The Presling Grove

With a sandwich for lunch, Fei found herself mulling underneath one of the shady trees in the city's central park. Whenever she felt troubled, she would always look for a shady place and analyze things while eating. Thinking with an empty stomach does nothing to improve her condition, so she bought a sandwich on the way.

To her surprise, it actually tasted pretty good, and her spirits had brightened up a bit. It only took her three to four bites, before she finished the whole thing.

"I should have bought more" was what she thought.

But the stall was quite a distance from her position, and she didn't feel like getting up and walking towards the stall, before returning again to her spot. Too much trouble.

After getting sidetracked by her lunch, she shifted her attention to her current predicament. She wanted to go to a place called Presling Grove, a treasure trove for monster researchers like herself. However, she exhausted all her options to find a capable person to accompany her.

The guild currently doesn't have the personnel to take the quest together with the risks involved, and the city guards cannot simply relinquish valuable manpower for a simple escort request.

This isn't her first escort request. The guild is used to handling her escort requests, but this time was different. She knew as well that her usual requests requires only a few treks outside the city's wall and can be accomplished in a single day, and that this time's request are of greater magnitude than her previous ones.

But what choice does she have? She has completely studied all the known monsters within the city's outskirts. She now lacks a source of valuable research materials.

This is when she heard of the appearance of a new type of monster. Of course, she wanted to go. She wanted to sate this thirst for new knowledge. She took out her research journal, opened a few pages, and then stopped.

She took out a worn-out piece of parchment that was carefully pressed between the pages. Even though she'd read this a million times already, she read it once more. She read the signature at the bottom of the parchment.

At the bottom of the parchment was a signature, "D. Guillard". She took one last glance before placing it once more between the pages of her journal.1

"My dream can't end now ", she mumbled to herself, staring into the distance, to a place farther than what the eyes can reach.

"I'll be the best monster researcher!", she declared.

~~~

The Presling Grove

Despite being around for a hundred years, the exploration of the Northern Province is still ongoing. The number of adventurers in each generation that are capable of venturing even further from the city is quite a few.

The number of monsters in the area is a constant threat to the pioneers of the Northern Province. Occasionally, new types of monsters could be seen in recently mapped-out areas. The arrival of unknown monsters hinders exploration as they cannot act upon a monster of an unknown threat. Hence, they await for an assessor to place a risk assessment or rank it.

Since its sudden appearance, scholars estimated that merely 10% of the region has been mapped out.

Since no one can say for sure how large the new region was, some say that this estimate could perhaps be lower than its actual size. Every so often, new places were being added to the map of the Northern Province, albeit not being fully explored or assessed. Most often, these areas are left for either the other adventurers or the city guard to fully explore.

One of these said areas is Presling Grove. Located about fifty (50) kilometers northeast of Ancdam, this area hosts a variety of different monster species, and it was only recently discovered that there are fragments of what used to be settlements in the area.

In lieu of this new discovery, the kingdom of Drethia dispatched a group of experts to re-evaluate and fully assess the area. Perhaps hidden in one of these ruins is valuable information that may be linked to the sudden appearance of the region.

A chorus of howls echoes within the forest. In this place, you're either the hunter or the hunted. A pack of Veros, wolf-like monsters that are considered E-rank, are on the run. Veros hunts in packs to take down prey larger and of higher rank than them by utilizing excellent tactical coordination.

With the alpha leading the pack, they made their way around the maze-like roots of the area. They used howls to pinpoint their location.

The Veros are very intelligent monsters. They can effectively coordinate with one another using their intellect. That's why the alpha is getting worried. The pack it leads used to have more than a hundred individual Veros.

However, each time it affirms their numbers by the number of howls it received, they have since been reduced to less than half. It has to do something or it'll lose the whole pack. Racking his monster brain, the alpha Veros chanced upon a light at the end of the almost never-ending sea of trees.

If they would make a last stand, a clearing would be the ideal place for them to take advantage of their teamwork. Is that a clearing, perhaps a fairy ring? It wasn't sure. But now it has a plan, and it will act upon this plan.

What more does it have to lose? It was almost at the clearing.

He began howling to order the others to regroup at the clearing. How many subordinates does it still have? It waited for the howls to confirm their numbers.

Silence. It was totally quiet. Bewildered, it tried once more. Still, no response. The forest was eerily quiet, even the chirping insects were nowhere to be heard.

Strange, isn't it? What is even stranger is that he was closer to the clearing than he was a few moments before.

However, it was too late to notice. No, the alpha was unable to comprehend that what it initially thought was a clearing would be something else. And as that "something" opened its jaw, it was akin to an endless void. This was the last thing the alpha Veros saw, or will ever see.