Thomas 1: Cleanup

I really blew this one, huh?

I can't help being at least a little annoyed with how inaccurate our intel was, but if I had taken it more seriously instead of telling the new guy to go crazy, we probably wouldn't have been fighting indoors.
Maybe I shouldn't have told Leo to do the first aid indoors, or I could have tried dragging the bear outside through the wall instead of being pushed indoors...

Oh well, beating myself up over past mistakes can wait for now. Besides, I am already plenty beaten up.
There's a wooden beam resting on my sternum, and I am buried beneath a carpet of frozen straw roofing.
I would love to just stand up, but I should be cautious not to shift more weight onto the beam. I can breathe just fine now and even see the sky quite clearly.

"Everyone okay? I'm fine, but I could use a hand digging myself out."

August responds first, "I'm fine and can dig myself out, focus on the others first."

I can hear footsteps closing in before I see Henry between the slabs of frozen roof.
"Can you take some weight off this beam? Once that beam is gone, I should be able to free myself.
I am so sorry for how things went just now."

"You always blame yourself, but nobody could have expected the bear to be a highly evolved version. It has to be at least class 5!"
*Heave-Ho*
Henry's breathing gets a bit ragged as he throws chunks of rubble outside the collapsed area.
"And the... element was unknown... There is no worse element to fight against than void, even worse, a shadow summoner."

"I'm still the one who took the lead and got us all stuck inside this place with that thing."
As Henry lifts one side of the beam, I throw the last bits of rubble off of me before shuffling on my back until I am free.
As I stand up, I can see August and Andy in top condition. Leo and the new guy are by far in the worst shape. Well... Except for maybe the guy I haven't heard yet after waking up buried... I don't think Pierre would kick the bucket from something like this. He just tends not talk much, even when he really should, like when he's buried under a layer of rubble, and we have to figure out where he is!
"Feels good to be standing on my feet again, let's find Pierre!"

Should the new guy even be digging through rubble right now? I'm honestly at least as worried about him as I am about Pierre. If something is wrong with Pierre, I will regret going for this magic beast for the rest of my life for sure. Please be okay, okay?

After digging for at least fifteen minutes, Leo finally yells the words we all wanted to hear.

"I found him, he's unconscious, but he's still breathing!"

"Andy, Thomas and I will dig him up. You should look after yourself and the new kid, don't you see how worried Thomas is about you guys?"
After a short pause, August continues, mumbling silently
"I don't really like the kid, but after seeing him fight, there's no way I can deny he has some real potential."

August can be a handful sometimes, but when it comes down to it, he has his heart in the right place. He's also a great asset to have as a party, he's very bright. He can see how strong someone or a magic beast is, even from just a glimpse of a random bad fight.

"Just make sure you don't move him before he wakes up, you might make injuries worse.
I didn't see any big bleedings, but if you find any, holler."

A few minutes later, we finally finish digging Pierre out, and except for a lot of shallow cuts and one fairly deep cut in his left arm, nothing seems wrong.
Three hours later, Leo finishes bandaging everyone, including himself, with some help from Andy. Henry went to the carriage first to take care of our ox.

We spend the night in our carriage, because the air around the village is still pretty chilly.
It's a bit too small for everyone to lie down, so all of us except Leo squeeze close to each other on one side of the carriage, as we leave the unconscious Pierre on the other side, with his head on Leo's lap, in case his condition changes during the night.

The next morning, I wake up well before the sun rises. I gently push Andy, who's now hanging against me, to the other side. Surely August makes as good a pillow as me.
I gently walk past the new guy and Henry to reach the door of the carriage. Some fresh air might do me some good.
Yesterday sure as hell was exhausting mentally and I can't help thinking about what I could have done differently. In hindsight, everything is so obvious, yet when we were in the fight... I was way too busy to let the thought cross my mind that the bear could just abandon its entire shadow army once it felt it wasn't winning.

My former party was a relatively high-ranking party, yet we have never fought a single magic beast with summons before. Except for a few old folktales, I have not heard about them. During last year's meeting of the anti-magic beast division, not one of the other party leaders mentioned summoning magic beasts, despite their rarity and the fact that they will easily tip the scales on a battlefield.
A lot of other abnormalities have been occurring. The one that struck me the most was a report about a giant, highly evolved electric rat beast along the coast that wiped out 3 parties, while the fourth booked it without looking back to report about the situation. According to the intel we have available, the rat is estimated to be above rank 9, which itself only exists since a few years ago.

The countermeasure for the rat that was decided upon comes down to 'All military personnel are to no longer pass near the west coast of the golden kingdom, as gathering enough forces and supplies to try and defeat the beast would most likely ruin the entire empire'. Many others reported beasts they encountered, which were way stronger than what we're used to from the past few decades. Times are changing, and I just hope we can adapt enough to make it through.

The meeting was only for squad leaders, yet I am technically more of a representative of our party. I do take the lead when we need split second decisions, but usually everyone is free to interject with their own thoughts or tactics if the time and place allow it.

The only time I actually intentionally use my 'power' as the leader, is to keep our members from fighting either amongst themselves or with city folk, local samurai and villagers alike when we fail to retreat from a magic beast. For now, there shouldn't be any angry villagers here, though. This place has been devoid of human activity for at least a couple of weeks. After our meddling in taking out his friends, the bear might look for a new place to stay though. It could run into another magic beast, or it could run into a nearby village, the odds of that bear going down if not for a party from our division are slim to none.

After everyone wakes up, I'll call a meeting. I think our main options are either reporting our encounter to a nearby samurai who will eventually send the report to the daimyo, or we could try to track the bear down now that it's weakened and low on mana. Different magic beasts each have their own mana capacity, and this one is a bit of a wildcard. Considering the fact that it retreated and lost a lot of summons in the process, I am fairly certain it must have used mostly all of its mana summoning and healing the second bear and three wolves.

I do hope Pierre wakes up soon. He is the member of this party with the most seniority, probably also the strongest. He isn't much of a leader, though, so I ended up becoming the de facto leader by unanimous vote.