Eto stood over the dead body of the former bandit leader; He looked at the corpse as a painter would their artwork, paying attention to every little detail, finding flaws and thinking of ways to improve his craft. He didn't give a single thought to the intense battle he had just fought, killing nearly 20 men all by himself, he didn't question the sudden increase in strength or speed, figuring that it would make itself clear in the future.
"Urrghhh"
While Eto was admiring his work, a loud groan suddenly sounded from behind him. He immediately jumped back, readied his sword, and began to look for the enemy. After a few moments of searching no enemy was found.
"Urrgggghhhhh"
This time the groan was louder and Eto managed to find where it was coming from. It came from under the corpse of one of the large bandits. Eto carefully walked over to it before kicking it out of the way. Lying on the ground was a barely conscious Alia who was still tied up.
Oh yeah, I forgot about her. Eto cut the ropes binding Alia and tried to help her up to her feet, only for her to stumble and fall.
Annoyed, Eto grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and tossed her onto his back. Once she was secured enough that she wouldn't fall off he began to head back to the village.
When her was about halfway to reaching the edge of the forest he heard the sounds of fallen leaves behind crunch from in front of him, someone was coming towards them, fast. Eto, who was too lazy to hide, just continued walking towards the village. Within a minute the person stirring up the forest leaves became visible.
"ETOOO!!"
Cedric came running up to Cedric and Alia panting and slightly out of breath, obviously having run around a lot.He grabbed Eto's shoulders and began shaking and rapidly questioning him.
"Why are you here? I told you to go home. What if you ran into the bandits. Wait, who is that on your shoulders? Is that Alia?" How did you..?"
Annoyed by his fathers constant questions, Eto gave a very brief description of everything that had happened. Cedric furrowed his eyebrows and was pinching the bridge of his nose, obviously he was deep in thought.
"Let me get this straight, you came to the conclusion that the bandits might be here."
"Yes."
"So you decided to investigate on your own."
"Yes."
"Then you came across the bandits."
"Yes."
"And you decided to fight them on your own."
"Yes."
"And you won."
"Yes."
"I see."
Cedric furrowed his brows even deeper and closed his eyes, obviously trying to make sense of what had occurred, after thinking for what seemed like forever he finally let out a deep exhale.
"For now just take Alia back to the village."
"Alright."
Eto continued on his way back to the village with Alia still on his shoulders. After watching them for a few minutes Cedric dashed off in the direction where Eto came from. After running for a few minutes he suddenly came to a stop in front of what could could be described as a scene straight from hell.
Corpses were everywhere, roughly 20 of them littered an area in the woods. Limbs and appendages were scattered about sporadically. Blood coated every tree and leaf within the area and not one of the bodies was completely intact. Cedric slowly made his way through the small sea of blood and came up to one of the dead bodies. The face of the dead man was not a happy one, he had obviously died in immense pain. The other faces on the corpses were similar, with some being filled with fear, regret, or immense shock.
Eto did this?! Cedric couldn't believe his eyes. If it wasn't for the intense smell of blood and the sounds of small animals beginning to feed on the flesh of the bodies he wouldn't have accepted the scene before him.
Even if Eto did have to kill the bandits to save Alia, this goes beyond that. This… this is just sheer insanity. Did he dissect the corpses, alive? DId you torture them, but why? For the first time Cedric began to question the sanity of his son.