The Calling of Wrath - Chapter 50 - The Adventurers
Added 2022-08-13 13:11:32 +0000 UTC The outskirts of the Dark Forest
Year 819 | Month 2 | Day 20
A heavyset man in full monster-hide armor slams his two-handed axe into the skull of a direwolf before ducking down to avoid another direwolf’s leap. At the same time, two other, nearly identical men – both younger looking, much smaller in build but still muscular, and covered in a lighter monster hide armor – fight side-by-side, each with a sword in hand against their own direwolves from the pack.
“Remember to cut off the ears!” the last member of the four-person adventurer team shouts from her place standing several meters away from the others with her bow drawn and an arrow nocked. She has on a similar monster hide armor, except with slightly more expensive looking gear than the others, with a slim and yet fit build.
One of the two younger men grunts with his back to the other as he shouts, “Mention that after we finish killing them, Roxy!”
The woman responds with a grunt of her own as she lets loose another arrow into a direwolf that was mid-leap towards the largest man of the group.
After the arrow pierces through the direwolf’s neck, it falls to the ground and the heavyset man finishes off his last direwolf along with it, followed shortly by the two twins finishing off their bit as well. The group then goes around collecting the ears of each wolf before handing them to the woman.
“This should be all of the direwolves that we need,” she comments after counting the ears handed to her along with the ones in her pouch. “So we should be able to begin heading back now.”
The woman then turns to look at the two twins and the larger man and asks, “Unless any of you want to go for a bonus?”
Both twins share a look for a second before turning to look at the other man. One of the twins – Luis – then asks, “What do you think, Jerold?”
Jerold looks between the three, then at the corpses, then back to the three and simply nods his head back further into the forest.
“You think we should continue hunting?” the other twin – Luke – asks with a frown, having understood the man.
The woman – whose name is Roxanne – looks at Luke with her brows furrowed in confusion as she mutters, “How you understand him when he’s like that is beyond me…”
Luke just shrugs with a smirk at her comment.
Roxanne rolls her eyes and tosses the pack towards Jerold while saying, “You carry that from here on.”
The man looks confused for a second but shrugs after a few seconds before they all begin to walk a little further into the forest. However, after walking for nearly an hour while dealing with all of the Tier 1 monsters in their path, they come to a halt.
“The fog,” Roxanne mutters with a frown as she stares at the forest floor ahead of them, where a thin red fog is hovering around the grass.
Not even a second later, the loud call of some sort of bird echoes throughout the forest from the direction of the fog, only for it to be cut short with a faint cry of pain.
The four adventurers share a quick glance before slowly backing away from the fog so as to not attract the attention of whatever is in the fog.
‘Once we get past the foliage over there,’ Roxanne uses her telepathy talent to communicate with her group while pointing at a thicker line of trees and bushes a few meters away from them, ‘make a break for it. If that bird monster was cut off that quickly, then it’s highly possible whatever did it was Tier 2.’
The other three just nod their heads as they slowly back away from the fog. However, throughout the entire time they’re backing away, nothing comes into sight from the direction of the fog, so they begin to back away faster and faster until finally reaching the foliage and making a break for it.
After running for a few minutes, the four adventurers finally stop and turn back, only to let out a sigh of relief at the sight of nothing following them.
“Do you really think-” Luke stops for a second to gasp for breath, “-that the monster was a Tier 2?”
Roxanne just looks back at the direction they came while breathing heavily herself before responding through telepathy, ‘It probably was.’
Luis looks between the two for a second before asking, “So why didn’t it follow?”
None of the adventurers say anything in response for several seconds until Luke suggests, “Maybe it found something else more interesting than us?”
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Cassandra
Year 819 | Month 2 | Day 20
“-more interesting than us?” I hear one of the two damn-near identical men suggest from my spot looking down at them from the trees above.
Well this is an interesting group.
At first glance, they look like a typical party of adventurers, but…
My eyes narrow on the woman in the group.
She is not a commoner.
I’m not sure what family she’s from, but she is most certainly not a commoner. Not with the way she carries herself. Not with the fact that she is Tier 2 already, albeit only barely with her standing at level 11. And not clearly not with that crest tattooed to the side of her neck.
Although it’s too bad that I can’t remember the crest in question. Which crosses the duchy families out of the list of possibilities.
Meanwhile I only remember like half of the marquis families right now off the top of my head, and that isn’t one of them. But considering that she’s working as an adventurer, I doubt she’s from a marquis family.
“Do you think now would be a good time to head back to Alltend?” one of the two twins – I’m guessing they’re twins, seeing as they’re too damned similar in appearance not to be – asks the noblewoman.
The seat of Viette?
The woman in question turns to look at him before glancing back with a frown at the fog that they just pointlessly ran away from and saying, “Yeah, I think we have enough for the day.” She then turns to look at the other three again and adds, “Besides. I want to see how the other adventurers are being treated after completing the invaders’ quests.”
My eyebrows raise as high as possible at that statement.
Invaders’… quests?
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