Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

Currently, Ethan was pulling an iron cart, and inside the cart, Cen could be found. His face was blue, as if he was about to throw up. It was only natural since Ethan was moving pretty fast, and the terrain wasn't helping. Although he, Emily, Ian, and Anna at first headed to the north, they split after a certain point, and Emily created that cart for Ethan.

"Sorry, you will have to endure Ian alone," Ethan said.

"It is cool," Emily said. "Anna will be there, so he won't be able to annoy me that much."

That was what Emily said to Ethan… that being said, he had no idea the meaning behind her words. It was probably because Anna was a cute child, and Emily always wanted a little sister like her. In any case, not even Ian and Anna tried to stop him. They knew Ethan had his own way of doing things, and his goal was clear, get as many achievements as possible and receive his deserved reward.

Unlike Ethan's group, which didn't need to plan anything or divide the roles amongst themselves, the mercenaries organized themselves properly. So, they would stay at least for another half an hour at the camp. Ethan had half an hour of advantage over them. Still, even with his speed, he had to be careful because he couldn't be seen by them. If the mercenaries see him where he isn't supposed to be, they might question Ivan's authority. Although Ivan might not care about that, the group needed to have a certain level of trust for the mission to be accomplished without any problems. For the good or the worse, five people couldn't complete the mission alone.

"Tell me what you know about the incidents that caused the defeat of this world's armies," Ethan asked Cen. "This time, I want to hear some details."

"I was too young when everything started, so maybe you should ask others," Cen said.

"You still are too young," Ethan said.

"… What I heard from the people I know is this," Cen said. "Around four years ago, certain species of monsters began to grow too much. At first, the people ignored the threat since this world never faced too many problems due to the monsters. However, a small kingdom in the south was annihilated, and the others decided to act and stop the monsters."

"What were those monsters?" Ethan asked.

"They are called the devourers, I never saw them up close, but they are four-legged beasts that are quick on their feet and are extremely vicious," Cen explained. "They don't eat anything aside from meat and as far as we know, they never satisfy their hunger no matter how much they eat. At first, they liked to eat all species of animals, but once they got the taste of our flesh, they stopped hunting others and attacked us day and night."

That would explain why the population of treants and those weird birds was so high. Most likely, they were the only species left alive in this world after the devourers began to hunt. Still, that couldn't explain why such species managed to destroy most of the inhabitants of a fantasy world. They were just monsters, and they were supposed to exist for a while… something was off. If that species of monster was so dangerous, the people of that world should have hunted them down until the last one a long time ago.

"Our armies tried to exterminate the devourers, but they didn't succeed, and the more the devourers ate, the stronger they got, which also improved their reproduction speed," Cen explained.

Ethan crossed his arms and then began to think if he had heard or seen any species that could get much stronger just by eating other intelligent species. Although some spirits and demons could prey on the spirits of the living to become stronger, they had to do that for several years to obtain a certain level of strength… The devourers weren't anything like Ethan saw before.

"When half of our forces had been destroyed, some mages came up with a plan," Cen said. "The plan was simple, to summon a creature much stronger than any of us and which could hunt down the devourers. However, much to everyone's surprise, who came was a being called himself human who was somewhat similar to us."

"Did these mages create the summoning ritual by themselves?" Ethan frowned.

"I am not really sure," Cen replied. "Maybe mother knows the answer to your question. She was friends with one of those mages."

That was another reason to find Cen's mother and sister. Still… it was hard to believe that the inhabitants of that world would discover the summoning ritual so fast and at such a convenient time. That would be too fishy… However, Ethan didn't feel like he was the best person to think about that. After all, he spent eleven months in another world, and he didn't discover a single thing about his power or who gave it to him.

"The very moment the hero was summoned, he helped us, and in the blink of an eye, he stopped the advance of the devourers," Cen said. "However, at some point, he stopped fighting seriously. My mother said that the world leaders pampered him too much, and he became lazy and indulgent. After that, he began to demand unreasonable things from others in exchange for his work. When he didn't get those things, he moved to another city and left the people behind being massacred by the devourers."

Ethan couldn't have expected anything worse than that. He knew very well how dangerous things could become when you praise too much someone more powerful and more inexperienced than you. Still, Ethan was more interested in how a hero managed to help the people of that world so soon. Even with his cheat-like powers, he had to work for a few months in order to become strong enough to change the tide of a single battle. As expected, there was something really off with the entire situation of that world…