Chapter 58: Risk - I’ll take it.
Lord Zark had his red eyes deepen as he turned to the antelope. And as the antelope saw those eyes, he stiffened in immense fear.
Zark approached him, leaning closer to the prey as he said in a low dominating tone, "So do you want to lose your job.. or your head.. or eyes.. or even... your whole body. So which do you want down first?"
The antelope shrinked as he stepped backwards in fear, down on his knees and forehead while begging for forgiveness.
Zark scoffed as he turned to Ayra who was standing there and hoping that they actually wouldn’t turn against her like that. He said nothing. Ash and Vale smiled knowing that the cold dragon couldn’t bring himself to request a solution from Ayra.
He was too awkward to do that.
Ash smiled as he turned to Ayra. "Since our dragon lord suddenly can’t speak, I’ll ask. So please, what do you suggest be done in this situation? Ayra?"
Ayra hesitated while staring at the mournful scene. For a while, she didn’t know what to do because the system didn’t provide any task or instructions on what to do.
It seemed like this wasn’t part of a task which Ayra found even more confusing.
But she knew she couldn’t sit there and do nothing. She didn’t feel at ease letting these people suffer like this. And so she took the initiative and approached them.
One of the sick was part of the teens who was playing with the cheetah the other day. And as soon as he saw her, he immediately requested, "Please..." He struggled to crawl to Ayra, holding her closely by the feet. "Please save me.. please help me... I don’t want to die now.. please," the kid was sobbing now.
And other teens around also managed to come close to her, begging.
"Please save us... Help..."
"Please... Help us.."
The elders there managed speaking as well.
"We’ve heard of your skills, dear female.. please forgive all our ignorance and help us... Please do something.."
They all pleaded with Ayra at the scene that her heart broke. She felt extremely bad seeing these people in this situation.
And so Ayra had decided to do something with the skills she at least had. Even though she got rewards or not, she didn’t seem to care. She’d make the best of what she had to save these people.
Ayra summoned her system in her mind and requested for the situation at hand. A diagnosis of what was happening and how to help them all.
The system responded, and it said:
[Host, Note that this isn’t part of an official task for the core reason that it wouldn’t really benefit host at all]
[Meaning, Host will only lose some physical energy in her pregnancy state and wouldn’t really get much stat improvement]
Ayra understood. Of course healing and soothing all these sick beastmen of the tribe would drain her energy especially with the fact that she was pregnant. She was already weak now and only needed rest.
"Will it affect my baby?" She asked. That was the only confirmation she needed if the cub would be at risk.
[Not necessarily, host. The cub wouldn’t be in extreme danger and the chances of it being affected is quite low.]
[So host MIGHT be taking some risk if she wants to heal these beastmen while being pregnant. But rest assured, there’s not much chance of it harming the cub.]
[The main risk here is increasing the pain of child birth which has already been reduced through the fertility stat. So using up energy now might increase that pain again...]
[The risk for the cub being affected is if the host can’t bear the pain on the day of delivery and gives up. It might then affect the cub]
Ayra sighed as she scanned her mind through the system’s words. She understood the situation at hand. And that was probably why the system didn’t provide this as a task for her. She guessed it was quite considerate.
There was actually a risk here. Helping these beastmen in her situation would certainly increase her child birth pain. So she is the one who will ultimately be suffering the pain in the future.
The risk to her cub was low and almost non-existent. So the cub was potentially safe. She was the only one who would be suffering at the end of the day.
It was a hard call to make as she stared at these men struggling to stay alive while battling the pain. Now she had to make a choice, and she had made it.
"Provide me with the diagnosis and how to treat them all now," she said firmly to the system.
[Is host sure about this?]
She nodded. "Yes."
And immediately the system proceeded to provide the needed information. And then Ayra began the work at hand.
"I’ll need some help and assistance..." Ayra said as she stared at them.
Ash immediately stepped forward. "Don’t worry, I’m fully at your service," he said as he pulled Zark by the hand and to the front against his will.
Zark glared at him. "What are you doing...?"
Ash smiled with a wink. "You are going to help us, right?"
Zark wanted to snap but Vale smiled as he also stepped forward. Commander Lynn and some of his men also joined.
"Of course our Zark will help out. He now respects the female and is eager to save the people. So of course he’s going to help out. Right?" He stared at Zark.
Zark was quiet as he folded his arms and stared at Ayra. They would take that as a yes.
Commander Lynn stared at Ayra as he said, "Would you need more assistance? I’ll ask more men to join us as well if you want..."
Ayra stared at all of them with a nod as she smiled. "Yes. I would appreciate that. That would be great."
Ash asked, worried, "But about your pregnancy state. Can you even do it?"
Vale and Commander Lynn also agreed. But Ayra smiled as she said, "Don’t worry. We’ll be fine," she said as she turned to the sick people around. "Now to proceed with work."