Chapter 39 – Meeting Unique Monster.

[Uruni - The Chieftain Of The Crushing Hooves Tribe – Level 150 – Unique Monster]

(SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!)

(Why the boss monster appeared now?! We literally just entered this place?! Hello?!) – though ClownFrog.

(On top of that, what the heck is she?! Unique boss?! What in nine hells is that?! There was nothing like that on the net or anything! When we fought the boss at the ant dungeon, the boss there was just dungeon boss. Just what is she?!)

(Not only that, but level 150?! We are level 108! We launched a barrage of the attack at that minotaur, but we didn't killed it and instead I already lost my strongest undead already!)

(Considering that she is the boss monster and how high her level is, I can say without a doubt that our attacks would probably not even put a scratch on her.)

(We can't win this, no matter what we try. Those minotaurs alone could kill us all and there is also that level 150 boss could whip us all out with ease by herself.)

(What do we do?! Can we even do anything?!)

(Should we try to escape?! No. I doubt we can even escape even if we tried! Even if we were to sacrifice both my undeads and Shri monsters, I doubt it would only hold them for few seconds at max, not enough time to run away.) 

(We are completely fucked!)

"Oi. Did you not hear me or are you straight up ignoring me?" – said the female minotaur.

The female minotaur began approaching the group while holding a giant axe.

"?!"

"Wait! We surrender!" – shouted ClownFrog.

"?!"

"What the hell are you saying?!" – asked Shri.

"Shut up! We have no chance of beating them in the first place and that woman over there can probably whip us all out with ease. We have no chance." – said ClownFrog.

"We will talk, so calm down." – said ClownFrog to the female minotaur.

"…."

"How did you found this place?" – asked the female minotaur.

"We accidently spotted one of the minotaurs hunting a boar monsters and tracked it entering the tunnel. After getting inside of the tunnel, we couldn't find him anywhere, so we looked around. After bit of struggle we manage to notice a suspicious mine cart and found a lever beneath it. After pulling it, the hidden path was revealed." – said ClownFrog.

(Lying can get us killed instantly, so we have no choice but to say the truth.) – though ClownFrog.

"…."

"Tch. Fuking idiot… To think he got fallowed…"

"I probably don't have to ask why you fallowed that one since its probably obvious you wanted to hunt him. Are you by any chance working for "Those Guys"?" – asked the female minotaur.

"?"

"Em… No? I mean, right now we are not working for anybody." – said ClownFrog.

"…. Can you prove it?" – asked the female minotaur while holding her axe and getting bit closer.

"Prove it how?! We literally don't have any means of proving it! We swear we don't work for anybody right now! When we were trying look for the job in the city the merchants tried scamming us so we decided to work on our own!" – said ClownFrog.

"…. Okay. But I'm still don't fully trust you about this. Next question. What is your plan now? Do you wish to fight?" – asked the female minotaur after stopping moving.

"…. No. There is no use kicking around the bush. There is no way we can win against those number of minotaurs and you can probably yourself kill us all with ease." – said ClownFrog.

"True. You don't have chance of beating us. But how does that stop me or the others from killing you right now?" – asked the female minotaur while starting moving closer to the party.

(Oh fuck, we are so dead.) – though ClownFrog.

"…"

"Wait!" – shouted Shri.

"?"

"Now what?" – asked the female minotaur.

"You want to kill us, right? But at least can I ask something? Who is "These Guys" are speaking off?" – asked Shri.

"…Why should I answer you? I still don't know if you are not just bluffing are really working for "Them"." – said the female minotaur.

"True. But it won't hurt you at all telling us anyway, since you are planning on getting rid of us." – said Shri.

(!)

(Oh, I get it. Since we would die anyway, it would be a good idea to get as much information as possible. It's better than just dying dog dead.) – though ClownFrog.

"…."

"The trash from the Emerald City." – said the female minotaur.

"?"

"Okay??? Now, I'm very interested. Could you please tell us more?" – asked ClownFrog.

"I already told you enough." – said the female minotaur while holding her axe in hands.

