Volume 3 Chapter 8: Part 1: (Patreon)

Volume 3 Chapter 8: Part 1:

"C'mon, just tell us already!" Juliana pesters Rena.

"Watch where you're running! You're going on a trip." Rena scolds her as they run.

"Who do you think I am? I can run with my eyes closed." Juliana scolds her with a smug smile, "So spill."

"I'm not going to say anything." Rena ignores her as she continues to run. It's been yesterday since Juliana and Ellie hounded her for answers. And she didn't budge at all.

Ellie has let it go seeing how tight-lipped Rena was being. But not Juliana.

Her being tight-lipped just made her want to hound for answers even more. She continues to ask, "Don't tell me you did something weird?"

"..."

"Or did you do something embarrassing?"

"..."

"Maybe you tried to act coy, and the guy didn't like it at all."

"..." Rena continues to stay silent, trying her best to ignore and not try to punch her in the face. But the next guess Juliana says is,

"Don't tell me you stripped naked and said take me. And the guy was shocked and rejected you."

"!" Rena's calm demeanor cracked when she heard that. She's on the dot. That's what exactly happened when Onyx brought Rena home. She stripped naked, thinking that they were about to do the deed.

And Onyx instantly puts a stop to that.

Can't let her know! Rena quickly changes to her calm look, trying her best not to show it.

"What? You actually did that? Are you serious?!" But she didn't fix it fast enough as Juliana caught the change in emotion. Rena looks away from her.

But her tint red cheeks say it all. Juliana's eyes went wide. But then she starts to laugh,

"You really did that?! My goodness, child! How can you be that direct!"

"What?! You're the one who kept telling me that all men are beasts and that they would like those kinds of things!" Rena screams out in anger. The reason why she did that was that someone told her about it. And that person was none other than Juliana.

As Rena moped around, Juliana would be there and start a conversation. And those kinds of content would be brought up from time to time.

"I said it as a joke. I didn't think you would actually do it!" Juliana continues to laugh at her. How can she be so gullible?

"Rena, even I can tell she's lying from that," Ellie adds. Just from the words alone, she can tell Juliana's lying.

"..." Rena doesn't know what to say as her face turns redder than before.

"Enough talking! We're almost at the monster!" Atele scolds the three of them, shutting them up. While they were talking, she was working.

It should be close. Atele looks down at the footprints. The footprints got fresher as they got closer. She orders,

"Ellie, use your hawk eyes to see where he is."

"Understood." Ellie nods as her eyes have a dark gold glimmer to them.

"What can you see?"

"A couple of trees over, that thing is there. I can't see much from this far away. However, it looks like the monster is fighting with someone."

Atele nods, "From now on, we'll move more covertly. Don't get too close to it. We don't need to fight it." Their job is to gather information about it and track it.

"Gotcha." "Understood." "Yes."

"Raise your cloaks up." The four raise the cloaks to cover themselves. It blends in with the wilderness, making them invisible. Getting closer to the scene: the four can hear the monster's roars and people shouting at it.

A battle. Atele looks at them, and the three nod. As they get near enough, they see everything.

Right now, Finn is fighting against an adventurer's party. And the battle is one-sided. The adventurer party is bloodied up while Finn looks perfectly ok.

That group of five became a trio. Just looking at the ground, two lifeless corpses are there.

"What do we do now?!" The two people lying down on the ground are their vanguard. It was an instant. The monster took the two of them out with one stroke!

Armor and all!

"Attack him together! We can beat it!" One of them shouts out loud. He charges in with his spear, ready to pierce Finn. However,

Crack!

The spear broke! The moment it made contact with Finn's skin, the tip cracked from the pressure! What made it worse is it didn't even leave a wound on Finn's skin!

"Wha-" Before the guy can even react, Finn swings his ax down, splitting the person in half!

The other two watch the person get sliced in half. Their faces pale from the sheer horror of what happened.

"Wahhh! I don't want to die!" The person in front of the mage drops his weapon and quickly makes a break for it! He can't contain his fear any longer. But,

"Guahhhh!" The man spits out blood!

"Hoo-" He looks down to see the ax piercing his chest. It doesn't take long before the person drops to the ground from blood loss.

