...
Now that he had regained most of his combat instincts and he was no longer unarmed, Gaston felt a lot more confident about his current situation.
After a few hours of walking, Gaston finally saw the human village he had set out to reach.
The sight in front of him was both expected and unexpected. The primitive looking houses that were made out of wood resembled the buildings that he had seen in Vikings documentaries.
From the structure down to the design, they were eerily identical looking.
What did cause him to raise an eyebrow however, was the more than 10 feet high wooden walls, that were made out of thick wooden logs that managed to surround the entire settlement, including their farms.
Even if the material the wall was built out of left a lot to be desired, Gaston couldn't help but think that maybe due to their location, building it out of wood was quite the sensible choice.
Maybe they could have a more durable wall if they used a different choice of material, but only a wooden wall could be built to cover their entire settlement. A lot of things might be missing in this forest, but quality wood was an almost inexhaustible resource, that they did quite well in using.
The sheer size of it, just how long the wall stretched and how much ground it covered was an impressive sight to behold, one that even Gaston couldn't help but take a second look at.
Beside him however, someone else who was already used to the sight and took it for granted, had a different experience after arriving.
The little girl, Erni, did end up finding the strength to get a hold of herself and go with Gaston. Whether it was for her own survival, or because she had been convinced by him that she needed to do this in order to give her mother peace, was still unknown.
Gaston didn't particularly care about it either way. Regardless of what it was that drove her, once she led him here her value was half exhausted. The only thing he needed her to do now was to tell the people inside the truth of what happened, which he was sure would result in him getting a place to spend the night, at the very least.
After all, their trip back to this village hadn't gone as smoothly as one would've hoped.
Gaston was confident that if he was alone, and the only thing he needed to do was reach this place, then he would be completely fine. This was not the case however.
With one arm still injured, and the other having to carry the dead body of Erni's mother, it was impossible for him to cover up his tracks entirely. Especially because he had to travel alongside Erni herself as well.
He tried to teach her how to get rid of her tracks to the best of his ability, but since he had to do it in a rushed manner and she didn't have enough time to absorb the information and put it into practice, whilst it was better than nothing, she understandably didn't do a stellar job.
Not that it mattered too much, because the smell of the corpse he was carrying was just as much of a giveaway as the traces that Erni left behind.
Thankfully for their chances of survival however, as a local that grow up here, Erni's knowledge of the nearby terrain proved to be quite useful, saving them a lot of time and trouble.
That, alongside with the fact that they only had to travel a few hours to reach their destination, resulted in them managing to avoid running into the main reinforcements of the Blue Apes.
Not completely however, as they did encounter another pair of them that were hot on their trail.
Where as before, just two Blue Apes had managed to completely wipe out Erni's little settlement party, this time, even just one human proved to be too much for them.
After all, not all humans were the same, this was true back on Earth, on the Poisoned Continent, and now here too.
Once Gaston discovered the approaching pair of Blue Ape's, he quickly formulated a simple trap for them, by placing little Erni on the branch of a tree more than 15 feet away from the ground.
Because of the fact that Blue Apes were more sensitive to magic energy than they were to their natural senses, Gaston was afraid that they'd miss her entirely and pass right on by. Or worse still, discover him instead of her.
In order to prevent that from happening, Gaston spent quite a bit of time in instructing Erni on what to do when she saw them, until he was sure that she wouldn't simply freeze up when the moment arrived.
Well, in truth, whilst he was still not convinced that that wouldn't happen, he had done his best. Thankfully for him, when the decisive moment arrived, the little one had lived up to his trust.
As soon as the pair of magic creatures appeared within Erni's sight, she let out a scared little whimper that even Gaston could barely hear.
If he could barely hear however, the Blue Apes were sure to have heard. After all, perhaps their natural senses aren't as sharp as that of most magical creatures, but they were definitely still sharper than those of humans.
The two of them immediately stopped their movements after registering the sound in their mind, and sharply turned their heads towards Erni.
That was more than a big enough window of opportunity for Gaston.
Immediately after they turned their heads in the opposite direction of where he was, Gaston, who was only 12 feet away from the two, immediately sprung into action.
Throwing his mysterious magical knife at one of them, he accurately hit the back of it's head. The blade of the knife penetrated it's skull and reached it's brain, killing it instantly.
Gaston did not stop here however. Getting rid of one of his targets in one strike brought him no joy, instead, he focused on lifting his spear and taking aim at the second and last Blue Ape, with the goal of ending this as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't have enough time to throw his spear at the other one before it reacted to the sudden ambush from behind.
Even if he couldn't handle the two of them from a distance however, now that he had a weapon of his own that he was extremely proficient in, even if the spear was not exactly a high quality one, he had no trouble using it to deal with an isolated Blue Ape.