'Sign'

"[Undead Full Return] [Undead Full Dismiss]."

ClownFrog made all of his registered undead return back while making all of his other undead fall apart and die.

"There. Now we are even more hopeless and can't even put up the fight. Happy?"

"…"

"[Tame: Full Return]." 

After ClownFrog got rid of his undead, Shri fallowed his example and recalled back all of her tamed monsters.

"Now there is only us four." – said Shri.

"…."

"What the hell is your deal? You are weird ones." 

"Fine. I will tell you that, but try anything funny and my boys will eat you alive." – said the female minotaur.

"Originally, we lived in the mountains. We lived our lives any way we wanted to. Everything was going fine. However, one day out of nowhere some people came to us. At first, we though they were intruders, but they said that they wanted to hire us out of the blue."

"True. There are some races that are usually hostile to you people, but they sometimes are willing to work for somebody."

"At first we were obviously skeptical, since we never before had anybody come and find us just to offer us a job offer, it was very suspicious and weird, but then the servant said that the man that want to hire us want to meet us in person and he was nearby."

I warned my sister, the current tribe chieftain at that time that the situation seemed odd, however my sister decided to meet up with the person that wanted to meet her.

The person that wanted to hire us was named Joshua Emerald. I think he was noble or something since he was wearing fancy clothing.

The deal he wanted to offer was simple. We get upfront payment and all we have to do was to slaughter any merchants, farmers or anybody else that would try crossing a specific path.

The deal sounded very good, too good honestly. I warned my sister that this guy seemed suspicious, but she said we didn't had any choice. Minotaurs eat way more food than humans and other species and latterly the amount of food we were able to gather were getting smaller and smaller each day.

She said that we had no choice but to accept their offer. We fallowed her decision. Nobody could refuse since it was chieftain order, not even me.

As per our deal, we received the upfront payment and after receiving it, we fallowed our end of the bargain.

A huge convoy of carriages with a heavy escort were traveling through the path the client told us about.

We laid ambush and when the time came, we launched our attack. The fight was quite hard. There was a lot of powerful soldiers there, but in the end, they all were defeated. We killed everybody there and spared no one.

In the end, both sides kept their promise.

The end.

But I still couldn't feel as if something was wrong.

A week has passed by.

The time for hunting food has come again. Me and 1/3 of our tribe went out to hunt some food.

It took us some time to hunt enough food before heading back since the animals were scattered everywhere. Because of that we ended up coming back home quite late.

But when we came back after hunting, we ended up finding out our village was on fire and everybody was dead.

Even my sister, the stronger minotaur in our tribe was found dead.

Before we could check anything or even take a closer look at the situation, we were forced to quickly hide after we saw a group of knights in our village.

At first, we wanted to make an ambush, but then we saw an army of knights everywhere, literally swarming the entire village and setting it on fire.

At first, I wanted to attack, but then I realized that we could probably not even stand a chance. The village elites and the strongest person were in the village at that time and yet they were all killed.

We had no choice but to run away like a cowards from our home.

However right when we were about to leave, I saw him. It was a face of the knight I knew, it was the face of that knight that came here before, the one who gave us the messenge about the job offer and was also working for that Joshua Emerald guy!

He was the one that lead them here! And that means that this guy is responsible for everything! He fuking backstabbed us!

We tried staying low as much as possible, trying to gather information from random people and we finally found the fucker while he was riding his carriage.

We laid ambush and got the fucker.

"Y-you?! All of you were supposed to be dead?!" – said Joshua Emerald.

"Unfortunately for you, we didn't!" – said Uruni while grabbing the man inside the carriage and taking him out.

After forcefully taking out man from the carriage, the female minotaur throwed the man on the ground where he was surrounded by the minotaurs from all sides.

"Now. Why did you betrayed us, you piece of shit?! We kept our end of the deal!" – said Uruni.

"W-what are you- "

Before the man could finish his sentence, the giant axe suddenly came down and cut off the man arm

"AAAAAAHG?!?!" - screamed the man in pain.

