Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Regrouping

-Chapter 3-

 

“What the fuck is going on?”

 

Kyle hadn’t seemed to ask the question to anyone in particular, it was more like he couldn’t endure the absurdity of their predicament any longer and had to say something. 

 

Morgan could sympathize with this sentiment, he would really like to know what was going on. First the strange feeling he got in the cafeteria at school just before blacking out, then the gruesome nightmare that seemed more like a vision of the future to him now, and finally waking up in this strange forest only to be immediately attacked by vicious, unknown beings.

 

“I don’t know Kyle, but now isn’t the time to stand around trying to make sense of things.”

Morgan’s words weren’t wrong, many others were still being slaughtered by or fighting with the monsters around them; however, even Morgan was surprised by how calm he sounded when he spoke those words. He couldn’t explain it, he was covered in blood and sweat, his side ached from the numerous blows he had suffered, and he had just killed no less than four living beings with his own hands for the first time.

 

Despite all this, his breathing was steady, his expression calm, and his words even and measured. The weight of the sword in his hand felt strangely reassuring, and he somehow felt that as long as he had this, he would be fine.

 

“We need to get rid of the rest of those things if we want to have any chance of surviving.”

 

Morgan surveyed the forest around them, which had become a killing field, with monsters attacking and slaughtering helpless students. Some had managed to fight back like Morgan, and a few had even managed to kill the monsters and grab their weapons, but it wasn’t enough. The situation was still overwhelmingly moving in the monster’s favor. 

 

“Morgan is right, we have to help the others.”

 

Jason spoke up for the first time, agreeing with Morgan’s assessment of the situation. Kyle seemed more reserved about jumping back into combat, his earlier actions were in the heat of the moment, and were not something he wished to repeat. If his friends were going to go fight, however, then he had no choice but to go fight as well.

 

“I want to tell you to sit your ass down and deal with the cut on your arm, but I’m guessing those things won't just leave you because you’re injured. Still, if you’re going to keep playing hero, at least pick up some weapons.”

 

Morgan’s words came out harsher than he intended, but the scene of his friends dying before his eyes was still fresh in his mind, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to forgive them for their reckless behavior. Now was not the time to dwell on this however. Jason looked away sheepishly, by now he knew exactly what kind of lecture was waiting for him if they got out of this alive.

 

“Sorry, Morgan.”

 

“Forget it, can you at least hold one of these shields?”

 

Morgan indicated the shields that the now dead monsters had been using before.

 

“Yeah, the cut isn’t even that bad, although it hurts like hell.”

 

“Good, then you two each take a shield and spear. Make sure you prioritize defending yourself first, got it?”

 

Morgan began issuing commands as naturally as breathing while picking up a shield off of the ground and sliding his left arm through the rough straps attached to the back of it. He then turned to the three girls his friends had been protecting for the first time.

 

“Hii!!”

 

One of the girls made a strange sound when Morgan looked their way, and they all looked terrified. It couldn’t be helped, they were in a terrifying situation, with no idea what was going on or what might happen to them. On top of all this, they had just witnessed Morgan brutally slaughter three of the monsters without any hesitation, and now he stood there covered in blood, looking completely unfazed.

 

“Can you three walk? Are any of you injured?”

 

The girls were still in a daze, and it took them a second to register Morgan’s words. A small girl with light brown skin and short dark hair recovered quicker than the other two, and responded to Morgan’s question.

 

“W-we’re not h-hurt, and w-we can walk.”

 

“Good, we’re going to be heading that way, I need you three to stay close behind these two guys and follow us as calmly as you can.”

Morgan pointed towards where a group of survivors were facing off against multiple monsters. Some of them had managed to get their hands on weapons, but most of them were just holding sticks and trying not to get hit by the monster’s weapons.

 

The girls were obviously reluctant to head towards more of the monsters, but they were even more scared of being left on their own, so they slowly stood up and moved closer to Kyle and Jason, who had just finished arming themselves.

 

“Don’t worry, we won’t let anything happen to you.”

 

Jason noticed the terrified expressions on the three girls’ faces, and did his best to reassure them.

 

“Focus, we’re going to start moving now so stay close together.”

 

After giving out that warning, Morgan began leading them towards the other group of survivors. Jason hurried to follow him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about his friend. The situation they had been thrown into was chaotic and brutal, there were still people dying around them, but his friend seemed almost too calm, like he wasn’t fazed in the least by what was happening.

 

I’m sure he’s also just trying his best to hold it together, Jason thought, he probably thinks he has to look out for us.

