A few seconds after his mind had shut down, Casper opened his eyes slowly, seeing everything around blurry and spinning.
He knew he had fainted but was concerned about how much time he spent laying on the floor. Anyways, he was relieved that it did not seem to last for long, since he was still alive.
The exact moment the soldier struggled to stand up, nausea increased even more when his whole body ached in an unbearable intensity.
He needed to cover his mouth to prevent him to puke.
"Damn it! I need to stand up as soon as possible, but I can't puke! I will lose even more energy and got dehydrated if it happens…"
Casper kneeled on the floor, pressing his mouth firmly and forcing everything that was threatening to get out of his throat to go back to the place they belonged.
He focused on his breath, closing his eyes. Box breathing helped him out once in that day and probably would do the same as always.
"As expected, I am a bit less anxious and agonized by pain, but this technique isn't miraculous at all, I am still very worn out."
Slowly, he tried to get up, but his mind went blank again, and when he realized, he was laying on the floor again.
"Crap! Are you kidding me!? My mind is going crazy! I just felt like this when in my worst hangover…" Probably, like his body, his mind could not bear that situation anymore.
Casper was needing to murmur his thoughts until that point because everything was a mess inside his head.
He looked up and saw people inside the house. It was a family of a couple, an old man, and two children, a boy and a girl. They were looking to him, their eyes filled with dumbfoundedness and fear.
"That's right…" He mumbled. "The citizens that hid in their houses were not evacuated yet…"
Casper looked to the ground once again and saw that he was laying on a puddle of his own blood.
"I will die from bleeding like this. I need to stake the wound that is doing it…"
He looked once again to the family.
He was in the entrance hall of the house, and they were standing in a door on the right side. To the left, nothing, except for a window. The entrance hall itself was very small.
The kids were looking at him with fear and moist eyes. The couple and the old man were discussing what to do.
"He doesn't have a mask, he might be from the Frelsi." The young man appointed. He was wielding a rifle in his hand, that looked very similar to a hunting rifle of Casper's world.
"You know that the military forces of the district also have some benefits. He might be from the Jarls as well, or at least a general from the Ridire. Who knows?" The woman said
"So what? Being of the Ridire, Jarls or Frelsi doesn't matter at all! The fact is that he is fighting someone and we need to throw him out of here."
"We saw enough deaths out there and could do nothing! Now that we have a chance to help we will just leave him to die!?" The woman was very upset with the two men.
"Of course, Marta! We can't get involved in it. It's a thing to be solved by him alone after all."
"I agree with my son, Marta. We need to let it go."
Marta seemed in conflict, exasperated by that cruelty.
Her eyes met Casper's.
"Aah, she is a good woman… I can say looking into her eyes. Even behind this creepy, sad mask, they shine like diamonds… It's a rare type of person to found…"
Casper tried to transmit with his eyes that everything was okay, giving her a fake smile.
"You remember me from my mother a bit. Such a kind heart… But this is something I need to do alone, as your husband said…" Casper once again tried to get up, but pitifully ended slipping on his own blood and hitting his chin on the floor.
"SURVIVE!!!" A wave of energy was sent through his body as if it was electricity. His body shivered. Once again he struggled.
"T-that's enough for me!" She shouted and broke away from her husband, walking towards Casper.
"Hey, wait… Wait! No! NO!" For some reason, his voice was failing and he could not make her understand.
"Not the window! Keep away from the freaking window! STOOOOP!!!"
Casper put all his strength to stood up, but his arms were shaking crazily. He gritted his teeth so hard that it felt even painful.
The woman lined with the window and was about to reach Casper, but the sound of glass breaking echoed on the hall, and her body fell to the ground, with an arrow stuck on her head.
Casper looked to the rest of the family, alarming them. He shook his head because he knew what they would try to do.
The young man gave a desperate cry, running to the window and pointing with the rifle, shooting like crazy. Soon, an arrow pierced his eye, and he fell to the floor with a thud.
The old man, trembling, ran after his son and daughter-in-law. He made sure to crouch and don't show up in the window. Casper thought he could feel relieved for a second…
"There are more… More positions… The entrance!" He rolled to the side, getting out of the entrance.
Another arrow came cutting the air and invading the house. The old man fell as well.
"Bastard! You freaking, god damn bastard!" Casper shouted with the remaining strength left on his body, although the words were spelled strangely.
He gritted his teeth and crouched on the floor, crawling towards the rifle.
"I've made my mind up. This damn archer isn't teleporting or changing positions at a crazy speed at all. There are 4 of these wimps out there. It's a gamble, but my only option as well."
Casper focused on his heartbeats, and breathed deeply, paying attention to how they came to slow little by little. He vanished all the useless thoughts and feelings he had, and let just one thing clear on his mind: Eliminate the threat as fast as possible.
"They know I will die from bleeding, so they will wait patiently for it, even if I don't show my face. That means I need to go for it anyway."
