Gathering Allies

Rena woke from her slumber, alone and surrounded by trees. The woods were eerily silent. No birds were chirping, no squirrels chittering, not even wind rustling the leaves. Everything was simply still.

Being surrounded by such quiet filled her with an extreme sense of foreboding and dread. Blood rushing through her ears soon became one of the only things she could focus on aside from her rapidly increasing heart rate.

"Calm down, Rena…calm down. You've got this." She whispered to herself.

Willpower was a trait that she excelled at, but it still took every ounce for her to breathe and calm herself. Once she was able to settle her heart, she looked at her surroundings.

Truly there were four real directions to choose from. Two would lead her neither out nor deeper. One would lead out of here, and the final would take her closer to death.

Thankfully, even with her lack of experience, a general sense of dread was concentrated in one direction which helped tell her that was the area she wanted to avoid. The concentration of magical beasts and monsters deeper in the forest could even be felt by unranked people.

Almost an hour later, she continued to stumble around the woods. Wind had started to rustle the treetops above her which helped settle her nerves more, but still there still weren't any other sounds. That was until she heard a loud scream.

It was definitely a girl's scream, which meant two things. First, it was another living being. Secondly, she was under attack. Since it was clearly a dangerous situation, Rena unsheathed her sword and charged toward the sounds.

Screaming and shouting continued, but it was one-sided, which told Rena that the other party was a beast. In short order, she burst into a small clearing which had a young girl, Rena's age, and a boy standing over the corpse of a wolf.

Rena paused for a moment, taken aback by the fact that someone else had beaten her to the scene. However, she was also surprised she did not hear the sounds of combat.

A moment later, the other girl screamed again.

"What's wrong! The wolf is dead, don't worry!" Rena cooed, trying to calm the girl down.

She was a simple girl, clearly a commoner. At first, Rena was confused why she was here in the woods, but then she caught a glimpse of something black on the back of the girl's left hand.

"What's your name?"

"E-E-Edra…" the girl whimpered. She looked up at Rena with wet, brown eyes. Tears stained her cheeks.

"Why are you still screaming, Edra? The wolf is dead. You are safe now."

"N-n-no…I'm-m-m screaming cus of tha-a-a-t…" Edra squeaked out while pointing her finger behind Rena.

She turned around and followed the finger which seemed to be pointing the direction of the strange boy who was quietly observing them. Rena put herself on guard, wondering if the boy had been attacking other participants.

Nothing about his demeanor showed any hostility, however. He was in a relaxed stance and had put his sword in its sheathe. His hands weren't even touching the hilt of his weapon.

"What is your name?" Rena asked. Even though he didn't look like a threat, he still took out this wolf without alerting her. And something about him terrified poor Edra.

"Lucius." The boy stated. Rena noticed as he talked that he had an extra set of canine teeth. His eyes were very feline in nature. One was a gorgeous silver and the other a dull-gray.

"I saw you before the trial." She said to him.

"You probably saw a bunch of people."

Rena noticed the boy was particularly gruff in his responses, but she could also tell he wasn't being rude, rather he just seemed…shy?

"Why is she screaming? What did you do to her?"

Lucius simply responded by gesturing to his general face, indicating it was his teeth and eyes.

Before Rena could say anything else, the boy called Lucius jerked his head to the side while drawing his sword. Rena also stood at attention and drew her own sword. She gazed in the direction Lucius faced. However after about five minutes of this awkward silence, nothing happened.

"Why are you…"

She was interrupted by a group of people emerging from the woods. They appeared to be other participants and they were all exhausted and terrified.

It appeared to be a group of about five people. Each of them was a stranger to Rena, but they appeared to have been through a lot.

"Who are you all?" Rena asked. She put her sword away, but her hand still hovered near it. Lucius moved slowly away from the group as they exited near where he stood.

She watched as the handsome boy stepped slowly near her. He placed himself just inside her striking range, and kept his back turned partially towards her. Rena smiled since this appeared to be a sign of trust towards her.

"We've been running for an hour…we were attacked by a monster…some of us didn't make it…"

"Okay, who are you all." Rena asked. She continued to relax, but noticed that Lucius was still operating completely on caution.