 

Jason was terrified out of his wits, but was able to hold together thanks to his best friend’s calm attitude and decisive action. Morgan had been looking out for him since they first met, and this time he had literally saved their lives. Jason was sure his friend was just putting on a tough front for their benefit.

 

Morgan was in fact facing some internal turmoil, but not the kind his friend was thinking.

 

Why the hell am I so calm? I definitely should be repulsed by this situation.

 

There were people being brutally slaughtered all around him, some of them he even recognized from passing at school. It wasn’t like he felt nothing, his stomach turned when he saw a girl from a class he was in last year with a short sword protruding from her back, gasping for air with tears in her unfocused eyes, like the shock was too much for her to even scream. Morgan definitely felt he should help those around him, but logic told him that he and his friends would have a better chance of surviving if they could meet up with a group of capable survivors first.

 

I’m sorry. Morgan’s silent apology would never reach the girl, and the monster responsible had already pulled its sword out of her still warm corpse. Making a noise that was obviously a gleeful laugh, the goblin turned to Morgan’s group with a twisted smirk on its face before rushing towards them.

 

Seeing this, the group tensed up, barely resisting the urge to run away outright. The reason they were able to stand their ground was simple, Morgan had stepped out to confront the monster head on.

 

Watching the monster rush towards him, Morgan noticed a strange feeling taking hold over him. It wasn’t anything as dramatic as time slowing down, or being able to see the exact attack the monster would make before it made it, like in those martial arts novels he had read. As Morgan felt a light pressure in his chest, his mind cleared and his vision focused, his body moved exactly how he wanted it to, and he calmly took what he believed to be the best actions for the situation.

 

“Khehehe..uk”

 

The monster continued laughing with that vile smirk on its face as it recklessly swung its sword at Morgan. However, Morgan simply caught the sword on his shield and brought his sword down on the things head, ending the fight in a rather anticlimactic way. 

 

Although his left arm stung from the impact of the goblin’s sword, that was all, Morgan didn’t feel anything about ending the creature's life and continued to move forward.

 

As they moved closer to the other group, Morgan and his friends could see that things weren’t going well for them. Morgan immediately spotted Josh Ruther with a sword in his hand, standing in front of the others. Although he tried his hardest to fight back against the monsters, there were light wounds all over his body, and the cut on his left forearm looked especially bad.

 

Just before Morgan arrived to help, a girl on the near side of the group behind Josh stumbled while trying to back away from a monster in fear. The goblin didn’t miss this chance, and slashed at the girl’s stomach with its spear, slicing her abdomen open completely. 

 

“Aack..ughh”

 

The girl seemed to be in complete shock, dropping the large stick she had been using to defend herself, and desperately trying to cover the wound and keep her intestines inside her. All the girl could do was let out choked cries, as tears flowed from her eyes, in too much pain to see the monster launching its second strike.

 

“HAILEYYYY!!!!”

 

Another girl screamed out as the goblin’s spear pierced the first girl’s head, ending her life immediately. The girl started running towards her friend’s corpse, not seeming to care about the fact that they were surrounded by vicious monsters.

 

Just as the monster stabbed out at the second girl, who had fallen to her knees next to the corpse of the first girl, Morgan appeared between them just in time to block the spear blade with his shield. 

 

“Ugh.”

 

Morgan grunted from the force behind the small creature's spear strike, and was immediately forced to use his sword to block the sword of a second goblin that had appeared at his side. Feeling that he had stupidly landed himself in a very precarious position, Morgan was trying to think of a way out of this when two figures rushed in from behind the second goblin. Jason had crashed his large body shield first into the sword wielding goblin, knocking it to the ground, Kyle immediately followed up by violently stabbing his spear into the disoriented monster’s chest.

 

Kyle felt a rush of nausea at the sensation of his spear piercing through the monster’s flesh and hitting something hard, but he forced the feeling back down; now was not a good time to be sick. Kyle felt resistance as he tried to pull his spear back out, and put even more strength into it, causing more damage to the creature as he violently pulled the spear out and retreated back to Jason’s side.

 

While his friends occupied the sword wielding monster, Morgan rushed towards the first monster. Dodging a spear thrust from the creature, he closed the gap between them and effortlessly cut into the thing’s neck. Blood spurted out from the goblin’s neck like a fountain, dyeing the surrounding grass, as well as Morgan’s sword, in crimson liquid.

 

Turning back to his friends, Moran saw the two of them finishing off the other monster with their spears, while maintaining a safe distance. 