"I saw your freaking man back then when they were burning our village down. I know you are related to the destruction and death of our home and people. SPEAK! NOW!" – said angry Uruni while holding her axe, preparing for the next strike.

"YOU FUKING ANIMALS! YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AND DIED WITH THE REST OF YOUR KIND! YOU- "

Before the man could finish his sentence, the man ended up being splitted by two with an axe, killing him instantly.

"Wait, I don't get it. You got your revenge, right? Then why are you still here? Sooner or later people would find out that there are minotaurs survivors and then they would send those soldiers from before that killed your sister and others. Shouldn't you be trying to run away?" – asked ClownFrog.

"And why should I tell you?" – said Uruni.

"…"

"Its, not over, is it? You said something about "Them". You still have some business left." – said ClownFrog while walking towards the minotaur.

(She is not a mindless monster. She can think and other stuff, just like people.)

"Oi. Not another step." - said the female minotaur while holding her axe.

"Then do it. Kill me now. We can't even put up the fight against you right now and honestly killing us won't change anything." – said ClownFrog while continue slowly walking towards the minotaur.

"The number of the adventures that are arriving to the city is slowly increasing, meaning the chance of you being discovered here increases with each passing day."

"Even if you spare us and we won't tell anybody, you will be found sooner or later by somebody else. We don't need to do anything."

"Its opposite. We are not fucked. The ones that are really fucked are you all!" – said ClownFrog while standing right in front of the female minotaur.

"…"

"Do you really think that you- "

"You do know we can come back to life after a long time passed, right? In other words, killing us or not will end up screwing you up. The same goes to the other adventures. You can kill them all you want, but they will just come back and will sooner or later realize that they have to work together or maybe tell the authorities about you. How long could you hold them off? Tell me." – said ClownFrog.

"The one who is screwed here is not us, it's you."

"…" 

The female minotaur stayed silence while looking directly at the ClownFrog.

"…."

"Honestly, we should inform the city about you, but honestly speaking, I think we can use each other." – said ClownFrog.

"…"

"What are you scheming?"

"Well, simple."

ClownFrog took out a [Hearth Of The Forbitten Resurrection] from his inventory.

"?!"

"What the heck is that?!" – said the female minotaur while putting his guard up.

"A hearth. A hearth with ability to reawaken the ancient queen of Umil kingdom, the Arrianhi Umil. We are planning on resurrecting her so she can fuck up this entire country." – said ClownFrog.

"…"

"Why should I believe anything you just said? What if you just want to gain our trust so you can betray us later on?" – asked the female minotaur.

"….Heh…. You are stupid." – said ClownFrog.

"The fuck you just said punk?!" – said angry minotaur.

"Didn't you heard what I just said? I say we want to resurrect the queen Arrianhi Umil. I literally gave you something that can fuck us over even if we were to betray you. If the soldiers were to came here, you could just sell us by telling them the info I just told you about and by doing that, you would get your revenge against us." – said ClownFrog.

"True. I don't trust you yet and you don't trust me at all as well. We can't confirm each other stories if they are true or not, but now we have something that can fuck us both over if you or me betray one another."

"I literally gave you the means of getting revenge against us. You don't have to trust us at all now, since if we would by any chance betray you, then you can return the favor in kind." 

"So, how about it? Would you like to help each other?" – said ClownFrog while extending his hand.

"…"

The female minotaur looked behind her, towards the other minotaurs and saw many of them being confused.

"…."

"…"

'Sign'

"Tch. Fine. You have your deal." – said the female minotaur while grabbing ClownFrog hand.

(Nice!)

"So, what the heck do you want? Do you want us to help in resurrecting that queen?" – asked Uruni.

"Hm. Nope. The location where the queen is located is quiet far away and we need to keep getting stronger, since we don't know what we will encounter on our way to her tomb." – said ClownFrog.

"Right now, you can't help us, but maybe later you can. So, for now, we will help you out first."

"So, first thing first. Who are "They"?"

