Chapter 496 - Gather Up (Patreon)

Hera's Status

A chilly wind was starting to pick up, getting stronger and stronger, but there wasn't much anyone could do about it. The trees provided cover from the warmth of the sunlight as the smell of the ocean covered the entire area. Those were large trees, larger than one would expect and each of the leaves was somewhat transparent, almost as if they were made out of plastic. A few, however, were obscured by a few snowflakes that had fallen in the previous night. No one could really tell if that meant it was the ending of the winter or the beginning of spring. Usually, this wouldn't be an issue, but this was one of the rare rooms in the MAZE that actually had seasons. In fact, these types of rooms were getting more common with time. It seemed that most if not all the rooms on the 25th layer and potentially above had more consistent seasons. Or at least something close to it.

Currently, there were about 30 people near a doorway on standby. Everyone knew why they were here. No one was happy about it, but it was something they had to do, "Are you sure we have no other options?" a slim man with heterochromatic eyes asked.

"For the 100th time. Yes. Look, no one wants to do this. We all would be happy if we could figure out some other way. But they killed everyone who went there to have a conversation. Or options are to leave them be and risk having them do whatever they want or… this," another man spoke. He was wearing a full set of heavy armor, and no one could even see his face from under all that.

"Can you stop speaking in code? We are here to commit genocide. Say the fucking word," a muscular man with wild, untamed hair and beard got up to complain. Everyone knew who he was. Wildborn.

"Calm down. It's not a genocide. We are protecting our people," a woman with long blond hair tied in a ponytail while wearing plate armor was sitting on a log while sharpening her sword. She was using some sort of scaled stone to grind against the blade that already seemed sharp enough to cut anything.

"Oh, please, Dawn. We need to stop pretending this is not what we are going to do. We came here to kill everyone. That's the truth," Wildborn scoffed.

"That may be so, but saying it out loud will be a problem for morale. Like Iron Heart said, no one wants to do this," Blade of Dawn continued.

"She is right. We shouldn't be thinking like that. It makes us look bad," Frostbite came back from her patrol, appearing behind a few of the trees.

Blade of Dawn scoffed, "Don't make me look like one of your goons. I don't care about appearances anywhere near as much as you or your boss."

"Aw, don't be like that. You share your title with my employer. I'm sure you felt some kinship to us at some point," Frostbite walked to a log close to Blade of Dawn and sat down.

"I was born and raised in the MAZE. If I had heard about your company before I got my titles, I assure you I wouldn't have kept it, "Blade of Dawn continued to take care of her two-handed sword.

"Don't start. We can't have infighting right now," Spinner walked close to the group. He was the one responsible for this operation, and there was no way in hell that he would let the plan fail because of petty squabbles.

"Fine, fine. I'll hold back," Frostbite smiled at Dawn before leaning back, "For now."

There was a pause, but the man with heterochromatic eyes broke the tension, "Are they really all there?"

"For fuck's sake. He told you already. We don't know! What we do know is that there was no movement going in and out in the last month. Or at least no movement related to the three doorways we know of," Wildborn snapped at the man.

"Back off, Wild! We agreed that I would be responsible for teaching him the ropes. And protecting him while I can," Iron Heart stepped between the two before turning back to the man with unique eyes, "And Archer, you need to pay more attention. We sent some scouts to that room, and no one found more than the three doorways that we are protecting. We have some people inside that can stay hidden but they can't give us constant reports or their positions will be compromised and we won't have the element of surprise on our side. Even if we already lost some of it with the messengers."

"Right, and they killed the messengers, right?" Archer asked.

"Yes, they did, and that wasn't done only by the adults or the elderly, but by the younger ones. Even the kids who shouldn't be above level 1 joined the attack. From what we know, they had some tattoos that could make them strong enough to actually harm our envoys. Meaning that every single centaur is a potential threat," Iron Heart had a somber tone to his voice.

"Ok… so we need to kill children?" Archer asked while looking down to the ground.

No one replied, but everyone knew the answer. Their job was to come here and kill everything. Negotiations had collapsed, and there was nothing they could do about it. The centaurs were treating everyone else as enemies. It didn't matter if they were human, beastmen, triton, or whatever race. Every time they saw someone different from them, they would kill them with prejudice. After a long time of deliberation, the guild came to the conclusion that since this was how they were acting against everyone, since they were high-level enough to become a serious threat to everyone, there was only one solution. It was a matter of survival of the fittest, and if everyone else wanted to survive, the centaurs couldn't be a part of their world.

A lot of people argue that they shouldn't just kill all of them. The children and those who never did anything wrong should be spared. The counter-argument won, however. Even if people left the innocent ones unharmed, there was nothing that could guarantee that they wouldn't be coming after revenge. It was a brutal way of thinking, but no one could go against that logic, Even if their feelings were not supportive. History had proven that when a group was attacked, they would come back again and again. Be it for revenge or to keep trying to achieve their goals. The only way to stop them would be to either give them what they wanted in some shape or form or wipe them all out. Since the centaurs wanted nothing more than to kill all humans, giving what they wanted wasn't an option.

