Clang! Clang!
With his heavy armor, running through the thick brown dust, Ronald struggled to locate Lilliam's direction.
"Lilliam," he called out.
But no answer came.
"Damn it, is he already dead?" he slowed down a bit, and after a few minutes, he completely stopped running.
"Maybe he's already dead."
"Such a shame, he was a good guy," he spoke with a depressed tone.
He continued to walk again until he eventually came out from the cloud of dust.
"No, please, no," but as he walked, the sound of the crying was heard again.
"Lilliam!"
And this time, Ronald managed to locate the clear direction, so he began to run toward it.
Through the brown, dusty cloud, he continued running until he saw the silhouette of someone.
He saw the figure of someone crouched on the ground.
"Lilliam, is that you?" Ronald finally came close to the person.
In front of him was Lilliam, who was crouched in front of his horse.
However, the horse's condition was rather terrible. because of the huge pressure the hostile creature used to jump down. It was crushed to the ground, and blood was everywhere, even bones were crushed. It was hard to even recognize it as a horse; most of it was just a lump of meat. Ronald managed to recognize it only because of the still-visible white skin and the similarly crushed travel bag that lilliam had stored with necessary supplies.
And looking toward it, Lilliam was crying.
"seems like he and the horse had a stronger bond,"
Seeing the scene, Ronald understood what's happening.
"I'd be the same if I had the same kind of bond with my horse, but thankfully I don't," he said with a little satisfaction."
"Come on, Lilliam. I know it's hard losing someone you care about, but what happened has already happened, so there's no use in crying," he said as he walked closer to Lilliam. Putting his hand on his shoulder, trying to ease him up.
"I'll let you choose one of the finest horses from our stable," he uttered.
"You can just forget about your old horse."
"Who cares about the horse, sir," seeing Ronald, Lilliam stood up and wiped away his tears.
"I am crying because my traveling bag got crushed. It's all gone sir, Everything I hold valuable is stored in it," he spoke while cleaning up dust in his body.
"And now it's gone." but an another tear came from his eyes.
"That darn horse had one job to do." Irritated, he kicked toward the horse, which was already a squashed mess. His foot landed on the meat, pushing it away.
Ronald heard all of this with a straight face.
"___"
Sigh!
"So it's just your traveling bag you're crying for," he said, losing any empathy toward him.
"It's not JUST, sir, it's my everything," Lilliam exclaimed.
"Anyways, let's get out of here. We need to go before that thing catches up t... GhUg!"
But before he could finish, the wailing sound of the wind came, and even before Ronald could react, the club hit him with a huge force in the back.
With the strike, Ronald was launched away and landed in an area that had cleared from the dusty clouds. He landed on a tree.
"Argh!" Blood jumped out from his mouth upon hitting the tree.
"That was painful," he groaned, wincing.
"Sir," the sudden interruption perplex Lilliam.
He quickly drew out his sword, holding it with both hands and pointing it forward.
As he looked around for the enemy through the dust, two pointy red glows appeared.
Noticing the glowing hue, Lilliam pointed his sword in its direction and slowly walked forward.
Maintaining his gaze, he took slow steps, one after another, getting closer to the glow. Surprisingly, the glow stayed still without vanishing or moving.
But as soon as Lilliam got close, it seemed to disappeared and instantly reappeared. At the same time, something unexpected happened.
When Lilliam first saw it, it was still at the same eye level as his, but the moment he got closer, it began to rise upward.
"Uhh, crap."
The glowing eyes rose up until they were twice Lilliam's height, lifting his head and looking into its eyes, Lilliam realized he had messed up.
The eerie sound of the wind was heard again, and with a quick movement, Lilliam leaped back, avoiding the creature's strike.
After successfully evading the blow, Lilliam leaped forward again, holding his sword out, and once he got close enough, he thrust with all of his strength.
"Roaar."
His blow pierced the creature's skin, oozing out blood and causing it to scream in pain. At the same time, the creature lifted its club and hammered it in the spot where Lilliam was.
Seeing the incoming attack, Lilliam quickly evaded it, but unexpectedly, as he tried to pull back his sword, he noticed that it was stuck in the place where he had thrust it. Even though he strained to pull it back, it wouldn't budge. So, in the last moment, he had to abandon it and dodge the attack.
"Damn it, its skin is as hard as a rock."
Muttered Lilliam as he fell back, avoiding its blow.
At the same time, its strike landed, stirring up another huge amount of dust and ground pieces.
Maintaining his gaze on the red glow, he backed down a few feet, avoiding the thick cloud of dust. But then, the crimson glowing eyes vanished through the mist, leaving Lilliam clueless.