Head regrown but now fully down a leg, Ben tried to sit up but was forced down the moment he was, Thera kissing him and not caring about what the group he’d been guarding saw.

“You asshole,” she told him as soon as she moved away. “If your soul was still there then you should have told me.”

“… I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say.”

It was the complete truth. Despite putting the full force of his thoughts towards it, that was an injury he hadn’t thought he’d be walking away from. Even if he didn’t think with his brain, it was still an organ that helped control numerous functions of his body and without it he’d been trapped, only able to keep using his magic to defend the dryads and sirens and watch silently as his girlfriend suffered, not having any words that could have made her feel better despite the totality of his mind being at its maximum speed as he tried to find something that could have given her some peace about it.

She seemed to understand the problem he’d had too, looking at him for a moment before ultimately shaking her head. “Okay, well for now, let’s focus on getting you a new leg and then we can walk them all back to town. Start making food for yourself so I can try to grow it.”

“Town first,” he told her, materializing a new prosthetic since the one he’d made earlier would no longer fit. “I can manage, and it looks like we have too much else to deal with right now. Speaking of.”

He nodded behind her and made her turn, catching sight of the same person he had, standing just outside of the range of Ben’s soul.

“Mora,” Thera called out, the sight of the boy hidden in the woods boosting her stress all over again. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay in town.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, looking like he was about to cry while Ben rubbed his forehead in stress, not sure how much the boy had seen from all of that but knew that any amount wasn’t good. While they treated the boy like he was roughly ten, in reality Mora was only a few months old, and he might have been near enough to see as Ben was beheaded. If not the exact moment, then he’d definitely witnessed as he was lying on the ground, presumably about to die. While the boy would have seen his soul still there, that was surely something that must have felt like only a matter of time, a horrifying experience when it was happening to one who by all accounts was acting as one of his parents.

And Delair definitely saw my beheading too. Yeah, that’s not going to be great for either of them.

“It’s alright, kiddo,” Ben called out, beckoning him over. “For now, let’s head back. Thera, can you look at everyone here for injuries? I’m not the only one missing a limb, but the other would be easier for you to treat on the way.”

“Alright, but if you’re struggling, then let me know. I can carry you.”

“Don’t worry, I can make prosthetics better than any flesh and blood by this point, I’ll be fine for now,” he told her, standing up and doing a quick spin on his fake leg to prove the point as Mora made his way over before Ben scooped him up in one arm and went to carry Delair in the other, whispering to them as he did. “And there’s nothing for either of you to worry about either, alright? I’m okay.”

He felt Delair try to look at the remains of his original head when he said it but he was faster, pulling them beneath the earth so she couldn’t linger on it and left the child to instead see what looked like untouched land as they all started making their way back, Thera picking up the ground beneath them to fly everyone faster than they could have walked. The fear she’d exuded may have scared off the surrounding demons, but they didn’t know how many were still in town. Better to get there faster to help, even with one concern still on Ben’s mind.

We didn’t get the space demon.

Considering the way the portals all closed when touched by Thera’s fear, it felt safe to say that the demon who’d just come the closest to successfully killing him had been on the other side and was likely still running away in terror from the effect Thera had given off but that meant that particular contender had escaped yet again, off and able to do more damage to the world once its mind eventually cleared.

But nothing we can do about that now, he told himself. Some army off in the world can try to hunt it down. I’ve got other things to worry about.

When they got back to the dryads village, they could see it was cleared; nobody still there, either adventurers or demons, and it left Ben and Thera exchanging a look before they landed and ferried everyone through the mini-gate to Stonewall on its other side where everyone had gone, their minds leaving Ben to whisper in Thera’s own.

So, it looks like the fear effect you gave off was able to reach all the way to the village.

A result that left her to grimace as she immediately began trying to help clear it in those around her while Ben helped, calming the minds of everyone he could reach as Sachel ran over, barely looking at him to instead focus on those he’d brought before collapsing in relief.

“That’s everyone,” she said, panic slipping away from her voice with that fact, leaving Ben feeling the same.

“Thera, can you look around and see if there’s any bad enough injuries that you’ll need to attend to?” he asked before putting the kids down and handing them a ring each. “And do you both think you could go around and hand out food and drinks from these to everybody? I’m sure everyone’s pretty shaken right now, but I know I can trust you two to help out.”

They nodded and went off to do what he’d asked, leaving him to sigh as he did. The request to Thera had been genuine, but Delair and Mora he’d mostly wanted to keep distracted, giving them some work to keep them from thinking about what had happened too deeply before he turned back to focus on Sachel.

“Alright, is there anything I should know that happened after we disappeared?”

“Well, there was an earthquake that caught everyone off guard,” she answered. “Everyone panicked when it happened and-”

“Besides that,” Ben told her, not needing anyone to focus too deeply on what his girlfriend had accidentally done after thinking she’d witnessed his death.

“Um, there was a huge flash of mana from the woods-”

“We’re going to ignore that now too,” Ben told her. Thera’s ascension to the third tier was perhaps the only boon to come from that day, but it wasn’t something that needed to be dealt with right then, and more than that, it wasn’t something for him to talk about. She needed to decide how she wanted to deal with that awakening herself without Ben letting it slip to anyone else first, especially since everyone else who saw it other than Mora would be assuming it was a second-tier awakening of some sort. “Sachel, is anyone dead?”

That was the heart of the matter, the answer he was most fearful of getting, and while it didn’t seem it was quite that negative, it still left her to grimace.

“Not yet, but there’s some that are close,” she answered truthfully. “Everyone from the village is going to live, but the demis came to help first and they threw themselves into the fight more than anyone else. Sonya’s here helping, but a few got seriously injured while protecting all of my family and-”

“Sachel, it’s okay,” Ben told her, crouching down to her level and grabbing her shoulders to try and reassure her as he focused her attention on him. “Thera’s here now too, which means we have two awakened healers helping out, so everything is going to be alright. What matters is that this was caught early enough that we were able to do something about it. Now all there is to worry about is what comes next.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Stay here a moment to help me out and you’ll see,” he told her before turning to the remaining ones he’d brought through, addressing them all. “I need to talk to Hentath and the sirens right now. The rest of you should find Delair and Mora, grab a meal, sit down, and try your best to relax. I know this has been a long day for all of you, but right now you’re safe.”

All of them were worn out from the events of the day, but at his recommendation they slowly filtered out, leaving Ben the chance to address those who were left as he first looked Mirrian’s way and lowered his head.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, seeing the woman still deeply afraid as she carried and clung to her daughter in her arms. “I shouldn’t have recommended you moving out there. No matter what discomforts it might have held, the cities are going to be far safer than any isolated village right now, I just didn’t want to believe anything would happen out there. My negligence has put you, your daughter, and everyone who moved with you in danger.”

“I…” she started, trailing off before she forced herself to answer. “No, don’t. I’m the one who wanted something different; I’m the one who was having trouble handling this world. I should have stayed for Kalley if nothing else but I couldn’t and, and…”

Woszan moved to take her in her arms when she saw the woman start to struggle, it having already been a long day for them too, and left Ben to go on.

“Right now, there’s two options for all of you. I can take you all back to your city basically immediately. There’s obviously a couple things I need to work out here first, but give me an hour and I can get you all sorted if that’s what you want.”

“And the other option?” Woszan asked.

“Something I need to discuss with someone else first,” he told them, turning his attention to the remaining dryad in the room. “Hentath, let’s move your village to Stonewall.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep