Season 2 Chapter 162
An eerie wind blew through the pitch-black forest, causing those who felt it to be filled with a primal fear.
This feeling was magnified by the fact that they still didn’t know exactly what the being trying to take their lives was.
‘If only it wasn’t so dark.’
Then they wouldn’t be as panicked as they were now.
As she had that thought, Ashstar looked up. The night sky was barely visible through the thick leaves of the trees around them.
“How many are left?”
“Four of us, including you, Squad Leader.”
Ashstar almost clicked her tongue when she heard that answer.
When they first entered the forest to begin their search, their party had been made up of nine members. But now, five of them had disappeared without a trace. In other words, only less than half of her group remained.
‘There were already more than five screams from the darkness.’
In this situation, even the brightest optimist wouldn’t be able to feel hope for the survival of those missing members.
Trying to get rid of her cynical thoughts, Ashstar opened her mouth.
“Did anyone manage to see it?”
“I only saw a shadowy blur, but… It wasn’t as big as I expected. At the very least, it was smaller than a flying dragon.”
“That’s strange.”
Normally, Dragonlings’ strength was proportional to their size. If it was smaller than a flying dragon, then even if it was larger than Dragonmen, it could only be a normal Dragonling.
It wasn’t a group either. They were at least certain that it was only a single being that was tormenting their group.
For just one being to deal such devastating damage…
Ashstar frowned.
“…no, it makes sense that it’s small. Otherwise it wouldn’t be able to maneuver among the trees and toy with us the way it is.”
After pondering for a moment, she spoke in a heavy voice.
“We need a fire.”
“Wouldn’t that just give away our position?”
“From what I can tell, that monster doesn’t have any problem with the darkness. Since it can find us without any light, making a fire won’t change anything. Do any of you have cloth?”
“Yes.”
Firewood by itself wasn’t enough to make a torch. Instead, they needed cloth soaked in flammable liquid to wrap around the end.
Luckily, one of the squad members happened to have one such piece of cloth.
Fwoosh.
When the torch was finally lit, their surroundings instantly became brighter. Their situation hadn’t gotten any better, but at the very least, they felt less panicked now that they weren’t surrounded by darkness.
Of course, this didn’t mean that they let their guards down.
Ashstar decided to look around first for any clues that might help her figure out exactly where they were. But there weren’t any. There was no way for her to tell which part of the forest this was. In the first place, this forest was so large that it was given the name ‘Great Forest’ so such a result was kind of expected.
Just as she thought that.
Crunch-
A sound came from the bushes in front of them.
It wasn’t just Ashstar. Her entire squad heard it. They all immediately fell into battle stances as they focused intently on the bush where the sound came from.
And after a short while, something appeared from the bushes.
“…you.”
It was a familiar face.
A Dragonman who had entered the forest with them. The Dragonman panted heavily, and the various injuries that covered his body looked extremely gruesome as he opened his mouth.
“Oh, Hirup’s subjugation team.”
“Bargan.”
As she called out the man’s name, Ashstar made a gesture. Although he looked like their ally, she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t an enemy. At her signal, her squad members slowly lowered their weapons, but they didn’t relax their vigilance.
“You were in charge of the west, weren’t you? Where are the others?”
“They’re all dead.”
Someone sucked in a cold breath at his response.
Meanwhile, bargain, who had caught his breath a little, said in a steadier voice.
“We have to get out of the forest. It’s that thing’s territory.”
“Have you seen it?”
Bargain didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked down at the club in his hand. The club was filled with cracks.
This was a weapon that had been carved from the branch of a top-notch dragonwood tree, and he had used it for over ten years without it suffering a single scratch. With its quality, it would have been able to last a few more decades before he needed to replace it, but now, it had been ruined in a single blow.
He could probably only swing it two or three more times at most.
“It’s almost safe to say that guy is a completely different species from normal Dragonlings. He’s not that big. Only about three meters tall at most, with a large pair of wings and tail. But he walks on two legs.”
“It’s bipedal? That…”
Just as Ashstar blurted out those words, a low murmur arose from the Dragonmen around her. Some of them had become incredibly pale, and if one looked carefully enough, one could see that their bodies were shaking slightly.
For a Dragonling to walk on two legs, it could only mean one of two things.
It was a mutant Dragonling, or it was an Ancient Dragon.
“Right. But that’s not something you need to pay attention to for now. Keep in mind that he’s faster than most Dragonmen, a lot more vicious than normal Dragonlings, just as clever as we are, and he knows how to make use of his advantages.”
Bargain spoke in a soft but firm voice.
“If we don’t leave this forest soon, we will all die.”
* * *
Afterwards, they began to rush to escape the forest.
Bargain had climbed the tallest tree to get a scope of their location. However, he hadn’t been able to see the entrance. After being chased around by that guy, they had unknowingly entered the depths of the forest.
Therefore, he had no choice but to use the stars in the sky to figure out which direction to go.
South.
However, within just a few minutes of finding their bearings, the first casualty occurred.
“U-, uahh…!”
It was the Dragonman at the back of their group. Something reached out from the darkness and grabbed him by the ankle.
The Dragonman screamed and struggled with all his might, but was simply too strong for him to resist.
“Frix!”
“Dammit!”
By the time the other Dragonmen tried to reach out to him, it was already too late.
“Sa-, save me…!”
Frix dug his fingernails into the ground, but he only left deep gouges as he disappeared into the bushes.
The other Dragonmen tried to run after him, but Ashstar’s voice sounded like a crack of thunder.
“Don’t move.”
Her words caused the Dragonmen to freeze in place.
Ashstar clicked her tongue.
In the current situation, everything would only get worse if she allowed them to break formation. So she had to avoid that as much as possible.
Of course, it wasn’t easy for her to keep her cool either.
Ashstar bit her lip hard as she looked at the bushes where Frix disappeared.
Crunch, crunch…
From it, the sound of flesh and bones being slowly chewed was clearly audible.
When she heard it, she clenched her fists so hard they began to bleed.
‘Fucking bastard.’
It was eating him so close to them on purpose so that they could hear it. It wanted them to be scared. It was clearly staged, but it still managed to get the reaction it wanted.
“U-, uh…”
“Frix is…”
Fear quickly began to spread through the group.
The squad members Ashstar had selected were all talented individuals who could be called elite in their own right, but they were not so cold-blooded as to keep their calm in a situation like this.
‘He’s the only one that’s able to remain calm.’
Ashstar glanced at the man standing beside her.
He continued to look in front of them with sunken eyes, not showing the slightest hint of fear or restlessness at the terrifying sounds that drifted from the bushes.
Headsmasher Bargan.
She’d heard a few rumors about him.
He was an outstanding fighter who stood out even in a place like the Lirua Arena. But she heard that one day, he suddenly stopped being a fighter in the arena and instead became a wanderer.
When she first heard the rumor, she thought he’d just run away because he got rusty or was afraid of fighting, but now that she saw him for herself, she didn’t think that was the case.
Suddenly, Bargan muttered.
“It was its tail.”
“What?”
“The thing that just dragged Frix away. It had a long prehensile tail.”
“…”
Of course, knowing that didn’t make much of a difference.
The monster had finished its meal and it would soon hunt again.
They had no way to deal with it either. It was clear from the start that their enemy was many times stronger than them.