"…"

"That guy partners. Specifically, 2 people. One of them is merchant named Marcel while the other one is noble Hjin something. They were present during the negotiations back then between us and that Joshua Emerald guy. While we were looking for that Joshua Emerald guy, we found out that these guys are working together all the time, meaning that these 2 were working with that bastards the entire time! They probably were aware about everything and obviously worked with him to get rid of us. "

"The reason why we haven't left is that yet is because we have yet to take revenge of these two! On top of that, Joshua Emerald had a daughter. I want to kill her as well so their bloodline can finally end, as the payback for the death of our previous chieftain."

[The quest has been generated.]

[Minotauros Wrath]

[Quest Rank: B+ -???]

[The minotaurs of the Crushing Hooves were having a struggles regarding the food for quite some time, however one day a man named Joshua Emerald with his friends approached the minotaurs and offered them deal that could solve minotaurs problems. The current tribe chief decided to take the deal.]

[In the end, the both sides completed their end of the deal, but that wasn't the end of the story. Week later the tribe village were raided by the soldiers, burning the entire settlement down and killing most of the tribe members, including the tribe chieftain.]

[The remaining survivors and the new tribe chieftain want revenge against the people that backstabbed them.]

[The minotaurs manage to get revenge against the Joshua Emerald, however they still have 3 more targets and are struggling to get to them.]

[Bring the 3 targets heads or bring the targets alive to the minotaurs.] [Targets: Ellise Emerald / Marcel The Golden Merchant / Hjin Sun]

[Failure condition: The death of all Crushing Hooves Tribe minotaurs.]

[Reward: Depends / The favor of the Crushing Hooves Tribe.]

"!"

(Quest! At first, I though only NPCs can give you one, but by the look of things monsters can give you one as well! Honestly, I did consider this possibility since she can talk and think, but seeing it for myself is very different!)

"Don't worry. We will help out in your revenge!" – said ClownFrog.

"You better be. I still don't trust you at all." - said Uruni.

[You have accepted the quest.]

"Okay. I was trying not to say anything, but now that there is some peace between us, can I start talking now?" – said GreyHunt while walking to the female minotaur and ClownFrog.

"?"

"Miss Uruni. Do you mind if I ask you some question?" – said GreyHunt.

"…What do you want?"

"Don't worry, nothing bad. I just want to understand something." – said GreyHunt.

"First thing first. The people you attacked and the people that destroyed your home, did the escort and the soldiers had a similar armor or both of them had something?" 

"…"

"Hm… I don't think so. The armor they were wearing were completely different. They also didn't looked anything alike in any way."

"Okay. Next question. What happened to the stuff from the caravan you raided?" 

"Well, it got splitted into two. We got one half while the client got the other half."

"Why you are even asking that?'

"Well, I maybe know the reason why these guys betrayed them now." – said GreyHunt.

"?"

"You do?" – asked ClownFrog.

"Yeb."

"My theory is that these guys used minotaurs to do their dirty work. Maybe they wanted to destroy that caravan or maybe there was something special in it that they desperately wanted. I don't know for sure."

"But either way, after caravan was robbed and destroyed, they intentionally gave the half of the treasure to the minotaurs, making it seem like it was all their doing. Pretty much, they wanted to get rid off of any evidence that could hurt them."

"Pretty much, you outlived the usefulness to them and they decided to dump the entire fault on them so nobody would suspect that they were working with somebody." – said GreyHunt.

"…"

"Wait… What are you saying is, that these guys get my people killed, so they could get rid off evidence?!"

"THOSE FUCKERS!" – shouted the angry minotaur.

"…Fuck." 

"…."

"So, we maybe now know why these guys backstabbed the minotaurs, but there is probably more to this story. For example, what was the deal with that caravan? Why was it targeted? Was there something in there?" – said GreyHunt.

"We have to find out the whole story if we want to find the reason why they did that in the first place." – said GreyHunt.

"Hmm…. Yea. It maybe worth investigating. Since we are already on the board with helping out the minotaurs, we should undercover the truth we are at it." – said Oron.

"Well then, I think we have finally some real action after a long time. Time to get to the work ladies." – said ClownFrog.