After a few more minutes of walking, the search party made it back to Aaron's location, where they found him laying on the serpent's head.
He looked to be thinking about something rather important, as he ignored their presence. The group once again stopped to admire the wonder that the serpent beast.
Before yesterday, if someone were to tell them something like this existed, they would have laughed in their faces and called them Chuunis.
Aaron finally opened his eyes and picked out a member of the group.
A rather average looking guy with brown hair and freckles on his face.
Jumping down the serpent's head, he gestured towards him and askd:
"Can you help me out with something, my sword's kinda stuck in there." He said while gesturing at the serpent's head, with his thumb.
"Sure" the group member asked.
"What's your name by the way?" Aaron asked while gripping the beast's upper mouth and prying it open.
"It's Michael I...guh"
Michael's words were cut off mid sentence due to the stench from the serpent's mouth.
"Haha tell me about it. Tell you what Michael, if you help me out here, I'll give you an ability scroll the next time we head out. How's that." Aaron said, knowing full well the horrors of the serpent's mouth.
"Are you serious?" Michael's freckled face lit up.
"Yeah, sure." Aaron said
"I'll hold you to that."
Michael breathed out and took a huge inhale, holding his breath. He sprinted into the serpent's mouth, retrieving the sword at his fastest speed.
The second he got back out, Aaron let go of the mouth, thus closing it.
"Here. Your sword." Michael said, hand Aaron his saliva-coated blade.
"Yeah.... just drop it to the ground. And you don't want to go back to base smelling like that." Aaron said
Michael was coved in the snake's saliva, with left him looking as disgusting as he smelt.
Aaron stepped on the sword and put it back into his system storage in the hopes that the system will clean it for him.
And as luck would have it, it came out clean.
"As promised, one ability scroll for you when we go for our next hunt.
Hm?"
Aaron seemed to have noticed something as he was talking to Michael.
A bit further away from the group, six people he didn't recognize hadn't moved from their position since the got here amd just blankly stared at the serpent's body.
"They are?" He asked Michael.
"We met up with them at the last supply location." Michael replied.
"I see. And why are they staring at the snake without moving?" Aaron asked again.
"That's actually the proper reaction to your first time seeing something like this." Alex aaid while walking up to Aaron.
Aaron raised his brows a bit, but said nothing.
"Are you sure you can pull this all the way back to base?" Alex asked.
"Yeah it won't be a problem. But, you said we have a healer right?" Aaron asked
"Yes. Oh right. Your left arm's busted. I'll call him over." Alex said.
"So how did it feel when you were fighting the monster?" Michael asked.
Aaron turned towards him, then towards the serpent.
"To be honest, it was pretty thrilling." He said.
'Being able to do things I'd only read about is pretty surreal'
"Can I ask you something another question?" Requested Michael.
"Sure" Aaron said
"How are you so good at fighting? And you don't seem to have a problem with killing. How come?" Michael questioned.
"That's two questions" arron said and closed his eyes.
"Anyway, growing up In a warzone does that to you I guess." He said nonchalantly
"OH, I see. Sorry I asked." Michael said.
"You're fine.
That aside, It was nice meeting you Michael, thanks for the help." Aaron said, then jumped towards the serpent's head, his seemingly new favorite resting spot.
Michael tool one last glance at Aaron then turned to head back to the group.
Cecilia had instructed everyone to collect all the salvageable supplies that were scattered during the previous fight.
Laying back down on the snake's head, Aaron stared into the sky and started thinking.
Something in him had been stirred when he heard Alex's previous words. Growing up on the battle field made him different, but he couldn't say whether or not it had changed him.
He was too young when the war impacted his location to remember his previous self.
As far as he could remember, everyone around him had always been the same: untrustworthy, ruthless, emotionally closed off, etc. So being an impressionable child in such an environment led him to become the same.
It was only when he got to the orphanage that he started to experience proper human behavior.
But deep down inside, the battle field had broken something that simply couldn't be fixed. His value of life was practically nonexistent.
He understood why everyone was so apprehensive about taking a life, he really did. But it was just something he couldn't feel.
What everyone considered normal was basically a fairytale for a long time for him. Death was a daily occurrence for him.
If you meet someone on a battle field that had no regard for civilian casualties, you could either kill them or hope you were fast enough to escape. No in between, and he learned that from very early on.
"Aaron."
As he was lost in thought, Aaron heard Alex calling out his name and tired to look at him.
There was another group member standing besides him. A brown haired boy with black eyes, standing at 1.78 metres tall.
His hair had strands of white mixed in, which made him look quite exotic.
"This is the guy with healing ability, Rudis." Alex introduced.
"Rudis? Not a name you hear everyday. Nice to meet you." Aaron said, landing right infront of him.
"Likewise." Rudis said.
"So, as you can see, my arms not looking to great. Think you can help?" Aaron asked, raising his left arm for Rudis to see.
"It's possible, but how long it takes will depend on the severity of the damage." Rudis replied.
"It's probably some deep cracks, I don't think anything is broken." Aaron said.
"I don't know exactly how long it'll take since I don't have much experience with this, but it'll take quite some time given that your level is higher than mine and that of the ability." Rudis said.
"That's fine, it's better than waiting for months for it to heal naturally." Aaron said.
Rudid nodded and stated:
"It most likely wouldn't take months. Given that our vitality increases with every level up, it's probably possible for one to heal from completely shattered bones if their level is high enough.
Though this is just a theory."
"I see, that would make sense. So when can you start?" Aaron asked.
"Now's fine" Rudis replied and cast his ability.
A gentle, white light shone from his hands and seemed to sink into Aaron's skin. He could feel a tingling sensation in his fore arm, that gradually increased in intensity until it felt like his bones were being cracked again.
Well that was to be expected. We normally wouldn't feel this pain as the healing process would be gradual over the course of months.
Having his cracked bones and all their fragments moving back to their original positions at more than 5 times the normal speed is bound to hurt.
"That's all I'll be able to do for now, your level is too high. I need to replenish my MANA." Michael said whith slightly labored breaths.
Aaron clenched his hand a couple of times to check his arm's condition.
"There's still some pain, but it's noticeably better than it was a few minutes ago." Aaron commented while removing the cloth on his arm.
"Thanks" He concluded.
Michael nodded and sat down leaning his back on the serpent's mouth. A few more minutes later, the rest of the group had finally finished with collecting the still consumable supplies.
Cecilia walked towards Aaron and the others and asked:
"Are you ready to move?" She asked Aaron while staring at the huge beast carcass.
Aaron just shrugged and opened the beasts mouth a bit, grabbing one of its fangs.
"Seems like it." He replied.
Cecilia nodded.
"Alright. We keep moving." She said to the rest of the group.
Aaron started pulling the 25 metre long beast along with him, under everyone else's disbelieving eyes.
Pulling it required a bit more strenth than he'd thought, but nothing too taxing.
They arrived at the gymnasium around twenty minutes later. Ladyl uck seemed to be smiling at them as they didn't encounter a single mishap on their way. Quite unexpected considering the size of the monster the had following behind them.
Aaron dropped the beast's body off right infront of the gymnasium door and jumped to the top of its head to rest.
Everyone stared at him in silence until finally, Cecilia took it upon herself to ask what was on everyone's minds.
"Are you going to stay there?"
Aaron didn't even spare her a glance and replied with a simple:
"Yup"