C17. Erin.

The sun hung high in the sky, shining brightly, the heat it radiated felt like it was still the middle of summer, however, the occasional cold wind that blew through the dried fields would remind everyone that winter was near. Erin stared at the sun in agitation as she lowered her hood more to cover her face.

The female ogress that had been the first to welcome her stuck closely by her side, she had the same pale red skin as the others and a single dark horn on her head, she was a young woman of around twenty in the flower of her youth. She had a pretty face, and she was cute in the way a kitten or other small animal would be. still, while she looked adorable she had a predatory glint in her eyes that seemed to aim at Erin's chest.

Though she masked it well with a cute but playful smile, she locked her arms around Erin's and proceeded to harass her with naughty and inappropriate questions. Although Erin was older than her, she didn't really pay attention to such 'trivial' details.

"Why didn't you come out drinking with me last night, you promised."

"I didn't say such things"

"Oh come on... I begged you to come and you nodded."

"I didn't"

"You're so mean."

"..."

"So how bout tomorrow, we're free right? we can go shopping for underwear."

"I'd rather not..."

"If you don't come, I'll come over to your place and..."

Before she had a chance to continue the other female ogress noticed her naughty hand movement and ran over giving her a kick in the face, "Keep your hands to yourself you perv!" her head was flung backward and her feet left the ground. She hurriedly got up, holding her nose she complained, "Hey!" "Hmph... are you okay Erin?" Erin looked at her chest that had almost been molested and chuckled, "I'm fine, it's nothing you guys are so extreme."

The second ogress was a woman with twin dark horns, she had curly red hair that was messily cut, it was in a good length for movement and didn't look as if she cared much about her hairstyle, she also had a pretty face and she had a keen edge to her eyes. Her arms were muscular and her palms were covered in callus from wielding a sword, she looked more like a warrior than Callie the bow-wielding ogress.

She was quite surprised by Erin's response, it wasn't that she never spoke to them or even smile at them but, most of the time the only reason she spoke was because of Callie, with her pushy and naughty personality, she was the only one able to get such a reaction from Erin.

Kela ruffled her hair, "You really shouldn't enable Callie like that, she's already too bold as it is." Erin nodded and before she could speak one of the guys in the front spoke. "That's enough guys we're already here."

The group had left the town for quite a while now, they had made it to a dried field, further ahead was an entrance to the Darknar forest. They didn't need to enter the dangerous forest as the beast they hunted usually roam this area. All the monsters here would be around the Tier 2 or 3 standards, a party of six like them could handle a group of these monsters.

Although higher-leveled beasts sometimes wander out of the forest, this wasn't a problem for their party, even without magic, ogres were natural-born fighters. Following a party member who had a skill that could be used to track and locate they have successfully found some games in record time. He had used the skill back in the town's gate and located a group of twin-tailed warthogs.

The Twin-tailed Warthog looked like any ordinary warthog from Earth, only much larger and obviously had two identical tails. They didn't have any active skills and because they were ordinary beasts, they didn't have much intelligence and were not that difficult to hunt. There were three warthogs in this group, they were eating the dried grass and roots on the field.

After catching sight of their prey, the group slowed down their pace and got into formation with two of the tallest male ogres in the front and two to the side, Callie and Erin were left in the back.

The twin-tailed warthogs might not be a very high-level monster to them but they possessed a very troublesome passive skill that made it hard to hunt. They had high physical attack resistance almost to the point of nullification even from higher leveled opponents, combined with their raw strength they were almost impossible to kill_____ well almost.

Everything had a flaw, every defense a weakness and this was no exception, it was also quite an obvious one at that, as long as one attacked with magic the warthog would make easy prey. The only problem was, that ogres barely had any magic casters, their skills and even secret techniques weren't considered magical attacks and were almost ineffective on the beast.

The ogres had already gotten close enough to the warthog now and the two in front charged forward with a roar, the three warthogs turned their heads simultaneously and their twin tails lit up in a dark and gloomy aura, one of them immediately charged at the ogres with the other two staying on the defensive.

The ogres in front were holding massive shields, one of them wielded a battle ax and the other a halberd. They were both tall and broad which made them look intimidating. The one wielding the halberd was named Talen and the other was Hart. Talen's shield emitted an orange aura and immediately the warthog ignored Hart and chard at him, Hart didn't mind this and dashed at the two remaining warthogs, he raised his battle-ax and slashed down diagonally.

A stream of orange energy escaped the ax and slashed at the two twin-tailed warthogs, they raised their heads and received the attack head-on. The orange energy shattered like glass upon impact without doing much damage. The two warthogs shrugged the attack and charged straight at Hart.

Seeing their plan succeed Hart smiled and his shield emitted the same orange aura as Talen, with that they had the full attention of all three beasts, they defended the warthog's simple attacks with ease, still, their attacks were powerful and it sent them retreating a few steps each time, they dodged as much as they could but were slowly being pushed back, with the warthogs almost perfect physical defense, their attacks had little to no effect on them.

