Leo and the Seventh Ruin Ch. 01

"Leo! What are you doing?!" Henrietta shouted, completely shocked that Leo had just stopped from finishing that orc for good.

Leo just ignored the knight as he pulled the orc closer to him. "What did you just say?!" He demanded. At that moment, he was very confused about those two words that he never expected to hear from an orc. However, there was something off about that one in particular. The moment he looked closer into the monster's eyes, he couldn't see any hint of malice as he noticed before.

The orc suddenly grabbed him by the vest and leaned closer to his face. "The voice of the dark one finally gone..." He spoke between gasps with what was left of his breath. "Now me finally feel peace for who me was, thanks to you."

"Cut the crap! You better tell me what the hell is going on or I'll cut your head off!" Leo snapped, getting tired of hearing the obnoxious riddles.

"Have not much time left..." The orc wheezed before coughing more blood. "You must go to the fortress and put an end to this madness... You have to stop it, or it will be the end of us..." After that, the monster let go of Leo as he drew one last breath.

"Great... just great." Leo growled bitterly before pushing the dead orc away from him.

The silence reigned over the camp as Leo threw the axe away, next to the lifeless body of the orc. He let out a sigh as he wiped the blood off his face before he approached Henrietta as she was just getting back up.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked with a hint of concern.

"Yeah... I took a hard landing, but I-" Suddenly she let out a hiss as she clutched over her side.

"Here, let me help you." Leo got close to her to give her a hand, only to be stopped when Henrietta pushed him away.

"I'm okay! I can still get up!" Henrietta responded sternly, but she kept groaning in pain as she could barely raise herself up. Leo, however, wasn't taken aback by her outburst. Rather, he rolled his eyes before he stood to her side and gently picked her up by the shoulder. "H-Hey, I said I can stand up on my own!"

"God, you knights are so stubborn..." Leo muttered exasperatedly. He then heard the approaching footsteps before he turned to the side and saw Roxy and Henrietta's men finally arriving as they spread out across the camp. "Finally... Think you can walk on your own?" He asked Henrietta.

"Y-Yeah, just let me go!" The knight muttered before pushing him away from her. Leo could notice she was wearing a hardened look as she walked forward to meet up with her men, holding back the pain aching in her ribs. "Everyone, search through the camp! The woman must be found somewhere or inside the huts!"

Leo sighed as he rubbed his eyes tiredly before pacing around to find any signs of the missing woman, passing by a couple of soldiers who were looking over the corpse of the orc, as they were shocked to find one right here in the camp. He watched some other men checking inside of each hut cautiously, since some remaining goblins might be hiding inside. In fact, he just heard them some screeches, only to be silenced by the sound of the bolts shooting.

"Master! Are you alright?" Roxy cried out with a concerned look, running over to check on Leo.

"I'm okay, just a little sore. But what about you? Did the goblins put a finger on you?" Leo asked softly as he looked over her face for any scratch or bruise.

"Don't worry about me, master. We should try to look around and find that poor woman." Roxy replied, which Leo nodded in agreement.

"Captain! You're not gonna believe this, but I found more women!" Suddenly, a soldier shouted, catching everyone's attention.

Leo and Roxy looked to the other side and saw a soldier coming out of a large hut that was standing at the far end of the camp. But one thing that stood out from the rest of them was it was decorated with bundles of carved bones. They watched Captain Henrietta entering the hut in a haste.

"Did he just say there're more women?" Roxy asked in surprise, clearly not expecting to hear that word in plural.

"Come on, let's go find out." Leo said with a frown and they headed to meet up with the soldier, preparing for whatever they're gonna find inside.

Entering the hut through the flap, Leo looked around the inside until he found Henrietta and the soldier standing next to a cage sitting at the corner, but Roxy let out a gasp as they found what was inside the cage. There was a group of five women huddling together, all of them wearing dirty rags that could barely cover their bodies.

"Can you open it?" Henrietta asked, as Leo and Roxy walked around the bonfire to meet up with them.

"I tried, but the cage is locked. Maybe the key could be found around here, or maybe we could check the orc's body outside." The young soldier replied, while looking back at the prisoners with concern.

"Ain't nobody got time for that." Leo grumbled before pushing the soldier away from the gate. Holding the sword up, he started bashing the lock with the pommel as loud clanging noises filled the air. Gathering all his strength on his next hit, he finally broke the lock before opening the cage.

