13 Predicament

Smell of rot and rust hanged in the air as two people were walking on a certain plain. It was recently named Corgate plain.

"Oh shit! Look at this!" a fully cloaked person called for his accomplice as he pointed at certain item.

"Hmm? A helmet, so what?"

"Idiot! Look what's it made from! I never ever expected to find adamantite in my life!"

"I see. Even though it smells of shit and blood it's still made from adamantite…though it's too big for a normal person so we'll have to lower the price. Go on, pull it out already."

The man did as he was told and tried pulling out the helmet out of the ground. It was very heavy, but he did it successfully.

"Hahahah! We'll be rich with this! If there's a helmet let's hope there's a whole set of armor!"

"Yep, that'd be a true jackpot. We'd be set for life if that happened…though we'd probably need a cart with a donkey to move something like that…"

As the men grinned like complete idiots under their masks a gigantic shadow appeared behind them. They quickly turned around and reached for their swords but it was too late.

An enormous oversized blade went sideways and cut straight through both of them. With the last dying breath the men got a better look at the attacker…it was three meters tall, wore pitch black armor and had a hideous face - a rotten face of a troll.

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A party of six people was following an old dirt road. They wore impressive armor and mage robes, they were adventurers. Not any adventurers in fact, but a C ranked party Whistling Wind.

Among the adventurers, reaching a C rank was exceptionally hard and only truly talented people could ever do that.

The party consisted of a mage, a priest, two warriors, a scout and an archer.

"Is there a limit to your greed?" an old looking man asked a young archer.

His name was Lee and he was a magic swordsman. He used to be a mercenary, but fate played out its course and he ended up as an adventurer.

"Greed? We're only checking out a battle site. It's the only clue we have about the elves, and if we end up finding something expensive then it's purely out of luck." A young girl with a bow answered the man. She supposedly was the leader of the party, but people only listened to her because it was amusing to do so.

"Hoo~~~…going to a battle site is more dangerous than you think. Apart from various scavengers who flock to it, undead and other monstrosities can appear in those places…"

"That's why we have our priest! Right, Gustav?"

"I only joined this party out of concern for a young little maiden like you. If any evil appears, I will smite it, but if something more dangerous crawls out of the pits of hell…I will prioritize bringing the information to the church." An old and deep voice responded.

Gustav, the priest of the party, was…a weird fellow. He, himself, offered to join the party and not a lot is known about him. He wore the typical priestly gown every priest does, but he was way older than anyone Elli ever seen. If one could guess his age they would probably go to the hundreds…not even as a joke, he just looked that old.

"Say, what god do you follow? I heard there're dozens of them." A muffled voice from the back inquired the priest. It was Tess, the thief of the party.

"I follow the God of Life Bastus, though my church also follows the Goddess of Creation Ibelia…"

"Bastus, eh? I heard he created humanity, is that true?"

The priest only slowly nodded as he gripped onto his amulet tightly.

"Goddess of Creation? Never heard of her, is she real?" Elli asked with a hint of interest.

"Of course. Not a lot of proof of her existence is left, apart from the world itself, she is probably the god we should love the most. She sacrificed her own body to create this world after all…" the priest told with a slight sadness in his voice.

"How do we know she's a real god though? Someone might've thought her up as many other fake religions do."

"She's real. Apart from the world itself, there are records of her giving her blessings to people. I even knew a person who had a blessing from her…very interesting fellow he was."

The party talked for another hour about various things such as gods, their blessings or talents, until they reached the recent battle site located on the Corgate plain.

The ground was littered with metal armor and dead rotting bodies, arrows could be seen poking out, but the battle site lacked any hint of the elves.

After another hour of searching they finally found a sign of the elves, a dead Sleipnir. It looked like a black eight-legged horse. Its difficulty ranking was D.

"It has no armor though?"

"People must've looted it already, it happens all the time."

As they looked at the dead beast a massive roar attracted their attention. They looked towards the hill it came from and noticed a person. It was a middle-aged man and he ran with all his strength.

