Chapter 35: Skirmishes
[3rd Person POV]
"The first layer sure is boring! UKIIII!"
In the latter part of the first layer, the layer deemed to be the safest for weak monsters and normal humans, a loud voice was heard, this loud boom of a shout jolted up the birds that are sleeping on their nests, causing all of these harmless avian creatures to fly away in all directions. The one who shouted did not even notice the mess he just made, he sighed in both boredom and anger.
The bored person is, of course, a monkey and is part of the soldiers who rebelled against the tribe leader, he is one of the rebel soldiers who is tasked to accompany the other half of the two leaders of the rebel group to the lair of the queen of spiders, to acquire information about the opponent they are about to invade.
"Hey shut it! What if the hero prospect hears you and managed to locate us, UKKKI!?"
Another monkey scolded the one who shouted, but the one who got reprimanded just snorted.
"UKII... What can she do?"
The other monkeys who are listening to the conversation laughed, all of them have the same thought.
_Yes, what can that little girl do?_
The soldiers who treated the hero prospect of the god of the undead and the pioneer of necromancy like a random nobody continued to chatter whilst they transversed the first layer by foot.
The soldiers of the monkey tribe do not have any colts or other mounts, one of the reasons is that wars between monsters in the second layer are fought with pure grit and grind, there is nothing like planning and only left, right, attack and retreat commands can be heard, sometimes those basic directions are even drowned with roars, but of course when hunting or other similar journeys that require more complex series of group movements, their best companions, the wolf pack that is unfortunately enslaved by Sophia will serve as their mounts.
Thus even though their advance is fast, it is still way slower than when their companions are present.
But of course, the proud creatures that are themselves have exceptional stamina, thus they avoided a very long journey despite traveling in the widest layer of the forest the leader of the expedition made arrangements to reduce their traveling time as much as their constitution can allow.
He made the rest of the accompanying soldiers of his be cut off both in frequency and duration, breakfast will be eaten while traveling, lunch will be skipped as they will use the noontime break to travel the outstanding distance ahead of them and they will just set up campsites at night.
In addition, they are obligated to wake up at midnight to travel once again, thus their rest is just four hours.
Good thing that there are no monsters that can be called a threat to this band of soldiers and all of their encounters are just quick to work small fries that only serve as their leader's food, if not, this kind of harsh arrangement will surely become lethal for them no matter how powerful they are.
The warriors who are accompanying the other sibling cannot understand why is their leader in such a hurry, after all the other siblings already indicated that the information they want is just for amusement and that their success in the upcoming invasion will not be associated with it.
"If information is not important, then godmother will not be one of the most influential and feared individuals in this forest just by being an information broker."
That's the only logic the leader of this expedition said as he made the cruel setup for the one hundred soldiers under his command, but is that the reason? Of course, it is one of the reasons, but the leader has this feeling, a feeling of discomfort, unease, and a little bit of disgust as if someone is watching him from day to night.
It was a feeling that seems to be true, yet seems to also be not, like how intuition or instincts works, sometimes they are spot on, but sometimes they are nothing but the product of overthinking, thus he never voiced out this vague feeling of being watched towards his subordinates or even his brother and just asked these soldiers that belongs to himself to be more cautious.
"But it's hard to contain these people huh?"
He just sighed in his heart as he looked at the laughing figures in his back for a moment and look at his front, his sharp eyes swept all over his field of vision trying to see if he can catch anything suspicious, but to no avail, he can only see several spider that has the same white color as the queen of arachnids and once again comforted himself.
"Maybe it's just her?" He said in the back of his mind as he alongside his people continued to walk towards the lair of the queen of spiders.
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Meanwhile, in the opening parts of the second layer, another group of community-type monsters with green-colored skin numbering about twenty can be seen hiding in an area with a thick patch of trees, using their color is the same as the leaves and their leather armors having the same hue as the barks to conceal themselves more effectively. In front of them are a bunch of bison that have red colored fur and are breathing hot steam out of their noses, their innate nature of always being on the move made these herbivores quite hard to catch, but today this group of five bison will finally meet their doom for in the other corner of the circumference of these poor creatures, three monkeys came out at the top of three different trees, looking at the herbivores with greed in their eyes, they cannot help but drool as they thought to themselves.
