23 First request

Morning. Both of them got up and left the Inn and went to the Guild. Again, they both stare at the board to check of there is anything better to do.

Saito couldn't take it anymore so he took a gathering request. Herjar gave him a weird look. "We were looking at it for fifteen minutes already! Lets just take one and go" Saito said. Herjar let out a *sigh* and nodded his head.

They went to the Guild girl and gave the paper to her as Saito said, "We would like to apply for this". The girl smiled as always and looked at the request paper. Her face showed surprise as she asked, "This one? Are you sure? You can take any other if you want you know".

Now their face showed surprise and Herjar asked, "Why? Isn't this just a F rank request? Then why should we?". The girl looked like she was not willing to let them take the request. She then said, "Its a gathering request and no doubt on that, but the problem is that you can only find the listed item in the deep parts of the forest and here will be a lot of beasts roaming around, so its a bit hard for two guys to do it alone...".

Now they understood why she was like that, she was concerned about them. Well as a representative of the guild, its her job to worry about them. Herjar then said, "You don't have to worry Miss....". She said with a smile, "Layla, my name is Layla". Herjar nodded and continued, "You don't have to worry about us Miss Layla, we both will make it somehow".

Layla pouted and said, "It's my job to worry you know?". Saito smiled from the side and said, "You guys can be lovey dovey later, can we go now?" he then sensed a menacing aura from the side. He saw the guild girl and she was quite scary, so he quickly shut his mouth.

Anyway, she gave them some advice and a map. With that, both of them left for the forest. When they got to the gate, the soldiers gave them a hostile look. Commander Bolgan was standing near the gate and checking whoever was coming in. He saw the two of them coming over, so he smiled at them. "What brings you two here today?" Bolgan took the initiative to talk.

Saito smiled and replied, "Work, gotta head to the forest for some gathering". Herjar didn't say anything and just stood at his side. Bolgan said, "Well... Not that you need it but, be careful out there, we don't want good Mercs like you dying".

"Is there something wrong, Commander Bolgan?" Saito asked with seriousness in his voice. Bolgan said with the same seriousness, "It's just that there are some strong monsters and beast are being abnormally active in the forest, so we had to tight the security and some strong parties are being assembled and even the city's main force is on high alert as well as us for the worst scenario".

Saito looked at Herjar and he nodded. He then said, "Thanks for the heads up commander, we will look out when we are out". Bolgan smiled and let them pass.

There were on their way to the forest. Herjar asked, "What is our next course of action, Saito?". Saito said, "Get deeper into the forest, collect those herbs, eliminate hostiles, get back and report" Herjar nodded. What he said was the right course of action, unwanted troubles should be avoided at all cost unless it is useless to escape.

They ventured into the forest and went towards the deepest part. Herjar knew that Saito said avoid trouble, but they are indeed looking for trouble while searching for the herbs. They were looking "for" trouble because if it finds someone weaker than them, it will be troublesome to handle.

Herjar stopped and so did Saito. He looked around and suddenly climbed up a tree like a monkey. He then surveyed the surrounding. He then found what he was looking for, so he jumped down. "Its over there, near the cave" he said.

Saito smiled and said, "Wow, you're pretty useful in times like these". "I'm a dark elf you know? I'm supposed to be good at this" he said. Both of them then walked towards that cave he said and found a grass like flower near the entrance.

Saito crouched down and inspected the flower, "So this is the "GrassClove flower"? I heard this has some good properties that can even sometimes cure sickness that priests find hard to cure with their "Purify" power! Is it that good?" he asked Herjar. Herjar was a bit surprised by the fact that he knew so much about it.

"Yes it is, even sometimes I used it when I was on missions! But I sure am surprised that you know a lot about it" He said. Saito said, "Well I did ask around about it, since we are searching for it, it won't hurt to know a little bit about what we are looking for".

Herjar smiled and nodded his head. Saito pluck the flower and looked at the cave, "Think we should check inside? Just in case". Herjar just looked at the cave without saying anything for quite a while.

He finally spoke, "We should, if my guess is right, then our main objective should we inside or my sense is telling me there is something inside". Saito then got serious as well.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Saito and Herjar were about to go in, but they were stunned for a second when they heard what seems to be a girl's scream. They immediately rushed inside the cave. Both of them gripped the handle of their weapons. Herjar was faster than Saito and was more used to the dark environment of the cave than Saito.

Herjar stopped behind a rock and Saito caught up with him. Saito was breathing a bit fast, but still under the limit of panting the hell out. Saito asked, "Situation?".

Herjar said, "Three girls and two guys, guys are dead and the girl are about to be violated if we don't move in now! There's a total of 59 enemies! The number itself is hard for us to handle even if they are just goblins! What do you say? Time is short". "Hehe~ don't you know what to do? Exactly that!" Saito said. He immediately got out of hiding and darted at the goblins.

He drew out his blade and decapitated the first goblin. This got the rest of the goblins and the ones about to rape the girls also stopped and looked at him with hostile gaze. The girls were still crying and looked at him.

