Wildy, a greatsword thrashed around the air. Those who stood in its way were met with a terrible fate; the first victims watched their body collapse before losing their life, others felt an immense weight on their head before losing sight and falling to the ground; their skulls crushed just by the exertion. Quiet whimpers were let out as the last two scampered off, ignoring everything to preserve their existences.
Roth let out a sigh, following up, he dug his weapon into the ground. These wolves were obviously no issue for him, he felt rather bored dealing with them. Even keeping their attention felt like a walk in the park. He stared at the corpses of the wolves he slew, his expression nor his gaze waived at the sight.
Just under the beheaded wolves, liters of blood poured beneath their body and heads. Those who had their skulls crushed, their teeth littered the ground. His observation was derailed by a random Bronya waving her hand in front of his face.
"Taking in the sight, huh?" Bronya asked with a soft smile, just like him she did not have much of a reaction to the carnage. Lightly kicking a head near her foot, then she moved to the side. "Can you watch over that injured rookie over there?" She pointed towards Lucian who sat on the ground, his arm was being iced by a watchful Fei. "I'm going to scout around the area."
"What did you find?"
"Something interesting."
"Seriously, you won't even tell me?"
"Oh, be quiet. I'll tell you when I am back."
He grumbled to himself before dragging his sword out from its stand.
'Good, now time to see "that"' Bronya thought. She turned her head, looking back at the rest before disappearing into the sea of trees. Despite her calm, and uplifting smile, her mind danced around. From an outsider's view, it looked as if she had negative thoughts chasing after each other; however, it was her curiosity.
Just before she found the wolves, something caught onto her radar. Eyeing her surroundings, and her ears perked to every small sound. She hid amongst the leaves and softly touched the ground. 'It should be around here.' She confided in herself, a moment later the area around her flashed inside her mind. Shaking her head, she refocused her mind.
"Nothing… Oh, well it might be over… There?"
Thanks to her ability, the woods never confused or threw her senses into disarray. Clearing and staying alert, she once again mapped out the area. This time, multiple dots surrounded an area not far from her.
"There it is!"
Cautiously, she crept towards there. Her hand stayed on the axe on her hip; although she is strong enough not to worry about the monsters in the forest, it would be terrible if she was caught off guard or without her weapon in hand. She isn't like Roth, if a wolf or any creature was to latch onto her she'd get hurt.
She grasped her weapon when she neared; a horrid stench assaulted her nose. The smell of rotting meat was the only way to describe it. Bronya frowned when a possibility entered her mind. A dead body? Or is it a corpse of a rotting monster? These possibilities dared to explain the smell. The more common of the two was a rotting monster. No one, willingly, would go to these forests alone at least.
"There's only 8 of them, that's not bad." Bronya counted as she peered between the trees. She watched carefully as an individual walked. Its footsteps were uneven, its body looked shrunken, its ribs were sticking through the skin. Dark and moist blood stained its chops. 'Looks like I'll have not much fun today.'
Without another thought she sprang out of the trees. Nearest to her landing lay a wolf, it couldn't react in time as she tore through its entire body with one swift chop of her weapon.
"One " Bronya muttered, a creepy and sadistic smile crept onto her face. Instantly she dashed towards the next one.
Bone fragmented outwards, as she cleaved its face in two; then she pivoted and swung downwards, separating its head to its body.
One by one, she slaughtered the wolves, sadistically counting as she ended each one of them off. None of them even let out a yelp before falling to the ground.
"That's that, that was a bore." Bronya mumbled, swinging her axe around, causing droplets of dark blood to fling around. Shaking it once more, she then attached it to her hip. Back to her senses, she turned around in a circle. Small bones littered the area, mainly rodent bones they creaked and cracked when she moved around. "Weren't there other large beasts in this forest?" She questioned herself.
In the past, when she was a newbie adventurer she heard rumors that this forest was utter hell for lower ranked adventurers. Mainly, the amount of wild monsters that had conflict. Adventurers always land in the line of fire, or get lost in it.
"I'll just report this oddity to Thranie. Now where is that smell coming from?" She murmured to herself. Taking one good whiff, she quickly held her nose to block it. She then shook her head, only for it to stay.
The constant sounds of bones cracking under foot left an eerie aura around the area. It kept going on until she spotted a trail of congealed blood. Slowly, she followed along, this time she covered both her mouth and nose. If she kept her mouth uncovered, the taste of the air would leave her heaving.
Purple feet popped out to the side. Bronya took a few steps forward; attached to them, a pair of legs with countless gashes in them. Bones, muscle and veins were exposed to the outside, the thigh area had nearly all flesh and internals completely removed revealing the femur bones with bite marks embedded into them.
'What… happened here…?'
Not keeping her eyes off, she took one more step forward. Entrails flung out from the stomach, mashed chunks ripped off the intestines. A hollow husk could only describe what she saw, only a few organs were visible from the outside.