"Leo, just hold on!" Henrietta tried to call him out for his hastiness, worried that he would probably scare the women.

When Leo stepped inside the cage, the women whimpered and cowered in fear as he came near to them, completely shaken that they were unaware that he wasn't the orc who got them captivated. Leo shushed them as he lowered himself down slowly, sheathing his sword to let them know he meant no harm.

"It's okay, we're here to rescue you." Leo said with a gentle tone, as he kept a distance from the.

The frightened women raised their heads to face back the mercenary, yet they were still showing signs of mistrust. As Leo got a better look at them, he could see their faces and some parts of their limbs were bruised, some of them were even recent. One can't imagine how long they had to endure the abuse until Leo and the others found them.

"They're getting cold." Roxy stepped in the cage with Leo, noting the women were shivering as the chilly wind blew through the opened flap.

Leo nodded in agreement before taking off his cloak and handed it to an auburn-haired woman, who hesitated before accepting the gesture and wrapped it all over her body. He then turned over his shoulder to face Henrietta. "Can you find some sheets or something that could give them warmth around here?" He asked politely, while Roxy also handed her own cloak to another woman.

At first, the knight was quite taken aback by the act of kindness from the mercenary, but she nodded her head as she commanded the other soldiers to search through the hut. Taking a look inside of a storage chest, they found inside a bundle of silks and pelts, but also some large pouches of coins and pieces of jewelry. It didn't come as a surprise though, since monsters usually get them by raiding villages or ambushing travelers and merchants on the roads. Henrietta then delivered some of the pelts to the women, and at that moment, the women began to feel more at ease, and even grateful that they didn't have to feel the cold anymore.

"Can all of you stand up?" Leo asked, with a hint of softness in his tone.

"Yeah... I think so." A woman with raven hair answered before her and the rest slowly raised up to her feet. "A-Are they gone? Did you kill all those monsters?" She asked anxiously.

"Every last one of them, you have nothing to fear anymore." Henrietta nodded, more than pleased to provide that answer, as she noticed the enormous relief washing over the poor women's faces. "Is everyone okay? Did those vermin do anything to you?"

"They kept us locked in here for days and treated us like we were cattle. They were planning to kidnap more women before they would take us to a place where other orcs were hiding. Those... Those beasts wanted us to be their breeders!" A woman with curly blond hair said, though her voice trembled as she finished retelling the events.

Henrietta's face softened before walking up to the girl and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Do not fret. What matters now is that you're all safe and we're going to get you out of this forest."

"Oh thank Mother Larentia! We never thought anyone would ever find us to begin with!" A short-haired woman said, as the other girls hugged each other while shedding tears of joy.

"Sergeant, take some of your men and escort the women out of here." Henrietta gave the order to the officer.

"Right away, Captain." The officer nodded before he led the women out of the hut.

Henrietta let out a sigh with her hand running over her head, feeling like all the pressure that was welling up within her had faded away in an instant. Standing up straight, she turned around to face Leo and Roxy. "If it weren't for both of you, we wouldn't ever find these poor women and they would suffer that kind of fate. For that, you both have my gratitude." She stated before bowing her head.

"We're deeply pleased by your words, Milady." Roxy bowed back to her, although Leo almost rolled his eyes.

"So what are you gonna do with the women?" Leo asked as he stretched his back.

"It's obvious they cannot come with us on our journey, as it would be far riskier if we find more trouble. So the only prudent thing to do is to take them to a nearby village. Luckily, I know a place where it's on our way to the border." Henrietta said with a calm tone.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Leo replied as he sauntered around the hut. "What about the camp, though?"

"I'll send a report to my commander about this. I just hope this is the only camp we find in this forest." Henrietta said, a little dazed off in thought. The rattling sound suddenly caught her attention before she looked to the side and saw Leo digging his hands into the opened chest. "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking some stuff that could be useful. I hope you don't mind." Leo responded plainly as he shifted through the contents of the chest.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Henrietta responded sternly, taking a step forward. "Those items you're taking did belong to the folks who got murdered and looted by monsters. We're so much better than those fiends."

Leo let out a scoff. "Are you saying we should leave them behind? Last time I saw you, you took some pelts and gave them to the women." Leo retorted as he picked a silver ring encrusted with a small ruby. Knowing that could be worth some good coins, he decided to keep it in his pocket and continued searching.

