"WHAT?!" Peter, panicking from the loss of his trusted weapon, shouted.
The mantis beast notices this and goes in for a slash.
It connects! Peter has now a hideous wound on his thigh, and considering the fangs' shape, it will also be very hard to fix up. With the pain and panic combined, Peter screams out once more.
"AUIGH! GHAAAAAiiihhhgaaaaahhhh!!!! Sssst! THAT FUCKING HURTS!" having regained his strength and clarity somewhat from shouting out loud, he evades the beast's follow-up slash and shouts to Carter, "My sworth is, Argh! Gone! What do I do?! Carter!" he bit his tongue due to speaking in a hurry, but he doesn't care. His wounds are bleeding and hurting so he can't think straight anymore. However, he can still dodge the attacks, although barely.
But this handicap seems to have allowed him to unconsciously improve his footwork and dodging skills. The gap between him and his enemy slowly becomes closer and closer, not only due to fatigue, but also because he is slowly getting used to the mantis's patterns and is now conserving energy. However, while he may try to conserve energy, if he could not get out of this soon, his legs will become useless, and this experience will also become useless. Therefore, he must be done with the beast in front of him and go get treated, fast. Peter starts thinking with his foggy mind. 'What if I... Ugh... It hurts... It hurts... What should I... It hurts... I can't even think anymore... It hurts...'
Lost in his painful thoughts, Peter keeps dodging on instinct. Carter sees this and deduces that Peter cannot keep himself moving for much longer, so he decides to take action.
"Everyone, nobody is to switch with the sword boy just yet! I have a plan." David hears this and decides to listen closely, ready to make an objection if the plan is too risky.
"Boy! Are you still with us?!"
Peter nods weakly, having both lost most of his strength and consciousness.
"I'll take that as a yes. So, here's what you'll do, boy! I will keep it still again and this time, it won't be able to move its claws. You go in and crush its head with the handle! Simple for you, no?"
Simple but effective, nobody objects.
'Opportunity...' the young man, suffering from an injured leg and moderate blood loss, thinks to himself. Within his foggy thoughts, he starts seeing things. He starts seeing many images stacked on top of each other, one with the mantis attacking with its claws, one with the mantis running away, one with the mantis staying still, the last one being the most visible. Seeing the beast still in his foggy vision, Peter throws the handle at its head, not knowing what the images he saw were.
Miraculously, somehow, it's fast! And accurate! It hits the beast in the head, cracking it open and even then, fly a little further, dropping by the forest. It seems being close to death's door has made Peter stronger. Perhaps it's his body giving one final effort to stay alive, or perhaps he improved in some way again, like the time with the footwork. We may find out later which it is, but now, what matters is that the mantis beast has been defeated.
'It's... gone.' The images of the mantis he saw earlier fade away, leaving only the image of its corpse. After he had the thought, the world around him starts fading to black.
Peter loses consciousness.
"He did it. We thank the lord for bestowing him with this strength. Praise be the father of the skies!" Uriah, after defeating a beast and getting a moment of rest, puts his hands together, prays to the creator, and thanked the creator for Peter's victory in a very devoted way. After doing so, the tall, brown man with brown hair runs to his next prey and engages in another fight with seemingly infinite energy.
'O, may these pitiful beasts be put to rest, for they are against the creator's plan. May their souls be reborn in an orthodox creature.' he thought to himself with saddened eyes, as if he was seeing children being bullied. He stabs into a frog-like beast with his large scythe, and he uses that same scythe to smash into a snail-like creature, smashing its shell and killing it.
In no time, Uriah takes out many more beasts. Everyone except for Francis and Frederick who trained with him were astonished by his ability. This is because Uriah had only arrived not long before Carter did, so he hasn't had the chance to show his strengths yet.
"Don't act so surprised! What is important right now is Peter's condition. Bring him to the doctor! I pray for his speedy recovery and you all should too." Uriah reminds the rest of the fighters of the current situation and goes back to fighting beasts, the ones that are harder to deal with.
"Uncle Uri, thank you! We're going!" Francis thanked Uriah while helping his brother carry Peter away with Uriah wielding his great scythe to defend them from the beasts.
"Cart, the morale's starting to drop since Peter got seriously injured. There's not that much left anyways, so let's clean it up. Please try not to harm the crops." David decided to let Carter end the fight early at the expense of some of his vegetable fields.