_Seems like we will have bison soup tonight!_
They descended out of the trees they are in and surrounded the five bison that started to change in the ranks of the monkey hunter unit that they are unluckily to stumble upon, the monkeys, however, are of course more coordinated and repelled their attacks with ease.
Meanwhile, the twenty men unit of goblins that are part of Sophia's invading forces watched on, staring at the unfortunate fate that transpired right before their eyes.
"So, when will we interfere, leader?"
A goblin looked at the leader of the unit in front of him, the leader have better musculature than the soldier under his command that asked he is one of the best-performing goblins in the battle to defend their settlement against the wolves, giving him the honor to be one of the commanding figures of the growing army of their Hara Sophia.
"Let's be patient." The leader appeared to be calm, even if it's already thirty minutes since the clueless trio of monkeys started their hunt, it is confirmed that these three primates are just toying around with their prey.
_If she (Sophia) saw this scene, these monkeys are dead._
The goblin leader thought so as he saw that the bison cannot take it anymore and decided that the time was finally ripe, he then commanded five goblins and said.
"You four, group yourselves into two and pick a monkey each group to target."
After a short pause, the leader of the ambush unit looked at the remaining goblin and continued "You will pair up with me." the goblin soldier nodded, holding his stone spear in his hands as he listened for the final instructions of their leader.
"The rest of you incircle this place so that our temporary camp will be safe."
The rest of the band that did not get a call for the slaying mission did not argue about their assignments, with a unified and muffled: "Understood" they dispersed as they started to go to their respective posts assigned to them by their commander, the one who leads the ambush unit then looked at the group left with him.
"This will be my last instructions before the assault, the reason I divided us is to have two attempts in killing the monkeys, the first one will shoot his spear from a distance and he will see if the spear hit the face of the monkeys, our designated point of attack."
He looked at the last pair he called out earlier and continued.
"You two, your job is to drive away the third monkey as per that person's command, we shall let one of the monkeys escape. After we killed them we will plunder the weapons and escape, do make the backup forces retrieve their prey."
The leader then looked at the monkeys who are already killing the small group of bison, He picked up a rock that is as big as his fist and shouted: "HEY!!!" and then hurled the rock, after which he threw the stone spear in his hands.
The monkeys of course heard that shout, one particular monkey saw a rock flying right into his face, he casually caught it but saw a sharp spear stone attached to a stick right in front of his eyes.
"Eh?" That was the only word the monkey can say as the pointed stone plunged right into the middle of his two eyes, the spear went further poking out in the back of his head. The momentum did not stop until the spear plunged itself into the ground alongside the bloodied head of the unfortunate monkey, his two companions immediately glared in the direction of the assailant.
"Show your- Waagh!" Another monkey shouted but a spear came crashing in front of him, but the monkey is now more prepared, thus he was able to dodge it in time, unfortunately, he did not expect another spear to fly in his face right after he dodged, the spear stabbed right through his forehead, pinning him down on a tree.
Monkey number two is dead.
The monkey who got saved for last strangely has bums for assailants, thus he managed to escape without even realizing that he was saved because the leader commanded them to spare his life.
"MOTHERFUCKING PIECES OF GREEN IDIOTS CANNOT HIT ME!!" The joys of being able to survive are pulsating in his heart as he ran for their camp, his weapon was left behind, after all, life is more important than any pointed things.
(Author: ?)
The leader of the assault group who just completed their mission is delightful, but his face that seems to be stuck to his poker face cannot even smile, he just commanded his soldiers to give way to the carts that will transport the gigantic bison and the three metal weapons that will be handed over to the people in front of the landmine site that Sophia has created. (Author: The front-facing the monkey camp, not Sophia's)
"I do wonder though, what will she use those mighty weapons for, if we are instructed to pick them up and never use them?"
