Chapter 18 – Orc? Troll? Or maybe an Ogre?

Holy Lady startled up from the bed holding her bed sheets to herself covering her chest and looked around.

"What is going on?" She asked the 5 people in black standing in the room with one sitting on the floor in the middle of it.

Shadow women looked at each other with strange expressions.

"You used the divination, My lady."

"What?" Said The Holy Lady surprised and opened her system window. "It's in the cooldown. I? Why did?" She looked confused for a few moment, but then her face took the serious look.

"Mind heal!"

"Illusion dispel"

"Mind influence cancel!"

"Mind barriers!"

"Health restore!"

"Soul enforce!"

"HOLY CLEANSE!"

"PURGE MALIGN!"

Holy lady used her skills and magic at herself one by one brightening the room with blinding lights.

"My Lady! What's going on?" Asked her the shadow woman.

"Someone interrupted my divination!" Hissed the Holy Lady.

*Gulp. Nervously swallowed the woman in black sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, while the other four looked at her with menace in the eyes.

"I can't remember anything. It must have been some kind of high level mind attack skill! How long have I been out?"

"It was barely a minute My Lady."

"A minute. Not much harm should have been done in that space of time. What was I doing prior to that?"

"Ever since I brought report from Moonstar Kingdom on the miasm pollution in their Labyrinth, you've been dwelling on it none stop, until you went to bed and used the divination."

"I see…Yes I start to remember…but the recent events seem blurry. Like a dream….dream…Something about the power of dreams." Said Holy Lady sitting in the bed with a thoughtful expression.

"Send shadows to the Moonstar Kingdom to investigate."

"I will do that first thing in the mor…"

"Now! Send them immediately. There is something going on there. Someone blocked my divine skill!"

"Yes." Said "Shadow team leader and disappeared in the shadows."

"Dreams…" muttered Holy Lady lying in the bed. "White light, dreams, city under attack…ughh. It's so unclear. Why is my mind not working well?" Was heard from inside the bed canopy.

Shadow women looked at each other and once again dispersed in the shadows of the room.

*****

Noah entered the Adventurers Guild early in the morning with deep circles under the eyes and an even more weary look than he had when he registered yesterday.

"Mr. Lewenred, you seem more tired than yesterday. Is the inn I recommended not okay?"

"No, no Miss Louriate, the inn is wonderful. Too cheap even, considering the wonderful cooking and such clean rooms. It's just sleep that seemed to avoid me last night."

Miss Louriate looked at him with squinting eyes.

"Mr.Lewenred, could it be you have spent the night partying at the street that one of the alleys behind the inn lead to?"

"Street? What street? Miss Louriate I don't understand what you are talking about. Anyway I came to register for a monster hunt daily mission. I was thinking of going hunting in the northern hunting ground."

"Hmmmm" The guild attendant lady made the noise, while still watching him with squinted eyes. "Alright. I have registered you for today's hunt. If you don't return in two days we will send an investigation team. Good luck."

"Have a nice day." Said Noah and walked out of the guild.

/Damn why do I feel guilty even before I went to party at that street?/

******

In the forest north of the city Noah sat on the tree stump, sighing with an exhaustion.

/I should find a way to raise my mana recovery speed. Even after full night's rest I still did not recover to full power after I fought off that crazy woman./

A rustle of leaves was heard from the bushes in front of him and a large monster wolf came out of them with a large bunny monster in its teeth.

*Haaagh. Sighed Noah.

/I can't believe I am not getting any EE from the monster hunts. This all seems like a huge waste of time to hunt weak monsters to just get that speck of wealth in the end without even getting stronger./

*On the other hand you are getting far more skills and abilities than other system users. Also, although you don't get EE from hunts, your growth does not stop even if you simply sit on the spot, because of the information that the CS people provide as with. Their minds are a treasure trove and we barely touched the upper layers of the knowledge they possess and already have some crazy feats behind our shoulders./

/Feats, that I am too embarrassed to even mention/ Said Noah.

Wolf has put the bunny corpse under Noah's feet and immediately rushed into the bushes disappearing in the lush greenery again.

/We need to get stronger. Or we will be only making pennies for the bunny hide with the level of this hunting./

*There are several suggestions for that.*

/Go on./

*First find a slightly stronger opponent than a wolf and try to kill it with the team. Your memory erasing skill seems useful in making your opponent stall for a few moments. That will let the wolf find the chance for a fatal strike. However, this is a short term solution only as it does not make you grow. And you will reach a bottleneck where your help is almost useless. At the end you don't help your companion in the fight anymore.*

/What else?/

*Find the way to gain an EE using the skills we have. That could be done even without going to hunts in the fore….* Said the system pausing on the half word.

"Huh?" Asked Noah /System is everything alright?/

*Y..yes. It's just my main process is busy with analyzing all the information so I have to multitask to perform a conversation.*

"Oh. I see".

The bushes started to shake again making lots of rustling noises.

"He is faster than usual this time." Said Noah standing up from the tree stump.

The wolf entered the clearing a moment later and came toward Noah. It grabbed him by the sleeve with his jaw and pulled his hand toward one direction.

"You want me to follow?"

*Woof. Barked wolf

"Something happened?

*Woof woof. Barked the wolf calling Noah and rushed into the forest again.

Noah hurried to follow after his companion.

*****

*Warning!*

*Warning!*

*Warning!*

Yellow signs with red words kept appearing over the CS screen one after the other. Without producing any sound.

