The large group was able to make it back to the city without any major incidents happening. Either the enemy had given up or they had lost track of where they had gone and were still trying to find them.
Everyone felt the tension slip away as they passed the werewolf sentries and entered Bluemoon city.
Surprisingly Ermergerd and the rest of the warriors that had gone with him were leisurely sitting around a campfire cooking lunch when Akira and Ardolf found them.
“Oh, so you guys were able to make it back,” said Ermergerd with little interest as he kept his eyes on the food that was roasting over the fire.
“We had some trouble but we were able to meet up with Luef,” said Ardolf.
“When did you get here?” asked Akira.
“Grand elder will want to speak to both of you. You can give him the full report for me,” said Ermergerd not even looking away from the cooking food.
Ardolf pulled Akira away from the group and they both headed towards the office where Wulfric did his daily work.
***
“…and that is the situation right now the enemy is near and not afraid to attack in large groups,” said Ardolf.
“How did Akira handle his first mission?” asked Wulfric not looking at Akira, who was also in the room.
“He has proved to me that he is an honorable warrior. If he continues to work hard he will have no problem being promoted in the future,” said Ardolf.
“That’s good to hear, but now that things have escalated I don’t think the city will be safe enough if a full-scale war breaks out so close to us. I will be talking with the other elders on whether or not we should evacuate. You should be ready to receive further orders later. You both can leave.”
Ding!
-
You are one step closer to leading your own pack.
+2 Honor
***
It was late afternoon when the news spread that the elders had decided the city would be evacuated and everyone was going to have to go to the clan meeting caves.
The other clans had been informed of their decision and had also begun the process of evacuating just to be safe.
Everyone who had just recently reached the city and were now finally able to rest were unhappy with the news, but couldn’t say anything because they were even more unhappy with the Beorin kingdom that was causing the problems.
Everyone was hurriedly packing the things that they wanted to bring with them.
Akira was dragged into this frenzy by Wulfric as he was forced to help pack up the family heirlooms from a secret safe in Wulfric’s Office.
“What’s this!?” asked Wulfric in surprise as something in his hand warped in white silk started to shine brightly before he could hand it over to Akira to pack.
Akira felt something shake in his bag so he opened it and out jumped the [Supernormal bracelet].
The two items began vibrating with a pulsing light before Wulfric removed a gem from the silk and placed it into one of the sockets.
“How can this be?”
“Do you know what this is?” asked Akira.
“Quickly put it away before someone sees it!”
“Is it that important?”
“The Moon clan has been guarding this gem since ancient times for many centuries. The knowledge I have of the gem is little and mostly rumors. It is said that many countries and powerful people fought over them and wiped out whole cities in order to steal it from the previous owner and hide their tracks. One of our ancestors happened to find it when he found a battlefield where two forces had fought to the death. He took the gem and only found out about the trouble that it brought with it. He decided to hide it away to keep it from some people long ago that were trying to use it for evil deeds. You must not speak of it to anyone.” said Wulfric with a stern and serious voice as he stared into Akira’s eyes.
***
As the sun rose to bring a new day the city was bustling with activity as everyone made their last-minute preparations.
In order to let the cities evacuate without problem the four escort packs were given more warriors and were given the task to find the enemy raiding groups and either defeat them or push them back from the werewolf territory.
Akira stood listening to Ardolf finish explaining the new mission in great detail.
“We only have the task of keeping them out of our territory so that means no picking fights with anyone that is not in werewolf territory,” said Ardolf.
“We move out in thirty minutes. You need to be ready by then,” shouted Ermergerd.
“Good thing both of our groups were merged into one,” said Akira as he sat next to Varbu and Chack as they checked their armor and weapons.
“Will I actually be able to see a real human?” asked Chack.
“It looks like you will be able to see hundreds of them if we are able to do our job correctly,” said Varbu.
“Exciting…I lie! I don’t want to meet any humans!” said Chack his feathers on his head were quivering with just the thought of encountering a human.
When everyone had finished their preparations they left the city and headed out to find any enemies that were raiding inside werewolf territory.
They already knew in what direction to go since they had to escape from the enemy a few days ago.
***
Akira was put on night watch with only a handful of other sentries as everyone else slept away the day’s exhaustion.
While on patrol of his small section he heard the faint sound of something moving in the swampy water near his position hidden by some swamp bushes.
He picked up his lantern and brought it over to the bushes holding it up above them looking for anything suspicious.
Being cautious he held his shield in front of him ready for the possibility that it was a swamp monster lurking around.
The light parted the dark shadows and reflected off the still black water. There was nothing there.
“Must be hearing things,” said Akira as he turned around and walked back to his post.
Slowly a dark figure quietly exited the water dripping wet. The dark figure unwound rope from its waist as they dashed forward with silent footsteps throwing the rope around its targets neck strangling them before they could let out a sound and alert anyone.
***
Although the running footsteps quite enough that a normal human would not have heard them Akira who was fully alert was able to pick up the sound coming from the sentries’ position to the left of him.
“Harl, did you find something?”
Silence.
Akira unsheathed his sword and walked forward cautiously, “Harl, respond.”
As he drew near he saw someone lazily leaning against one of the trees.
It was Harl.
“Did you fall asleep?” asked Akira as he walked closer.
His footsteps stopped when he smelled something wrong with this situation he looked around but found nothing.
Akira bent closer to Harl and could smell the odor of another person on his body. Now that he was close he could clearly see that Harl’s head was not slumped to the side sleeping but was broken from strangulation.
Akira blew hard on the whistle that was between his lips before shouting to raise the alarm.
“Enemy att…ghhh,” but his shout was interrupted as someone dropped from the tree above and wrapped a thick rope around his neck and began trying to strangle him as they both fell to the ground.
Akira clawed at the rope trying to loosen it but he was losing strength as each second went by.
Dropping his sword he used the last of his focus and strength to partially transform his hand into a claw and stabbed it back behind him at his attacker piercing his side, forcing him to let go of the rope and roll away from Akira.
The camp was now in a frenzy as people half-awake rushed towards the direction of the whistle.
Akira laid there for several seconds coughing and trying to gasp for air as he fumbled with tearing the rope away from his neck and throwing it away.
He was not given much time to recover as he heard the sound of two metallic weapons being unsheathed.
Thud! Something slammed into the ground right next to him barely missing his left shoulder as he tried to get back up to his feet another attack slammed into his right shoulder knocking him back down.
The attack was unable to pierce his scale armor but the blunt damage of the stab hurt like hell.
Akira grabbed onto the enemy’s hand that was retreating and twisted it forcing them to drop the dagger they were holding.
He yanked the attacker’s arm close to him and wrapped them into a bear hug and rolled over so the enemy was trapped under him. He held the dark figure’s arms down so that he couldn’t do anything.
“I’ve captured an enemy!” shouted Akira as he struggled to keep the attacker under control.
The first two people to reach Akira was Ardolf and Ermergerd.
“Good work! We can question…” Ardolf was interrupted as Ermergerd drew his sword and pushed Akira aside with his foot before hacking the enemies head off killing him instantly.
“What are you doing?” asked Akira as he stood up.
“He is an enemy and attacked us so he had to die,” said Ermergerd simply.
“We could have gotten some information from him.”
“Do not question my decisions! I am the pack leader!” growled Ermergerd before walking over to Harl and inspecting his dead body.
“Send someone to take him back to the crypts,” ordered Ermergerd.
***
As the days went by, wherever they went they ran into constant ambushes were one of the warriors in the pack was either heavily wounded or killed.
Three people were already dead and ten others were wounded in the failed ambushes but could still fight if they needed to.
“What is up with these tactics? They have the larger force so they should not be slinking around and ambushing us,” grumbled Akira.
“Maybe they’re testing us,” said Varbu as he ate their dry rations along with a piece of meat from something they had caught earlier in the day.
“That still doesn’t explain how they know where we are all the time. The shaman has been keeping an eye on the surrounding area and can never find anyone following us,” said Akira.
“Maybe they are just overlooking the enemy,” said Mileena.
“Bo is almost as much a genius in the use of long-distance communication and control of his companion than I am with my chants! There is no way he would miss so many people before they ambush us,” said Klyn defending Bo who was the same age as Klyn. They had both trained with each other for many years although they each took a different path.
“Maybe someone is trying to feed us to the humans,” said Chack.
Akira glared at him, “No one is trying to feed us to the humans. Werewolves have a high sense of loyalty and honor just like the Orc clans.”
“I lie! Pretend I didn’t say anything!” said Chack trying to hide from Akira’s stare.
Akira looked over to Bo who was sitting cross-legged with his eyes a blank as his mind was off looking through his companion’s eyes as they scouted the surrounding area.
Two warriors with shields were standing next to him so that they could protect him while he was in the defenseless state.
As Akira watched Bo’s body shivered and his eyes cleared up. He started to look around and then shouted “The enemy is coming at us in four different directions! If we don’t move now we’ll be surrounded and it’s not small ambush this time!”
Ardolf came running over to him, “Are you sure?”
“Completely!,” said Bo seriously as he stood up. A raven dived down from the sky and landed on Bo’s shoulder.
“I’ll go and inform the captain,” said Ardolf.
“Hurry we only have ten minutes at the most.”
Everyone hearing his words shoved their lunch into their mouths and got ready to move out.
They waited… and waited… but the order to move out never came.
“Enemy!” shouted a warrior on sentry duty before getting turned into a pincushion by several tens of arrows.
The werewolf warriors were getting killed left and right from the arrows of the enemy since they were all in a dry open space with little to no protection.
“Ermergerd! We’re under attack!”
“Ermergerd! What do we do?!”
Akira ran towards the tent used by Ermergerd and shouted, “What are you doing? Give us some orders?”
“It’s no use he’s gone mad,” said Ardolf.
Ermergerd was hiding under his cot muttering something over and over again.
They had no time to figure out what he was saying.
“You rally the right I’ll take care of the left!” ordered Ardolf.
Akira rushed out of the tent and ran towards the right flank.
There were small groups of scattered fighting everywhere when he reached the right flank. Not stopping his running he transformed and let out a long and loud howl activated his class skill [Howl].
The enemy hearing his howl paused for several seconds as they quivered in fear due to the skill’s effects.
The nearby werewolf warriors who had been panicking had calmed down and had their morale boosted.
“Follow me and attack! Kill them all!” shouted Akira his voice echoing throughout the battlefield.
With their minds cleared and now full of fighting spirit from Akira’s firm and reassuring voice. The werewolves that had not joined the fight all transformed and followed Akira as he led them in a counter-attack to break the enemy encirclement.
Even though they were surrounded and outnumbered they were able to slowly start turning the tide against the attackers by breaking out of the encirclement and starting to attack them from both sides.
Akira was continued to use his new spear to quickly wound any enemy that appeared in front of him and allow the other warriors to deal the killing blow.
Ding!
-
Pierce skill received!
Pierce: (Beginner Lv: 1| 00%)
When using a spear the Pierce skill will allow you to reach those hard to scratch places.
Raise the level of the skill to be able to break through even tougher things.
“I will not allow you to eat me!” shouted Chack as he bashed the enemy soldiers over the head with his mace.
With both Ardolf and Akira taking control of the wings of the pack they were able to kick the enemy away after dealing a heavy blow to them. But it wouldn’t last long since the enemy would be back with even more soldiers if they didn’t leave before they came back.
Akira hurried back to Ermergerd’s tent with Ardolf and found that he was still hiding under his cot.
As Akira walked into he saw a large amount of blood covering the ground. Several arrows were sticking out of Ermergerd’s stomach.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I was just supposed to stay here and surrender my forces to them.”
“What?” asked Ardolf
“Nothing,” said Ermergerd with lifeless eyes.
“Don’t tell me… you’re working for the enemy?”
“W..what how could you say that. We must stay here and defend this spot.”
“That’s suicide we need to get away from this open ground as soon as possible.”
“No, I was ordered to stay here.”
“By who?”
“A friend”
Ardolf had enough of Ermergerd nonsense and used a few mean he had learned to make him speak.
They found out that he had betrayed the clan because hid did not want to die in the upcoming wars and hard times that the Elders had spoken of.
He had wanted to get rid of Akira since he had thought that he was the one that had brought the disaster to the Earth tribe. So he contacted the enemy and told them their position and what routes they would use.
When Ermergerd finished spilling his guts Ardolf thrust his sword through his heart killing him for betraying the clan.
“Akira let’s go, we need to get out of here before they come back,” said Ardolf.
Ardolf exited the tent and began to gather the warriors.
“Those of you that are able to move, help the wounded. We’re moving out now!” shouted Ardolf.
No one question where Ermergerd was. They all silently followed Ardolf’s orders and helped the wounded up to their feet or carried them on makeshift stretchers long with the dead allies.
They had no time to do anything about the dead and wounded enemies so they left them to face the fate of whatever the swamp had in store for them.