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Good, looks like I don’t have to worry about them for the time being, Morgan thought to himself. He started to turn in the direction of the other survivors, when he heard a flustered shout.

 

“What the hell!?! Is that Morgan Shaw?!” The shout had come from Josh, who was currently being pushed back by three sword wielding monsters, and barely holding on with the help of a few other guys from their class. 

 

“Focus!! We’re not in the clear yet.” Morgan shouted back, and started moving towards them while calling back to Jason and Kyle. “Look after the girls here, I’ll help Ruther and the others.”

 

One of the monsters noticed Morgan’s approach and turned to face him, brandishing its short sword. Morgan engaged the monster, catching its first blow on his shield and attempting a counter attack. Although it managed to avoid his counter, Morgan succeeded in drawing the monster away from the other survivors and easing the pressure they were feeling.

 

Taking advantage of this chance, one of the students to Josh’s left, a big burly kid in a football jersey, stepped towards one of the remaining monsters and swung the club in his hand at it as hard as he could. The goblin blocked the attack with its sword, but was knocked down by the sheer force of the blow. Although he had succeeded in knocking the monster down, the student was left wide open, and the third monster was poised to strike him in his side. 

 

Before the thing got a chance to strike, however, Josh stepped forward and ran his sword right into the monster’s side. The creature struggled and flailed, trying to escape, but Josh just tightened his grip on the sword and drove it deeper into the things side. Eventually the goblin went limp, and Josh removed his sword, both the blade and his hands were coated in thick, sticky blood.

 

The goblin that had been knocked to the ground attempted to get up, but a female student ran forward before it could. Brandishing a large rock, the student drove it down onto the goblin’s face repeatedly, until the thing's face was a grotesque lump of mashed flesh and bone chips.

 

“Huh huh huh”

 

All the students who had been fighting the monsters were panting hard, some even collapsed to the ground in relief. Josh had dropped his blood covered sword, and was hunched over with his hands on his knees breathing hard.

 

Morgan approached his fellow students, the goblin he had been fighting was laying dead, Morgan’s blood soaked sword still sticking out of its chest. The short sword he now carried had been taken from the monster’s corpse.

 

“Can any of you still fight?” 

 

Morgan could clearly tell that the students around Josh were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, but he knew they needed to keep moving if they were going to survive. Josh looked up at Morgan, his face was pale and he looked as if he was going to be sick, not to mention the large gash on his forearm and the numerous smaller cuts in various places on his body.

 

“I’d really like to rest and ask what’s going on here, but I don’t think we have that luxury right now. I can still fight.”

 

Josh’s thoughts were similar to Morgan's, he recognized that they wouldn’t be truly out of danger unless they did something about the monsters around them. Ignoring his wounds, he picked up the short sword he had dropped earlier, his right hand shaking slightly as he gripped it.

 

“I can fight too, I can’t leave it all to Josh like this.” 

 

“M-me too.”

 

The burly football player, who Morgan finally recognized as Derek Winstrom, another student in Morgan’s grade whom he used to play on the football team with, spoke up. The one who spoke after him was the girl who had smashed the monster’s head with a rock. She was a classmate that Morgan had talked to a few times, her name was Cassidy Andrews.

 

“Are you sure you can fight with your arm like that?”

 

“I-I’ll be fine, it’s probably not as bad as it looks.”

 

Morgan asked because the wound looked pretty serious, but when Josh insisted he was good to fight, Morgan didn’t press the issue any further. Morgan advised Derek and Cassidy to arm themselves with the swords taken from the dead monsters, and adjusted his own sword and shield before turning to his friends.

 

“You two should stay here and help the injured as best you can.”

 

“What!? No, we’ll come with you. We can help you fight!”

 

Jason immediately argued against Morgan’s words, believing that Morgan was trying to leave them behind to keep them away from danger.

 

“I know you can fight, big guy. That’s why I’m asking you to stay here. You and Kyle are the only other ones with shields right now, so it’d be best for you to guard the injured here. Besides, they all look like they’re in pretty bad shape.”

 

What Morgan said was true, many of the students here had at least minor injuries, and even those that didn’t weren’t in good shape either. Some stared off into space, not able to accept that this was reality, and many more were just huddled on the ground crying. If they were left alone like this, it was unlikely that they would be able to fend off another monster attack. Jason looked around the surviving students and realized that what his friends said was correct, they couldn’t just leave them like this.

 

“Ok, we’ll guard them here, so please don’t do anything too reckless.”