As he ran he dropped his excess weight, such as weapons and armor. Whatever was chasing it was worth running from it would seem.

As he almost reached the middle of the hill, a black figure appeared at the peak of it. It ran with incredible speed and quickly caught up to the man. With a swing of its sword the man was cut in half and died instantly.

"What the hell is that?!" Elli shouted in surprise.

"I don't know, but we'll be next if we don't hurry."

"Should we run?"

"We won't outrun it."

The party prepared their formation with the mages in the back and swordsmen at the front.

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A massive sword traveled through the sky. Its size was comparable to a human, if not bigger. A man stood in front of the oncoming sword and raised his own sword.

The man's sword shone for a bit and reflected the attack without breaking a sweat.

"Do it!"

"[Turn undead]!!"

"[Fire Bolt]!"

As the white light concentrated around the black monster and started to slowly melt it alive, multiple small fire balls came at it from the sides. The balls made a slight explosion and lit the monster on fire. It shrieked in pain as the white and red color consumed its whole body.

When the group of adventurers though they'd won, the figure ignored the damage it was taking and lunged at the swordsman.

"[High Defense]!!" the swordsman shouted in desperation.

The massive sword hit the man's side, but apart from a few bone breaking sounds, the man did not get sliced in half.

"Take this!"

He counter-attacked with his own sword, which shone even more brightly and cut into the beast's armor joints.

After contact the beast did not show any sign of pain, though black liquid flowed out of with intense pressure.

"S-shit! Abel, change!"

Abel, the other swordsman, jumped in and switched places with the magic swordsman. He immediately stood into a weird pose and his body got slowly enveloped in a light red aura.

The swordsman then slashed with speed invisible to the eye, but each strike was deflected with the beast's arm, which was covered in black colored armor.

Arrows and throwing knives came with exceptional precision, but did not do any considerable damage.

The black figure, probably annoyed with the struggle, raised its enormous sword with it's both hands and brought it downwards with all of its strength.

Abel raised his sword and tilted it sideways with the intent to parry the attack, but in spite of his struggle, the massive sword slashed straight through his weapon and dug deep into his shoulder.

Blood sprayed everywhere as the man slowly fell to the ground limply.

"S-shit! Abel!"

His friends shouted before an enormous light started to gather behind them. It was Gustav, the priest.

"[Holy Smite]" a monotonous chant reverberated.

With a dispersion of magic from his staff and the sky turning white, a big white beam of light came out of the sky and hit the undead monster. It did not shriek this time, because it instantly turned into dust and the only thing left was its armor.

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"[Heal]"

"Will he live?!"

"…I don't know. The bleeding stopped for now, but the injury has yet to close, I'm afraid it's too deep. If we don't get to a town soon he will die, at best he might lose an arm…"

"Fucking shit! Damn it all!" the old man shouted in anger.

The other members of the party only looked from afar while still on guard. Adventurer's life was dangerous and they all knew what they signed up for, but seeing their ally, who they already considered a friend, be on a death's door left a big mark in their hearts.

"If not for this brat we wouldn't be in this kind of situation in the first place!" Old man Lee shouted, as his face got redder and redder by the second.

"I… I-It's not my fault…" the young leader girl struggled to answer, and did not look at the man. She tried glancing for a few times, but ended up looking at the ground.

"Haha! How funny. Not your fault?! You fucking brat! The leader picks the jobs, the leader LEADS, the leader takes responsibility!"

"H-hey Lee, calm down for a second, she's too young for this." A fellow adventurer Tess tried to intervene and calm the man down, but it was unsuccessful.

"Oh yes, too fucking young. I've seen younger idiots than her who did a better job! She never should've taken up the roll of the leader! I-"

"Stop." Abel, barely breathing, spoke up and shut the man down.

The silence remained for a few minutes, when the priest spoke up.

"Now's not the time for this kind of thing. If you want him to live we need to hurry back to the civilization."

The group quickly packed up and carried the injured ally on a stretcher. However, at the time, they did not notice the weird presence shadowing them…