3 As if it was a nightmare

Two days before Faes and Canie leave to hunt, in the nearest village which was almost three hours by walking from the run-down village was having a festival, it was to celebrate the safe birth of the children and to bring offerings to Furioz the god of life and order, praying that the children would grow strong and healthy.

The festivities were mostly dances at the main square of the village and food stalls set up in the main roads, some stalls were selling mostly common food like fruits and bread with various fillings, others were selling the kind of food that one could only find in events like this, the most popular was the Sweet Boars that are made from the extract of Cevia a sweet plant which grows in the areas surrounding the village and was the best plants to make sweets, the boar part of the name didn't mean that it was sweet meat, it's just a candy in the size of a fist and a boar-like shape and as it is eaten by two people it was mostly sold to couples.

The village main product was their sweet candies and hand-made pots, that's how they've grown from a small village to a large one despite having lost one-sixth of their workers to some problems that occurred, even if the locals called it a village, it could easily seem as a small-sized city, not a mere village, it has a big stone wall surrounding it to protect them from monsters and make sure that no bandits invaded so easily, but even with the walls and the ones guarding them having some flaws, they didn't suspect that in the shadows lurked a worse evil, just waiting a chance to show his fangs.

While most of the people were enjoying the festival there were some who didn't stand seeing people happy, as they were suffering, they needed to make sure that everyone else was suffering too.

These people are the ones who live in the slums, which is located at the south gate of the village, they are not the only people who lost their jobs and farms to monsters or nobles, some of them were people who got fooled by their best friends and lost everything, when they thought that there's no way to have a good life again, a man stood up before them and offered a hand in their revengeful thoughts, and the Village fall-down plan was created.

For that purpose they contracted mercenaries who worked like bandits in the peaceful times and one travelling merchant to provide equipment to them, only the bare minimum like hard leather clothes and iron swords made by amateurs, if one looked at them from afar he might think that they were an extermination expedition going to hunt some monster because of how they were dressed.

The bandits stopped by a clearing in the forest, making sure not to alert the villagers with their campfire, after setting up a few tents they began to eat boar meat and some vegetables as well.

After a night of sleep and knowing that the village's festival was going to continue for three days or so, they went as far to make traps around the village to make sure that nobody flees during the attack, and as they were planning how to proceed a man covered in black cloth entered their main tent and no one seemed to be surprised by it.

"So, are we ready to start?" the person in black asked "I hope you can finish it by tonight, ya know?" the person had a weird accent when talking for too long.

"No problems until now contractor, leave the pillage to us while you do your part of the job," said the bandit's leader as he sits on a red chair.

"No need to worry, the guards will all be drunk at night and the gate by will open itself, if ya know what I mean" the person in black gave a slight giggle as he thought about destroying this village.

Anyone would notice that people from the slums who live a poor life couldn't have enough money to pay for mercenaries but it would be possible if they had a supporter, someone who is also aiming to destroy this village but neither the bandits nor the villagers would bother trying to discover who that supporter was.

While the bandits meeting with that person was going on, at the west gate of the village another problem was coming up.

"So you are telling us that..." said a guard sit with a hand on his face as if he had a headache "that you don't have neither money nor a citizen card, and don't even know where you are?"

The person he is talking to is a long-haired boy, his hair was gray but the root seemed to show a certain blue color growing, the boy himself doesn't seem to have more than 10 years old and his clothes and baggage were well-looking, one could think that he is some noble family kid who ran away from home but certainly this wasn't the case since every nobleman possess a card that allows them to enter in any town without paying taxes and the boy didn't have it nor money.

"Indeed, fufun, I smell a faint scent of sweets" the boy's voice seemed more mature than his own body and with an accent that's usually used by older people, that was probably the reason behind the guard confusion "are you having a festival? Can I have some sweets?"

"How can you talk like that you homele-" the subordinate of the guard raised his voice but was stopped by a signal from his boss

"Kid, I understand that you can't tell us your name, but you cannot go inside the town without the proper documentation" he got up from his chair and as he walked to the boy side "we from the guard corps will feed you and tomorrow you will have to depart"

The kid was looking at the guard as if he was about to complain then his expression changed again then said "well, there's nothing I can do about that, right? But it wouldn't hurt to give me sweets you know?" said the kid as he got up as well and signaled to the guard's boss to come down.

As he crouched, the boy got a hold of his shoulder and whispered in his ear "be careful when you go to sleep 'cause bad boys can have nightmares, right" the boy just walked away as the guard's boss kept silent while having an expression that for the boy was surely priceless.

And as the sun goes down the people of the village eventually starts to understand what it means to see a real Nightmare.

As about what Faestus and Caine were doing at the time.

"This one is surely a big catch" said Canie as he held in both hands a big Spider-Fish, this species of fish tend to live in cavern ponds and are capable of making thread that cannot harmed with water, usually they are kept alive for the sake of making clothes but as far they knew the Spider-Fish meat is really easy to cut through and gets really tasty with salt and spices when turned into Sashimi or fried in low fire "what do you think, boy"

"Dismantle..." Faestus said as he took a knife with his right hand, as they would probably eat it's meat he decided to cut off the creature eyes and scales in order to create other things with his Artisan skill.

"Oh, good, I see you are really after that Dismantling skill," he said as he let the fish on a board to make sure the scales fall in the pot set right at the side of the board "when you are done with this i will make it our dinner"

This noon after they ate lunch Canie went into the cave that is right at the side of the house and spent the entire noon there teaching Faestus how to fish in the pond that exists there, they caught some fishes, their today spoils were :

Spider-Fish Meat, a bunch.

Spider-Fish Eyes, three pairs,

Spider-Fish Scales, 3 pots,

Two small Horn-Fish,

And five Salming's core.

To catch the three spider fishes Faestus had to fight with them, after he managed to defeat them he obtained Martial Arts skill, the two horn fishes were easily caught with nets that are set to trap their horns and pull them out of the water to finally finish them, and for least the Salmings that are only silver-colored jelly creatures who appear in caves and tend to attack any organism alive near them to defeat them one only needs to hit his core but as it can't control the core there is no difficulty in defeating them, Canie has his own Sword Art that allows him to kill all the Salmings, without harming their cores, leaving it intact. These cores could be put for a good use later on.

And when Faestus finished the dismantling of the fish Canie made the dinner, they spent some time creating things with the Artisan skill, there were some good laughs in between the creations.

While the time to sleep was coming, someone thought.

"Then what kind of nightmare should this be?" letting this voice come out as people screamed with fear in the background.