While the Children Sleep - Short Story Collection (Complete)

Sebastian

'What a tiring journey...' Sebastian thought as he entered the nearest pub. He had spent the last few weeks journeying to a small village on the border of the kingdom to slay a large group of Orcs. From the reports they were killing off all the males and taking the females captive. No need to guess what was happening to them though it's safe to assume it wasn't something you wanted repeated. Why did he have to go on this journey you ask? Well you see Sebastion is a Valhalla Knight, so he works directly under the king. At that the king kings the Knights various missions that they need to complete. Should a citizen ask for some help while a Knight is on a journey? It's their job to complete the task as quickly and efficiently as possible, then return to their mission assigned to them by the king. Though they don't stop for every task, just the one's that are life threatening (like someone going into the woods and they haven't returned in several days). Stuff like that. Anyways Sebastian was making his way back to the kingdom and stopped at a pub in the town he was passing through.
"What'll you have sir?" The bartender ask.
"You're strongest booze," He replies with a grin. Sebastian always did like a good cup of booze.
The bartender nods, "Right away sir." The man disappears behind the back then returns with large barrel. A broad grin emerged on Sebastian's face as he watched the bartender pour the booze in a large cup aaaall the way to the top. Once the cup was filled up the bartender set it before him, "Enjoy."
"Oh I will!" Sebastian replies while picking up the cup. Alright now to take a nice big sip an- Screams of terror interrupted his drinking time. He sighs, hoping it was something minor cause he was really looking for this drink. Sebastian points at the cup, "I'll be back so don't you dare go anywhere!" Sebastian wasn't expecting a response, so he runs out the door as droves of people ran past him, clearly terrified of something. He grabs a man that was running past him, "What's going on?"
"H-Husk! There's a Husk back there!!" The man was terrified for a good reasons. Husk are creatures of mystery because they arrive at the randomest places. Then no one gets the chances to thoroughly study one simply because a Husk tends to kill EVERYONE in that area. The one's that are lucky enough to survive are usually too petrified by fear to talk to much about their encounter. Sebastian frowned, not really knowing what to expect since he couldn't find much information on them. There's a grand library in the palace, but even those great halls lacked information on this beast.
'W-Wait!"
Sebastian looked at the man with a raised eyebrow. If this man was about to tell him not to fight the Husk he was going to be wasting his breath. That's usually what happens since most people don't recognize him as a Valhalla Knight until he opens his mouth. To his surprise the man actually starts frantically looking around the crowd.
"M-My son! W-Where's my son?!"
"Your son?"
The man stops his frantic searching and looks at Sebastian, his eyes practically begging for help.
"Don't worry sir I'll go save your son."
The man couldn't even respond he was so busy crying. Meanwhile Sebastian was sprinting through the crowd to get to the Husk. Luckily for him as he was running the crowd thinned out making it easier for him to run. Another lucky thing to happen was the fact that the boy wasn't dead yet. That was a plus. With no time to slip off his eyepatch Sebastian rushed the monster, drawing Murumasa in the process. The Husk was an odd looking blob creature with no eyes, but had arms and a spinning mouth. Not spinning as in moving all over the body, but more like it stayed in one spot on the blob and the teeth could be seen rotating in a slow circle. Suddenly two arms sprouted out from the blob, heading straight for the little boy. Correction the arms just grabbed the boy and had hoisted him into the air.
"Aaaand that's as far as you're going," Sebastian says casually before slicing off both arms with Murumasa. Even though the Husk had the appearance of your typical blob monster Sebastian was unsure whether it was a spirit or just a blob monster. Which is why he pulled out Murumasa because Murumasa can harm monsters and spirits. The only drawback was the fact that Murumasa has yet to fully accept Sebastian as its owner. Don't worry it's slowly warming up to him.
The kid plops to the ground and, like a complete idiot, just sits there. The Husk makes a low hissing sound in response to getting its arms cut off.
"Looks like someone isn't happy," Sebastian uses this brief pause to take off his eyepatch. If this creature was as tough as the rumors say it is, then the Eye of Horus was his best chance of success. Especially since it'll slow time to a crawl whenever an attack gets way too close. That's extremely useful. Sebastian doesn't turn to look at the kid, "If I were you I'd run. You're father is waiting on you. Plus if you stay you'll only get in my way."