"Because they needed them more than us, otherwise they would've been freezing to death! I'm saying those belongings should be delivered to the families of the deceased!" Henrietta argued, with her hand gripping the handle of her sword as if she was restraining herself from unsheathing it.

Leo stopped rummaging before he stood up and turned around to face Henrietta with a scornful look. "Do you think they would care about material possessions the dead owned? Even if they do, they're gonna just sell all of them for coins." Henrietta opened her mouth to argue, but Leo continued. "Would you rather waste the resources you could really use, just because you think the needs of anyone else are far more important than your men's or the women we just rescued?"

"I am a knight! Even while I still have my duty to fulfill my task, I have sworn to help my people by any means necessary! Something that a mercenary like you can't understand!" Henrietta snapped, grabbing Leo by his vest.

A soft hissed suddenly reached to her ears, and before she knew it, Henrietta felt something prodding in her neck. Looking down, her eyes widened as she saw Leo just drew the thin blade from the strange mechanism wearing under his wrist and aimed it to her throat. When she tried to draw her sword, he pressed the tip into her most vital area to stop her from doing a stupid act.

"M-Master!" Roxy gasped in shock.

Leo's glare grew intense as he glanced to his side to make sure no one was peeking from the outside. He turned back to Henrietta and remarked with a disdainful tone. "Let me give you a piece of my mind, Miss Knight. Unlike those blue-blooded pricks you and other knights serve, I need to eat and sleep under a roof! Did it occur to you that people like me can't have the same luxury because the nobles are too lazy to make a goddamn charity? No, of course you didn't. Because you think that just because I'm a sellsword, you can lecture me about what's right and what's wrong, like a parent scolding a brat. Well, hate to break it to you, but this world doesn't work that way. There's no time for meaningless things like pride and honor, only survival."

Those words left Henrietta speechless that she just felt like something snapped in her. She tried to convince herself that Leo was just trying to make an excuse for his recent action, even to question about the code she swore to uphold. If only she knew that this man was no different from any other bandit or mercenary, even an orc.

Suddenly, a hand gently clasped on Leo's shoulder, snapping him out of his anger before turning his head around and saw Roxy was standing behind him.

"Leo... Let her go, please." Roxy said quietly.

Leo was about to argue with her too, but the moment he saw the begging look in her eyes, he began to realize what he had done. Lowering his head down, he retracted the blade back into its place and took a step back as the knight released him. He raised his head to face the knight, as she was now giving him a resentful glare as she rubbed the spot he intended to stab her.

"Fine. Go ahead, take everything from that chest.. But you're not gonna get away with it easily. If I were you, I would just leave the kingdom before someone put a price on my head." Henrietta said bitterly before she stomped her way out of the hut.

An awkward silence filled in the air as Leo let out an exasperated sigh while looking down to the ground. Actually, he didn't regret being brutally honest to Henrietta, because someone had to speak up their mind about how this world was nothing like they pictured in the fairy tales.

"Leo..."

He raised his head to meet the concerned gaze from Roxy, which made him feel bad because she had to watch him lose his temper. "I'm fine... Let's hurry up before they leave us behind." Leo muttered before he went back to the chest and continued looting.

Roxy could tell he was lying, as she noticed he was in a bad mood after getting into an argument with the knight. "Leo, I don't blame you for standing up to her. We can just leave and find someone else who can hire us. With any luck, all that stuff we found here could help us last longer."

"No, we'll stick with them and we're going to Eos." Leo responded bluntly as he stored a health potion into one of his pockets.

"What?" Roxy said, stunned by his answer. Knowing him better, he would have agreed with the idea without any doubt.

"It's time I'm gonna get to the bottom of this." Leo added.

"What do you mean?" Roxy asked, very confused that she couldn't help but frown.

"Roxy, how long have we been doing nothing more than slaying monsters, fighting wars, and doing it all over and over again just to get some coins? All this time, I thought that this was gonna be like this for the rest of our lives. But the fact is, I was just lost, because I didn't have any answers, or anything that could help me understand what's the point of fighting to survive." Leo took a deep breath and turned to his beautiful companion. "Look, I know this sounds crazy, but that orc just told me something that I think has to do with what's going on in Eos. We've been wandering aimlessly for the past five years, and just today, I think I finally found a lead. Something that could give me an answer."

"About what?" Roxy inquired, even though she found herself hard to believe, or at least understand, everything he's saying.

"About why I was summoned to this world." Leo finished before shutting the chest.

TO BE CONTINUED...