3 Who's there?
Chapter 3
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As Lan was slowly lifting his head, a very beautiful face struck his eyes like a bolt of lightning came into view. The woman was walking in front of a small group of people with a smile on her face. There was only one word that could describe the woman, gorgeous! As the young master of a wealthy family, Lan has accompanied his parents on different occasions to high class parties, but the women he met there were a class lower than this woman in front of him! She was in a class of her own! The woman looked to be in her early twenties, a woman's most beautiful and ripe age.
Looking closer at her, the woman was wearing tight leather clothes, accentuating her slim waist. Her skin was the color of a milky snow white that almost made her seem pale, while her height was just perfect, in the middle, not too tall, not too small.
Wiping away the snot and tears off his face with his sleeve, Lan slowly got up from the ground before giving a bow of courtesy towards the beautiful woman and the group. No matter what, if this group of people had not intervened, he would have been left without an intact body if he got drowned under the sea of Killer Bee's, so this group of people could very well be considered his saviours! Lan was in no way an ungrateful person, especially since he followed a simple mentality of "if you help me. I will repay you back ten times".
The group upon seeing the way Lan is behaving, slowly nodded their heads clearly pleased with his actions. A lot of people were lacking proper manners even after you saved them from disaster.
"What's your name, little one?" asked the woman as she closed the distance, standing only a few steps away from Lan
"I am Lan! Beautiful Lady, i thank you all very much for saving me. If you had not come, i would have been nothing more than a bag of bones on the floor right now, serving the Wardogs of this forest. This favor, i, Lan, shall repay it back ten fold in the future!"
Hearing the promise of the young kid that looked no older than 12 years, the group of people were clearly very pleased by the way he talks, improving their imoression of him by another degree! A lot of people after surviving such an ordeal would barely be able to stand up properly, but this kid has not only recovered in a very short amount of time, but he has already talked about repaying the favor. There is no way anyone in this world would not be pleased with such a little kid!
The words spoken by Lan were actually spoken in all seriosity, but the poeple thought that he's just a very humble little kid that doesn't know how big the world truly is. How could a kid even pay it back ten fold? How could they take him seriously at all? Maybe in another ten years!
"Alright, alright, Lanny kid , where are you coming from? Were you perhaps adventuring with your parents and you got lost?"
The one who has spoken was a man that was slowly coming out of the group before standing beside the beautiful woman and was looking at Lan with interest. With one glance, only one would could describe thus person before him, which is... fat. Truly fat! His stature small, around 1.60 meters and coupled along with his big belly he could easily be considered a human cannon ball!
Lan's biggest impression of him was not that he was fat, but of the big Longsword on his back! The Longsword was sealed inside a scabbard, but it's opressing feeling could be felt even when sealed. Clearly, this weapon shouodn't be ordinary at all! Lan's grandfather has taught him in the art of the sword ever since the beginning, calling it the true art most suitable for men! A Longsword, despite the fact that it is wielded with tho hands, at the day of the day, is still a sword! Men were always hot blooded and loved swords, especially young men like Lan. His grandfather taught him almost everything regarding Longswords, Single Handed Swords, Heavy Swords, Katana's and other types of swords that exist. What Lan truly loved were actually Longswords for their domineering feeling of opression such as the one this fat man had!
Noticing the fervent lust in Lan's eyes when looking at the Longsword on his back, the fat man was slightly startled before giving off a hearty laughter! He seemed very pleased that this young kid shares the same sentiments as him regarding the Longswords, it was too obvious that he was someone that has already chosen the Longsword as his main weapon, otherwise, he wouldn't have such a reaction seeing a good Longsword.
