The sky was gray, adorned with a few remaining stars, while the ground was shrouded in a few sunlight that pierced through the clouds. It was completely quiet, broken only by the occasional chirping of insects in the grass.
Accompanied by the sound of faint footsteps, a dozen heavily armed soldiers advanced slowly into the mountains.
It was early morning, perfect timing to enter the mountains. At this hour, most of the Magic Beasts were still asleep, making it ideal for exploration.
As such, a dozen or so soldiers led by Angelo left the village and entered the mountains at this particular time. As for the young girl in the village, Nathan was left there tending on her conditions.
"Yeah, right," Marco laughed, drawing strange looks from the others.
"What did you say there, Marco?" Angelo asked.
"Um… nothing."
The group decided to ignore it and continued onward.
"Hey captain, see anything?" Paulo asked Angelo, who shook his head silently.
Meanwhile, Marco noticed a few soldiers collecting something in the forest.
"What the hell are they collecting?" he asked.
"Samples," Angelo simply replied. His eyes constantly scan left and right at the clearing where they stopped.
"Damn, we know they're samples, but for what use?" Marco grumbled, he slapped away an insect that landed on his neck.
"To study," Angelo simply replied again.
"Seriously? We're soldiers, not like those nerds from the Research Institute. We're here to hunt monsters!" Marco retorted.
"Didn't you forget the command said we should also collect any interesting objects in this world… except we should proceed with caution."
"Once we deal with this, we'll hunt some dangerous Magic Beast," Angelo added, "According to the Magic Radar, there are only magic beasts at Level 1 within a hundred-meter radius, so none of them were even a threat to us."
Marco gave up trying to chat with two of his friends and walked up to one of the soldiers crouching over a plant.
"Hey, whatcha doing?"
The soldier turned and lifted up a small transparent container with a sample of a leaf inside.
"Well, we are cataloging the plants to see if they can be eaten or used in some way." He gave the bottle a little shake before placing it carefully into his bag.
"Eh, okay." Marco straightened up, unimpressed. "So these red plants are edible?" He plucked a leaf off a small tree. Most of the leaves of the plant life in this forest are reddish in color with a hint of green.
"Well, not this," the soldier said, standing up. "Over here," he waved Marco over and kneeled down to a tiny growth with red fern-like leaves. "This here is a kind of tuber or root, in case you jug heads don't know what a tuber is."
The rest of the soldiers laughed as the soldier continued his explanation. "The guys at the lab say it tastes like a mix of carrot and potato and carries the same nutrients and vitamins as them. So they called this a 'car-rat-o'."
"Oh wow," Marco rolled his eyes while Angelo watched with interest. "So other than the tuber root 'car-rat-o'. Nothing more interesting found?"
"Hahaha, we heard they found plenty, even in our lands," The soldier proudly said. "There is a tree sap that tastes like maple syrup but when dried becomes like rubber."
"And there's these berries that the farmers found," The rest of the soldiers chipped in stories.
"Yeah, it's unbelievable how new food and vegetation has been appearing in our nation lately."
"And don't forget that huge monster fish that the fishers catch."
"And the mushrooms from the..."
Marco listened with half an ear to the excited soldiers talking about new discoveries found in their nation. He waved away the insects buzzing around his face and leaned against a tree. He boredly looked around the clearing, pulled out a pack of protein bars and started chewing on it.
"Marco," Paulo said in a soft tone. "Marco, something is watching us."
"What?" Marco jolted upright. "Where?"
"I am not sure." Paulo slowly rotated on the spot to look around the forest. His eyes narrowed intently trying to pinpoint the source of his unease.
"Are you sure?" Marco fingered his weapon's safety.
"I don't think so," Angelo interjected as he examined the readings in the magic array device, "I still don't have any strong readings other than the weaker magic beast in the vicinity. But just in case…"He walked towards the soldiers still deep in a lively discussion. "Men, we should move forward."
"But we are not done here, captain!" The soldiers protested. "We only collected less than half of the samples needed."
"We can finish another time. For now, pack it up. We're moving forward," Angelo ordered.
Sensing something was not right, the soldiers quickly gathered their gear and equipment. Less than a minute, they are all ready to move.
