BXBX NOVEL Chapter 134: Horrible woman
"Garnt, are you sure this is not a trap?" Rona asked, and Garnt looked at her with a face that showed he considered all of the possibilities.
"It might be a trap, but it is also a clue. I\'m not stupid enough to believe everything without taking the required steps to protect ourselves,"
Rona wanted to say that wasn\'t what she meant, but Garnt just looked at her with a knowing look.
"I know you worry about it, but don\'t worry. This time no one will be able to betray us, or the people that already betrayed us won\'t see the sunlight."
Rona smiled at his words uncomfortably, not because she didn\'t like them, but just remembering Amel, her blood was boiling beyond her expectations.
But then Kara came running in Garnt\'s direction with a huge smile on her face. She looked as if she had the happiest news, and Garnt\'s guess wasn\'t too far off, as she told him the thing he had been waiting to hear.
"Garnt! Our hunters manage to catch that woman. Our traps worked perfectly." Rona quickly took her sword and knew it was her time to help.
"Is she trying to escape? If she is hard to keep, we can kill her." Rona muttered, but Kara just shook her head showing that wasn\'t the case at all.
"Noo! She is heavily wounded and most of her wounds are worse than we expected. If we left her in the forest for a few more days, she would die without anyone knowing, so she doesn\'t even have the power to struggle anymore."
Garnt quickly took his own weapons and looked at the girls asking them to follow him.
Garnt and the others quickly made their way to the location where they had captured the mysterious woman. As they approached, they could see a group of hunters surrounding her, ensuring she couldn\'t make any sudden moves. The woman lay on the ground, bound with ropes that restricted her movement.
"So, this is the woman! Because of how annoying she was, we couldn\'t take a closer look, but now that I look at her, she is definitely human," Unami said, looking at the lifeless-looking woman.
Garnt also took a closer look at the woman, studying her features. Despite the dirt and blood that covered her body, he could still discern some distinctive traits. Her silver, long hair sprawled around her, and her muscular physique suggested strength and resilience. She appeared lifeless, her eyes closed, and her breathing shallow.
"She is much more muscular than Rona; to be honest, I think she is even more muscular than Garnt. She must be a really good fighter to have a body like this, but why is she like this?"
Eva was watching all these events with cautious eyes. Garnt then turned to her, his expression questioning. Eva\'s silence indicated that she had some information about the captured woman.
"Do you know who she is?" Garnt asked in a hushed tone, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention.
Eva coughed a few times before cautiously responding,
[I don\'t whether my guess is true, but I can tell that she must have been given some kind of a drug to become like this. Maybe Amel found something that can enhance the performance.]
Garnt furrowed his brows, deep in thought. The revelation only fueled his curiosity about the woman lying before him. He couldn\'t help but wonder why Eva was speaking as if she were guilty of something, yet he also didn\'t want to force her to talk about it.
"Eva, I believe that you will tell me everything. I don\'t care if it is good or bad, I want to know everything. I might be selfish, but you\'re the one who told me to be selfish. I will wait, but if your mistake gets me killed-" He didn\'t continue with his sentence, instead he just allowed Eva to complete it.
[...]
She was out of words and didn\'t reply. In the meantime, Garnt\'s attention went back to the wild woman.
"Keep an eye on her," Garnt instructed the hunters. "Tie her securely, and don\'t let your guard down. We need to find out why she targeted us. Use the new iron cuffs we made."
The hunters nodded in acknowledgement, taking their positions around the captive woman. Garnt continued to watch her, his mind racing with questions. He pondered whether this woman acted alone or if there were others like her. The threat of dinosaurs lingered, but now there was another puzzle to solve.
"Amel, what are you up to? What do you and Eva know that I don\'t?"
With a determined expression, Garnt turned to Rona, Unami, and Kara. "We need to get to the bottom of this. Rona, keep an eye on the village. Unami, gather any information you can from the captured woman. Kara, assist the hunters in securing the perimeter."
The group dispersed, each tasked with a specific role. As Garnt kept a watchful eye on the enigmatic woman, he couldn\'t shake the feeling that this encounter would reveal more about the dangers they faced in the unforgiving wilderness.
But suddenly, his vision vanished, and it went back to Eva\'s mind, where Garnt would normally be able to witness her memories without physically being there.
[This is the truth. Truth about the drug that Amel must have used to enhance the performance of that woman. This will be a hard watch, but you should witness how horrible of a woman I am.]
When Garnt opened his eyes after hearing those words, he was greeted with the unfamiliar image of a ground that was filled with blood, and sounds that even caused him to cover his ears, despite not physically being there.
[2014 was the year I became an intern for a professor who acted as a director of the medical corps of our national army. I served there under his teaching for a few years, where I witnessed the worst part of humanity.]
The memories that Garnt saw were the ones Eva didn\'t want to revisit, but she had to explain everything to the boy who was relying on her, the one who had helped her become more human than she already was.
The battlefield stretched out before Eva and Garnt like a high-quality film, the air thick with the stench of death and the distant echoes of gunfire. Garnt\'s eyes widened as he took in the horrific scene, his stomach churning at the sight of wounded soldiers and the chaos of war, not because he hadn\'t seen a battle but because he had never seen something of this scale.
[You have only seen the positive side of technological development, right? Witness, this is how people in my timeline battle. These loud weapons are called guns. And those flying birds are aeroplanes that could easily wipe out hundreds of men. I can\'t explain any of these any further because the system prevents me from doing it but, with the future you\'re going to create these types of wars that will obviously happen.]
Eva, her gaze fixed on the memories playing out before them, began to speak with a heavy heart.
[War, Garnt, is a monstrous beast that devours everything in its path. It\'s not just about battles and strategies; it\'s about the cost, the sacrifice, and the unspeakable atrocities that stain the very essence of humanity also it brings development.]
As the memories unfolded, Garnt witnessed the brutality of conflict, scenes of destruction, and the toll it took on both the living and the dead. Eva\'s voice trembled with emotion as she continued,
[I worked in the medical corps, trying to mend the broken bodies and shattered spirits. But sometimes, the wounds inflicted went beyond the physical. The drug you saw, it\'s a twisted creation born out of desperation and cruelty that we were going through. I was on the team that created that drug.]
In the memories, Eva moved through makeshift hospitals, attending to soldiers whose eyes reflected the trauma they had witnessed. She spoke with a hollow tone,
[This drug was meant to enhance performance, to turn soldiers into relentless machines. But it came at a price, a cost too high for any supposed gain. It robbed them of their humanity, turning them into something monstrous. They became strong, but they also lost their control.]
Garnt\'s face turned pale as he saw the effects of the drug on the soldiers. Their eyes, once filled with life, were now vacant, devoid of any trace of humanity. The scenes played out like a nightmare, and Eva\'s words cut through the air like a chilling wind.
[This is the reality, Garnt. This is what I wanted to shield you from, but you need to understand. We wanted to create something better, something to counteract the darkness we witnessed. But it\'s a thin line.]
As the memories unfolded, Garnt felt a surge of empathy and horror. He wanted to look away, to escape the nightmare laid bare before him, but he forced himself to endure. Eva, with tears in her eyes, concluded,
[I carry this burden with me, and it\'s why I strive to protect others from experiencing the same hell. It\'s a battle within myself, one that I fight every day. I just...I just didn\'t want you to see that side of me anymore.]