Volume: 1 | 3 | The Surface│ Dreams: 2 (Chapter 3)
The night was awfully cold and chilly, the guards standing near the village gate were slowly becoming more and more tired, yawning and talking about things besides their guard duty.
As the two kept talking more and more steam came out.
"So did you hear? apparently there might be a monster out break this time" The guard with small deer antlers and a slightly chubby frame said.
The more well trained guard with a bit bigger horns replied "Oh really? That might explain why I feel so uneased tonight".
The two kept making light chat between eachother as they saw other people approach them from up ahead.
"Ah finally, seems like all the night hunters have gathered, alright Filly open the gate for them" said the taller and bigger antlered guard.
"Y-yes sir!" Replied the chubbier guard before he got to opening the gate.
Sskkroooom
The wooden gate was slowly raised, allowing anyone free entry or exit, the late night hunting party all approached the gate.
"Remember, just cull their numbers a bit to make sure that there isn't a monster outbreak" The man leading the group said.
His name was Harry and he was around average height, with an average build, the only thing about Harry and his life that isn't average is his vast knowledge when it comes to monsters.
Harry has both brown hair and brown eyes, and along side every other normal citizen in this village he also has a pair of average sized deer antlers himself.
"""Yes Sir""" Everyone said at the same time, the group members quietly chatted with each other during their trip into the forest in the middle of the full mooned night.
During one of their chats a Harry patted someone on the shoulder "Hey Owen why so quiet?" Harry asked,
Owen simply sighed with exhaustion audible in his tone "I'm just a bit tired after taking care of the kids the whole night, ahaha" Owen awkwardly laughed whilst scratching the back of his head. "Ah! Alright that does make sense, well just try to be careful and keep your guard up alright" Harry said and walked up ahead again.
They all kept their guards up and walked deeper into the forest, after around 2 hours of continuous walking the group started to hear noises besides the rustling of the leaves.
"Gghaarrj..."
"Piieprk.."
Monsters, monsters were the ones behind these noises, and behind these noises was an near endless amount of monsters, so many monsters in fact that they shouldn't be in the same area without their being any carnage.
And yet somehow all of the monsters were peaceful with each other.
Harry signaled for the group to law low and hide in some bushes.
".. We'll try to gather some information, there are too many for us to cull, we need a change of plans" whispered Harry.
Owen and the others all nodded their heads softly, as to not rustle the bushes they were in.
As they kept waiting patiently, the moon kept on going along its cycle, slowly the position of the moonlight shifted.
Going from pointing right at the horde of monsters, towards a bit more inside of the cave entrance that was humongous.
Even with the help of the moonlight a person could barely see anything, and yet that was when Owen spotted something.
"Hey you guys, look into the cave, is it just me or are there people there?" Owen said in a hushed tone.
They all slowly turned their heads towards the cave entrance, they tried to focus their vision, and most of them couldn't see anything.
Only 3 people could make out faint outlines, Owen, Harry and Samantha.
Samantha is their Archer and she is the one with the sharpest eyes in the group most of the time.
As Samantha focus with her eyes she began to say what she was seeing out of the darkness.
"Just a few individuals it seems....they seem to be wearing some sort of dark coloured robes, maybe a cult or something? and a few are wearing dark metal armour" Samantha said.
Harry seemed shocked at her report "People? Are you sure?".
Samantha simply nodded "Anything else? We need to know as much as possible" Harry questioned.
Samantha focused once more on the barely visible outlines of the mysterious people "I think...there are at least 5 people there".
"There could be more, but the thing is I don't get why they aren't being attacked by all the monsters" Samantha said in a hushed tone.
That was when Owen intervened "Is there a chance that they are stuck there, or is it something else?".
Samantha shook her head "I would prefer it if it was that way, but it doesn't seem likely since the monsters should've already felt them, yet none of them are moving".
Owen put a finger to his mask-chin and pondered for a moment "What I think is plausible is that they have somehow gained control of the monsters, either that or they have a Song Chant which allows them to conceal their presence".
Everyone got quiet and turned towards Harry the group leader "Well..I think that we should probably back off, this seems like something dangerous and while I hate to say it, our group isn't enough to take both them and the monsters head on".
"We need to tell the village people and get them ready to move out, whilst requesting help from the other villages" Harry said and no one seemed against the idea.
As they were all slowly backing away from the large cave entrance, someone spoke "Ah what is this I find here~?".
The whole night hunting party, all 5 members instantly went into their fighting stances "Oh come on, no need to point weapons here~" the mysterious man said.
The man was wearing a black cloak with a hood, as he pulled the hood down, the moonlight revealed his face.
The man was average height, he had orange spiky hair, he had a thug like face, appalling to look at, underneath the cloak was just mere leather armour with a symbol, but it was too dark to make out the symbol.
"Well~ it doesn't seem like you guys have any idea to backdown, so you know what? fine let's play it your way~"