Arzuros was another 3 stars level threat. While it was slower and had no other monsters to back it up like the Jaggis, it was bulkier and had greater strength.
The other adventurers went and confronted the beast while Aria rushed towards Daniel.
"Daniel! Please, hang on! I am going to heal you!" Aria scrambled to get to Daniel and heal him with magic. "Light! Grant your blessing to heal wounds! Healing Light!"
Light began to cover Daniel's body and he started to twitch. Relieved, Aria dragged his body out of the water and casted another healing spell, but his body was not recovering as fast as she had hoped for. Daniel's injuries were too severe.
Arzuros charged at the incoming adventurers. Peter and a few other Copper ranked adventurers readied their giant shield to take on the charge. However, Arzuros stopped and stood up before dishing out a powerful double swipe with its claws, knocking the shield bearers back. Gunther took this opportunity to lead the charge on the right flank of the bear. 3 Bronze ranked adventurers holding spears managed to injured Arzuros and stunned it for a brief moment that Gunther used to deliver deep cuts onto its vulnerable underside. Several arrows pelted its body as it tried to regain its stance, but it proved to be ineffective due its tough pelt. Without missing a beat, Elisia shot several wind magic that delivered minor cuts as well as throwing it off balance, causing it to roll on the ground.
Daniel opened his right eye and saw Aria desperately trying to heal him. However, he knew that it was useless. He could no longer feel his body and it was getting colder by the seconds.
"Ar...ia." Daniel mumbled with the remaining strength.
"Daniel! Hold on, you will be fine!"
"No... tak... care... of... th... or... phan..."
"No! No! No! You are still young! There are so much more in your future! Do not give up!"
"Thank... you..."
Daniel took his last breath while smiling, satisfied that he could witness a beautiful girl before his vision turned dark.
Aria sniffled. She just witnessed the cruelty of the world on a personal level. She stopped her magic. She cursed at her own weakness, her own magic, her own naivety, her own value of life.
Aria looked at the killer fighting others and unsheathed her sword. She took Daniel's sword that was left on the stream and wielded it with her left hand. Burning with anger and determination, she joined in the fray.
Arzuros managed to got back on its feet after being hit with various attacks while it was down. It got angry and roared while doing continuous frontal swipes, pushing back its attackers. Its breath became fierce and started to charge at its enemy with stronger steps.
It tackled the attacking adventurers, launching them into the air and incapacitated the spear wielders. Without a pause, Arzuros swiped at Gunther which the latter dodged by a hair-breath, but it did not stop and charged at Elisia who was chanting a powerful magic. Luckily, before Arzuros could reach her, she released her hurricane magic that devasted the monster. It did stop on its track, but once the magic effect was over, it charged at Elisia again and did a huge claw strike that missed, hitting a nearby tree. Gunther got behind it to stab its rear, but Arzuros, knowing its exposed back, jumped back and pinned Gunther down. Gunther coughed out some blood due to the heavy blow on his abdomen.
"Gunther!" Mary shot several wind enchanted arrows at the beast's head. While most missed, several hit its face and it stood up to charge at Mary.
Noel moved to Gunther and healed him with her last few remaining potions.
Mary climbed up a tree with her wind magic, but when Arzuros tackled the trunk, the tree was uprooted slightly, causing a sudden tilt; Mary was dangling from one of it branches. "Oh no!"
Arzuros was about to strike Mary with its claw, but was shot by several rounds of fire shots from Aria.
Aria leapt and cut Arzuros's neck, but it was too shallow, credited to its tough skin and thick fur. Arzuros, still enraged, leapt at Aria who was running around and sliding to dodge its tackles and claw swipes. Arzuros did not stop and continued to attack Aria with great vigor.
"Fire! Burn my flesh and be the blade that incinerates my foe! Blazing blade!" Aria's dual blades burned with brilliant crimson hue and with every strike, pain was seared onto Arzuros.
Both engaged in a dance; a giant brute that attacked with power and brutality, while the other, an agile fairy that attacked with precision and skill. The other adventurers were in awe with the fight.
Aria ran and slide, using the terrain to her advantage to create openings and with her anger, she let out battle cries that matched Arzuros's roar. Slowly being chipped away, Arzuros had accumulated large amount of damage dealt by Aria and was bleeding out. Exhausted from the constant fight, it decided to flee towards the forest depth. Without missing a beat, Aria chased after the beast.
Peter charged at the fleeing monster with his shield and bashed its left side. However, Arzuros continued to up a slope into the sea of trees. Others chased the beast, but Arzuros was faster than them, even with such injuries. Several arrows and magic were shot by the adventurers in an effort to slow it down.