Taking the Longsword out of the scabbard, the fat man looked at Lan before he threw the sword toward him. His actions took Lan a little bit aback, before regaining clarity and catched the sword on his hands. The weight of the sword was higher than expected, resulting in his hands dropping a little bit before using all his power to hold the sword straight. Taking a stance, Lan immediatly used a swordplay that his grandfather has taught him in the past. The swordplay was not meant for fighting, but for testing a swords capabilities at it's best. Looking at Lan displaying one move after another, swing after swing and the way the sword danced the grouo was left with gaping mouths. This kid really had some skill, alright! And not only 'some' skill, it could actually put some of the so-called warriors to shame! As the sword kept dancing in the air, it made him resemble a celestial being that descended on earth!
After a full three minutes if playing around with the Longsword and giving vent to his feelings, Lan finally stopped, before softly explaining towards the fat man.
"Good Sword!"
After that, he threw the sword back toward the fat man who who hadn't even fully recovered and caught the sword on instinct. The man was truly stunned seeing such a splendid swordplay coming from a kid! There weren't a lot of people that could perform such a thing, except for the ones that have practiced the art of the sword for long periods of time!
The group slowly recovered soon afterwards and their eyes full of admiration toward him. Not even five minutes have passed since Lan met the group but he has already gained their admiration with only a few words and a demonstration!
"Where did you learn such a fine swordplay, kid?" asked the Fat man, clearly very pleased with him. The feelings the Fat man had towards Lan was clearly stronger than how the others felt toward him. While the others admired him, they did not truly understand much of what Lan truly did. Howecer, the Fat man could see what dedication and love Lan had for Longswords, which made him fully respect this kid. A lot of people treated weapons like toys or lifeless objects that were meant only to kill, but very few people actually treated swords with such dedication and heart. Lan's sword heart truly reached another leveled, otherwise, he couldn't have performed such a stunning swordplay that exhibited a Longswords entire being. A deep sense of respect surfaced from the man towards Lan, which made him view him in a new light!
"I learned it from my grandpa!" said Lan, remembering the old geezer who forced him to train everyday like a madman, not giving him a chance to breathe. Having done this all the time on the lonely island, Lan truly started loving swords and made him view them as his most valuable companions.
"And where is you grandpa?"
"Dunno!"
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"It's only been one day since i have been summoned to this strange world and the last thing i know was that i was training with my grandpa. After that, i woke up in the middle of a forest, ending up captured by bandits before managing to escape and encountering that stupid huge bee nest! How should i know that there will be such a big stupid bee home? It was clearly a misunderstanding, but those stupid unreasonable bee's thought i'll steal their honey!"
Remembering how he had been chased by such a big swarm of Killer Bee's, Lan's anger slowly resurfaced. No matter what, thise stupid bee's will have to pay for that!
Listening to Lan's words, the group was more or less convinced of his words. Everyone knows that in this part of the forest, there is a big nest of Killer Bee's that makes it difficult to approach. Their nest is protected by 7 Bee Protectors and their Queen. Let's not forget about the thousands of Killer Bee's scattered around, making the life of every other living creature difficult. It's very easy to slap some flies, but an army of flies? Too hard! A lot of people searched for the Killer Bee nest in the past, but not even a person managed to find it's location and and give clear pointers of where it is. The main reason was, the people that wandered in these sides of the forest were mainly people that earned their living killing beasts or bandits who are wanted everywhere and do all kinds of bad deeds.
"Oh..so it's already this time of the year again when new people are summoned to this world, sigh, there will be a lot of deaths this time again." said the beautiful woman in a soft voice
"Looks like it. Lan must have been summoned only recently and judging that he was not killed after encountering bandits, surely they must have been slave traders. I'm rather curious how he actually escaped.." said another person from the group, while the others nodded along
"Well, that doesn't really matter, does it? We are here mainly for that bee nest, we have searched for one week already without finding a trace of it, we should be happy that thus kid knows where the nest is. Let's hurry with this damned mission already, i haven't taken a good bath for a while and i'm already starting to stink! Bah!" one of the women inside the group complained, disdaining to even stay in this lowly place even further.