Once Bronya fully stepped out, she could see the corpse was a woman, its mouth was open. Her lips were purple, eyes sunken and dead, yellow large maggots wriggled around on the skin.
'She does… Not look fresh.'
The pale skin of her, an enormous amount of flies foretold how long she has been dead. Ultimately, Bronya covered her nose and mouth with her shirt, as well as holding her hand over it. Unfortunately it didn't help fully, she could still taste and smell, only dampened.
With her free hand, she moved the arms. They too had chunks missing, some parts of the skin had burns, cuts and some odd marks covering it.
'I'm sorry this happened to you. May your soul find eternal peace…' Bronya prayed silently. Taking a few moments to catch her wits, she carefully continued the investigation. More marks were found, on the face, she found more dark patches, and deep gashes on the face.
'What happened to you?' She thought with exasperation. "We'll find what happened to you. I swear it." She swore in a quiet breath. She turned the head sideways and stared with wide eyes. "No… We will find who did this, we will make them suffer like you did." Her voice shivered, and her hand clenched.
A mark that was burned onto the neck. Obviously someone took a steel brander and pressed it deep onto the person's neck. The shape of it was into an 'X', either branding them as deceased or… A slave.
Staring at the corpse for a while, Bronya felt her stomach churn. She ran far, far as she could from it. She held her mouth as she leaned against a tree.
A few minutes flew by of Bronya dry heaving. A bit more later, she slowly regained her composure. Going past the lining of the trees, she slowly took a deep breath in and released it. She did it plenty more times, till her racing heart calmed.
'I'll get roth… to take care of it.'
At a snail's pace she walked back, when she got closer she straightened her back. Not wanting to appear shaken, or weak in front of Lucian and Fei. Accompanied with her fixed posture, she replaced her previously shaken frown.
"Give me your arm."
"..."
"Why would I give you my arm?"
"..."
"Can't you see what's in my hand? You need to wrap up that arm."
"...My arm will be fine."
"Just the ice from Long Ear over here won't heal it. Don't be stupid, give me your damn arm or I'll have to do it by force."
"Fine…"
"Ouch- Hey- Ow, You don't have to be so rough!"
"You should've listened when I first told you instead of being defiant."
"Ow, ow, ow, okay! Okay!"
"Hmph."
"Rothie, don't be so mean to him, you'll make him cry."
"Oh, welcome back."
"Thank you, but you should really be considerate to rookies, you know that right?"
"I would if they would listen. Did you find what you were looking for?"
Bronya's smile twitched, with a nod she responded, "yes, it's pretty interesting. Just head that way if you're interested."
"Didn't you say you'll t-" Roth was about to complain, but he stopped when Bronya averted her eyes to the ground. He ruffled his hair, then he continued. "I'll be right back." He glanced back at Bronya before disappearing.
Bronya moved towards Lucian and Fei; once she stood in front of them, she leaned down while staring at Lucian's now bandaged arm.
"How's the arm? That wolf didn't play nice with you didn't it?" She asked, she attempted to poke his arm.
"Don't poke it!" Lucian exclaimed while pulling his injured arm back. "What the hell was that back there?! You could've killed me!" He yelled, his tone was filled with ferocity. Bronya only tilted her head in response. "Don't look at me like that! You know damn well what you did."
"You didn't die though? You only got your arm injured, don't get mad at me."
"So what? If it wasn't for Fei there, my own throat would've been torn out."
"That was exactly my plan. When you were fighting that wolf, Little Fei seemed bored. So I got her involved."
"Plan? Don't fucking mess with me, I could've been killed."
Bronya stood up straight, set her hands on her hips and let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Like I said, you didn't get killed. This benefited you both, you could have leveled up; and Fei got over her hesitation there." Bronya explained, pointing at him first then towards Fei. "If she can get over it in combat, it'll make fights smoother." As she finished she flipped her palm upwards as if she was presenting a fact. 'That last part is too obvious.'
Lucian rolled his eyes, then he looked at Fei. She hesitantly nodded, agreeing with what Bronya had said.
"What if things went south, what then?"
"Nothing would've gone wrong." Bronya stated, she followed-up with a snap of her fingers. A light appeared at the tip of her pointer finger. "I prepared this just in case she hesitated too long."
"U-Um… L-L-Lucian- T-There's one, one, on your b-back." Fei stuttered in a low voice. A small dot of light was stuck to his back, exactly at the spot Bronya pushed him.
"That right there, is a trap. They appear over traps that were set around in a dome around me, including the ones I had already set. Coincidentally these are my traps."
"W-When did you even set it on me? I didn't hear a chant or anything."
"That's because this isn't a spell; It's a skill, or an ability. Whatever they're called, they don't need chants. I just have to think about it, and it'll manifest." Bronya explained, pacing around while waving her finger with the trap on it. She then stopped and sat down in front of them. "Anyways, as I was saying, you wouldn't have been killed. These detonate-" Lucian looked at her with raised eyebrows, alongside him Fei furrowed her eyebrows. "No, detonation is the wrong word. Ahem, I mean it'll get set off, it wouldn't have exploded."
