King of Hell Hound

After several rounds, one of the fighters finally won. Some people cheered happily, while others seemed to throw curses and disappointment at the losing fighter.

"Another fight will begin, I'm thinking of joining the bet, you can wait for me here."

After saying that, he stood up from his seat and left.

Ren took advantage of Yuji's departure to observe the spectators. Most of the audience were also mercenaries. Ren knew from others that there were dozens of mercenaries in this fortress town of Naraki, but most were small-scale mercenaries.

Z army itself fell into the medium category, with at least 80 to 100 members.

Meanwhile, some large-scale mercenaries had thousands of members in general. Of course, there weren't many large-scale mercenaries. There were at least five large-scale mercenaries with more than 1000 members each.

Lion King, Blue Falcon, Red Scorpion, Nature Explorer, and White Snail. These five mercenaries each had more than a thousand members and had significant influence in the city of Enzo. In Naraki Fortress, Lion King and Blue Falcon had the advantage in numbers. Ren had seen many mercenaries wearing uniforms with a lion symbol with a crown and also a blue falcon.

Ren himself hadn't paid much attention to it before, but because of the relationship between the Blue Triangle Company and Blue Falcon, Ren started to pay a little more attention to this particular mercenary.

Now, there were also many Blue Falcon mercenaries here.

A tap on his shoulder made Ren jump. He turned around and saw Mizuha wearing a mask and a hoodie.

"This is the second time we've met."

"Uh, is there something I can help you with?" Ren asked Mizuha with a bit of hesitation.

Although Mizuha had helped him before, their relationship wasn't close and could only be considered acquaintances. Ren was somewhat surprised to see Mizuha greet him first.

"Aren't you a member of the Z army now?" Mizuha asked.

Ren nodded slowly.

"In that case, tell your captain that there's something wrong with the monsters' behavior, there's likely to be a wave of monsters, so please be careful."

After telling him that, Mizuha just walked away.

Ren still looked at Mizuha with confusion. He still didn't understand why Mizuha told him that, why couldn't she tell this news directly to his captain?

However, this seemed to be important news, Ren should inform Akihisa about this directly.

A while later, Yuji came back and they both watched the next fight. Yuji failed to guess the winner. In the third fight, Ren also bet, the winner of the first fight would fight against the winner of the second fight.

They both enjoyed the excitement of the fight between the men in the ring. After quite a late hour, Yuji brought Ren back to the inn. Upon returning, Ren immediately informed what Mizuha had said to the leader of the fourth squad, Akihisa.

"Did Mizuha say anything else?" Akihisa asked.

"No, she just conveyed that."

"Alright, you can rest now."

Without much thought, Ren immediately went to his room, finding Nishino sound asleep. Without waking the girl up, Ren quickly followed suit, drifting off to sleep.

The second day came so quickly. Perhaps because of Mizuha's warning yesterday, Akihisa decided to hunt monsters only in area B instead of Area C.

The decision turned out to be right, as the fourth squad was hunting Hell Hounds, loud noises disturbed them from a distance. Sensing danger, the fourth squad hid in the drainage pipes under the road.

The vibrations from above were palpable, dust and gravel falling like rain.

"What's happening up there?" Nishino murmured.

"It seems like tens to hundreds of monsters are running through this area," Akihisa replied.

Ren then remembered Mizuha's words. Was there really something strange about these monsters? Shouldn't they have their own territory and ecology?

"Could there be the birth of another monster king?" Yuji voiced his opinion.

Monster kings are a kind of monster superior to their kind. These monsters have much higher intelligence and can lead the same type of monsters as themselves.

"From the situation up there, it seems that the Hell Hound type monster king has indeed been born," Akihisa agreed with Yuji's opinion.

"Captain, will there be a monster wave?" Ren asked, furrowing his brow.

"I think a monster wave is inevitable. The birth of a monster king always coincides with a massive attack of monsters on humans. It's best to end the hunting session today. Let's return to Naraki," Akihisa invited the others to return. Of course, they didn't use the upper roads but continued walking under the drains. Only after finding a calm situation up there did they return above ground.

Today, it seemed that they weren't the only ones deciding to return, there were many mercenaries doing the same as them. There were even some unlucky ones who were killed by the wave of animals.

In situations like this, Ren couldn't do anything. He just followed Yuji, his senior, to go to the bar.

Inside the bar, there were so many people, shouts here and there. The bustling atmosphere made Ren slightly uncomfortable.

Ren just ordered orange juice while Yuji ordered sake. He initially didn't understand why Yuji brought him here, but slowly Ren began to understand.

"Try to focus on listening to other people's conversations," Yuji said.

Ren nodded, without much thought he immediately focused his hearing trying to find some useful information.

As Yuji said, listening to people's conversations seemed quite valuable.

From the conversations he heard, Ren concluded that the King Hell Hound had indeed been born, and its birth also caused the death of some genomancers.

What is meant by birth here is the evolution of an ordinary Hell Hound monster into a King Hell Hound. Under normal conditions, this is difficult to achieve, but even though the likelihood is low, there will always be talented monsters who can surpass the limits of ordinary monsters.

That's what's called the King Hell Hound.

The birth of the King Hell Hound basically made Naraki Fortress more vigilant than before. Under that pressure, of course, the mercenary group couldn't leave the fortress as usual, which means they couldn't carry out their missions.

This is certainly troublesome. However, no one wants to gamble with their lives.

Nevertheless, the genomancers still go out, they are basically not afraid of the wave and even anticipate it. Even now there is talk within the fortress about people's desire to hunt the King Hell Hound.

On the fourth day Ren arrived at this fortress, the monster wave finally arrived.