Chapter 39 Storm’s end

Dozens of bandits broke and ran as the fight shifted in our favor. I dove into the backline of the bandits that were still holding the line and killed one with every swing as they couldn’t face me, otherwise risk the crowd they were containing, killing them. The town stunk of blood, it was hard to breathe with how much iron was in the air.

I cleaved away as my kill count continued to rise, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, all the way up to fifteen, before they all attempted to flee. Some were getting stabbed in the back as they broke ranks, and some stayed until the crowd overwhelmed them. I breathed hard as the bandit leader was the only one left. I was able to look over the battlefield now and see the casualties.

Only two of the adventurers' wives were dead. Most of our deaths were from the second fight, as Berry managed to keep almost everyone alive the first time, healers were an insane game changer, which went doubly for higher rank healers. There were four dead adventurers from the first wave and seven from the second; half of the combatants were dead.

Compared to the bandits, though… If I were to guess, I’d put it at about ten bandits slain for every one of ours. It was tragic. I knew there were more outside the village as well as more adventurers poured in from the dungeon, killing bandits as they fled. The bandit leader didn’t get a fair fight after his bandit army left. He was slowly whittled down with small injuries as no one could get a clean hit until the cowgirl beastkin cleaved into the gap I made, disabling his arm the same way he did to Leaf.

The bandit leader didn’t have a sudden last-minute Hail Mary he could play. He would have played it by now if he did, but the fact was, we shouldn’t have had any chance of winning this fight. If the bandits hadn’t screamed giving us time to prepare, if the gate had been broken through any sooner, if Leaf hadn’t killed so many before the fighting started, if the golem was built from the bottom up like I wanted instead of Delilah building the frame first, if we didn’t get a break in the middle of our fighting, if I couldn’t heal Leaf, if my stat boost wasn’t applied to Leaf…

All of those seemingly insignificant events added together didn’t look like much, but the sheer luck of all of them working out perfectly was what flipped the odds in our favor. Clive didn’t get any final speech where he declared his love for Berry, he didn’t get one last attempt to take someone down with him, he was just slowly whittled down to death, running out of stamina before health, as he fell to his knees before Leaf decapitated him.

…

The fallout of the bandit attack was great, but it was still better than what could have happened. They could have easily overwhelmed us, burning the village to the ground before the sheriff came back, plundering all the resources they could get their hands on while also taking the women to use as their playthings. Four houses were burned down, as well as a particularly heavy sleeper adventurer was killed in his bed.

Altogether, there were fifteen villager casualties, while there were a hundred and forty-five bandit casualties. We were still in the process of putting the fires out when Marcus came running back to the village, followed by most of the other adventurers over the next hour or so. The trip to the nearby city was a few hours, but Marcus could get it down to two hours both ways if he ran full speed, which he did.

Tems gave birth to a little boy and a girl. It took a lot to get her to put off naming them Tems’ Boy and Tems’ Girl, we’d have to put a pin in naming them for later. After everything that happened, my brain still struggled to click out of its fight-or-flight mode from the battle. Sitting down and holding one of the babies in my hands was the first time I finally relaxed after the bandit attack.

The damage to my farm was surprisingly not that bad. Out of everything said, I still had my home, most of my animals, and some of my crops. Some people lost everything, including their homes or loved ones. A single woman was left without either as they killed her husband and burned her home to the ground. Talks began on who would house her until they could rebuild, as my barn was put on the back burner until the houses could be remade.

My chicken coop was destroyed, but only a single chicken was killed. The ducks made out fine, but some went missing with no corpse. My golems were also fine; they managed to beat three of the bandits to death who tried to enter my home. Thankfully, I had my money on me, but one was injured and missing an arm. The cows trampled five men to death, anyone who thought they could just run passed them without pissing off the bull was mistaken, I still had to be careful around him, and I feed and water him and his wives.

The bees also killed someone, the bee box was knocked over, but by the time I got to setting them back up, they had mostly calmed down. Still, my farm managed to claim enough lives to make a difference before the fighting even started. That was nine fewer bandits we didn’t have to deal with. Out of all the deaths, Leaf had killed almost eighty by herself, while I took second place after I started butchering the bandits when they couldn’t defend themselves.

Most of my crops were trampled, but they might have died anyway from the frost if they didn’t produce before winter hit. I was surprisingly broke as well, if they’d have waited another week or so before they attacked, the cows and bees wouldn’t have been a problem, and I’d have gotten the second yield of my luxury bundles, which was going to be for about twice the amount I sold the first time(not including the specialty bundles).

If they did end up killing me, the traders would have taken my money for themselves once they saw I had no family for it to go to. Well, they could have sent it to a relative I didn’t know about, perhaps an aunt or uncle from my deceased parents, but it wouldn’t matter to me at that point. They hadn’t raised me, so I had no love or hate for any family members I had before I became an orphan.

I knew my parents were adventurers; they fell into the same trap that most adventurers fall into, going into a dungeon they weren’t prepared for and never coming back. Because of that, because both of my parents were adventurers, I was orphaned. I don’t know why I found the thought of adventuring so appealing, you’d think since it claimed both my parents, that I’d hate it… But I didn’t. It had an almost pull to it that I wanted to take part in, only now that I was more experienced, I did not care much for adventuring.

Leaf didn’t immediately move in, I’m not sure what we were to each other, but books were very important in her life, plus another person in our tiny home that had its renovations pushed back was probably a bad idea. All of my wives got to work helping the villagers rebuild before winter. We needed to get everyone housed before I worried about expanding my home and housing my animals for the winter.

As sad as the deaths were, everyone just moved on. I had seen it before, people were just more accustomed to death than me. I felt that sense of displacement as everyone got back to work like it was normal. The village trader was happily selling wares in the town center the next day, with the guard I thought was a homeless man nearby.

The mayor spoke of the tragedy as something that couldn’t be avoided… But it could have. Everyone just glossed over the fact that it was kind of his fault we were targeted. He was too powerful and had done far too much for the village for them to hold it against him. Everyone pretended like we didn’t just fight for our lives the day before.