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Morrigan could remember her childhood in a very detailed manner.
To her, it was a mixed bag. On the one hand, she missed the innocence and carefreeness. She missed having her father and how safe he made her feel. Uncle Kai and Aunt Ember, Ama’s parents, and magic tricks they performed to entertain her. She missed Grandpa Adonis and his calm and passionate lessons about how violence wasn’t the answer.
She missed the time when she could believe him. She missed her mother’s cooking and how she would find herself in her bed after falling asleep at most random places.
Of course, her childhood wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Beastkin resistance was newly taking root when she was born. Whifur was newly founded and grown-ups regularly had to fend off slavers, bandits, and monsters while trying to build themselves a new life.
One of the hardships in her childhood was training. Her father’s training could only be described as back-breaking. Stealth and camouflage, mastering daggers, sparring, monster hunting, and mana manipulation. She trained every day, becoming so tired that she couldn’t remember where she slept. While as an adult Morrigan was thankful for her father’s lessons, as a child she couldn’t understand why they were necessary. To her, they were just chores.
Despite not understanding that she kept training to make her father happy. To make him proud. To get compliments from him.
One day, everything changed. The day her father, uncle, aunt, and grandpa all died, killed by Silverfoxs.
B?rü was able to deliver her father’s daggers to her by raiding their camp nearly losing an eye and an ear in the process. She remembered crying while holding them.
Morrigan considered that day the day her childhood ended. She kept training harder and harder, defeating monsters and bandits to keep her kin safe. To keep her father’s legacy alive.
However, that created a problem. The more she got stronger more her people started to rely on her. Not just in battles but also in their daily lives too.
A leader. Not just a warrior or a protector. They expected her to succeed her father and become their leader.
It scared Morrigan. She wasn’t good with people. She couldn’t talk loudly or order people around. She didn’t have her father’s cool-headed aura or booming voice. Her father’s lessons taught her nothing about how to manage people. How to lead them. It didn’t help that she was just a hormone-filled teenager.
That’s why she ran. She left a note and ran out of Whifur in the middle of the night. A part of her knew how bad of an idea it was. How irresponsible she was being. How much her mother would worry about her. Despite knowing all of it, she ran.
Her journey, in the beginning, was aimless. She just went where her legs took her. But not long after she started traveling she came across a caravan filled with beastkin.
Despite how outnumbered she was against slavers, Morrigan’s body moved before her brain even could come up with a plan. Using her superior physical capabilities and daggers, Morrigan destroyed half of them before the remaining half could notice.
Her rage calmed down when she heard beastkin cheer. Their cheering drew attention and she found herself fighting against the remaining ones.
They were nothing.
Disgusting weaklings who only could overpower those who couldn’t fight. Morrigan killed them and broke beastkin’s chains.
While beastkin celebrated their newly found freedom, she left without saying anything.
She told her that she did her job. She told herself that they should be able to survive on their own.
She didn’t know if she believed it or if she was saying it to make herself feel better.
Even before she met with Poyraz she knew that just killing the slavers and freeing slaves wasn’t the solution. Something had to change. But she didn’t know what needed to change. She also wasn’t sure even if she knew what it was, that she would be able to change it.
Despite it, she kept doing it. She killed the slavers, freed beastkin, and got out before they could even do so much as to thank her.
Seasons changed and years passed when she heard about Regal. A beastkin slaver. A traitor.
Morrigan didn’t want to believe it. She could accept other races being cruel to her kind but one of their own? She chased him, trying to find the truth. At first, she thought it was just human lies.
But as she freed more and more and stayed with them to hear their stories, she realized it was the truth.
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The reason why she was in that forest was because she was hunting for Regal. The beastkin who was about to be sacrificed was caught by him and sold to them.
But life was weird. She was now returning back to her home. She was back with her people. With Ama and Arslan. She expected them to be angry with her. To accuse her of being a coward for abandoning them. But they were happy. Happy to see her. They respected her. Even the ones who didn’t know her personally showed respect and listened to her carefully. They came to her with stories about how their family and friends were saved by her. They looked at her with eyes full of admiration.
Morrigan felt conflicted. On the one hand, she felt happy. Her people didn’t see her as a traitor. But on the other hand, she didn’t feel worthy of their praise. She didn’t even help them, she just killed people. Just like what Poyraz said, she didn’t focus on what was causing the problems. Every compliment they said felt like sharp thorns.
Their respect also made the reason why she escaped worse. They expected orders for everything. Amaterasu was appointed leader by B?rü yet they looked at her for leadership. She felt overwhelmed by it.
And now she had to somewhat lead them against a monster wave. She didn’t know what caused the monsters to behave like this but it must be something big. For her ancestor’s sake, a wurm was here!
