Enigma of Sin

Kayn had to spend until sunrise explaining things in depth to the couple before they finally retreated to their own bed to digest all of the things he had told them.

Kayn himself fell asleep next to Lara right after they asked for time to think about things. He was both physically and mentally exhausted, healing his head and back could wait until he was less droopy.

Est and Horace had troubles trying to get any sleep after what they learned about the boy and his sister they had taken in recently. They still didn't fully believe him, but if what he told them was true, they almost felt more touched than before.

A being as powerful as Kayn could have just killed them or forced them to do whatever he wanted of them, but Kayn didn't and he even performed menial tasks around their house and farm.

If one had asked any other 3rd stage mage to do something like cleaning the horse stable, they would probably have been assaulted or similar for looking down on their power. But Kayn just did whatever they asked and would often offer to do more.

He healed their farm animals for goodness' sake! Not to mention would always take care of their injuries free of charge.

As they still couldn't fall asleep, the couple decided to get breakfast and take a look around town with Titus while checking on their belongings. When they arrived at the area serving food for the villagers and refugees, there was only one thing being talked about.

"Hey, did you hear what that scout reported yesterday? Apparently, there was a dragon! A real dragon! It annihilated the beast tide by itself!"

"They say that its majestic wings gave it away and it was raining down fire on the beasts like an apocalyptic waterfall!"

"Though I did hear that they estimated it hadn't developed fully and was a juvenile. From estimations of what is spreading around, the dragon was probably less than 100 with a 4th or 5th stage core since it didn't straight out kill the entire horde in one breath!"

"A real dragon! I wish I could meet it! I wonder if it's the type that lives in seclusion and just sleeps most of the time?"

"What if it's having a growth spurt and wants to test its prowess? What will we do if it attacks us?!"

Est and Horace ate their food in a daze as they listened in on the rumors being spread around by the villagers and refugees. They glanced at each other after finishing their food and simultaneously nodded, they needed to alert Kayn of the rumors spreading around when he woke up.

…

On the other hand, the captain and his platoon finally arrived at the battlefield. Everywhere they looked corpses and blood littered the ground. In some areas the ground was scorched black from fire and in others pools of blood were gathering as the corpses leaked more and more blood.

The captain had no words. No, he tried to speak, but he couldn't. He had lived for over 300 years and had never seen anything remotely close to the gore and carnage of the scene in front of him. Some of the corpses weren't even really a body anymore. Instead, they were just blown-up bits of flesh and organs spread around the battlefield.

The vice-captain of the squad suddenly shouted out, "Captain! There's a core stone over there!"

'What?' the captain snapped out of his daze with that thought. And upon a second look, he noticed several glittering stones muddled throughout the battlefield, mixed into the organs and blood that were strewn about.

"What do we do captain? Do we collect them or leave them in case whatever killed all of these beasts comes back?" The vice-captain asked because as tempting as it would be to take all of the core stones, they didn't want to bring about the wrath of whatever made the mess in the first place.

"Make camp, we wait here for a day, if it doesn't return to claim the spoils by then we will collect them ourselves and use them for the good of the Great Forest!" The captain was resolute, he would wait to see if the supposed dragon showed up to take what it earned. If not, he would collect everything and use it to help out all of the Great Forest.

While it would be great to keep all of the core stones and pass them off to those that helped protect the nearby villages, hoarding the hundreds if not thousands of core stones to themselves would be too greedy.

Not to mention that they had no use for that many between the a little over a hundred people. Thus, he would spread them across the Great Forest to help strengthen their overall forces.

…

A single day passed quickly with whatever it was not coming back, the platoon spent half a day collecting all of the core stones they could find while wading through the blood and guts, even opening up corpses that looked mostly intact to see if they had one.

They left the scene shortly after as they would need to contact other collection teams to gather any usable materials from all of these beasts before their smell got too bad and attracted beasts from outside the range of the tide.

A day and a half after Kayn went to sleep, the platoon arrived back at the village covered in blood. The villagers were initially all worried that the rumors were wrong and their subjugation squad had a vicious battle, but the captain quickly cleared their doubts.

"A miracle has happened here. Something or someone stepped in to confront the horde and slaughtered every single beast. While we are not positive about what could have performed such an act, initial assessments corroborate with a being that can use massive amounts of fire as well as having claws.

"Taxes will be exempt from this region for the next few years as whatever felled the beasts left behind all of the core stones and materials. These will be used to strengthen our Great Forest and give back to our people! I am officially declaring the end of the beast tide! You may all return home."

…

Est and Horace once again entered their room assuming Kayn would still be asleep, but he was surprisingly awake and even sitting in a lotus position on top of the bed.

Horace was the first to speak, "So kid, you really did eliminate the beast tide huh? The entire village even thinks there's a dragon somewhere in this area now you know?"

Kayn opened his eyes and looked at the couple before returning the gentle smile they were giving to him. "Why would I lie to you two? You're the closest thing Lara and I have to family now. If I can do something to protect your happiness, why would I not try?"

Est ran forward and threw her arms around Kayn's still sore body. "You silly child! You have no idea how much you worried us coming back so late and all bloodied, then you started talking what we thought was nonsense.

"As you said, we're family, please tell us before doing crazy things again in the future, we are here for you! Even if we don't fully understand everything, we can at least do our best to support you."

Est began sobbing while holding onto Kayn tightly. She made sure to avoid his upper back though, so the discomfort for Kayn was minimal. He returned her hug as Horace walked up and placed his hand on Kayn's shoulder while grinning, "What she said."

Thus, a few hours later they starting making their way back to the farm. All of the sudden during their journey Horace exclaimed, "Ah! Hey Kayn, since you killed the beasts in the tide, why did you leave all those core stones behind? From what I've heard they are quite valuable and can be useful to mages or for money."

"Haha Uncle Horace, I don't need them. To be honest, I could care less about the money and I have little to no need of them to evolve my core. Plus, I didn't have enough time, so I just left everything there. In addition, I'm pretty sure I destroyed the more valuable core from the A-class beast anyway." Kayn replied while lightly chuckling.

"What!? An A-class? What was it?" Est was the one to reply to Kayn this time.

"Hmm some kind of massive gorilla. It used earth elemental magic, mainly to enhance its body's durability or enhance the cutting ability of its nails. As for color, it was mostly different shades of grey."

Est knew a little bit more about the beasts in this region of the forest and couldn't help but try and keep her face from twitching. "That description matches the Stone Mountain Behemoth Ape. How in the world did you defeat something like that? From what I've heard, when they exit their home territory they are close to becoming S-class rune beasts."

"I mean, I almost died and would have if I didn't have a few tricks up my sleeve. But that bast-ahem, troublemaker, ripped off my wings and ate them in front of me." Kayn stopped his swearing in the middle of his sentence as both Lara and Titus were awake and he didn't want them picking up any bad speech habits from him.

"Anyways, I'll probably spend the next week or so trying to regrow my wings, and as there is no spell that I know of for my situation, I'll need to try a few things. Hence why it might take a week or two.

"After that though, I plan on finally leaving with Lara to head to Palatine in the Mancean Empire. As much as I would love to just stay here with you two and Titus, I have some business there and hopefully I can find some answers to my family's murders."