The leader just shook his head as he looked at the carts into which the bison are loaded.
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Meanwhile in the forest area of the first layer in the far northern exit of the "landmine site", two figures can be seen jumping around just as the exit of the landmine site is visible in their sights.
One is a grey-colored lady with a bandage in one of its eyes, she holds a bow in her hand whilst two quivers of arrows attached by a specialized rattan bag are on her back, the other one is a rabbit or at least that's what his bunny ears are describing, however, his large fangs, red eyes not to mention his abnormally robust body that contradicts his size is an immediate giveaway that he is not your usual cute little bunny, hell he is not even a rabbit at all.
The two figures are of course Philo and Lyra, they are here to fulfill the mission their lady has given to them, to harass the scouts of the rebels and not let them go near the landmine site they set up as part of Sophia's "big surprise".
"Hey, is that really how spies should sleep?"
Philo pointed his snout to a monkey who is sleeping in an upside-down position, using his tail to grab a tree branch, Lyra just shook her head, and two arrows is grabbed by her fingers as she put those arrows on her bow.
"No, they are supposed to hide when they are sleeping, Kabuto said so. Well, let's start." Lyra said casually and Philo nodded, Lyra shoot her two arrows into the branch the monkey is hanging on, and with her curse, she successfully corroded the branch, causing the one hanging on it to fall head first, causing the pitiful monkey to wake up because of the pain in his head and slight dislocation of his neck.
"Take care of the rest."
Lyra immediately dashed away to not be seen, Philo then immediately complied with a simple nod as he pounced into the monkey. The monkey who just recovered from his pain shook his head one last time and looked at the corroded branch, it was as if termites decided to speed run the branch, it was so rotten that it cannot even be used as campfire fuel.
"Huh... Arrows?" The monkey suddenly noticed the arrows beside the branch, he immediately scanned the area for possible enemies, but all he can see is an abnormally muscular rabbit pouncing at him, the monkey stepped back and was about to grab his dagger, but the blood-red eyes of Philo swept past across him in mid-air.
"Oh no you don't." That were the words the muscular rabbit said as he embedded his claws into the face of the monkey scout that reflexively used his palms to block the attack, but of course, Philo already knew that one of the designated weaknesses of a monkey is their palm, thus he thrust his other claws, forming a dual attack whilst doubling the force of the assault.
"GEEEH....!" The monkey let out a muffled grunt as he saw his palms being easily pierced by a monster several times smaller than him, the pain of the attack made him stumble to the ground gritting his teeth as he is about to shout for help, but of course, Philo will not let such a thing happen in front of his eyes.
"RRRRgh..... Like I said, no you don't." Philo repeated his sentence and lifted one of his claws and immediately stabbed it inside the mouth of the monkey.
"GRRGK!?" The monkey cannot even scream for help and just grunted with force, trying not to let blood flow out of his mouth caused by his ruptured vocal cords.
"Oh it still can talk, got no choice I guess." Philo retracted his other claw and then made a standing bear stance in the chest of the terrified monkey and with a "This will hurt." he stabbed his razor-sharp claws into the mouth of the monkey again and again.
Soundless shouts of terror, agony, despair, anger, regret, and many more emotions came into the deepest part of the monkey's heart as the bones of his mouth were crushed whilst flesh and blood scattered everywhere.
"Stop his already dead." Lyra appeared once again having some bodies of monkey scouts being dragged by her. "You had too much fun you only hunted a single scout, come on now." Philo finally went back to his rationality after that second word from his companion and just sat down on the headless body under his feet.
"Sorry about that." He said so, then asked for the reigns of the bodies in Lyra's hands and tied them to himself, they walked stealthily onto a far away monkey scout that is oblivious of what happened to his companions, they then clumsily sprawled the bodies into the root of the tree the monkey was sleeping at and escaped back to their initial position.
"Well, that's that."
They said without remorse towards the lives they have just taken as they disappeared. These two incidents happened the night when the other sibling departed from the rebel camp, and will continue until their lady desired so otherwise.