"T-The creature will k-k-k-kill you!" The boy stutters.
"Look I'll be-" Sebastian got cut off as the Husk causes more arms to appear and fly towards them both. He wastes no time chopping them to pieces at a high speed, "-be fine. Man what a rude monster." The Husk roars in what's most likely anger. Sebastian draws his other blade, Retribution. He nevers leaves without these two blades because he knows that both will help keep him alive. The Husk makes some strange gurgling sound just as ten times the amount of arms burst forth from it's body. NOW the kid choice to run. Smart choice because now Sebastian has one less thing to worry about.
Sebastian smirks, "If all you're going to do is create arms then this'll be a piece of-" Suddenly all color around him is replaced by varying forms of blue. Right in front of his face was a claw. When it got there he has no idea. All Sebastian knows is that if he didn't have the Eye of Horus this moment would've ended differently. He moves his head out of harms way just as time resumed its normal flow. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Sebastian refused to die here. He's survived years as a Knight, faced perilles odds against creatures stronger than him, and he'll be damned if he dies because of some dumb glob blob monster that has arm claws for weapons. Nothing left to do but use his ring Glacia to transform into his cursed armor. Unless you saw it in person one would think the strength this armor possessed was fake. What type of armor allows for the user to be invunerable to basically any attack or spell that you throw at them? The armor provided by the ring Glacia.
"By order of the Valhalla Knights I now have to terminate you," Sebastian says seriously. That's how know you're screwed because very rarely will you see Sebastian get serious. The Husk roared loudly, accepting the challenge placed before it, but unaware that it was about to die. Sebastian causally approached the Husk as it launched more knife hands at him. Those knife hands didn't even scratch him. They just bounced harmlessly off of him. That confused the Husk. That throughly confused the Husk, who just launched more and more attacks thinking that would solve everything. But it wouldn't. Every attack bounced off and eventually Sebastian was standing directly in front of the Husk getting hit from all sides. Was he worried? Not in the slightest.
"You done yet?" He asks while he was still getting hit, "Caaaaause I got some ale waiting for me and you're more of a small fry monster than I thought you would be." The Husk didn't cease its assault.
"Alright have it your way." In the midst of all the attacks Sebastian swings both Retribution and Murumasa simultaneously, cutting right through the Husk's mid section (if you could call it that). Then he precceded to chop the Husk up into even smaller pieces until he saw what he was looking for: the Husk's core. It was a small brown sphere that could easily be missed by an untrained eye. Sebastian wasn't untrained though, so the second he spotted the sphere he knew to destroy it, and boy that was a sight to see. The Husk had attempted to regenerate itself and put itself back together, but Sebastian wasn't going to let that happen. So he reaches in, grabs the sphere, and pulls it free. The Husk, and all of it's blobness, splatters onto the ground. Sebastian watches it tries to crawl over to him, but gets bored of watching so he crushes the sphere in his hand. It became a fine powdery dust by the time he's through with it, which in turn killed the Husk. Its remains spontaneously combusted leaving nothing behind but ashes. That actually was kinda cool to watch... Now back to the important matter! Aka BOOZE!!
He journey's back to the bar and on his way there the father stops him to tell him thank you. And something about being eternally indebted to him. He even offered to be his servant, but Sebastian humbly declined. While he was happy that the son was alive and no one got brutally murdered Sebastian was ready to drink. That tall cup of booze was calling his name, so the moment he got free from the father Sebastian kicks open the doors of the bar. Right where he left it was the cup of booze. From where he was standing it looked magnificent. It even smelled great! Time for the big moment!
Sebastian gingerly picks up the cup, not wanting to spill a single drop of what he thinks will be some amazing booze. He tilts the cup back and the second the booze touches his tongue heeeee spits it out. Even goes so far as to scrounge up his face in disgust.
"Is there a problem sir?" the bartender asks.
"This booze is warm!" Sebastian frowns. In his book warm booze is bad booze, "Why didn't you make sure it stayed cold while I was gone?"
The bartender shrugs, "I honestly didn't think about that..."
Sebastian sighs knowing good and well that he wasn't about to force himself to finish the warm booze," Well thanks anyways." Sebastian pays for his drink, then leaves the bar. At least he knows the palace has some pretty good booze to drink. He smiles to himself as he continues his journey back to the palace.