Squirming

"I see," Jackson said as he came closer to Harry.

The entire atmosphere had changed from yesterday.

'Just yesterday we were all sitting together, laughing and enjoying the company of each other and now it's gone, just like that. Nothing ever goes as planned in this world does it?' Leroy thought as he looked around him, at his comrades and the world itself. 

Sighing softly, Leroy went to stand next to Harry as well.

"What will we do now Captain?" Leroy asked Harry.

"We will continue the mission, we can't stay here as that will just complicate things further and we don't know when the mist will come back and as we stand currently, we have no idea how to defend our lives not to mention counterattacking or getting revenge," Harry said, his expression was dark, Weltist had been with them for years at this point, it was harder for Harry than for anyone else.

He felt like he had betrayed the group.

Harry turned towards Jackson and said

"Sire, I think that it's best that we get our stuff together and leave from here as fast as possible, that should allow us to at least have lower chances of another attack," Harry said as he stared at the man they were protecting.

'Is it really protecting when he is clearly stronger than all of us?' Leroy asked himself.

"I see, well then I'll follow your decision Mercenary captain," Jackson said as he turned around and walked towards his tent, his butler following closely after him.

Harry then turned towards the group and said loudly.

"What are you waiting for? You heard me, go grab your things, and let's leave this place as quickly as we can" 

"Yes, captain" The mercenaries responded to their captain, their expressions were grim as if they had eaten something unpleasant.

Everyone went towards their tents, grabbed their stuff, and then packed the tents as well.

It took no more than a few minutes but to Leroy and the others, it felt like an instant.

Their minds were still clouded with what had happened merely minutes ago.

Someone had disappeared, never to be seen and most likely dead. Eaten by some unknown monster.

Everyone once again gathered in front of the carriage, Jackson and his butler had gone inside while the driver was in his seat.

"It's good that the horses didn't get killed at least," Jakob said to Leroy.

"Yeah," Leroy answered in a somber tone.

Finally, after everyone was in their positions, Harry went to the driver and instructed him to continue the journey.

They had been a group of 18 yesterday, now it was 17.

As the carriage started riding through the deep forest, the mercenaries took their positions and started guarding it on all fronts.

Leroy was positioned in the middle next to the archers who were behind the front line.

There were five archers or at least there were five archers and now there were only four.

Before it was quite easy to cover all directions but now it had become much harder with only four and so Leroy had been stationed where Weltists position was, his job was to shoot the enemy but more as an alarm, so that he could notify the others of a potential enemy attack.

The road was slim and rugged, merely a small dirt path that was made by people and carriages going through it for years.

It was only the early morning, the sun had just come up as they walked through it.

Leroy kept looking right and left, every sound that he heard was an alarm going inside his head he quickly turned his head towards it, only to find that it was a small rodent or just the wind ruffling the leaves.

Suddenly Ordio knocked him on his back, almost throwing him on the ground.

"Calm down, if you stay on such high alert then you will drain yourself much more quickly, and not having the stamina to concentrate when something does happen isn't a good thing. I'm speaking from experience here." Ordio said to Leroy as he ruffled his head.

Leroy just looked at him and then slapped his hand off.

"You should learn to trust us more, we have your back so it's going to be ok," Ordio said with a small smile on his face, trying to cheer up the boy, yes Leroy was still just a boy merely fourteen years old.

"Trust you? Sure, I can do that normally but what do you expect me to trust when someone just disappeared before our eyes and we could do nothing about it, absolutely nothing." Leroy asked, his voice filled with poison and sarcasm.

Ordio just sighed.

"Weltist was one of my best mates Leroy, it hurts me that he disappeared like that but in this world, staying caught up in one position is the same as dying, you need to move on and from what we could tell even if we were on our best guard then we could do nothing about it, so isn't it just a waste of stamina to do what you are right now?" Ordio asked Leroy calmly.

Leroy just stared at the man.

'I know that what you are saying is correct but how can you expect me to just accept that when I know that I could die in the next second.' Leroy thought as he shook his head.

Ordio just sighed once more and then went back to his position a bit further away from him.

Leroy just stood in his position, walking together alongside the carriage.

'I've been in a dangerous place before, just like then I need to calm down and start thinking as logically as possible so that I have at least a sliver chance of living' Leroy thought as he started to calm himself down, trying to achieve the state that he had previously done while in the slums.

Bottle up every emotion and just react to the situation as it comes, in the most logical way that his mind allows him to.

Further back, behind the carriage, tens of meters behind the tree lines.

A Bluish mist was squirming as it released small whispers to its surroundings.

The mist looked as if alive and hundreds of maggots were inside of it, all coming together and forming hundreds upon hundreds of human faces on the mist.

They all looked as if they were in pain screaming at the world for their misfortune.

Their eyes were hollowed out and their mouths had no teeth, enlarged to such a degree that it looked like their jaws had been broken.

They resembled a human at first glance but when looking at them again, all that you could see was monsters.

Demons of the Mist.