Housekeeping Mage from Another World: Making Your Adventures Feel Like Home! Volume 8 [Complete] by You Fuguruma

Author:You Fuguruma
Language: eng
Format: epub

5

Did the others get away safely? Did they escape the reach of the avalanche?

Through the haze of what vision he had left, Nikolaus Linne gripped his partner Adrian’s ice-cold hand. His thoughts wandered. Nikolaus and Adrian had spent many long years as widows and were nearing their seventies. But unlike them, the younger hunters had families waiting for their return. One even had a child no older than five. Nikolaus would not be able to forgive himself if he failed to see them home safely.

I’ve gotten old and senile. Oh, how I wish I was still young...

Nikolaus and Adrian had been hunters for well over fifty years. The two had been the pride of their village, and Nikolaus would have been lying if he said he hadn’t felt some pride in that fact. And while he could blame his age to some extent, the truth of the matter was that he’d made a mistake.

“We done mucked up...” Adrian had muttered. “And this time, we done paid for it...”

He’d told Nikolaus that he’d be leaving a touch early to be with his wife, and then he’d stopped talking completely. He’d left with a smile, but if they’d not made their mistake, Nikolaus knew that Adrian—who was a few years younger—would have still had a few more years in him.

The catastrophe had all been due to a lapse in judgment. There had been signs that something wasn’t right. They’d felt it when they’d seen the state of the livestock pen, and if they hadn’t ignored that gnawing feeling, none of them would have been put in such danger. That was exactly why Nikolaus and Adrian had offered themselves to the monsters as bait—to allow their fellow hunters a chance to escape.

They had been lucky that the monsters were nocturnal. Or perhaps the beasts had already eaten their fill not so long ago. Perhaps that was why they’d been satisfied just taking Adrian’s arm and Nikolaus’s leg. The monsters had taken their “snacks” to the trees, through which lay their nest.

Nikolaus did not expect the monsters to return before sundown, but even then, fleeing was no longer an option. He’d lost a leg and a lot of blood along with it, and standing up was completely out of the question. He could no longer feel most of his body, and his eyesight was rapidly fading. The end was just a matter of time.

And yet, Nikolaus did not rue his last actions. The other hunters were young enough to be his sons or even grandsons, so if he had any regrets at all, they lay in the fact that he would not be able to see and ensure that they were all safe and sound. That, and he wished he’d been able to see his granddaughter grow up to be somebody’s bride.

What a joy it would’ve been to hold a great-grandchild in these arms... Alas, it is what it is...

Nikolaus let a wry grin spread across his lips. In the end, he had failed as a leader, and he had not been able to right the ship by his own hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.