Listening to the group, Lan slowly grasped over some matters. New people summoned? Slave traders? Looking for the bee nest? It was very easy to figure things out. Clearly, this world had a lot of bandits, including slave traders and this group of people was looking for the bee nest that he has seen earlier. Fate truly does wonders sometimes! Lan haw barely escaoes alive from it and after he was saved by this group of people he learned that they were actually looking for the thing that hunted him just a few moments ago! Somehow, Lan didn't know wether to laugh or to cry at the developement of this situation.
"I can tell you where it is" said Lan, attracting the attention of the group before adding "but you have to take me with you!"
Judging by the tone of his words, the group sighed. Clearly, this little kid was still pissed off after getting chased like a stray dog by those bees. Now that he finally has a glimmer of hope to get revenge, he wouldn't sit back doing nothing!
"Fine, but you will have to protect yourself, we are not gonna stay and babysit you. The bee's aren't a strong solitary force, but their true strenght lays in numbers! The Bee Nest is protected by 7 Bee Protectirs which are actually pretty strong from the information we received. But the one we have to be wary off is actually the leader, the Queen Bee. She's a true force that can not be ignored, so we'll have to fight with all our strenght and reduce their numbers before she takes actions herself. That's why, we won't be able to protect you!"
Its not that the beautiful woman didn't want to protect him or bring him along, but once they started fighting, the fight won't be easy for them either! As for protecting him? Impossible! This world wasn't some friendly place that allowed for distractions. A lot of people tried to attack the bee nest, but all of them returned unsuccesfully or died, feeding the creatures of the forest. The bee's were normally low leveled beasts that gave negligble experience, no drops and their carcasses were uselees except for the stinger which could fetch a low price. Nobody liked hunting or dealing with them, because the losses were bigger than the gains. But there was one good thing that people wanted from them and that was the honey they produced. In the past, there was a group of mercenaries that managed to find a Bee Nest and sweep it up, collecting all the honey and selling it off on an auction. The honey was a delicacy and it could enchance a person's vitality permanently, adding a new growing stat to the user. This resulted in a lot of missions given by the alchemist association to collect it, since it could be used with other ingredients in creating valuable potions. However, not a lot of people ventured looking for such things because attacking a bee nest is truly similar to attacking a highly defended fortress that even after conquered, the honey could only fetch a little higher pricecthan the carcasses of some medium leveled beasts, which was not worth the trouble at all. The effects would lower the more one ate the honey, becoming inexistent after some time.
Lan slowly started walking towards the directions in which he came from, with the group of people walking slowly behind him. Sometimes a random beast came blocking their way, but it either ran with it's tail between it's legs from the imposing air of the group, either it became fertilizer for the nature. The group slowly introduced themselves to Lan, resulting in a friendlier relation with him. The beautiful woman was called Tianya and the man with the Longsword was called Mark. The group of people were actually mercenaries but of a low grade. Despite the fact that Tianya was a woman, she was surprisingly the leader of this small group of mercenaries. The group called themselves "The Seven Mercenaries" which was actually a pretty boring name in Lan's opinion, but he didn't voice his thoughts trying not to piss them off. Their levels weren't very high either, most of them being 9-10 while only Tianya was level 12 and Mark level 11. But being in this world for six years already, they should have some skills that would be useful against monstera in a fight, assumed Lan. But hearing their levels were so low, Lan found it rather difficult ti understand..why are their levels so low? He is only here for one day and he has already reached level 4, what have they done so far? Lan could not resist the temptation and asked the question in the end. The answer he received was simple, higher leveled monsters were too hard to deal with and the group lacked the capabilitiea to deal with them. Not only that, the dangers of hunting higher leveled beasts were too high and they often fought in groups.
After a certain level, monsters also attacked with spells and had intelligence not lacking to humans either, resulting in high casualties and risks their group could not afford to bear. So they only did low missions letting them a glimmer of hope to live comfortably and dangerless.
The group did not bother explaining too much about the strenght of higher leveled beasts since one has to fight against them himself to realize the difference between lower leveled monsters like Killer Bee's and higher leveled beasts. At the end of the day, he is just a kid, what's the point in telling him more than that, they thought. Despite the fact that hw was proficient in the art of the sword, so what? There were a lot of people skilled in theory, but when having to take action, would lose control of themselves and tremble, unaible to move and die.