"Quickly now, let's go," Angelo led the way with the rest covering the rear. The group quickly marched through the forest, climbing over massive tree roots and in certain areas dense foliage.
Just then…
"Aooo~!"
"Aooooo~!"
"Aoooo~!"
A series of howls suddenly echoed through the mountain forest, causing Angelo and his team, who were quite far away from the source, could not help but feel a chill run down their back, finding the forest a little creepy and terrifying.
"Did you hear that?" a soldier suddenly asked, gulping in nervousness.
"Shit, I think I just got a flashback," another soldier said as he became incredibly tense.
Exhaling a long deep breath, Angelo looked at Paulo and nodded before stating in a grim voice, "If I'm not wrong, it should be a pack of wolves, but I can't tell if they were magical or regular ones."
"Captain, are they close?" Marco asked.
"No, not really," Angelo replied as he examined the Magic Array device on his wrist, "But I got a magical reading just for a split second. It's like they were only staying more than a hundred meters from us."
Saying this, he swept a gaze at his men and cautioned them, "Hold on tight to your weapons, we can't afford to let our guard down."
"Yes, sir," A dark-skinned soldier raised his machine gun with a smile.
"Good. Let's go!" Angelo urged the group to travel faster.
They pushed through the dense foliage and emerged out into a field of grass. Sensing the wind causing the grass to sway like waves.
"This is not good," Paulo said as he scanned the surroundings. The closest treeline is about 200 meters away. "It's too open."
"You, hold the rear. We'll advance by leapfrogging," Angelo instructed the group. "I'll go first. Once I reach the treeline, I will give a signal then you guys are next. Just run okay? Don't stop till you hit the trees."
He looked left and right before dashing across the field in less than forty seconds before he arrived at the edge of the forest. He quickly got into a ready position to cover the rest and waved the others to start running. The soldiers, seeing his signal, quickly ran towards him.
Suddenly, a loud beep echoed in the device on his wrist. His eyes widened as he saw a large magical reading rushing towards their position at incredible speed, already covering a hundred-meter distance in less than five seconds.
But what made him shudder even more was its level.
'A Level 3!'
Immediately after he thought of that, a huge roar erupted behind him, prompting him to leap aside just in time to dodge an attack from a wolf, which is the size of a bus, that leaped out from the foliage and slashed it's meter-long claws that split a tree into splinters.
Everyone stood and stared in amazement before yelling for Angelo to run. The giant wolf-like creature has metallic jaws that look like it could crunch steel, and gray-red colored fur coat that blended seamlessly with the surroundings.
The wolf made a leap towards Angelo again, who was running towards the trees under the encouragement of the group.
Among the group, Marco flicked his safety off his M2A1 and took sight on the creature. Through the 2x red dot sight mounted on the weapons seemed to enlarge the creature furthermore. Once he was certain Angelo was out of the line of fire, he triggered his weapon, sending a long burst of fire into the beast.
This time, instead of the C-type rounds, he was hot loaded with AP rounds.
The AP bullets slammed directly into the center of the creature, causing it to tumble. Sparks and blood burst out from the impacts. The wolf yelped in a very dog-like manner and as it rose up, it shook its body causing specks of blood to scatter all over the fields.
"What the fuck!" Marco roared in anger. "It's bloody armor-piercing rounds! Fucker just shrugged it off!" Pissed, Marco continued firing at the creature.
"FOR ONCE!! LET US KILL SOMETHING WITH ONE FUCKIN' SHOT!!!"
By this time, Angelo made it over to the others. Immediately, he and a dozen other soldiers hoisted their Heavy Machine Guns up and fired a stream of bullets at 1,400 rounds per minute. The tracers from the HMGs were like a laser, striking the creature, and tearing it into chunks of meat.
As the echoes of the HMGs died down, the soldiers together with Marco cheered.
"Don't fuck with us humans, bitch!" Marco shouted, kicking the wolf's corpse while swapping out a new magazine for his partial emptied magazine from his rifle. "Hey, does that giant wolf have a metal jaw or what?" he asked the soldiers crouching next to him.
"Eh? I have no idea. We need to bring the corpse back to study. But it does have a metal jaw. Were they man-made? Natural?" the soldier replied excitedly, as he peered intently at the dead creature. "Or weird magical evolution in this world?"