"Wind! Be my wings, bring my soul to heaven where you reside! Air walk!" Aria chanted while running at full speed. She felt lighter as the air gathered around her legs and with a final burst of energy, she ran and jumped with incredible speed and momentum. Her hand glowed with pale white light before spreading throughout her whole body. The clouds parted way and the sun shone through the canopy of the forest onto the battlefield, blinding the fleeing beast. Aria's right blade caught Arzuros's rear and with the remaining momentum, spun forward while changing her left hand into a reverse-grip and cut the beast with Daniel's blade. She spun along Arzuros's back while cutting, dealing massive damage and landed in front of the beast. The beautiful fairy was now, in Arzuros's eyes, a demon cladded in white aura.
Arzuros stood up to do a massive claw swiped, but Aria closed in the distance in an instant and unleased a flurry of fiery attacks upon its vulnerable underbelly. Round slashes, rising slashes, downward slashes, spinning slashes and thrusts, without giving Arzuros time to recover, Aria continued as she wailed out her battle cry.
The beast tried to used its armoured forearm to defend, but under the barrage of intense attacks, they shattered and Arzuros fell backwards down the slope. The other adventurers dodged the downwards rolling beast, but Aria followed it.
As the beast stopped, Aria slid and delivered a double slash upon its face, breaking her burning blades and its fangs. Still alive, Arzuros rose on its hind legs to deliver another attack, but Aria took out her knife, leapt and stabbed the monster's head through its mouth.
The beast stumbled back and went down onto its knees. The moment of silence felt like an eternity before Arzuros fell sideways and let out its final, feeble growl. The beast had been defeated.
Aria sat down, exhausted from her continuous exertion. Gunther and Elisia were the first to reached her, checking if she was injured. The others began first-aid treatment on those who were injured.
"Miss! Are you alright?!" Gunther asked worriedly.
Aria stayed silent and shook her head before sniffling and crying. Elisia gently hugged the downhearted girl, embracing her in warmth, telling her that everything would be alright.
***
Aria woke up and faced an unfamiliar ceiling while her surrounding were noisy. She sat up and what greeted her was a chaotic image of people running around with papers and materials. Apparently, she fell asleep after the last battle and was brought back to the town's Adventurer's Guild where she was placed on a nearby wooden bench and allowed to continue sleeping.
Mary and Noel were the first to notice Aria in the midst of the buzz and hugged her. "You were amazing! Noel and I got our mouth wide as you were fightin th'ol bear!"
Both released her from their bodies. "Mary got herself entranced by ya beauty. Even I might wanna take ya as my bride."
Suddenly, Noel's head got a light smack with Elisia's magic staff. "The two of you, give her some space. And Noel, what in God's name are you saying to a little girl, she is just eleven. Do you want me to send you to the knight?"
"Ahaha. Soz, soz, I was just teasin her. But ya can't deny she was awesome!"
"I am sorry miss, I know you are tired, but the guild master would like to meet you. Please go upstairs to his office."
""And ya told us to give her a break.""
Aria stood up and thanked Elisia before heading up.
Inside the office, the stacks of papers welled up more and more with every visit. Aria just ignored them and focused on the man in front. Granziel looked at a bundle of papers before facing Aria. "I have read the report on what had happened. You did well young lady. I am impressed with your abilities and I am sure that you will rise up as the ace of our branch. The others would also-"
"I am not worthy."
"I know about the casualty. It was unfortunate, but this is the reality of adventuring. We never know what would have happened during an expedition and trust me, I have seen countless people died. Some were my comrades during my time as an adventurer. If you are down-hearted from just 1 death, I supposed you are unfit to be in this line of work."
Aria stayed silent.
"Daniel will still get his reward though. I will ensure that it goes to the orphanage that he grew up in. Additionally, due to the sudden appearance of another monster, the guild increases the reward, so you can rest assure that the orphans will be well fed for quite a while."
"I see..."
"Well, in your case, it is a little special though. The Will of the Wind party members all vouch for your contribution in defeating both monsters, especially that bear. Do you know what it is called?"
"It is called Arzuros. It is an omnivorous monster who mainly consume honey and fish, but is hungry most of the time and thus, is very territorial. It can travel vast distances in search for food. It probably assumes we were invaders trying to steal its food source. If we had honey with us, we could have potentially distracted the monster with it."
"I see, interesting. Well then miss Aria, I would like to request the detailed information to be written in another scroll, about Arzuros. We will never know if there are more of it out there and the guild would like to be prepared for any future encounters. Of course, we will reward you handsomely, proportional to the contribution."
Aria proceeded to inscribe every information about Arzuros into an empty scroll.
"By the way, the materials harvested from the 2 monsters will be purchased by the guild and presented to your father. You get to keep most of the gold from the second beast though."
"What are you trying to imply by mentioning my father?"
"It would be good to discuss about it now since he may request an audience with the brave adventurers who took down these beast."
"I do not want to meet him." Aria continued writing on the scroll. "You can push all of that to our group leaders. I am sure their fame should not warrant any suspicion from the Lord."
"Your father may demand to see the guild's report. I am all about honesty here, for if not, the trust I have built in the past 10 years with the nobles would be in vain. You cannot escape that confrontation."
