Chapter 18 Ruins, Hopes and Ruined Hopes

"N-No way..."

Eina muttered in disbelief as she looked ahead from far away as she uses her [Far Sight].

"Eh? What happened?" Mari asked.

"S-Something's not good! I-I see smoke from a distance..Moreover, I think it's in Arteim!" Eina screamed.

"What?!" Captain Rasheed, who is sleeping woke up due to Eina's scream. He heard the information from her, and ordered the soldiers driving the carriages.

"Let's move faster! We have to go back before it's too late!"

The carriages rattled as the horses pulling them ran faster.

They reached the capital three hours before sunset. The surroundings was peaceful when they got off from the carriages, something that they found too unpleasant to observe in a city such as Arteim.

"T-This...is a joke, isn't it? Right?"

"No way..."

"Impossible...this is absurd!"

"How did this happen..."

The students voiced their shock and surprise by the sight of the present condition of Arteim.

The scene in front of their eyes is of course, unthinkable to them.

The whole castle's now turned into ruins, with smoke still rising from it. Countless mountains of corpses pile everywhere they look. The ground is also stained by the color of blood. Most of all, the most shocking for them is the sight of countless soldiers impaled by spikes made of earth.

The once-beautiful and remarkable capital of the Kingdom of Arandel...became ruins in just a short period of time. A ghost town, if they were to describe it.

Each of them covered their mouths and eyes in shock.

"This uniform...the general!"

Iza shouted when she saw the red uniform among the pile of corpses.

"N-Noooo...who did this to them?" Iza cried as she averted her eyes away from the dead people piled up in front of her. Even her nose twitched against the revolting smell that started to accumulate all over the area.

Little did she know, the one responsible for the destruction of the capital was the one who owned that red uniform.

"R-Ren! Where's Ren?! Where's Ren?!"

Karen screamed as she search for Ren among the impaled corpses.

"No way...we left him behind, s-something might happened to him!"

Mari said while fighting back her urge to vomit. The other girls too, felt sickened so much that some of them already suffered headaches and emotional turmoil. Rin, on the other hand, just fell silent as she looked at the tragic scene in front of her. She just gripped her sword hanging on her waist while looking at the ground as if in a prayer.

"Everyone, look for him everywhere! E-Even if...even if he's killed, we must find even his corpse to give him at least a proper burial!"

Mari instructed the class to search for Ren as while hiding her fear and grief under her serious demeanor. She wanted to vomit when she saw the gruesome images, but she had to play the role of a leader for this class.

"""U-Understood...""" The whole class answered hesitantly.

And so the whole class searched among the impaled victims, as well as on the pile of corpses around. They also looked for any signs of surviving soldiers, and the members of the so-called [Cannon Fodder] to which Ren was indebted to.

"Have you found him?" Kai asked his classmates.

"No. Not here." Ivan replied.

"Even here." James also replied.

As anxiety began to dwell in their hearts, fatigue slowly sapped their stamina at the same time.

"We won't stop until we found any signs of him. Keep searching!" Kai shouted as he ordered his classmates.

His classmates followed him, even though they're too tired to continue.

Searching through thousands of corpses, both of human and demonkin, they finally found some members of the [Cannon Fodder], but they retreated immediately upon knowing their horrible fate in the hands of an enemy they considered a friend.

"Let the girls rest for now. This is too much for them to bear." Kai reminded everyone. No one from the boys protested, even though they also share the same dilemma as with the girls. Everyone from the boys' camp just kept on their search-and-rescue operation.

Meanwhile the girls that already took a break got divided into two groups.

The first one, the girls brave enough to look at the corpses even for just one second, are the ones responsible for their dinner and the arrangement of their campsite. As Rin gathered firewood to use for the bonfire, Mari and Iza both helped in the cooking of their food and the supervision of the search operation, all under the assistance of Captain Rasheed.

The second group, silently prayed and cried for the souls of those fallen by the unexpected attack. No one from this group dared to look back at the ground zero, as they all decided to stay at a place where there are full of trees and other obstructions that could block the corpses from their sight.

All girls has started resting, except for one.

"Lord, help me find him...I still believe that he's alive. Lord, please..."