She couldn’t believe Poyraz actually managed to kill it. From inside! What’s even more shocking he managed to travel between shadows. She remembered how he popped out of her shadow and collapsed.
(Shadow Blink: By tapping to the essence of shadows, you can teleport to shadows you can see. The mana spent to activate this skill will be dependent on the distance you want to travel.)
She could do something similar with her skills but she felt that what he did was something different. It was more akin to actual teleportation using magic. It wouldn’t be so surprising if he actually knew magic and had high-tier mana manipulation.
However he did it, it must cost him since he was still unconscious when she left him in Ama’s care. She had carried him to the camp. She didn’t see the dog but she was somewhat sure it was with him. Carrying him after she fought against a bunch of monsters and a wurm was tiring enough so she couldn’t bother looking for it.
“A wurm?”
One of the warriors asked.
“If you are skeptical you are allowed to touch this.”
Morrigan pointed to the gemstone on the table. It was nearly the size of her torso. Even though she
knew they could be attacked by monsters any minute after killing the wurm, she took her time to peel off several of its scales and get its gemstone. Not only they were precious, but they also served as evidence.
“You managed to kill it?”
Another one shouted, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
“It was mostly Poyraz but our focus is not it. If a wurm is here we can’t know what else can be here too. We have to make a choice. Monsters we killed were not only numerous but also powerful.”
Their excitement died a little when she told them that. She looked at Ama, Arslan, and Lily enter the tent before continuing.
“I think there are more than 200 monsters. We can’t safely escort all of these people. We must return.”
Voices of complaints rose. Morrigan understood them. They didn’t see the danger with their own eyes so they couldn’t fully understand it.
“Maybe the wurm was the cause of irregular behavior. Since it died maybe they return to normal?”
Lily talked with a sense of logic that surprised Morrigan.
“Lily is right. But the fact that a wurm is here is irregular by itself. Members of dragonic species live in places where mana is thick. Even if they are here because of the wurm and scatter now that it is dead, if their numbers are as high as Morrigan reported we can easily come across a large number of them.”
Morrigan thanked Ama silently for being analytical and rational all the time.
“These people are already exhausted. Can they take more?”
Morrigan cursed Arslan but she knew he was right. Most healthy adult beastkin had around 10 to 12 Vitality and most of the people they saved had lower because of their poor living conditions. Traveling took a lot of them.
Arguments and counter-arguments erupted. Ideas clashed and collided as everyone sought to assert their perspective and defend their stance about what to do. Morrigan felt her mouth dry as she realized the role of taking a final decision hang on her.
Slowly all eyes turned to her, waiting for her to make a decision. Morrigan felt the heavy responsibility of these people press down on her shoulders. She knew that whatever decision she ended up making, she had to be quick.
Morrigan got ready to open her mouth and declare her decision.
“Someone help!”
Nearly every head in the tent turned to the outside. Morrigan was the second one to run out, only behind Lily despite being tired. Her feline eyes caught sight of bipedal monsters attacking people.
Lily’s sword flashed in the air before decapitating one of them.
“Grab the ones who cannot fight! Form a shield around them!”
Arslan roared behind her. Morrigan leaped forward, cutting one of the creatures. She grabbed a crying kid while ignoring his tears and mucus getting on her already damaged clothes. She handed him to Ama.
“Can you establish a magic barrier around here? We can gather people!”
Morrigan asked Amaterasu inspired by Arslan’s shouting. Amaterasu turned to Nocturna.
“We can but establishing one with good durability and sustainability will take time.”
“How long?”
“5 to 10 minutes!”
Morrigan gripped her daggers tighter.
“We’ll hold them off. Bring children and elderly here!”
Morrigan’s twin daggers gleamed with deadly intent as she rushed to save beastkin from monsters. Growls and the scent of blood filled the air. Monsters saw Morrigan cut their comrades down and swiped their claws toward her. With her agile movements and honed reflexes, Morrigan seamlessly weaved through the weretigers'' strikes and stabbed one through the chest.
Morrigan knew that it was not deep enough. Her strength was drained from previous battles. Despite that, she put more strength into her arms. In a fluid motion, Morrigan spun on her heels, her daggers trailing in her wake. Even though her dagger was small compared to the creature she managed to cut it into two.
As the battle raged on, Morrigan''s movements became a blur of shadow and steel. She ignored her exhaustion, forcing her body to go faster while her eyes traced the battlefield to help the beastkin get to safety.
“Where is Poyraz?”
Amaterasu already told her that he was awakened when she left. But he was nowhere to be found. So was Larve. She wondered if she missed her but with horns as big as her’s it was impossible. She also knew that he wasn’t someone who would run away. Worry filled her heart. For a second she wondered why she felt this much worry for him even though she had known him not for long.
Her worries were replaced with questions not soon after as Poyraz entered her vision while smacking one of the monsters with a frying pan.