Aria remained silent while writing, but her face showed a disgusted expression. Silence dominated the entire room with Granzial staring at Aria while the latter just focused on her task.
When the final letter was engraved on the scroll, Aria broke the silence: "The Lord only kept me under his protection because of the law where children under the age of 11 need to be under some guardian. He would not want to have his daughter out on the street before reaching maturity and destroying his image of a capable noble. He never once visited me since the 'Blooming Ceremony' and casted me aside like a pebble."
"Why though? Ah. The all important magic that nobles crave, you did not have the best aptitude for it, did you not?"
"I was a level 1 in all attributes."
"Hoo... The rare all attribute magicians, yet only at level 1, quite the shame. Still, only 0.1% of all magicians population in this Great Empire could cast all magical attributes. You should still feel proud of yourself."
"That sounds like mockery to me."
"Haha, my apologise. However, based on the reports, your magic should be at least, level 3 or even 4. That is even rarer if you ask me. One's magical attribute and level cannot be changed, but yours did. I have heard stories of those who had done just that, but this is the first time I am meeting one; it's an honour."
Aria stood up and handed over the scroll to Granzial looking annoyed, but inside, she felt a little refreshed. She bid the guild master farewell before heading for the door, but when she was about to open it, a guild staff burst in, slamming Aria's face.
"Guild master! It's urgent!" The staff ignored Aria who was writhing on the floor while covering her face. "The expedition for Group 2 have just returned, or rather, only a few survivors return. We are currently treating the wounded."
"! Lead me to the leaders." Granzial followed the staff and headed down to see the aftermath.
In the guild hall, Granzial could see that only 10 out of 35 adventurers from Group 2 managed to returned. They were all exhausted and disheveled with many having serious injuries that could possibly crippled them from their work. Granzial approached one of the adventurer who had the least amount of injuries and enquired about the expedition to the Cloudy Jungle.
"It begins when we entered that monster's nest. As described, it was huge, and we could see our target sleeping. Thinking that we could ambush it, we got close to it and set up various traps such as poison, explosive, you know, the usual. However, when we were about to start, something else flew by on top of us. It roared so loud we were stunned and right on cue, out target woke up and started attacking us. We were able to dodge and block most of its attacks, but then, the other creature landed on the battlefield and started to pelt us with fireballs after fireballs. It was similar to that Rathian, but was bigger and reddish in colour."
"Both monsters were working together?"
"Yeah! Those things attacked us, but not each other. The green one charged at us and poisoned us with every tail attacks while the red one hovered and charged at us while flying. The red one was fiercer and harder to hit since it was always on air. We lost more than 10 people before we decided to retreat, but the nightmare was still not over."
"What happened? Did the monsters chased you all and nipped at you one by one?"
"No... Those 2 did not chase us. I guess we were not worth the effort to go down from the canopy where they dominate. Something else lurked in the shadow of the trees." The girl shivered when remembering the incident. "We fled as far as possible and when we thought we were safe, we rested for a while. However, some adventurers fought with each other, blaming each others for the mistakes. The group leader's party had the worst. They were bombarded with accusation and incompetence. In the midst of the commotion, we did not realise that we were being hunted and out of a sudden, from the thick fog, something black moved in and claimed its first victim."
"So it was another monster that took out another 10-plus adventurers. Did you at least managed to get a general characteristics of that beast?"
"Yes, I do. It was large, four-legged with blades on its front limbs, long tail, reddish eyes and a terrifying roar that reminded me of the Great Felyxn found in the Southern Hell Savannah. It moved dexterously, using the shadow of the jungle to camouflage."
Granzial sigh with a headache. "You got out safely without much injuries despite being ambushed. Impressive."
"That's becoz she fled first!" Another adventurer from the same group interjected the conversation. "She left us for the dead!"
"What!? The expedition is already over the moment we retreated! From that moment, it became the story of survival!"
"Then that makes you a coward and selfish jerk who had zero morality! Nobody will ever party up with ya ever again!"
"Big talk for someone who is just a Steel rank. You can lecture me when you have attained a rank higher than my Silver!"
"Hah! Tis' always comes to ranks with you! This is why the leftovers of the nobles 're such a pain ta deal with!"
"You dare! I will make sure to seal shut your mouth and never again to utter such disgraceful sentences!" She was about to conjure up her water magic, but stopped when the guild master yelled.
"Stop this argument at once! We are trying to get an understanding on what is going on in that hell! The livelihood of the people and you adventurers are affected by this! We should cooperate in handling this crisis!" Granzial's demeanor and authority were absolute in the hall. "Now then, we will have another discussion with the survivors once they have all recovered."
Granzial was about to return to his office when he spotted Aria and asked: "You know what the 2 new creatures are, don't you?"
Aria nodded.
"We have lost too many high-ranked adventurers. I guess for now, the Cloudy Jungle will be given an entry restriction."
Unbeknownst to them, a carriage bearing the symbol of the Sultier Earl House arrived in front of the guild.