Tears stream down her cheek as she searched and searched the corpses along with his male classmates.

"K-Karen...it's okay, you should rest for now, the boys will continue searching for him until nighttime." Kai spoke to her as gentle as possible.

She didn't care at all even if her dress is stained with the blood of the dead, or the stench of rotting flesh. Her hands desperately touched every dead body she found, just to make sure her classmate is not one of them.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry for leaving you behind...Ren, I'm sorry."

She bit her lip as more tears run down from her eyes. She said countless apologies to the one she left behind, but none of them reached its destination.

"Karen..." The boys looked at her with eyes of worry.

They never realized that a girl like her would be greatly devastated by the apparent loss of their classmate. They too were feeling troubled and guilty at the same time, but not at the same level as her.

For this girl who kept on searching for that young man whom they left behind, the boys also exerted effort to find him.

After a while, she found a familiar object on the ground at a distance.

"N-No..."

She rushed to see whether her assumptions were correct, and when she saw it up close...

"Ren...No way...This can't be, this can't be..."

She fell on her knees to the ground while looking at the object on the ground.

In front of her was, the handkerchief she gave to Ren before they left, covered in blood, the same color as the sun that is currently giving off its last streaks of light for that day.

She frantically grabbed the handkerchief and held it with her hands on her chest.

"U-Uuuuuuuu...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

With a heart overcome with sorrow, she screamed with all the pain she had. Tears flowed a steady river on her cheeks, as she knelt down to pray for her lost classmate.

"""Karen!!!"""

From afar, Kai and the other boys who are also helping to find Ren found Karen who is currently kneeling on the ground. Even the girls who are already resting got startled by her scream and rushed to see her.

"Karen...let's go back. Everyone's worried!" Mari said.

A few seconds later, Karen fell silent while bowing her head down.

"..."

Karen didn't move even an inch, or let out a word from her mouth. She still kept the handkerchief in her hands while being silent.

"We tried our best, but we still can't find even his clothes..."

"..."

Karen still didn't said a word.

"Karen...it's getting dark. We should go back and take a rest, okay?" Mari continued to persuade Karen to go back to the camp.

After a while, Karen raised her head a little

"...If you exerted more effort...we can still find him." Karen said lifelessly, her gaze fixed on the ground below even though her head stood straight.

"Karen, it's too late...he's dead already, okay? He's dead, and we can't do anything about it! Please, Karen..." Mari said strongly as she began to cry, pleading her to rest for the night.

At that moment Karen's expression turned into rising temper.

"No...Noooooo!!! You're lying! He's alive, he's still alive! I believed in him, and he believed in me...that's why, I still believe he's alive!"

The whole class, shocked to see the person whom they never imagined to show her temperament even through the hardest of times, finally released the disappointment that is being caged in her heart for her classmates.

"Can't do anything about it? Can't do anything about it?! I should've stayed here when I knew that he will be left behind! I should've stayed at his side when I knew this would happen! I can help him if I wanted to! Then, you'll tell me that you can't do anything about it? What kind of classmates are you?!"

"Karen..." Iza said in worry. She tried to reach out her hand to her, but Karen slapped it away.

"I realized it long ago, that most of you are taking his presence only for granted. However! However that's not enough of a reason for everyone to neglect him especially during times like this! Does anyone here have some conscience in your hearts? How could you say such thing if you haven't even looked everywhere? What happened to my ever-motivated classmates?!"

The other girls fell silent while also feeling worried for her. Rin only clenched her fists and gritted her teeth as she think of her childhood friend.

"He didn't deserved to be left behind because he doesn't have any abilities that we have...He didn't deserved to be mocked at because he's weak! He didn't deserved to experience all of this!"

"Rin..." Mari said to the girl standing behind Karen.

Rin approached Karen silently from the back, and struck the back of her neck with her hand to calm her down.

"K-Khaaa--?!" Karen gasped her breath upon receiving the blow Rin made on her neck.

"...I'm sorry, Karen." Rin apologized to her.

Karen twitched for a moment before starting to lose consciousness due to the blow.

The other girls immediately carried her back to the carriages.

"R-Ren...I'm...sorry..."

Karen said without strength as her hopes and consciousness began to fade.