"Why do I have a hard time believing that?" Lucian mumbled.
In the next half an hour, they all three sat there. For half of the duration they sat in silence, in the later half Bronya offered to answer any question they had– Mainly from Lucian, he had a bunch, ranging from the repeating question "why did she do that?" To questions about her skills and what abilities are.
'Is she seriously messing with us?! She offered to answer our questions!' Lucian internally screamed. All of Bronya's answers about skills were vague, or completely unrelated. Sometimes she'd give a joke answer, retract it and give a serious answer. Then, she'd follow it up with, "I don't know though~ I could be joking~"
"Ah, by the way Little Fei, if you keep practicing with magic you might be able to obtain a skill."
Fei's ears went from floppy to perky in an instant.
"Unfortunately for you, it's a long and arduous one."
"Ignore her, she's going to keep doing this." Lucian whispered to Fei upon seeing her reaction.
Bronya chuckled seeing Fei's reaction, along with Lucian's defensiveness lessened as a chain reaction. Their short "talk" was cut short in the end.
Soon, Roth joined back. His appearance was a little different than when he left; dirt caked his platemail, it stuck to his chin as well. With his reappearance, they began their journey back to the guild.
The same guards that blocked the gates let them through without doing another check. A few more stares washed over them, which pointed at Lucian and Roth. Whos appearances told a very "grand" story.
Once inside the hall, only a few adventurers lazed around. Drinking what was assumed to be alcohol, chatting or playing board games.
"Welcome back you four, I assume your request is finished?" The lady receptionist greeted them with a cheerful smile. All three of them glanced at Roth, he tugged at the string to his drawbag on his hip. In the next moment he pulled rock after rock, piling up to just under 20. "I see, fantastic work! I'll get your request filed and the rewards all ready!" She clapped her hands and left with them in her arms.
"..."
"..."
"Hey, Rothie- do you want to bet Thranie comes back?"
"Yes."
'I-I-Is your, your arm.. O-Okay?" Fei whispered to Lucian. She looked away when Lucian turned his head to look at her. Her ears dangled forwards.
"Yeah, it is. It stings, but thanks to you it doesn't hurt that bad." Lucian responded, accompanied by a soft smile. He didn't lie, his arm stung an insane amount, but thanks to Fei's magic taking the form of a cast knocked the pain down a peg or two. "C'mon, it could've been worse."
"Ah, welcome back. You will get your rewards, I just need to talk to Sir Lucian and Miss Fei for a moment."
"Alright, Thranie, just don't forget the reward~"
"Come on you two." Thran called to them, his finger curled repeatedly.
Once they entered behind the desk, he led them to the side. His eyes looked down to see Lucian's injured arm.
He clutched his head for a moment, then he lowered it.
"I am sorry, there are other candidates. I did not expect you to get into a fight. And Miss Bronya… Doing that." Thran apologized, his shoulders lowered along with his head even further. 'I Should-'
"You don't need to apologize, and we didn't get into a fight." Lucian quickly said, interrupting Thran's thoughts.
"Do you want to find different party members? Miss Bronya… And Sir Roth… Err, Are a special Duo." Thran questioned, he pinched the ridge of his nose. "And I must warn you, if you party with them further, you will not have an enjoyable time."
Lucian touched his chin, seemingly in deep thought. Just a few seconds later, he twisted his neck to glance at Fei.
Seemingly an invisible conversation happened in the midst of Thran's vision.
"We'd like to party with them for a few more requests."
"Are you sure? I will highly recommend against it."
"We're sure."
"Very well then, that's all I needed to talk with you two about. Go ahead out there, the reward will be given in just a moment."
As soon as they left the counter, the first receptionist brought a bag with her. Thran against the wall, and covered his face with both of his hands.
'Why does she have to be like this…? Who in their right state of mind would switch a simple request, to something that's dangerous for new adventurers…?' He reflected when they were in the meeting room, he knew he shouldn't have trusted Bronya that much with all the requests on the table. Suddenly, he heard his name being called out.
"Thranie, we have something to report to you."
—--------------------------------------
"Momma, Papa, where are we going?"
"Oh my dear #### It's somewhere special. Just keep your curiosity contained, okay?"
"Why?"
"Special?"
"Mhm! Just-"
"Why? Why? Why?"
"Trust your old, mama and papa!"
"Whywhywhywhywhywhywhy?! Why?! Why did you do this?!"
"What did WE do to deserve this?! You said it was something special?!"
"We… Were so… Happy… Yet, yet you did this to us… Why, just… Did you have to curse us?"
"..."
"..."
"####, please remember that your momma and I will always remember you, so please be a good #### for us?"