144 Seaside Village Quests - Middle

After leaving the village, Kirou has been heading northwest for roughly two hours. During this trip, he made multiple adjustments to his heading after using his <Shadow Teleportation> skill to investigate his surroundings. The downside of this was that he had to chug down multiple potions to replenish his quickly spent [MP] after each trip.

It was at this time that Kirou slowed and silenced his steps. This is because the stronghold for those human traffickers was within his sights. Having stopped behind a tree, Kirou calmed his breathing and steadied his heart rate. After doing so, he peered from behind the tree, gazing at his targets going about their business in the large base.

The base itself was an abandoned seaside village that seemed to have been occupied initially by dwarfs. Along with a few lodging houses, there were a few paths dug into the hill directly behind the houses. The houses themselves were spread out and made in a style similar to inns, but the size of the windows and doors on those houses gave hints at who the original occupants were. The village itself had a peer that's been adequately maintained, so Kirou surmised that those traffickers usually anchor their ship just off sure and take small boats to land.

Based on what he could see, roughly twenty people were roaming about the base, acting as security. And these were only just the ones that he could see. After carefully contemplating putting himself in the position of the leader of this base and further exaggerating the original number he came up with, Kirou guessed that there would be no less than seventy persons involved in this entire operation.

Having thought up to hear, Kirou decided to focus on finding out where the kidnapped children were hidden. He immediately eliminated the visible houses from the list of locations to store the kids. If for nothing else, just the fact that the houses themselves were more suited for the children than they did the captors made them unsuitable.

That being said, the only other places the children could be would be inside the hill behind the village. And as if to add insult to injury, that hill had multiple entrances. Seeing this, Kirou was slightly annoyed but decided to play things smart.

Without moving from his spot, Kirou started removing mana potions from his inventory and drinking them at 45-second intervals. This went on for ten minutes before Kirou finally stopped. During those moments, Kirou's [MP] would take a rollercoaster ride, making steep dives and steady climbs for the entire duration.

Having finished his reconnaissance work, Kirou let out a deep breath. He cut it close on that last trip and almost alerted the enemy of his actions. He managed to find the kidnapped children, but they were being kept in a secure location. As for just storming into the secure area via <Shadow Teleportation>, the act would be foolhardy at best and completely incompetent at worst. Trapping himself in a situation where he would have to protect the children while fighting off armed assailants in a sealed area, while barely doable with his current gear, would ultimately work against him as he would end up failing one of his quests.

With that thought in mind, Kirou rushed back to his initial hiding spot to both rest and brainstorm on how he should go about rescuing those children. To ensure that he doesn't accidentally alert anyone, Kirou stealthily left the area and hid inside an old abandoned cave. To further enhance his stealth, he went deep into the abandoned cave and had Asura excavate a side room to hide in.

While Kirou was busy contemplating his next move, he took a look at the remaining time for both of his quests.

[Time Limit: 10:05:31]

'Just over ten hours, huh? It's plenty of time to put some plans in motion, but it also wasn't enough time to truly account for all the eventualities,' thought Kirou as he stared at his giant badger mole being cute.

It was at this point that Kirou spaced out slightly before facepalming himself. An idea suddenly appeared in his mind and he was a bit surprised that he took so long to come up with it.

'It looks like Asura will be taking on an active role in this mission after all,' thought Kirou to himself as he stared at his precious badger mole with a curious sparkle in his eyes.

As for the pet in question, it just stared at its master for a moment before nuzzling up against his legs, completely cementing the fact that it was the most naive, or rather, innocent of its master's more sinister nature.

That said, Kirou spent another half an hour or so to properly formulate the plan that he would use to secure the children before he goes on his rampage in this pirate/human traffickers camp.

*******

While Kirou was busy at the enemy's base of operations, the seaside village was currently facing an attack from those very human traffickers. As Kirou had predicted, someone was indeed watching over the place, and said person had already tipped off the "pirates" about the village's plan to raid their base come the following day.

The villagers were caught completely unprepared for the sudden attack, so many were injured in just the initial confrontation between the two forces. This was already bad enough, but things only continued to go downhill for these seafaring villagers.

Following the initial attack, those pirates split their forces into two groups. One group continued to attack the weak villagers, setting fire to their houses in the process. As for the other group, this group focused on pillaging anything of worth and taking them back to their ship. The pillaged items include weapons said villagers had gathered to use in the coming raid, the remainder of the money that the villagers own, and any treasures that grabbed the raiders' eyes.