David has noticed that since Peter screamed out in pain, everyone has been getting weaker and less energetic, all save for Uriah, even the ever-exuberant Francis has started to pant and move sluggishly.
Since he was the one who got them to help him in the first place, and even led them in this fight. David felt that the lives of these comrades are his responsibility and that he cannot risk injuring them any more than this. Therefore, he gave the consent.
"I guess it's about time I wipe them out. Someone's been injured and I have a really good fighter. Dave, I'll try my best to keep half the potatoes alive, no promises though." Carter
"Half?!"
"Everyone, especially the scythe man! I'll start preparing a GREAT magic show! You all keep them monsters away from me for about a minute, okay?" Carter gave the situation an assessment, told everyone what to do, and started preparing his magic.
'Farah will like this one. I hope she's watching.' He thought to himself.
Farah, worriedly watching the situation from afar, holds Jon's hands more tightly seeing Peter being carried to the doctor and her father talking to the old shopkeep with a serious face.
"Jon, everything will be okay, right?" she asks Jon in a trembling, quiet voice seeking consolation, very much unlike the normal Farah.
"It'll be alright, Farah. See that big, old, brown man with a scythe? He looks really strong. It'll end soon and we will be able to go home, eat, sleep, and tell the other kids tomorrow." He brings her in for a hug. "It'll be alright." He feels his shoulder getting wet, and his eyes started feeling irritated. Very irritated.
"Kid, I heard your name's Farah? Do you happen to be the one Carter is interested in?" Suddenly, a blonde man in a red shirt walked in on the two kids and asked.
"Ah, that was rude of me. Name's Paul, Paul Manson. I'm Carter's friend and he told me a lot about you. Things like how you have this obsession over fire and how you call him an old man, keep doing those things, I like it. Ah, I'm blabbering and getting away from the topic again. Little kiddo, are you okay?" Paul introduces himself and mentions a name the girl knows, so that she wouldn't be too wary of him.
"Will... they be alright?" Farah raised her head and asked, her face full of tears and snot.
"It'll be alright, kid. The Carter I know isn't that weak." Paul answered confidently, showing his familiarity with Carter. This seems to have soothed the girl's worried mind by a lot as she starts trying to find something to wipe Jon's shirt with.
"It's fine, Farah. I'll wash it later. Just don't cry any more, okay?" Jon says with an amused smile and pats Farah's head.
"Hehe, you're acting like an adult! That's funny. I'm fine now! I won't cry anymore!" Farah replies to Jon in an energetic manner, just like the Farah he saw this evening.
"You should focus on the battlefield, kid. Something fun will happen soon." Paul told the kids, ignoring their emotional state, as he foresees what kind of magic Carter is about to exterminate the monsters with. 'He's definitely using his signature magic. It'll have to be at a low power, though. Otherwise, it'd be bad for the village.'
"Something fun?"
"Just keep watching, kid. I know you'll like it."
As soon as Paul finished talking, Farah notices a yellow flash in her peripheral vision. She turns her head around to see a dozen of colorful balls of fire exploding into colorful flashes, bringing down all the monsters within their ranges.
Of course, it also turns most of the crops to ash, save for half the potatoes and a little bit of various beans. She can see her father, desperate to save his beloved plants, try to put out the fire with the water in the now-accessible well. He looks quite funny running around like that.
Then she noticed something on the ground where her father ran past while he goes to get water. It seems to be a pile of some burnt clothes. She turns back to see her father if anything was missing, and she notices that the thing missing was one of his weapons. One she cares very much about.
"Ah! My pants!" she quickly realizes it and starts running, or at least she attempted it because both Jon and Paul grabbed her as soon as she shouted.
"Don't run! Your shirt... it will... it will fly up!" Jon whispered in Farah's ears, his face red, and Paul casually tells her the situation, "Girlie, it's destroyed. Don't even think of going in there. You won't get it back and you might even get burnt yourself."
"Let's just sit down and watch the show together." Paul told the children and sat down.
Farah's face reddens from the realization of what she was going to do. "...Thank you, you two." she said to them in a low voice. She then sat down and hid her face between her knees, but this doesn't last for long as she can't resist the urge to watch the firework show.
Blue... Yellow... Red... Orange... Green...?
I didn't know fire had this many colors... but...
It's so... beautiful...