The gathered demon races of the razed villages streamed out of the hidden entrance herded by the several dozen surviving village guards of the AAF who were little more than farmers with weapons.
“They want to take the civilians to a safer place before we search for the culprits causing the problems,” said Zundar.
Akira’s group of werewolves along with Spearia and the young warriors were put in charge of guarding the civilians as they once again started walking back to their own Minos village which was now less than a day away.
Instead of using the main road, they decided to stay in the wilderness and make detours to any of the known underground emergency hideouts along their travel route.
It was during this time that they met the first survivors of a village that had been unable to escape entirely.
Akira looked at the few dozen wounded villagers from the Lumen demon race who were lying on the stone ground of their hideout. Many of the survivors had lost limbs from attacks as they tried to flee. Several of the wounded were still being patched up with cloth bandages since the attacks had only taken place several hours before.
The reason it took so long to treat their wounds was that many of those with less severe wounds had risked their own lives to sneak back toward the area where the enemy had been encamped for some time. They did all this to try and rescue as many other wounded villagers as possible since there were many still alive but unable to escape.
“Zundar, help me translate that we have potions that can help heal most of their wounds,” said Akira.
After chatting with an exhausted old Lumen woman who seemed to be in charge of taking care of the wounded. Spearia came back and exchanged a few words with Zundar and the old lady.
Zundar returned to Akira and said, “Since they do not know you or what your potions will do, Spearia needs to be the one to administer the potions to assure them you are not trying anything shady.”
With Spearia and Zundar now holding red potion bottles in both their hands they once again talked to the old Lumen lady who kept looking back at Akira. It was only after a few minutes more of hesitation that the old lady finally accepted their help. She still watched closely as Spearia pulled out the cork of one of the red potion bottles.
The old Lumen healer and her few helpers were muttering quietly with each other, still fearful that the potions were poison that would finish off those who took a sip. To calm their fears Zundar grabbed the opened potion from Spearia and took a sip showing the liquid in his mouth to the Lumen around him before visibly swallowing.
When nothing bad happened to Zundar after a minute the old lumen lady finally nodded and stood to the side to allow Spearia and Zundar to use the red potion on those who had the worst wounds.
There were slight gasps from the old lumen woman and her helpers when they could see the open bleeding wounds quickly scab over. This was the best help that Arron could offer the group right now since no miracle could replace or regrow their severed limbs and body parts.
Constantly being one step behind the enemy-raiding force was not a nice feeling for anyone. Spearia and the young Minos warriors were getting antsy as they helped those still recovering from the most severe wounds onto makeshift stretchers.
Now with several more battered and wounded people added to their group they had to hurry as fast as they could to reach the safety of the village if they wanted to keep the villagers safe. But the addition of the makeshift stretchers was slowing them down as they had trouble traversing through the trees while also being mindful to not run while carrying the wounded lumen villagers.
As they marched on every so often pained wails rang out from villagers as many of those with life-threatening wounds still died even after drinking the potions which had only cured their outer wounds. Many of the wounded had lost too much blood and their internal organs were too damaged from piercing and blunt attacks which led to their deaths.
A silent whistle sounded from further ahead of the main group causing Akira to motion for Spearia and Zundar to stop the villagers.
“Have the village guards hide the villagers behind one of those rocky hills! Quick!” said Akira frantically motioning for them to move back.
Spearia turned to the villagers and quietly passed on the orders. There was no questioning or refusal to follow the order as the villagers all quietly followed the village guards into hiding behind the hill. They all knew something was wrong and even the moaning from the wounded seemed to quiet down.
Akira motioned for Spearia and the young Minos warriors to follow him and the Kodria warriors.
They quietly jogged through the stone trees toward the scout who had sent the warning and was now making his way back to the main group.
“Did you see who it was or how many there were?” asked Akira.
“I only caught a glimpse of them from far away. They were fully armored so it’s hard to say what faction they belong to. The number of fighters they have is enough to be a problem for us if they are the enemy and want to attack the civilians,” said the scout as he pointed in the direction that the large group had been spotted.
“Spearia should know who they are so all we have to do is find a proper spot to scout them out,” said Zundar.
With Zundar asking Spearia a few questions she nodded her head and motioned for the scout to lead them back the way he had come.
When they reached the scouts’ previous hiding spot behind a small mound of dirt, Spearia moved to the front to look at the approaching warriors who were unafraid to use the open main dirt road to march to their destination.
Arron counted at least 100 armored warriors in the group. The armor they wore looked to be far more durable than any of the armor being used by the village guards who were protecting the civilians some distance behind them.
As the mass of marching warriors grew closer, Spearia was able to make out several identification marks on their armor and she began to excitedly point at them and spat out several quick-fire sentences.
“It’s a group of A.A.F soldiers,” said Zundar translating her gibberish to Akira and the other werewolves.
Now that they were close enough Arron was able to inspect the group in more detail and saw that although they were marching together there was no semblance of a formation or discipline, they were all just marching in a direction.
“Yap?” asked Fluffball.
“True…why are they here?” asked Akira.
Zundar shrugged and looked to Spearia for a response but she was not paying attention to them. Instead, she cupped her hands to her mouth and let out an odd bird call from their hiding spot.
The marching warriors on the road immediately stopped and looked into the wooded area where the birdcall had come from. They stood there for a few seconds before someone in the group sent a series of bird whistles back.
“Allies not enemies,” said Spearia, nodding her head.
With their secret message exchange complete, Spearia and the young Minos warriors stood up and waved to the warriors who began walking over to them with hurried footsteps.
When the large group of warriors arrived at the hidden mound they ignored Akira and the other’s presence and gathered around Spearia while shouting out several questions which she answered but she also asked them a few questions of her own.
“It appears that they all gathered when they heard rumors of villages being attacked,” said Zundar translating the excited chatter between Spearia and the group of warriors. “This group is just a vanguard of the AAF’s main force. They were sent out ahead of the main force to try and search for survivors and escort them back to the main underground fortresses where the rest of the AAF villagers have already evacuated to.”
The current conversation going on between the two groups caused Spearia to have a mixture of shock and confusion as she heard what the soldiers had to say about other rumors that had reached them.
“…and now an unknown enemy force has marched to one of the alliance villages and has taken it over. The AAF’s main force is already taking another path to the village to try and take it back,” said Zundar as he scratched his head trying to translate the conversation while also trying to understand what the heck was going on. Which was a hard thing to do at the same time.
When Spearia spoke a few more sentences Akira saw that several of the soldiers grew agitated and angry upon hearing her words. He guessed that she had just told them about the razed villages and those that had been killed. These attacks were most likely done by the same group that had just taken over one of their villages.
“Why not raze this village like the others?” asked Akira.
“From what I gather… this village has walls which is rare since most of the allied villages are constantly on the move to stay away from the attacking forces of the Oni. Apparently, Spearia’s village is in the minority as most Minos and AAF villages are nomadic due to the constant attacks,” said Zundar.
After a short discussion with Spearia, the soldiers agreed that the way they had just come from was safe enough for the village guards to escort the survivors to the AAF’s underground fortress.
Spearia rushed back to the waiting villagers and let them know that everything was okay now and issued new orders for the guards and villagers.
She watched them slowly march off down the road for several minutes before turning to Akira and blurting out a few sentences.
“Are we willing to help them take back the captured village?” asked Zundar.
“Of course, we can help. That’s what friends do,” said Akira, joining the group of AAF warriors on the road.
Spearia nodded her head when she heard Zundar relay his response.
The other AAF warriors all looked at Akira with slight interest but did not say anything and instead resumed their march down the road. With their main task completed they had to alter their course to loop around and after some time were able to meet back up with the main force.
While they marched to their destination Arron was able to spot glaring differences between the young Minos warriors trained by Zundar and the AAF warriors that marched next to them.
Even though the young Minos warriors were less experienced in real battles compared to the older AAF warriors they still looked far more orderly and followed Zundar’s commands immediately. The AAF officers were all leaders from each village who led their own groups and did things completely different from each other. This explained why even though they were all gathered together everything looked like a mess.
When they reached the outskirts of the territory controlled by the captured Lumen village, everyone let out a sigh of relief seeing that the village walls were still standing and looked to be in good shape.
Sadly that was the only good news as they did not see the attackers camped outside the village walls which showed a few signs here and there that a struggle had taken place.
With a little more searching of the area, they were able to discover a few dead bodies of Lumen warriors still littering the ground near the village’s wall.
It was obvious that the enemy was now inside the village… they knew not if the Lumen villagers inside were still alive or massacred.
A quick and heated discussion was hashed out by all of the gathered officers as they took a few minutes to decide on what to do.
Akira, Fluffball, and everyone else just stood back and watched as it was not his place to say anything since he was just here to offer help as a show of goodwill.
“There is no need to attack the village from the outside. Follow us,” said Spearia, waving for Akira and the rest to follow her.
“It seems they trust us enough to show us a special way to enter the village…” said Zundar after translating what she had said.
Spearia was really trusting them a lot with this sort of information. If they had ill intentions they could use it to easily take over the village for themselves.
They quietly walked to a large rock that hid them from anyone on the village walls when the patrol on the wall passed, a third of the AAF including many Minos warriors, Spearia, Zundar, and Akira with guards all rushed to a hidden nook in the wall. A ladder was pulled down from a hidden trapdoor in the wall and was used to climb into a cramped passage through the wall.
Akira and the others exited the short tunnel and appeared in the smelly animal pens in a far corner of the village.
Unfortunately for them as soon as they exited the animal pens they were discovered!
“Who are you?” asked a surprised male demigod upon seeing such a large group appear from the animal pens. He was holding onto a shovel that he had been using for many hours to further dig up dirt to reinforce the village walls.
Akira did not say anything and only activated the skill [Cross attack] sending a blue X flying toward the Demigod who tried to use the shovel to block the attack.
Crack! But the skill attack sliced through the wooden handle and sliced his body into four pieces before he could say anything. Upon his death, his body burst into light particles that floated up into the air and disappeared.
Spearia and the other AAF members were all shocked at seeing such a sight and were pointing at where the dead body disappeared.
“These are the demigods we warned you about. Although we killed him he will be back again in the future. So we have to clear this village before they have a chance to appear and retake it,” said Zundar.
The sound of running footsteps coming from the village’s north dirt road interrupted their conversations.
“I’m not lying I saw a light that looked like someone died!” shouted a male voice not that far away.
“Are you sure you haven’t been drinking too much lately and were just hallucinating?” asked a female voice.
Akira scooped up the items that the demigod had dropped upon his death and shoved them into his bag before waving the others to hide.
He and Zundar hid in the shadows of wooden buildings on each side of the dirt road and waited for the arguing demigods to appear.
As the demigods rounded the corner to busy bickering with each other Akira and Zundar launched their ambush and leaped out of the shadows.
With a powerful swing, Zundar’s large warhammer slammed into the male demigod’s chest breaking dozens of bones and pulverizing their internal organs as he was slammed into the ground. The half-dead demigod was still able to activate a skill that just barely missed Zundar’s head. But with the next attack from Zundar, the demigod’s head burst like a melon.
Akira jumped onto the female demigod, piercing her through the back with his sword.
She grabbed the sword with her unarmored hands and tried to push it out but only caused more pain for herself as she made the sword saw back and forth and cut her hands.
Akira pulled the sword out of her grasp. She held onto the wound and started to grope for something in her bag.
A quick sword attack sliced her arm off at the shoulder stopping her from pulling out a potion. Followed by a third attack that sent her head tumbling to the ground.
Akira was rather happy with the dropped items from the dead demigods, they included several interesting gems embedded in a weapon.
For the armor that one of the demigods dropped he handed it over to Spearia who looked it over curiously before hiding in a dark corner to quickly wear the newer armor.
“Zundar you take the AAF to clear any Oni warriors and secure the surviving villagers. We’ll take care of the rest of the demigods,” said Akira as he and the werewolves under his command transformed and ran off.
In this way they quickly cleared the village without much trouble there were only a few injuries and no deaths.
As Akira was scanning the village for any hidden threats an elderly man from the Lumen demon race ran over to him, hands outstretched as tears streamed down his eyes.
Two nearby werewolves stepped in and blocked him before he could get close but he did not care and continued to rattle off a bunch of garbled nonsense in the ancient language that he could not understand and had to wait for Zundar.
“A group of demigods left the village some time ago. They took his granddaughter with them most likely to some place called the [Thief city] which is where they came from to launch this attack…”
Ding!
-
New quest! Granddaughter rescue!
Old man Qorn has asked you to help rescue his granddaughter.
If you refuse this request Kodria will have trouble dealing with the Ancient Alliance Forces in the future.Accept: Y/N
“Tell him that we will help rescue his granddaughter. If the demigods have taken over another city we can not sit by as they strengthen their position. We must weed out this problem until they have all disappeared from this large island,” said Akira.