After walking for around two hours, the group finally caught sight if randomly scattered Killer Bee's around the forest. The Bee's were easily taken care by Widi, one of the girls, who was the sole archer of the group. Her archery was pretty good, not missing a shot so far.
Clearly, the scattered bees indicated only one thing. They were getting closer and closer to the nest!
Not even thirty minutes after that, they caught sight in the distance of the humongous sized bee nest which was surrounded by Killer Bee's in every part, covering the skies and earth!
"This is...huge, way too huge! What the f**k, why is this nest so big?" one of the men could not help but curse out loud
"Weird, truly weird! Normally, bee nests are not supposed to be this big, even though they are well over ten meters, none of them were like this one! This thing was well over thirty meters! What the bloody hell is going on!" another person spoke, his voice filled with agitation
Lady Tianyas expression also darkened at rhe sight of the nest. This was truly not what they thought it was, according to the informations they received upon accepting the mission, the bee nest was only medium sized, this was actually oversized and not only by a little bit!
"We were lied.." said Mark, depressed
"Indeed, that damned wrench! She actually hid the most important things from us and we even accepted the bet! God damn it all, now we're in such a deep mess, going against this fortress is like seeking certain death! But if we turn around and return empty handed, we will lose everything we have worked for so far!" spoke Tianya, biting her red lips with raging anger inside of her, but also unable to change anything avout the situation.
Seeing the faces of the people changing so quickly, Lan did not know wether to laugh or to cry. At the end of the day, isn't it just a bigger sized nest? What's there to dwell so much on the problem for? Just kill everything and loot it all!
The way Lan was thinking was straightforward and straight to the point. Why waste so much time thinking? Just go and take action!
The group was clearly pretty experimented, slowly, slowly regaining their cool. They immediatly retreated a few hundred meters away, before taking cover under some bushes to formulate a plan of attack.
"So, anyone has any better idea than directly tacklinf the nest?" spoke Mark, with a wry smile on his face. His personality was strongly alike Lan's, straightforward
"Silly Mark, we can't just do that. Did you see all those bee's? They are well over two thousand! Using a head-on tactic won't get us any results!"
"How about we gather a bit majority of bee's in one place and kill them? We all know that Widi bought a few explosive talismans and their explosive power slould be pretty useful, this is practically the only way we can fight against this army of bee's." said Tianya slowly. Clearly, she deserved the titls of a leader, immediatly taking the lead and laying down a plan.
The others, hearing the words from Tianya, slowly regained clarity over the situation. So what if they were big in numbers? They, as well, had enough strenght to put off a good fight! If they can catch them all, they can just attack them all in one go and reduce their numbers by more than half in one go! After that, things will get simplier and allow them to focus on the Bee Protectors and Queen Bee.
Lan looked at the group and slowly nodded his head. They have clearly fought a lot of times together in the past and survived some ordeals together, otherwise, they wouldn't be so decisive regarding such a fight. Seven persons and one kid against an army of thousands of Killer Bee's? This is not something anyone without some serious brain problems would do! Lan slowly started enjoying being in the same group with them. They were daring and straightforward, not like other people, running before they even tried. Now that's a true adventure and challenge, Lan's bloos started boiling inside of him just thinking of seeing these damned insecta pay their debts!
'"We will need someoen to bait them for us.." spoke Tianya before continuing "but whom?"
However, a person appeared on her mind. Turning around toward the mercenaries, clearly everyone shared the same thought. They slowly turned toward a certain person who's blood was still burning, full of excitement, before realizing that he became the center of attention and everyone had a grin on their face when looking at him.
"What is it..." spoke Lan, slightly intimidated
"Hahaha Lan, since you really wanted to come with us, we have a job for you!" said Mark giving off a hearty laughter.
Realizing what it is about, only one thought appeared on his mind.
'F**k'