And he isn't the last one.

"Rena! Calm down!" Atele grabs onto Rena and cups her mouth to shut her up. The other two did the same thing, holding onto her. They can't make a move. Not now.

"Stay away! Stay away!" The mage continues to shout out as Finn gets closer and closer to her.

But Finn edges closer to the mage. And the magic did nothing to stop him at all. It's just a scratch on him.

Finn walks up to the mage,

"Please! No!" Finn picks the mage up by the head. Even with all the begging, Finn's hand starts to tighten as he grips the head.

The screaming kept going in the beginning. The only thing the four can do is to turn their heads away from the scene. After a while, the screaming stops.

Finn doesn't even look at the mage anymore as he drops her to the ground like garbage! He walks over to his and takes it off the guy's body.

He doesn't care about the carnage as he continues off.

A few minutes later, Atele and the rest jump down.

"Atele, why did you stop me?!" Rena screams out in anger. She can't believe the three of them would stop her like this.

"Because you would have died." Atele is not a fool at all. She knew her group was no match for the monster.

The firepower and endurance of her team are not as strong as the monster.

"..." Hearing her words, Rena can only grip her fist tightly. She knows she's right too. But it doesn't sit well that people are dying in front of her while she sits and watches.

"How can it do something like this?" While Rena is frustrated, Ellie looks like she's about to gag. She saw her fair shares of battles. But this might be one of the most brutal slaughters ever.

"More than that, did you actually fight something like that?" More so, Juliana looks at Rena in surprise. To think she could fight with it and survive!

Rena shakes her head, "No. It's much stronger than when my master and I fought with it before."

Atele's eyes widened, "What do you mean? Are you saying the monster got stronger?"

Rena nods, "When my master and I fought with it, the monster wasn't nearly as strong as it is now." The specs on Finn are much higher than the time they fought. The speed went up a notch. Plus, the endurance, which was already high before, skyrocketed.

That means it's growing even now. Atele's expression darkens, "We need to inform the mistress about this. Juliana!" She takes out a piece of paper and starts writing.

Juliana nods and whistles. A few seconds later, a hawk flies down and lands on her fingers. Atele places the letter into the cartridge tied on its back.

"Go back now." And the hawk quickly flies away to send the message.

"What do we do now, captain?" Ellie asks.

"We'll keep following the monster from far away. We'll keep sending information over to the mistress. But first, let's bury these people." These adventurers died unfairly.

If they didn't meet Finn, they would've survived.

"Understood."

"Rena, calm down." Atele looks back at Rena, "I know you're angry. But, cool it. There are still things we have to do."

Rena shuts her eyes and takes a breath, "You're right." She knows she has to cool it.

Burying the adventurers, the four set off to chase after Finn.

...

"Dammit! Why is it so difficult?!" Surprisingly, Onyx screams out in anger. He looks at the book in his hand. The only emotion he's feeling right now is pure frustration!

It didn't take long for Onyx to start his training. Well, he started the next day he got the book.

But there are some unexpected difficulties.

One, the two books are destroyed more than he anticipated. Pieces of the book are missing. It took the entire night and the morning for Onyx to piece together what the book was trying to say. From the first book, he only got one magic from it.

Shadow step. Using this magic, the person projects afterimages of himself, causing disarray to the opponent.

That was easy to learn. Just from the afternoon, Onyx was able to make one shadow. However, what came after was the hard part.

The first book teaches elementary dark magic.

The second one, on the other hand, teaches intermediate dark magic. That's the one Onyx focused on. He needed to add that into his set of attacks.

But there lies the problem. Onyx didn't know what to do. Unlike the first book, the second is much more fragmented.

Somebody scratched the book up.

From what Onyx could tell, someone took a sharp object and cut up the pages. Who would do something like that? What's more, the back pages are ripped out.

The only information Onyx can get from the book is one intermediate magic's name. And that's about it.

After learning the shadow step, Onyx spent the rest of the day piecing together the magic.

Dammit! Onyx drops down to the ground as he looks up into the sky.

It's just like that day. The orange skies remind him of a time between Finn and him.