"No shit, Sherlock. It's definitely magic evolution or some shit," Marco rolled his eyes. Damn nerds.
"Everyone, it's not over yet," Angelo said calmly into their conversation while laying his eyes on the Magic Array device with a frown. "More incoming."
In the distance, the sounds of something heavy crashing through the foliage grew louder. Snarls and growls seemed to grow nearer and louder, and a sudden howl heralded the arrival of four more giant wolves, each as huge as a car or minibus.
"Oh shit," Marco muttered as the group of wolves appeared at the opposite side of the field. "Run!" He yelled and the soldiers sprinted.
"These things are smaller and only Level 1 or 2. Everyone! Covering fire!" Angelo shouted to his men as he opened up with his machine gun.
Marco, Paulo, and the others opened fire with their weapons and backed off slowly. Angelo ordered his men to direct the spray of tracers onto the nearest and largest wolf in the group. Sparks, smoke, shreds of meat and fur flew as the tracers came into contact. Seeing their target dropping, they swept their fire to the next closest wolf. Clumps of dirt and torn grass flew as the bullets wrought destruction in its path.
The wolf roared in agony and raised its front paws to protect its venerable face, as bullets slammed into its body. The other wolves quickly leapt into action and split off towards the left and right respectively to escape the storm of bullets from the human soldiers.
The heavy fire managed to suppress and take down the two of the wolves but the other two moved too fast for any of them to get a good lock on them.
"Fuck! How can a dog shit like that move so fast?" Marco cursed. He tried to get a good aim on the closest wolf but it kept dodging his shots. "Damn it! You dog! Stay still!"
Angelo ceased his fire, turned around and covered the group's flank and fired at the other rapidly approaching wolf. He fired a short burst and waited after the wolf made a dodge by leaping to the side before he opened fire at where he estimated the wolf would land. The laser beam-like tracers tore the area where the wolf landed into smoke and blood, even igniting a small fire in the grass.
Finally, half of the group also managed to bring down the second wolf, just barely ten meters away from them. The wolf crumpled down, dying of internal injuries. Even in its dying breath, the giant wolf let out a snarl and roared as it struggled to raise up and its limbs clawed desperately in its attempts to move its body. Slowly the hate in its eyes faded as Angelo and his men watched it slowly stop moving.
"Any more?" Paulo asked. He reloaded and crouched down keeping his machine gun in a ready position.
"No more readings, nothing left," Angelo replied after examining the Magic Array device. He lowered his weapon and checked his ammunition counter.
"Phew, thought that last one was gonna get me," Marco sighed in relief. He walked up and poked the wolf carcass with his smoking rifle barrel. "These guys are tough. I'm using AP rounds!" He bent over, examining the wolf, and pulled something from its fur.
"Holy shit," He said, holding up a complete bullet, with the tungsten alloy core tip slightly flatten. "This shit is supposed to penetrate up to 14mm thick steel plates!"
Angelo took the bullet from Marco and examined it. He walked a full circle around the body and gauged. "Roughly five meters long, two point five meters tall." He noted, tapping on the jaws of the wolf. "Steel jaw."
"Damn, we bagged a big one eh?" Marco grinned. "Think they allow us to mount its head up in the sub?" He posed with one foot on top of the giant wolf like a big game hunter.
"We can make big bucks with this."
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Soon after, the group returned to the village with the body parts of the wolves in tow.
Their arrival brought a slight chill to the village, and the villagers had heard about it and turned out to see the nine strangers. Marco happily basked in the glory of all the attention as he bragged about how he killed the giant wolves.
Meanwhile, in the south part of the village was a low and dilapidated room that remained in a perpetual darkness. It was damp and gloomy. The paint on the wall had long since peeled off, and its surface was uneven.
At this moment, a groan suddenly broke the deathly silence in the room.
Much to Nathan's astonishment, the eyelids of the pale girl lying on the bed trembled slightly.
"Uh, could she be waking up?" Slightly surprised, Nathan also found himself momentarily stunned.
The girl's eyes fluttered open, and she was met with Nathan's face, who couldn't help but feel his heart pounded as he looked at her.
"Did you… save my life?" she whispered.