He positioned the rifle on the window and stood up slowly.
With that pitch dark out there, he could not see anyone clearly. He waited for the shoot that sure would come.
The arrow came… and for the first time, Casper did not need to move, because it failed.
"He is a human too. No way he could catch me on the first try with my body covered so well. I am not an amateur like this guy that just died!"
But, unlike Casper, the archer did not have any cover on top of that building. And, now that he shot, Casper knew where he was.
The soldier coldly pulled the trigger twice in a row. The first shot failed for a hair, but the second reached the target, right on the thigh.
He faltered and fell from the building, the sound of his body hitting the ground echoed through the night.
Casper barely could be able to bear the recoil of the rifle, and the vibration of each shot traveled all over his body, making him suffer in pain.
He managed to jump through the window clumsily to the other side and sneaked on the right side of the house. From there, he had a more safe and unpredictable aim to the building where the shot aimed at the old man came.
The second archer was concerned about his other friend, looking to the building where he was, and using a flashlight to make signals.
If not for that flashlight, he could have stayed alive for longer.
Another shot sounded, and another, and another, and another. Casper kept firing until the black silhouette of the body finally had fallen backward on top of the building.
He could see more flashlights making sort of a morse code, but did not have time to chase after the archers.
"Those cowards did what I thought they would do. With their formation messed up, they preferred to retreat." Casper entered the house again, and let himself lay on the ground. Just bear the recoil of the gun had exhausted him even more.
He looked to the kids, that were hugging each other, looking to their dead family on the floor. Their eyes were lost, even empty. They had lost everything that belonged to them.
"Why…?" One of them asked.
"Because they weren't strong enough… They weren't strong enough to survive, buddy…" Casper answered.
The kid looked to him, perturbed.
"But… They didn't do anything wrong…"
"Yeah… They didn't. But that's how the world works. Bad or good, just who can survive is the winner in the end." Casper gave him a faint, fake smile. "They tried their best though. Your dad, grandpa, and mom were amazing people. Be proud of them."
Casper finally could stand up, though he still felt like a dead man.
He got close to the kids, and stated one last phrase:
"Survive, kid. That's all that matters. Survive, and so you can be able to protect yourself and your little brother… And, also, be kind and nice to others when you can… so you will be remembered even after you die."
He, then, went deep into the house and searched for medicine to treat his wounds.
The girl and the boy kept looking at their family and cried together.
…
Casper had a good sense of space and time. It was a good quirk to have when you are a soldier because he always could move easily around places he already went before (even if for just one time) and could get used to a strange location very quickly. Besides, it was not such a big deal for him to administrate his time.
Even so, he could not tell at all how much time had passed since he and Sionnach had split from each other.
He knew that a long way has been traveled until that house where he was. Before entering combat, he could run for almost twenty minutes or so. He was very close to the Energy tower.
He ran even more while being chased and shot from four different sides, and even in such an oppressive and dangerous situation, he could at least keep going in the direction of the tower.
Get out of the way at that time, when he was so close, could be a waste of time. Right now, that crazy guy should be looking for him.
"I don't know how strong Nach was, but I could feel the pressure that that guy exercised. He was a tough opponent, I am sure." He was deep in thought since his mind cooled down and he could start to treat his wounds.
"Sionnach sent me here alone. My life, speaking in a sentimental sense, doesn't matter for her. We knew each other just a while ago after all. So, if I look at this situation from another perspective, it's easy to conclude that I have something essential to accomplish the goal of turn on that tower again.
"The question is: what do I have that's so special to the point of someone sacrifice their own lives for it?"
Casper stood up. Not all his wounds were treated, but the worst ones got special attention, so the rest was nearly meaningless.
That world seemed to be very advanced in medicine in general.
That family did not have something like the oil used by Nach, but there were a lot of varieties to test, like pills, ointments, and plenty of other things. There was even alcohol to wash the wounds properly. Anyways, as it was a family house, not a hospital, most remedies were for illness, not for serious injuries.
Casper also got something light for him to eat and regain some energy.
In the end, he was still feeling like fainting at any time. His body condition was most debilitated. The wounds could be treated, but their consequences would stay for more long for sure.
Limping slightly, he left the room he was stuck in. He passed through the door that led to the entrance room. At that point, with his mind "washed" he did not care about the corpses anymore. They were strangers. Maybe good persons indeed, but still strangers.
"Empathy is good for living in society, but can kill someone on the battlefield." He tried to convince himself.
When he reached the hall, though, the bodies were not there anymore, nor the kids.
He squeezed tightly the hunting rifle in his hands and got out of the house.
The kids were in their yard, with their hands dirty and bruised. They had improvised pits dug in the earth.
He passed for them without saying any words. They did not say anything either.
"Ok, now… Let's go." He sighed. "Whatever I am supposed to do when I reach that tower, I hope I can pull through."
Like this, he turned his back to the children and for that house and kept on his way to his actual goal