The Underground Bunker

"They are right here." A deep voice spoke aloud, startling Hinata who disliked being sneaked up upon.

Upon turning around, the voice was discovered to belong to an old man arguably in his sixties. "Who are you?" Renji interrogated the old man quickly.

"I am Chief Tunlop, the chief of this village. You should know better than to be walking around openly at this hour young blood." His voice was deep yet fragile, he was a short man standing at 5"3 tall.

His hair was white and short, undoubtedly due to his old age. For some reason his clothing was slightly drenched.

"I'm here on a job request your people put up weeks ago, we're here to help." Hinata responded as she stretched out her hand displaying the guild mark of a Phoenix at the back of her palm.

The man's eyes were widened in happiness, it was as if he had attained salvation the moment he laid eyes at the guild mark on Hinata hand, however upon careful consideration. "The Dancing Phoenix!?" He exclaimed with displeasure.

The Dancing Phoenix was one of the magic guilds that existed in the kingdom of Fiol, there are of course several guilds which outranks it in terms of stats and achievements but not in terms of powerful individuals.

"Out of every guild's that could have possibly shown up, the Dancing Phoenix!? And they even sent a kid?" He complained.

"He doesn't seem to happy about you being here, what's this you were saying about being one of the most powerful guilds in the kingdom?" Renji whispered into her ears in an attempt to mock her.

Shrugging him off slightly, Hinata sighed softly as she faced the village chief with a stern look and determination. "Look, so far only our guild has answered your call so whether you like it or not, we are all you've got." She said.

"Hmph, fine. We best get going before it's too late." He grunted as he spoke, leading the way towards the village's safety bunker.

As they followed behind him, Renji looked down at Hinata as he finally realized why she was hopeless against the Drakons. She was a less than average mage but who was he to complain, he probably fell at the bottom of magic utilization.

Renji's brows were then lowered in suspicions, he found it difficult to believe that an old man could sneak past his senses with ease. "What's up with this fog old man?" He asked.

"If you're not going to respect women at least respect your elders." Hinata said, shoving her right elbow into his ribs.

Tunlop chuckled slightly, it had been a while since he had seen teens their age this lively. Their village has been plagued by unfortunate incidents leading up to the greatest one for as long as he could remember.

"It's fine, the fog you say? Since the appearance of the Drakons in our village, the Reaper's Pit has always been releasing gaseous smoke into our village. So the fog you see isn't what you assume it to be, it's a cloud of smoke created by the magic of the Reaper's pit." Tunlop explained, it was unknown if the fog posed a threat to them, however they has been several cases of hallucinations.

"Since the appearance of the Drakons? So the rumors are true, the drakons really are villagers who wished to obtained the all healing capabilities of the Reaper's Pit." Renji surmised.

Arriving at town square, the village chief stopped. Closing his eyes slowly one could feel his pain as he spoke. "Yes, the fog is believed to be the result of the villagers skin melting into that abominable creature, throughout our people's history the population of Drakons has only increased greatly making one wonder just how much our village has lost." He spoke with tears slowly dripping from his eyes.

Hinata placed her hand on his shoulder, she knew what it felt like to lose a loved one. "I know how you feel chief, but don't worry. Now that we are here, everything will change." She spoke with assurance.

"This girl and her over exaggerating, the old man has lost over 100+ plus of the people he cared about, how the hell do you know what it feels like? That's like ×10 of what you've lost." Renji said in his thoughts.

[Beware the one who desires what is above the Heavens]

A instantaneous notification from the system popped up in a blue holographic panel in his line of vision. "What?" Renji said swiftly as he was a bit startled.

"What is it?" Hinata said as he turned to face him.

"Oh it's nothing, I thought I saw something moving." He said.

"Then we should get going quickly." The village chief walked swiftly behind a building with the two following behind him. Placing his hand on the wall, he pushed a brick inside which caused a huge lid in the ground to rise up instantly revealing a secret staircase leading underground.

"Let's go inside quickly before any of those beasts shows up." He advised as they all walked into it and down the staircase before the lid shut close.

"A secret underground bunker huh, I have to admit for a doomed village that's pretty cool." Renji spoke as they all made their way to the underground shelter. "As I suspected, they couldn't see it." He thought.

"With the Drakons attack becoming more frequent and vicious, our ancestors had no other choice but to develop counter options if our people were ever going to survive." Tunlop proclaimed as they reached the bottom of the stairs. They arrived in a hallway which walls lined with several torches making it easier for them to see.

Passing through the hallway, they arrived at a huge gate which was guarded by two muscularly built men wielding silver spears. With a nod from the village chief, both Renji and Hinata were granted access to the shelter that laid within the gates.

"W-whoa." Hinata gasped with amazement, from above the underground bunker looked like a small space but when they actually got there, they found several houses lined up beneath the building they stood under.

"This is how we were able to survive." Tunlop smiled smugly, attempting to brag about his village's creativity.

"This is beyond impressive." Hinata praised their efforts at survival.

"I'll say." Renji chimed in, also amazed by what they had created. However, the message from the system earlier left him in a perplexed state as he tried to understand what it meant.