23 - MISSION

In the early morning, loud noises woke Edgar and Fabby out of their sleep. They tracked the source of the voices, and there was a group of three fighting a ten-foot-tall gorilla with an intimidating build. Two of them were dressed in black, and the third in white.

“That’s one big gorilla,” Fabby was startled. She could feel her heart picking up speed.  “It’s breaking trees with ease.” The monkeys she practiced fighting with were nothing compared to this monster. Even Lice might not last more than a couple of punches.

“Yeah, those guys are not bad,”  opined Edgar, squinting his eyes as he observed the patterns with which the beast moved, “but the difference in skill is a bit too much.”

Both of them were watching from a higher ground, while hiding in the bushes. And a few dozens of feet behind them were the seven monkeys, which were also in hiding, at the moment.

As they watched, the three men were on the verge of losing.

As Edgar was about to come out, she grabbed her hand and shook her head.

“It’s going to be okay,” as he replied to her, the gorilla just smashed a man’s head to the tree and shattered it to pieces as if it was a watermelon. Seeing that, another one of the remaining two, the one in black, turned his tail and ran away in fear, leaving the man in white to fend for himself.

The man in white also wanted to run away, but he was looking at the big bag resting nearby. He just couldn’t drop it and run away, but then again, he wasn’t strong enough to deal with the gorilla, either.

As the gorilla walked toward him at its own pace, blowing vapors down its nose, as if it could kill him any moment it wanted, he roared and charged the beast, swinging his blade, but it swatted him away into a tree. He spilled mouthfuls of blood as he fell. The beast was approaching, so he had to stand quickly. Using all his remaining strength, he got back to his feet. However, he just realized that the weapon was no longer in his hands.

Then came the beast, standing tall before him, glaring at him like a superior being would look at an inferior being.

Death danced in the space between the two beings.

The beast raised its cupped fists to crush him to death with one blow.

The man in white understood its intentions, but without his sword, he no longer had the heart to even roar. He only shivered and covered his face in dread as the cupped hands came down like a bolt of black lightning.

Edgar flew in and kicked death away by appearing in their midst and blocking the beast’s attack with his own cross-arm block.

Though the beast was startled, it tried to push Edgar down. It even forced him to bend his knees. Its raw strength was the real deal. However, his eyes had no fear. In fact, they were gazing up at the beast. The next moment, he roared and pushed the beast’s hands away and swiveled and dealt a solid kick in its chest.

The gorilla was blown back into the bushes.

Then it didn’t come back but ran away fast.

Edgar could still feel his arms trembling. “You alright?” he turned to face the man in white. He was 176cm tall, and though he was in his late twenties, he had many white hairs.

“I’m okay,” he looked at Edgar with caution and didn’t come close. “T-Thank you.”

Edgar scanned him quickly, “Your wounds don’t seem bad. You should leave this place. With your strength, you can’t face beasts of that level.”

“Y-You… will you become my guard?” he hurriedly asked, his voice full of hope.

“Guard?” Edgar shook his head. If he was alone, then maybe he would have agreed, but now, he couldn’t.

“Only for a few days,” the man in white sounded desperate. “I will pay well.” He took out a coin sack and tossed it at him. (Unlike the two with whom I’ve been tagging with recently, this boy looks bland just like the toothless guy I’ve met prior, and he was also clearly capable. This one should’ve spent some time in these woods, so it doesn’t matter who he is as long as he stays useful to me. I hope he will prove himself to be of more use than the toothless guy was.)

Meanwhile, upon checking the contents of the bag, Edgar was speechless. It was filled with 111 bronze coins.

“That’s just the advance.”

Edgar’s heart was fluttering, as it was a lot of money in his eyes, and the man in white could see it.

“Um…” Edgar paused for a moment and said, “You just wait here, sir. I’ll be back in a minute.” Edgar then went to Fabby, and though she initially rejected the idea of guarding a total stranger, when Edgar showed her the coins, she, too, changed her mind. Before leaving the jungle and entering a community, having some money would make their lives a lot easier. So, in a sense, they took it as a mission.

Soon, the siblings came to the man in white and introduced each other. And the name of the guy they had to guard was Vino. After exchanging handshakes, which made the siblings feel a bit strange because they weren’t used to such a gesture, Vino picked up the bag and started to walk away but then noticed that the siblings weren’t coming behind.

Edgar was looking at the dead man’s body and couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. If only he acted a bit early, he could have saved a life.

Fabby wore a complex expression. Though she knew that his brother had gotten stronger, she didn’t expect him to scare the beast in just one blow. Now, she was wondering if he did that to show her his strength.

“What’s wrong?” asked Vino.

“Nothing. But… shouldn’t we bury him?” Edgar asked back, with a frown on his face.

“Nah, it’s okay. I don’t even know the guy.”

“Still… He fought bravely,” Edgar insisted, “so…”

“True, but we don’t have any shovels or the necessary tools to dig a grave,” Vino spoke rather casually. “We can do better than waste our time here.”

Edgar, however, still didn’t look to be convinced. And his eyes showed a strange sense of loss, and his hands were shivering a bit.

Fabby knew what Edgar was going through. She put her hand on his shoulder, “Eddie...”

“Yeah, I know,” Edgar’s voice sounded as if he labored to speak. He then picked up the dead body and tossed into an isolated bush, then tossed dry leaves and wood into it. Fabby lit a fire with the stones, and they burned the bush. They stayed there to see how the fire was blowing. There wasn’t much wind, and given the time, the wind was still cool, so the risk of the fire spreading was pretty low. However, Edgar broke a boulder into sizable rocks and called the monkeys, which then placed some knee-high rocks around the bush to keep the fire from spreading.

Vino was surprised by the appearance of the monkeys. Given how they listened to him, he came to a conclusion that they were either under total fear or they'd been traveling together for some time. But since he could sense fear in the monkeys’ actions, he understood that the latter was the case.

Afterward, the monkeys seemingly went away, but they were still following from a distance.

Vino then explored the woods, and the siblings guarded him from the beasts.

They asked him what he was looking for, and he said he was just collecting rare herbs, and when the siblings weren’t paying attention, he applied some strange gel to the bark of many trees.

This continued for the next few days, resting only in the afternoon and night.

Finding meat wasn’t hard, but finding clean water sure was.