 

“That’s my line, keep your eyes peeled and focus on defense, don’t get ahead of yourself again.”

 

Morgan gave out one last warning, before turning back to Josh’s group and suggesting that they start moving.

 

“I think it’ll be best to make our way towards other groups, and kill as many of those things as we can along the way.”

 

The other three agreed quickly, and they began moving around to help the other survivors. Josh was stunned as he watched the way Morgan fought. His movements were nothing fancy, but in one-on-one combat, the goblins were no match for the tall, sword wielding youth. Morgan would take on any single monster that approached the group, and when multiple monsters approached, he would move back to join the group, allowing them to cover each other's weak points. 

 

Like this, the group of four moved through the area for about forty minutes, killing the remaining monsters until they were sure that things were safe.

 

“Damn, I’m glad you were here, we would have been goners if not for you.”

 

Derek’s words weren’t just empty praise, Morgan truly was the backbone of their group during the last hour or so. It was largely thanks to his cool headed assessments and shocking combat ability that they were able to clean up the rest of the monsters without suffering further injuries. This miracle was also largely due to the strange behavior of the goblin-like monsters; if they had grouped up and attacked the four humans all at once, they would have been wiped out on no uncertain terms. However, the monsters were seldom in groups larger than three, and barely paid attention to the fact that their comrades were being hunted down, focusing only on killing the humans closest to them.

 

Thanks to this, Morgan and the others were able to save some of their fellow students without suffering any major injuries, and soon they had gathered all the remaining survivors. All told, there were only about 23 people left, and at least twice as many corpses were scattered here and there. Out of the remaining survivors, everyone had minor injuries like cuts and bruising, but a few had been hurt much more severely. 

 

“We need to take care of the seriously injured first, although there isn’t much we can do. Does anyone here know first aid or emergency treatment?”

 

Josh spoke up to see if there was anyone capable of treating the more severely injured, but unfortunately all the remaining survivors were high school students, it was ridiculous to think anyone among them could deal with traumatic injuries. Most of the survivors other than Morgan’s and Josh’s groups were spaced out, crying, or simply laying down and not moving. 

 

“U-um..” One of the girls Jason and Kyle had been guarding raised her hand and spoke hesitantly. “I don’t know much, but I took a first aid course once. I-I think I can help with the minor stuff, b-but we’ll need bandages.”

 

“Well, if it’s bandages, we at least have plenty of material.”

 

Saying so, Morgan removed his blood-soaked pull over, then took off the white cotton shirt he had underneath. After handing over his under-shirt and putting his pullover back on, Morgan began walking towards some of the nearby corpses. Wrinkling his face in disgust at what had been done to these unfortunate students, Morgan began to search for and remove parts of clothing that weren’t totally soaked in blood already. 

 

“W-what are you doing?”

 

“I’m procuring supplies. I know it’s distasteful, even I don't want to do it, but if we don't, many more could die. Your arm also needs to be bandaged, before you end up bleeding out.”

 

Josh was stunned by Morgan's bold, seemingly heartless actions, and spoke up to chastise him. However, he couldn’t reply to Morgan's retort, he knew that the guy was right. Even if they didn’t like it, if they didn’t do something, things would just get worse for them. Realizing this, Josh also went to do the same thing, and Kyle soon joined in to help. The other survivors were too repulsed by the corpses to get near them, and Jason was left to keep an eye out for the monsters.

 

After obtaining what they thought was enough bandages, Morgan set the girl who had spoken up earlier, a short redhead named Natalie, to work bandaging up the wounded while he kept guard. He also had Natalie’s two friends help in moving the wounded, and applying bandages the way she instructed them to. Morgan forced Jason to go get treated after giving him a stern lecture about his earlier recklessness in facing down three monsters while completely unarmed, and suggested that Josh get treated right away as well. Like this, the sun began to drift lower towards the horizon as Morgan, Kyle, Derek, and Cassidy kept watch over the others.

 

Just as the treatment was finishing up, and Josh thought that it was time to call everyone together to discuss what they should do, everyone simultaneously heard the same noise coming from inside their own heads.

 

Ding! Ding! Ding!

 

The strange noise was accompanied by an artificial sounding female voice.

 

Status system ready. Preparing installation. Please stand by.

 

After they heard these words, a strange looking hologram appeared in everyone’s vision.

---

-System installation complete-

-Registering new Summoned-

-New Summoned successfully registered-

-Status Window is being updated-

-Initialization incomplete-

-Refer to Beginner Quest to complete initialization-

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