One by one, every child introduced themselves. There was Landon, the son of a guard. Michael, the son of a butcher. Maribel, the daughter of the mayor's concubine and marked. Pavi, the son of a prostitute. Finally, was the de facto leader of their group, Nate.

Nate was someone who Rena was able to recognize after he started talking. His current appearance did not make him easily recognizable because of his swollen cheeks. It looked like he may have broken a cheekbone or something. Nate was a noble's son from the wealthier part of town. Rena interacted with him a fair bit growing up when his parents visited her father.

"Lady Rena von Petra, I beg your pardon for my desheveled appearance…and if I may…could we inconvenience you to allow us to travel together…" Nate had asked. He had piercing, blue eyes, but only one was really visible at the moment. He was never a prideful boy, like most other nobles, so Rena got along with him okay.

Her main concern now was whether the strange boy called Lucius would join them or leave. He did not seem to trust them.

"Was it a deer?"

Rena blinked. Lucius asked a strange question out of nowhere.

"Why do…"

"No, good sir. We were set upon by a pack of wolves. One of them appeared to have been born as a Direwolf."

"Was it grown?"

"No…thankfully it was only an infant…yet it was still almost as large as the adults in the pack."

Rena watched as Lucius seemed to relax. Why was it so important to know if they were attacked by a deer?

'What a strange boy…' she thought.

After a few minutes of figuring out who everyone was in the new group, Rena and Edra finally introduced themselves. The other children made it awkward by attempting to bow or kneel or something strange like that, but Rena quickly put a stop to it.

Finally everyone looked at the odd-one-out, Lucius.

"I'm Lucius. Son of Guard Captain Wayne. I'm a Marked One…and half beastman." He pointed to his left hand and his eyes to emphasize the last two points.

"What does your mark do?" Rena asked. She knew a handful of marks. Mostly just the dangerous ones though, so she could be careful. She did not recognize this boy's but that didn't really mean anything.

Lucius thought for a moment. "Dunno. Not really anyway."

"Can you use it?"

"If I need to."

Rena sighed. This boy clearly needed to get out more. She knew who is father was. And since she also knew almost all of the maid staff, she knew who his mother was too.

She had heard that Miss Rubellia and Sir Wayne had adopted a child, but her other maids advised her to stay away from him since he was a Marked One.

Once again Lucius snapped to attention. This time however, he looked the direction that scared everyone shitless. His gaze was settled towards the center of the forest.

"Have you guys fought an Alpha Deer?"

Rena looked at the boy like he was insane. She wasn't the only one either. All of the children stared at him blankly.

"No!" They shouted in unison.

"Well…that sucks. Because we are about to fight one…and this one is particularly unhappy."

Rena had heard rumors of a child that fought against such a beast a while ago. Their family's preferred jeweler, Kart, had been talking to their procurement staff regarding a child who had fought against a white Alpha Deer and brough back one of its horns.

The story spread like wildfire so almost all of the noble children had heard of the story.

Nate's jaw dropped. "You're the one that fought off a heard of Alpha Deer? That's amazing! Your mark must be very strong!"

Lucius looked back at the boy like he was the world's biggest idiot. "I only fought the one…and at great cost. Also, I didn't use my mark. I couldn't use it then."

"What was the cost?"

"I lost access to one of my arts forever."

Rena's heart sank. For a moment she thought that they would be fine, having heard that the very same person who survived against one of these things, was with them to fight off this one. However, he couldn't use the same skills as last time. She was well and truly worried about what was going to happen.

"Should we run?"

"No use. It's here." Lucius said plainly.

Exactly at that moment, a large creature with pure white fur stepped out of the woods. It was a magnificent looking beast, but when looking at its head, Rena was able to notice that its normally large rack of antlers, was missing on one side.

"Did you miss me you bastard?" Lucius said.

He sounded confident, but Rena could notice an ever so slight tremble to his voice. It was clear he was terrified. She didn't know why, but something called on her to step up and put one hand on the boy's shoulder.

"We are with you. You aren't alone this time." She said confidently.