Chapter 46 – Safety

Bright red light bursts into fire high in the sky, staying in the air like a second moon and lightening the dark night forest in its blood red colored light.

"It's the third flare already, captain." Said one of the soldiers in full armor while breathing hard.

"I know that, lieutenant. That proves they are still fighting. We must get them out. Is the city's backup still not here?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Fucking bastard! That fucker probably did not send anyone for us at all!" Said angrily, the City guards squad's captain.

Unlike the adventurers that went to the mission in all kinds of armor and equipment they owned. The city guards were all equipped with high level armors and high level equipment that helped them make an easy job of monsters once they formed a shield wall of overlapped magic barriers that all the shields were enchanted with. Step by step they moved forward as an unbreakable city wall, smashing, piercing and bisecting everything on their path with their shield, spears and swords. Countless corpses lay on the ground lining the path they took. However the monster horde in front of them had no visible end to it.

"We can't go faster, captain." Said his second in command. "Men are at the limit. If we break formation we are done for just as the guys in the village."

"I know that, damn it!" Screamed the captain and used his skill to bisect the rushing at them troll with one slash on to two identical parts. A thin line ran right in the middle of its body from head to its lower body making it drop dead ten meters away before it even reached the barrier wall.

When the troll died without even getting close they suddenly heard something strange. Screams and roars coming from behind them

"Is that back up?" Asked the captain , slashing at another huge beast, bisecting it way before it touched the shield of his squad.

"Doesn't look like it's our guys, captain."

"Who is it then?" Asked the captain, barely throwing a glance back before using another skill to blow up the head of another giant monster from a distance.

"Looks like…adventurers, sir!"

"What? I thought all high level teams were in the village."

"There are too many of them. I think those are the low leveled ones, sir. The guild must have sent them to back us up."

"Fuck damn." Roared captain. "Why is it the bunch of ruffians is the only thing you can rely on in this fucking city!" He roared, making another slash that bisected more than 5 monsters in front of them after bisecting another troll.

Soon the sound coming from their back came closer and closer and the wall of barriers turned into a wedge with knights breaking through the tide of monsters and hundreds of adventurers in all kinds of equipment laying waste to everything around them.

"Kill them all!"

"Die fucking monsters!"

Screamed warriors slashing and smashing monsters with swords, axes and huge mallets. While all kinds of magics flew over their heads obliterating monsters all over the place.

With new strength to their squad they moved through the monster tide like an elephant through bushes, stomping and crushing everything they passed through.

Soon they saw that the monster attack had started to wane and they could even increase the pace. When they finally reached the open field in front of the village wall the tide of monsters started to break apart and the monster frenzy waned until it totally ceased, making monsters scatter about and run away in small groups. However barely any monsters were left alive to return to the forest.

"Don't know if this is a disaster or a blessing" Said captain wheezing with laboured breath.

"Don't see how you can see a blessing here, sir." Answered the lieutenant while trying to catch his breath.

"With all these monsters dead. We can send a few expeditions to build new villages at once, without being overly harassed by the monsters..Maybe even turn our town into a full-fledged city." Said the captain.

"That is if we have anyone to send to the expedition at all." Said lieutenant. Adventurers were a must on the expeditions to build new villages. But all middle and almost all high level teams were sent to this village and who knows how many of them were left alive.

Captain took out a device similar to the one that Jake had to coordinate the three team attack.

"Jake! Can you hear me?"

"You took your fucking time, sir Rowan." An answer came from the device.

"Thank god. We are almost at the wall. Or what's left of its east side at least."

"Don't get close to the fog! It's poison!"

"Everyone stop!" Roared the captain seeing the white tentacles creeping out of the village through the sieve-like village wall.

"Get away from the fog! It's poison!" He roared to the surrounding area to stop adventurers from rushing to the village.

"We are coming out. You guys wait for us away from that white mist." Said Jake and the connection broke.

A dozen minutes later through the broken wooden wall figures of people started to appear.

