392 The Army Of Death Approaches
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“Man, it’s sure calm today.”
“Yeah, it is awfully silent.”
Within the surrounding forest of the village, a group of twelve hunters were foraging around, looking for prey. Now that the Wild Boars had been breeding more and faster, their numbers had increased drastically, and there was a risk of them attacking the village while the walls were still in construction, therefore, the chief has been paying the hunters to hunt wild boars more lately, to keep their numbers low and reduce the risk that these enormous and territorial monsters offered to the daily lives of the people in here.
“We came here for our biweekly hunt but there isn’t any boar.”
“We haven’t sighted a single boar in two hours, what’s going on?”
“Oi Joan, can you tell?”
One of the hunters pointed at a tall man with a shaggy beard that looked into the depths of the forest. His senses were incredibly high and acute due to his high-level hunting wild boars for years since he was a teenager.
“There isn’t any. I can smell their feces but nothing else. It feels weird.”
“Maybe those bastards of the adventurer guild hunted them down?”
“No way, those guys can’t handle giant wild boars.”
Although there was an Adventurer Guild, Adventurers themselves often ignored Giant Wild Boars due to their enormous size, a small party of four adventurers with no prior knowledge would easily get overpowered by wild boars, even more if there was a big pack nearby, with many of these monsters chasing them down, mortality rates were high.
Due to the village mostly having Adventurers at D Rank and below, they were unable to coordinate well enough to slay wild boars of enormous sizes, and because it was mostly prohibited to target infant giant wild boars, as the hunters wanted them to grow up first, adventurers most of the time limited themselves to hunt down remnant demons that sometimes were seen wandering far into the forest, gray wolves, horned rabbits, and shadow crows, or going into the road that led to the capital of the fiefdom to hunt things such as big lizards and goblins.
Because of these many reasons, villagers who had been granted Titles as Hunters were the ones that took care of big monsters that were later butchered into food to feed their families. More so often hunting the Giant Wild Boars due to their delicious food and their enormous bodies, with netted a large quantity of meat. The Duke has, of course, been asking for meat as well to be moved to the capital for himself and also to be sold to nobles, as it was treated as a delicacy.
“Adventurers are terrible at hunting big monsters that often call for allies. Although some had tried to join our hunts, they’re too scared or sometimes just find it not worth the effort compared to hunting goblins or whatever else there is in the road of the lowlands.” Said Joan, as he looked into the distance again. A little mouse made out of brown light emerged from his bag and quickly began scurrying around. “Search for a wild boar little guy.”
“Chuu!”
The little mouse ran into the forest like always. The other hunters lacked spirits that were useful, most of them had not become adventurers in the first place due to their lack of spirit power and talents. The majority here were talentless and had useless spirits that couldn’t fight nor move around.
Even though Joan’s spirit was seen as little but nothing than a mouse, it was seen as an incredible useful spirit for his companions, who often relied on the rat making small pitfalls to trap wild boars or to search for them and lure one out of their packs.
“I’m sure my mouse is going to find something, for now let’s wait here and rest a bit, we had been walking for tow hours.” Joan quickly stopped the other eleven hunters as they sighed in relief, sitting in the soft forest floor covered by dried grass and deadwood.
Joan looked around, feeling slightly worried, his son was nowhere to be seen, and although he trusted on Blake’s strength, he couldn’t help but worry as the father he was.
“Did Blake really came to the forest? I haven’t seen him anywhere.” Gradus, an old hunter walked to the side of Joan alongside his loyal Fire Dog.
“Yeah I am worried too.” Sighed Joan. “But that kid’s so independent now… He’s already planning on going to the capital to that fancy academy and all, I can’t really take a grasp of what he has inside his mind…” Joan laughed a bit sad by how quickly his son had grown up.
“Well he’s someone incredible, I am sure he must be safe. He came with his friends to hunt, right?” Asked Gradus.
“Yeah he brought Erika, Chris, Eric, Erdrich and the priest girl, Elizabeth… If something happens to those two kids we are going to get yelled at by nobility and priests together.” Sighed Joan. “I really hope he’s not making them go through anything weird.”
“Hahaha, with Blake you never know what he’s up to.” Gradus sat down and took a sandwich, cutting it in two halves and giving one to Joan. “Here.”
“Oh, just when I forget my lunch…” Laughed Joan, accepting the sandwich with dried meat, tomato, cabbage, and some gravy sauce.
Joan looked into the horizon as he seemed to be slightly worried. Aside from his son’s whereabouts, which would get a big scold whenever he’s back, he was also worried about the wild boars.
Why were they not coming?
Such territorial monsters suddenly running away was very strange.
Unless… something more dangerous than them had suddenly emerged in the forest.
“Huh?”
And as he was in the middle of eating, Joan suddenly stopped and looked confused. Gradus immediately noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is…?!”
Joan’s face quickly distorted in shock, as he was seeing what his mouse was seeing while hiding behind a large log.
It was an enormous group of hundreds of undead marching like an army straight into the village.
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