A goblin tried to attack him from behind, but it lost its head before it could even reach him. "Let's go all out and finish this quicker! We have other stuff to look at" Saito said. "Understood" Herjar replied.

They both started their slaughter. Saito cut half everything that came his way. Be it an arrow or a knife or a goblin, everything just go cut in half. Saito changed his look from a serious one to a scary one. The aura he was releasing scared the shit out of the goblins and made half of them stand still which made it easy to kill them. He was like a reaper reaping lives.

Herjar was no less either, he moved like a shadow and sliced the neck of the goblins that came his way. He avoided the arrows and knives. He easily dodged these amateurish style of the goblins but nonetheless, it felt good to do some stretching.

The number of goblins reduced to half of what they were. Soon the remaining goblins have been pushed into a corner. The goblins now looked very scared. To them, the two of them looked as scary as demons.

Herjar was about continue his slaughter but was stopped by Saito, "I wanna try something" Herjar nodded his head and backed up. Saito also backed up a bit and held his blade's handle while holding it in front of him.

He closed his eyes and tried to feel surrounding. The goblins sensed danger and so did Herjar. Abnormally, there was a slight breeze inside the cave. Herjar was shocked by this and the goblins were terrified by this. Even the three girl on the ground were eyes wide due to this.

The wind rotated around him and his Katana. The wind started to become weird and turned black. Now there was a small black whirlwind surrounding him. His blade was glowing green.

He slowly opened his eyes and the black whirlwind slowly crept towards the blade. The blade started to suck the black wind and grew in size.

Saito slowly pointed the blade down. He suddenly span at high speed and slashed his blade horizontally! The blade sent out an energy wave, a wide one and decapitated every remaining goblins and even placed a deep cut on the cave wall!

Herjar had his mouth hanging wide! He saw energy attacks in the past and this was the far most weirdest and most strongest energy attack he ever saw! Two types joining of elements combined together and formed a strong energy attack! He never heard of anyone using this type of method except the hero from the humanity. The three girls didn't know what was happening, but they understood that they are now safe.

Herjar asked, "Hey Saito..... Just now, was that... An energy type attack?". Saito nodded his head. "But... But..... How two elements!? Wait! Are you by chance, a second hero of the humans!?" Herjar asked, baffled. The girls were now even more surprised, did that guy just say "Hero"? Is that the great hero!?

Saito said, "I'm not a hero or anything, stop creating stuff!".

"But I never heard of someone other than the hero using more than one element for an energy attack!" Herjar said. It is true that using an energy itself is hard, but using two different elements for an energy attack? That is on another level of hardness.

"It just came to me, I trained a lot and experienced a lot! It could be the effect of those" Saito boasted about himself. Herjar didn't know what to say. He know that Saito was not lying to him, but not telling everything either. For some reason he felt that he was fated to be his companion.

Herjar then shook his head and his eyes caught something. He walked over and took a bag from the floor. Inside it was lot of GrassClove flowers, I mean really a lot of those flowers.

"Oi Saito, looks like we can go back and be rich! These goblins sure love herbalism! Look at this" Herjar showed the bag to Saito. Even Saito was shock by the amount of flower! According to the information they received, even three flowers are considered enough for the completion of the request and anymore they will be given a bonus for it! One flower is ten gold coins since its very rare to get. There was 30 of those flowers inside the bag! That means its 300 gold coins! It seems that checking this cave was really a good idea.

Saito then turned towards the girls and walked to them. The girls got their guard up out of instinct. He crouched down and removed his scarf as he said, "Don't worry, its alright now and I'm sorry we couldn't save your friends" he looked at the dead bodies of the boys.

Seeing that he is just like them they let their guard down. One of them spoke, "No, thank you! You saved us! Even though we couldn't save them, it is our fault that we let our guard down since we thought "they are just goblins" we thank you from the bottom of our heart for that!" the girls stood up and bowed. "Its fine, you don't have to" Saito said.

Just as he was about to speak, a fireball hit one of the girl and immediately killed her. "NOOOOOOOOOO!" the one of the girls shouted while the other was way too petrified to do anything. Saito immediately drew his blade and Herjar took his daggers. They both faced the direction where the attack came from while keeping the girls behind them.

"Goblin Shaman! Things got more serious now!" Herjar said. Saito didn't say anything and just looked at the shadow at the corner of the cave. The shadow came forward and relived itself to them. It was indeed a goblin shaman.

It started to chant once again. Saito took one kunai from his coat and threw it towards the goblin shaman. The kunai flew towards it, but it hit some sort of barrier and was stopped. The goblin shaman laughed, "kekekekekeke".

Saito then darted at it. The shaman chanted again and conjured a fireball and fired it at him. He cut through the fireball like it was nothing and cut the shaman into half.

"Is it finally over now?" Saito asked. Herjar nodded his head. He looked at the girls and said, "We need to get the hell out of here before something else comes! Move!". They then left the cave.