Dirty, bloody and weary they limped out into the open field between the forest and the leftovers of the wall, stepping on countless bodies of monsters without any piece of ground seen from under layers of monster corpses.

"Oooooooooh!" Roared the hundreds of warriors from the forest meeting them with cheers.

"Jake." Said knight captain coming closer to Jake when the adventurer squad left the white fog and helped him to walk by placing his huge hand over his own shoulder. "You did fucking great to survive that."

"Didn't do enough. We were lucky to survive it." Said Jake wearily limping while leaning on the knight captain and turned his head around to throw a glance at their saviour that was carried by a few other guys with his hands on their shoulders. "This was too close a call, Rowan. Those bastards had us hard this time."

"Villagers?"

"Wasn't anyone alive when we came." Said Jake sadly. "Didn't see any women and children corpses though. Probably all taken away." He added.

"What about dark society?"

"Knew of our coming long before. Not even a trace of them….the whole fucking village just gone, Rowan. Whole fucking village. Are they even humans, those bastards?"

Rowan did not say anything to that. He had the feeling that's would be the result when he first heard that the village was captured. But still it was hard to imagine.

What was a village in the world infested with monsters? It was a life line of civilization. An island of safety in the sea of horror. And it was a forefront of humanity's counterattack against the monster plague.

Humanity did not have much freedom in this world. To sleep well at night they had to build walls around settlements. Not just some pile of wood sewn together. Every settlement had to withstand countless monster attacks and stand for dozens of years. So the walls were massive and sturdy. Manning them were dozens of people at all times. But building it was easier said than done.

Every city was tasked with a mission to enlarge the human habitat. That was the main royal decree.

To do that, humans would send an expedition into the wilds, that has to fight for dominance against countless monsters inhabiting the chosen area. After enduring countless attacks from angered monsters that were forced out from their homeground, while building a wall that would become the new settlement's future protection, they would finally be able to start a new settlement. A village would be created with hundreds of people migrating to the new settlement. In time other villages would be created around a central settlement that would become a town, like Greenville.

As the monsters around the area would be regularly hunted down by surrounding village inhabitants and adventurers, the central area would become a lot safer allowing almost uninhibited passage from village to central town under the protection of weak adventurer groups.

Losing such a village was a disaster. Hundreds if not thousand of people were gone. Creating a huge breach in surrounding the town's relatively safe area it endangered the well being of the whole town. It also was a huge step back for all of humanity. The Royal family would hear of this. Without doubt, investigators would be dispatched. The heads would fly from the shoulders. What were people related to this event thinking when they helped the criminals commit a crime of such proportion? Every corrupt bastard even slightly related to this is already dead, they just did not know it yet.

Once the Royal investigators were to come, there would be a purge unimaginable in this town's measures. Royal family could tolerate fights among nobles, corrupt nobles having underground dealings, but they would not tolerate a loss of the whole village especially in the surroundings of the Labyrinth Town.

This was a fuck up. Fuck up of country proportion. Rowan did not want to even imagine what's coming for them now that it happened.

"What's with the poison fog?"

"A part of their trap plan. Some fucking multi layer attack. They blew up monster bait and poisoned the whole town area at the same time. Once the monsters rushed to the wall and breached it, stupidest would rush to the poison fog, but others would start to circle around town searching for another way. Packing in the end in the sole spot where the prey was - around us. Had they been scattered we would find a chance to breach through the mad tide rushing for the monster bait. But when they could not get to the place monster bait beckoned them to, they concentrated on us, blocking off all chances to get away simply jamming us between hard places and a hammer. Who knows, maybe they even planned to poison city guards rushing for our rescue. Damn antidote don't do shit against it." Explained Jake.

"How did you survive?"

"As I said. We were damn lucky."

Once adventurers from the village were taken to safety among the adventurers and knight squad, captain Rowan took out a flare stick similar to one Jake and pointed it upward above his head, firing a bright green fiery ball to the sky.

After that they waited for back up from the town.