System watched at the signs rapidly analyzing information and calculating countless solutions. It muted the sound of notifications the moment it sensed the unnatural phenomena happening, so that the user would not realize that there was an issue until the system finds a proper solution for it, but time went by and it still could not produce an answer that would satisfy the user. Soon the situation went out of control.

O-ooouu thought system looking at the analysis result.

******

A man with a sword in hand stood with a shaky stance ready for battle. Blood streamed over his right hand falling to the ground.

Four women in adventurers equipment stood around him.

"Evil bitches! What the hell do you think you are doing?" Questioned the man throwing a quick glance at the man lying on the ground at the feet of one of the women in front of him

"I told you not to harm them!" Said the woman stepping at the lying on the ground man while looking at the girl nearby. "Look what you've done! He is bleeding! This will lower our income from him."

"I could not help it. His instincts and reflexes were too good. I thought I had him in unawares but it looks like he was on guard towards me." Answered the woman with a bloodied knife in hand.

"Fucking assholes. You think I am some merchandise?" Roared the man

"Shsss. Boy, don't be so angry. Why don't you put down that toy of yours and have a sweet little chat with these four gorgeous ladies here."

"Fuck you, slut! You think the guild would let this slide?" He said with shaking hands. His right hand started to feel numb for some reason and it was too hard to hold the sword with his untrained so well left hand. He was in a pinch and did not know how to get out of it.

"Guild? We aren't IN the guild cherry boy." Said the woman stepping on his friend and the other three laughed at her words. "That's why you should check the identities well before you decide to go into the forest with strangers that you have just met on the street, boy. No one even knows we are here with you. From the guilds point of view you two lost your life to the monsters in the deep part of the hunting ground while overestimating your own capability. That is the most common death reason for newbies you know? Well that's why such horny little adventure dreaming boys, that didn't even lose their V-card yet, are such easy targets. You are just too stupid to think with your upper head yet."

"Ha-ha-ha. You should have seen your face when gorgeous women flirted with you and asked to make a party. The horny idiot. You are all the same. Fucking trash" said the girl that just a few moments ago still was a true angel in his heart. He thought of her as his dream girl. But the face she made now, disgusted and scared him. "Just touch you a bit and pretend a sweet dork for you and you all over her thinking she is bound to spread legs for you. Moron." Laughed at him girl in a cleric battle clothes.

"Oooh. You are disappointed that your dream of a nice harem life did not come true cherry boy?" Asked another woman. "You don't have to worry. Such sweet young boys that barely reached adulthood are very sought after by the old ladies in the noble families, I heard. You will still have a chance to lose your virginity to one of them when you become their boy toy." Said woman with the mages staff in hand.

"Well that is if he will be bought by a woman…" said the girl with knife.

"Hey don't scare him!" Said the girl wielding sword

"Why? Maybe he would enjoy it. I heard some slave boys bought by pervert noble man are really enjoying it. This one might just be the one that would turn this way too." Joked the girl with a knife in reply

All four girls laughed at him again.

"You are slavers?" Asked the boy

"Slavers? Nooo boy. We are just small-time suppliers of the elite dildos. And you two horny boys just happened to be our new batch. After all there is a nice pair of toys in your pants from the touch of it. You did like us touching you in those places, right boy? Oh you will enjoy it a lot when you become a proper boy toy. So put down your sword until you harm yourself with it." Said the armed with a sword woman while rubbing her right travelling boot on the lying under her on the ground young man's groin.

"Anthony!" Called the young man with desperation in his voice.

"Oh, Anthony can't hear you. He is asleep and sees the sweetest dream. As you will be soon too. You feel it already don't you boy? Your eyelids are going heavy aren't they? Don't struggle. Just take a nice long rest, boy. We'll take care of you while you sleep." Said the girls mocking him. "Isn't that what you dreamed of? How we would be taking care of you the whole day? Oh you such a dirty boy Edward. And such dirty boys will be a nice playthings on high society's underground parties. Wouldn't that be your dream come true then, Edward? Don't you want to be a dirty boy toy for the noble ladies? Close your eyes and your dreams will come true."

"F...fuck you." Squeezed out of himself the man sensing his consciousness started to escape from under his control. "The guild will find out."

"Oh we will be far gone when the guild goes searching for you. We are traveling merchants, boy. Once we put a collar on your nice neck and get a hefty sum, the guild will not even ring the bell that something happened to you by then yet."

*Ughh. Groaned Edward falling on one knee. The woman that slashed him with the knife wanted to rush at him at this moment, but the leader stopped her with an outstretched hand.

"Careful. These boys tend to think that pretending they are almost unconscious will help them to escape somehow." Said their leader

"This is such an overused move. They all think the same, don't they?" Said the woman with a magic staff.

"A few minutes more and he will sleep on his own. Don't hurry. I know my poisons effect very well. The dose you had on the knife was too little to put him down so quickly. The boy just wants to play with us. You still think we are stupid lasses that you can fool with, don't you cherry boy?" Said his ex-angel with a face distorted by the grimace of malice on it and notes of maniacal light playing in her eyes.

Hearing that the boy felt utter despair and hopelessness. At that moment the trees behind the girls snapped with a loud crack startling everyone.

With a ground shaking holler a large monster jumped out of the forest, landing in front of the four girls.

"Huh? Is that an orc…wait no, troll?"

"Fuck, it doesn't look like either of them. Maybe an ogre?"

"Don't be a fool, girls. Those monsters don't speak. This monster clearly just screamed a human word."

"What the fuck is this then? And why is there a wolf with him?!"

"Don't know! Get ready. It's coming!"

"HOOORNYYYYYY" Roared the monster again, throwing himself at the four girls.