the other side of the village. We both hurried to the other side. Two other pairs of and a trio was already there when we arrived. They were looking at something.
The first thing I saw was the blood, then the decapitated head. A commander and a regular knight was killed, but what alerted us was how they were killed.
Their bodies were decapitated like they were mauled by a group of animals. Their bodies looked like they were ripped by hand. It was a bone chilling sight that I will never forget."
We remained quiet and gave her time to continue.
"We looked for the others together and all we saw were dead bodies of our companions. We were already thinking of going back to get more people but when we tried to go back to the entrance, demon beasts were already flocking there.
We were forced to fight but the number of demon beast did not decline no matter how many we killed. One commander realized that there was actually a portal somewhere where the monsters came through. We started to run around the village looking for it.
When we found the portal, it wasn't ad big as the one here. Maybe just a little taller than me? The demon beasts we have fought were also smaller, around the same size as the four armed monkeys.
I wasn't as powerful then, I didn't even train that hard. I was around level three in terms of power. By brother was strong, but he had already used too much soul force when fighting earlier. I had the most soul force remaining so I thought I could destroy the portal with my strongest attack. I didn't. I kept attacking it until I used up almost all of my soul force. That was the time I realized how weak I actually was.
When we realized that my attack wasn't enough to destroy the portal we decided to join all our attacks. But we need time to throw a powerful attack. The problem was if we did, there will be no one to protect us from the attacks of the demon beasts behind us.
Two commanders volunteered to protect us, but that also meant they will be sacrificing their lives to buy us enough time."
She sighed.
"With no other choice, we left our backs to them and jointly attacked the portal. We could hear them being attacked as we gathered enough force to strengthen our attacks. We heard them slowly being ripped apart but we never turned to help them. They never asked for our help.
When we destroyed the portal, only one of them was alive and the lower half of his body was already eaten by the voracious beasts. Our healer tried his best to save him but it was already too late. We were able to defeat the remaining monsters but only seven of us survived. We could only bring back their corpses or whatever was left of it."
Marionne finished her story.
"Hmmm." Father nodded solemnly.
I reckon that he does not know what to say at the moment.
"It had been years since it happened. We have moved on." Marionne said, trying to lighten up the mood.
"I'm glad to hear that Lady Fuego." Father looked at her.
"General, Your grace." Sebastiene corrected. "She is now a general of the Knights of Noktis."
"Then general Fuego?" Father frowned. "No. That sounds like I'm calling your brother. General Marionne?"
"I will gladly accept anything you address me with, Your grace." Marionne replied in a grateful voice. Though her expression remained indifferent.