The others sprung into action after seeing this, the two swordsmen flanked the beasts, and Erin and Callie were left to launch a bombardment on the warthog from the rear, Callie drew her bow, and an arrow made out of orange light formed. She raised her arm to the sky and shot it, the arrow flew at breakneck speed to the sky until it suddenly lost momentum, it shattered into a thousand pieces and formed new arrows. "Arrow Rain" the orange arrows dropped down like rain on all three warthogs without hitting both Talen and Hart who knew exactly when to move out of the way.

The impossible-to-break skin of the warthog tore open like paper at the rain of orange arrows, this was the difference between a physical attack and a magic spell. The Warthogs growled in anger and pain, normally twin-tailed warthogs moved in groups of 20-30 and rarely strayed from the group, the party had to lure them away from their group in other to hunt, but today Jarret had located rare strays with his innate ability, Spirit Vision. The problem was Twin tailed warthogs that strayed from their group were considered outcasts, as outcasts, they develop an active ability that allowed them to survive on their own.

This ability could only be used when threatened. Rampage was a lifesaving ability that stray warthogs developed when their lives were threatened. This could be considered a gift from nature, a way to maintain the balance of power, but then again it was a problem for hunters. As the arrow rain fell on the warthogs the attack failed to penetrate deep into their skins, even though it was a magic attack the strength of the spell was lacking.

The eerie dark aura that covered their tails expanded to their entire body and they broke out of the influence of the provocation skill used by Hart and Talen.

Without discrimination, they were about to charge at a random enemy with all their might, but the group was experienced and they knew this already, Jarret and Kela, the two swordsmen in the group attacked the beast from behind, their swords engulfed in an orange glow.

Bang!

Although they had succeeded in halting the beast's random charge, they were doing little to no damage whatsoever, and now that the warthogs were on a rampage, their attacks just made them angrier, Callie shot another light Arrow and created an Arrow Rain, but unlike the last time, the attack did less damage and it didn't even slow the Warthogs down.

While the group did their best to keep the Warthogs at bay, it was painfully obvious that this wasn't going in their favor. "Erin, Anytime now would be great!" Kela the female Swordsman yelled as she went in for an attack, she made sure to avoid the beast's field of vision, raising her blade high in the sky she made a light jump, "Accelerate."

Her blade moved faster than it should, becoming a blur. It descended on the Warthog and bounded it to the ground, although it was obvious the attack hadn't done much damage as the beast soon got up and was barely injured.

"Tsk."

Erin who had only been standing there with her eyes closed, gently opened them, a tranquil aqua-blue aura enveloped her as her hood came off revealing her beautiful face, her silky dark blue hair fluttered in the wind. She parted her soft lips and uttered a phrase, "AquaLight"

The tranquil aqua blue aura surrounding her extended to her companion, their weapons each emitting the same aura. The aura seemed to have calmed their nerves, giving them no lack of confidence, their movements became more fluid and seamless.

Their blades were now able to penetrate the skin of the twin-tailed warthogs with ease. Finally able to put up a fight the group got more energetic, Callie shot out four magic arrows that now had a blue glow, and Hart couldn't help but smile as he bashed the head of a warthog with his massive shield.

With Hart and Talen now able to do damage, they could finally keep the attention of the beasts without worry, leaving Jarret and Kela to freely do massive damage, Callie and Erin no longer had to do a thing, the others just made quick work of the monsters.

With their years of experience and their great teamwork, even if they had been weaker individually, they would have still easily defeated a few Warthogs. Their only advantage was their defense and without that, they were nothing more than just hogs.

When the last warthog dropped on the ground, the group rejoiced and Jarret retrieved their prey. After extracting the beast crystals from the bodies, the guys carried the warthogs out of the fields before deciding to rest, they didn't want to run into another monster, which would end up wasting more of their time, they knew Erin didn't like staying outside in the sun.

Callie ran over to Erin as soon as the fight was done, she now had her arm in a lock as they sat next to each other by a tree. She sat a little too close for comfort and had a big smile on her face, "Sooo....?" she said, Erin drank some water out of her pouch, she sighed softly and said, "So what?" Callie looked at her without blinking then with a sly smile she said "Hehe... don't pretend you don't know.... did you guys do it last night? how was it? Tell me, tell me tell m..."

Before she had a chance to finish, Kela came out of nowhere and karate chop Callie on the head so hard that she bit her tongue. "Ouch..... my tongue..."

"Stop asking weird questions"

"I didn't say anything weird..." Callie pouted as she wrapped her arms around Erin pretending to cry.

Kela was getting annoyed by the minute as she watched Callie putting up an act, Erin felt helpless and couldn't help but pat her on the head. "You're too soft on her," Kela complained. The guys couldn't help but chuckle at this familiar sight, "Come on. we should head back, it wouldn't be a feast without some roasted hogs." Hart said licking his lips.

"Why is it that all you think about is food."

"It's because he's an idiot."

"Hey! I think about a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"I'll have you know, I have a lot of profound thoughts."

"Haha yeah right, I bet he can't even spell the word profound."

"Why is everyone picking on me, Callie is the one who's harassing Erin."

*Clap clap clap... Talen clapped to break up the side chatter, he hadn't said anything the entire time and only ever smiled.

Jarret chuckled, Talen is right, we should head out, it's almost noon.

They soon departed after their short break. Soon they could see the Town in the distance, coming down a hill, they had a good view of the town, that's when they saw it.

"Is that... Are those what I think it is?"