It was late in the evening when the view of Rilsi Village emerged over a steep hill. It had twenty or more medieval houses that built surrounding a river which flowed from north to south and they constructed a large bridge in the very middle to connect both sides to each other. 

“We finally made it...” Orthal stretched his legs, “I don’t think my ass could handle sitting on this bumpy carriage for any longer.”

Tiber snickered, “I don't think my ears could handle anymore listening to your whining.” 

Orthal was about to tackle Tiber again but stopped himself before he could incur the wrath of Frederika. 

So Orthal does have the capacity to learn…

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the entrance of the village.

“Stop right there!” A guard stood in front of our carriage, “State your business.” 

Frederika stepped outside, “We’re mercenaries from Black Lake, you guys hired us a few weeks ago to deal with some Feihman. We lost contact with our group last week so we came to investigate.” 

The guard who appeared to be on edge let his expression lighten, “Right come this way.” 

He led us through the village and to a small wooden warehouse on the outskirts of it, the warehouse itself seemed like a total dump with overgrown plants on the outside and planks of wood in disrepair.

“Your guys are in there.” he pointed. 

We entered the warehouse and swung the door wide open. The instant we did so, the sight of countless men wrapped in bandages—some even completely wrapped in cloth—entered our vision. As we walked past, some men glanced at us while others just stared into an endless abyss devoid of all emotion.

So this is the thousand-yard stare that war veterans get...

“Just what the hell happened to you shits?” Arlan’s voice trembled. 

A man who wore bandages where his arm formerly was connected looked up, “T-T-They weren’t normal F-Feihman…” he stuttered.

“What do you mean?”

“They were intelligent.” another voice interrupted. 

Arlan gazed in the voice's direction and his expression soured, “If there was one bastard I was hoping to not see it would be you, Derek.” 

“That’s not a pleasant way to greet a colleague.”

“Just what the fuck do you mean by intelligent monsters?” 

“It’s exactly as I said,” his tone deepened, “They had the capacity to ambush us like intelligent races.”

“Impossible.” Frederika bluntly stated, “You must have been unlucky.”

“I wish it was bad luck, but they even planned for our escape by setting traps.”

“If that’s true then this is a military matter, if monsters really are gaining intelligence then we aren’t suited to deal with them,” said Arlan. 

Derek sighed, “We tried to contact the military, but our communications are being jammed by something.” 

“That explains why you couldn’t deliver the daily reports,” Frederika confirmed her suspicions. 

“We don’t know when those creatures will attack this village for food so we nee-”

“I’ll go.” Tiber spoke, “You need me to ride to a military outpost and set off a distress beacon right?” 

Derek nodded, “We’ll aren’t you quick on the uptake rookie, yes we need someone to set off a distress beacon.” 

“As for the rest of us, we need to fortify this dump and hope that help arrives on time or else we can kiss our lives goodbye.” Frederika declared, “If you are able-bodied then get off your asses.”

The men with only light injuries helped themselves up and exited out the door. It was clear they didn’t want to get their asses handed to them by Frederika. 

“You two go assist them.” she pointed towards Orthal and me. 

The two of us followed behind the rest of the men and assisted with slicing down trees to build make-shift walls. The overall plan was to hope that the Feihman would attack through purposely made openings rather than demolishing the entire wall. But as one wise man once said; ‘expect everything to go wrong’ or something along the lines of that. 

I soon discovered how much I despised chopping trees, but my survival was more important than dwelling on trivial matters.

We spent quite a lot of time constructing the walls and fortifying the village. As a matter of fact, the sun had already set four hours ago and the full-moon took to the skies to laugh at our situation. My arms were aching from all the cutting. Even the nutritional restoration spell could only work to a certain degree. 

“Just how long will Tiber take?” I directed my question to Frederika sipping on a cheap ale.

“The nearest military outpost is two days away from here,” her shoulders slumped, “Even if he got the distress beacon out, they would take at least three days to respond.” 

“So we’re fucked, is that you’re saying?”

Frederika remained silent automatically confirming my words. Jesus fucking Christ, I haven’t even been in this world that long and I’m already near the border between life and death yet again.

The rest of the night was thankfully uneventful which allowed me to get some much needed to rest. I closed my eyes and fell asleep on a shitty hay bale since I couldn’t be bothered unpacking my bag.

 

◊  ◊  ◊

 

It was dawn when a sudden scream woke the village. Everyone rushed out from their respective shelters and armed themselves. Screams in the middle of the morning always meant something serious was about to go down. 

“If you see a Feihman then run for your life, you stand no much against one.” Arlan sternly warned me.

Through the morning fog we carefully strode through the dirt road attempting to make the least amount of noise as possible. 

Please just only be a scout. Please just only be a scout. Please just only be a scout. I mentally recited. 

“HOLY SHI-AHH!” a villager ran through us. 

Startled, everyone took a step back allowing a Feihman to reveal itself outside the dense morning fog. It stood on six distinct insect legs with a praying mantis body colored grey instead of green and had the size of a boulder. It’s eyes were also pure white with tiny dots as pupils and its antennas were shaped like blades. 

“GRAAAAHHH!” the Feihman growled. 

My knees immediately went weak at just the sound of its growl. Just like when I was nearly impaled by a spear back in Vale a feeling welled within me. It wasn’t fear nor sadness. It was total despair. Total despair knowing that no matter what I do, if I fought I would die. 

“Shit shit shit shit.” I stumbled backwards and drew my longsword.

“Don’t just stand there you fuck heads, kill it!” Frederika roared.

At her beckon the group of mercenaries engaged the Feihman. Each one of them skillfully—although barely—evaded the slicing attacks of the creature. 

“GO FOR HIS LEGS!”

The mercenaries leaped off the ground slightly cracking it beneath. They flew towards the six legs of the Feihman and used rotational momentum to increase their attack potential.

However the Feihman wasn’t just going to sit there idly waiting to receive their attacks. It had something else in mind. Before their attacks could reach, the Feihman hopped into the air and onto one of the village homes. 

Shit it’s going to pounce on them.

I hastily arranged fireball spells and fired them towards the eyes of the creature. It didn’t matter how strong they were, as long as it was distracted even just temporarily we would have time to counter. 

The Feihman became infuriated by the pathetic attempt to harm it. Using its two razor sharp claws, the fireball spells were knocked away like tennis balls bouncing off a racket and redirected towards the surrounding area. 

“Fuck!” I stomped my foot.

“Thanks for distracting the fucker, newbie.” Arlan suddenly appeared on the roof, “It’s time to pay you back for the all the trouble you’ve caused.”

With his Zweihänder in both hands, he swung it with tremendous speed severing the front two legs of the Feihman. 

“SCREEEEE!” the creature shrieked in pain forcing its eyes to become bloodshot. 

Arlan taunted and sliced another two legs off the Feihman, “Don’t think screaming like a fucking bitch will get me to stop.” 

“Leave some for me.” said Derek drawing a bow, “This is what you get for forcing me to come to this shit hole.” 

He unleashed a high-speed arrow in the direction of its right eye. Fwooosh! The arrow flew past Arlans blade and directly pierced the eye of the Feihman. 

Refusing to be outdone,  Arlan lifted his blade into the air and swung down pouring every ounce of energy into it. 

In one clean stroke, the Feihman was instantly bisected, spilling it’s green blood all over the roof of the house it was standing on. 

“Is it dead?” one of the mercenaries stammered.

“Yes, one of them died.” Arlan hung his sword onto his back, “Now we just have to finish the rest of them off. Easy right?”