During the entire scuffle, the weretiger village head was the most troubled by the sudden attack of these pirates. This stemmed from two sources: the fact that he now realized that this is what Kirou was hinting at before he left for the enemy base and that hasn't seen a trace of his son since the attack on the village started roughly half an hour ago.

He was doing his best to fight off the attackers while searching around for his son, but he wasn't any closer to confirming his son's safety. If anything, the more he fought, the more he realized that he should have taken Kirou's advice. Sadly, there was never a recipe for medicine to cure regret, so the village head could only soldier on in his search.

After going through countless attackers and accumulating many injuries, his body finally gave out, forcing the village head to his knees as he saw his village being reduced to ruin before his very eyes.

Curiously, it was only now that the village head finally turned his eyes towards the main force of the pirates. In doing so, the village head gnashed his teeth and struggled to his feet, barely able to stand as more attackers were slowly approaching him.

The reason behind these somewhat futile actions of the weretiger village head was that he finally found his son. Unfortunately, his son, along with a few other women and children, were currently being held captive on the deck of the main ship of the pirates. He could see the fear on their faces and knew he had to help them. Sadly, his body was on the verge of collapse.

While resolving to push through those pirates before him, regardless of the cost, the incoming pirates slowly approached the wounded village head with sneers and mocking laughter. The pirates have seen such situations many times and were amply prepared for it. While their faces showed mockery to the village head, these pirates still took caution in their approach.

That said, just as the wounded weretiger was ready to stake his life in this last mad push to reach his son, explosions started going off all around the village. This came as a surprise to both villagers and pirates alike.

One side was wondering if they had to face the attack of yet another group while the other wondering who decided to stir up trouble in their business.

As the smoke cleared, a group of players appeared before the eyes of both groups already fighting in the village. These players mainly consisted of persons sporting animalistic features, each sporting a guild emblem with the character of "Beast" on display for all to see.

If Kirou was present, he would have probably identified these players as members of the <Beast Kingdom>, a large guild whose distinctive characteristic is that all of its members are either full-blood beast race players or halflings mixed with one of the many beast races present in the game.

Standing at the head of this party of thirty players was a man whose race is a <Garuda>, one of the few naturally avion races available to players to select in <Immortal Era>. Although they face certain restrictions in the beginning, giving players who choose this race second thoughts, they are one of the only races capable of <Natural Flight>, a trait that allows a player to fly, so long as they have a pair of wings, in the early stages of the game where all other races have to either walk or ride beasts (recently unlocked) everywhere they wish to visit.

This garuda player took one glance at the village and immediately knew what was taking place. His eyebrows furrowed for but a moment as he thought to himself, 'I received a report that a strange Lycan was lurking in the area so I rushed over to observe him, completely forgetting to disband my hunting squad first. Looks like it was a good idea that I kept them.'

Immediately after the garuda player had this thought, he released a sigh before pointing towards the village. The surrounding players immediately understood silent orders and started marching toward the village.

The villagers were startled while the pirates were weary. The players stopped at the entrance to the village, causing all those still fighting inside to stop while staring at them.

The garuda player looked on at the pirates with cold eyes as he spoke in a loud and clear voice, "Focus your sights on the pirates. Kill them all! Let God sort them out!"

Following those words, the members of <Beast Kingdom> rushed into the village, their weapons aimed at the pirates that outnumber them 3:1. The villagers were relieved and had somehow found their second wind, thus joining these players in attacking the pirates. As for the pirates themselves, those on land started fighting back with everything they had but kept getting pushed back. As for the ones on the ships, seeing how their lands forces were losing, they resolutely chose to abandon them and flee the area.

Seeing their forces on the ships fleeing, those pirates left behind decisively gave up all resistance, lest they face complete destruction. The garuda player observed their reaction and nodded, signifying that those pirates made the smart choice. That said, he wasn't that nice of a person to those that killed and robbed, especially those that are involved in kidnapping people.

So, as soon as all the surrendered pirates were gathered in one place, the garuda player took it upon himself to personally execute them under the watchful eyes of the villagers. His hunting squad was already aware of his personality, so they knew he would have done this from the start. The villagers, however, were not used to such divisiveness and cruelty, so his actions left them fearful.

Following the decapitation of the last prisoner, the garuda player turned his attention to the weretiger village head before speaking, "Who were those people and why were they targeting this village?"

The village head looked at the garuda player somewhat fearfully but understood that he had more important things to do now, like rescuing his son. With that in mind, he mustered up his courage and spoke, "It goes like this ....."