It wasn't like this was the guild's first decision. They tried sending two dozen messengers to the centaurs and even asked them to meet them somewhere else to have a conversation. But every attempt was met with hostility, and all the messengers were killed. They weren't clean deaths either. No, the first few were lucky to be just beheaded and have their heads on spikes, but the more people they sent, the more cruel and sadistic the centaur became. The last person, the one that made the guild stop all efforts of peace, was skinned alive and had all his skin and muscle pulled apart to make an attempt at a wall around their village. To make it even worse, the man was kept alive by healing spells. Only when another human went inside and killed the man did his suffering end.

Spinner had a call and moved away from the group to listen to who was on the other side. He didn't look much of a warrior. He wore black pants with a white shirt, blue suspenders, and a pair of round glasses that gave him the look of an accountant more than anything. As a matter of fact, this was not too far from the truth. He earned the name Spinner not because he would spin around while attacking but because he would create plans that were like spiderwebs, traps almost impossible to escape from. His name came from that idea. He would spin a web, so to speak, around his target and then either kill it with a quick strike or leave it to waste all its energy before finishing it off. He was talking with the other teams and the guild in order to decide when to attack. As soon as he ended the call, he told his close aides to bring the rest of the troops to the doorway. They weren't far, but the large camp was some ways away from the woods. If one of the centaurs decided to come here, letting it drop in the middle of their supplies was a very bad idea.

"Are we getting ready to go?" Wildborn asked when Spinner got closer.

"In about 30 minutes. I got the go-ahead from the guild, and everyone seems to be here," Spinner nodded.

"Everyone?" Blade of Dawn looked towards the camp, but she didn't see any newcomers, "Are you sure? We only have humans here."

Spinner sighed, "I know. The idea was that this would be a joint operation, but the people who could help us are too far away. The closest Elf above level 60 would take about a month to get here. And she is the closest one. You know how the children of the sky can't help us, and the dwarves had some big event recently that called most of their high-level members back to one of their main cities and they are still doing system knows what there."

"That's not great. Some people are already scared of us. I mean, the whole terrorist attack was because they thought that humans were being too much. If we kill an entire race…." Blade of Dawn looked up from her sword, and her expression matched Spinner's.

"I know. But we also have another problem. Our spies say that the centaurs are getting ready to do something. They are gathering wood and other materials to build something inside their village. Some reports say it is just a wall or some defenses, but some infrared images show a larger thing being built inside one of their tents. If it was just a structure or a weapon, we wouldn't care. Their technology is not advanced enough to be a problem. I mean, they think drones are just monsters, so we are good on that part. But this is what is worrying us," Spinner showed a picture on his tablet.

It was a shot of their village. Taken from one of the drones that were very high in the sky and far away from the actual village to not be seen by the denizens of that room. Blade of Dawn could see the village in a blue wire frame filter that showed the levels of mana of everything on the screen. The brighter the blue, the stronger the mana was. And this picture was already converted to the proper proportions that one would expect in this layer. The ground was primarily black, showing that it had comparatively little to no mana. The small barricades around the camp had a significantly higher mana signal, but it wasn't enough to be something like mana-rich wood or anything that could show a trap.

When looking at the tents, however, there were some changes. From what she could gather, the patterns drawn or weaved into the fabric had some special properties. One possible answer was that tents were made to protect them from nature. Maybe to keep the interior heated or cooler during the summer. She could also see two centaurs in the picture. One that seemed to be a child with a lighter shade of blue but still nothing the one wouldn't expect from a monster in this later. The other was an adult that was an even lighter blue than the sky. So far, those readings could only be found on large, powerful monsters that would require an entire team to kill. But the thing that was the scariest wasn't any of that. In the corner of the picture were the beginnings of a pure white spot that almost looked like a floodlight. Whatever was giving off that reading had at least ten times the amount of mana that a regular monster should have. That was the only way that the readings could show like that.

"Couldn't that be fake? A trick or a trap exactly to make us think they have a big scary weapon?" Blade of Dawn asked.

"It could. But the moment that this picture was taken, the drone was destroyed. The readings say it was an actual attack, not some interference. So the centaurs know that we or someone they don't know is here. If this was a trap, it would make more sense for them to pretend they didn't see whatever it was. That way, they can lure us in. But if it truly found something that could be a hidden card, then it would make sense for them to stop us from seeing it properly," Spinner explained and started checking things on his tablet again, "And yes, this could also be a way for them to pretend that this is not a trap. But then we enter a slippery slope of they know that we know that they know, and going that far ahead could be detrimental. Besides, from what we know, this is the first time they interact with any other type of civilization. I don't think that they would have warfare tactics that are that advanced."

"So our options are going now and giving more ammo for the terrorists to say that we are the cause of everything bad that goes on in the MAZE, or risk dealing with whatever that thing is?" Blade of Dawn looked to Spinner, who just nodded dejectedly.

"Between a group of terrorists that we are already working towards finding and that even in the worst-case scenario, shouldn't be more than level 60, and a civilization of hostile beings that are at least level 80. The biggest threat should be obvious. Even so, something is not sitting well with me," Spinner answered honestly when he noticed that there was no one listening.

"Same. The way they attacked seems too random. We don't even have an actual reason. It's just, 'we hate you, and you made mistakes,'" Blade of Dawn sighed.

"I agree. I feel like I'm missing something, but they didn't give us much of a choice," Spinner looks back to the incoming group of explorers who were coming from the camp, "Either way, focus on the fight now. We can worry about this later," he walked away going to meet the rest of the army that had gathered here.