Darkness still shrouds the entire forest, meanwhile at the edge of the camp Lainey sat on a rock, and was contemplating on the memories of the past... It was early in the morning. Lainey was the one tasked to stand guard so she was up despite still feeling a little bit sleepy, she just sat there thinking about something, seldom gritting her teeth and then huffing and puffing in anger. 'What is wrong with me! I thought I forgot about those painful memories already!'

A few years back they consisted of a team of 20 and they accepted an escort quest towards Mortar city, they were ambushed... Obviously by beastkins... The entire beastkin race tends to be territorial, so the only safe haven for humans was cities, that was bound by their laws. Her friend, Sal was a beautiful blond Sword-Master who can overpower a beastkin through sheer swordsmanship and skill alone.

Insania looked exactly like her, and even though Lainey tended to be snobbish, deep down she wanted to trust Insania.

She thought of many things, but her thoughts stopped as she heard of the distinct sound of steel clanging, along with the whistling of winds.

She walked away from the camp and hid in a bush. She then saw Insania, she had no idea what she was doing this early, she just stood there in the middle of the tall trees blindfolded, then a second later she drew her blade and slashed at a fallen leaf, cutting it in two. Insania's rapid strike was met with a tree, that had the hardness and sound of steel. It crashed unto the tree and rebounded.

Clang!!

The sword flew at her wrist and almost cut off her hand. Seeing the blood gushing out, Lainey got out of the bush and rushed towards Insania.

"Oh my god are you OK! Wait a second I'll wake up Hetir!"

Lainey's voice startled Insania, even though her hand almost got cut in two she still willed it to remove the blindfolds.

...

Insania logged out yesterday at 4:00 PM ingame... So today she logged back in at exactly 4:00 P.M IRL. She was merely having fun with cutting leaves with blindfolds, and immersed herself in her own so called training. Random slashes without a opponent wouldn't exactly be called training, so she practiced by cutting leaves in two using her swords with blindfolds on because it looked cooler.

Three seconds later, Hetir, Lainey and the Ranger(Insania still doesnt know his name) Saw her sorry state. Due to the nature of a humans having no inherent Regeneration, Lainey panicked when she saw Insania almost cutting her arm off.

"Hold still, Sheesssh What were you thinking!" Hetir performed a healing spell on Insania even though she was going to be fine.

"With this much blood on the ground, Im guessing this isnt the first time this happened" The Ranger commented as he touched the dried out blood on the ground.

"Haha! I was only practicing, Sorry I woke you up." Insania scratched her head as the healing spell, fixed her almost severed wrist. 

"Waking us up was the least of your concerns! Are you trying to get us killed? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TRAINING LIKE THIS?!" The Ranger spoke softly at first but then he started yelling at Insania.

"Ummm 5 minutes? As far as Im concerned, you shouting like that would attract more monsters than the stench of my dried blood" Of course Insania wasnt a dunce... She knew from previous cases how higher leveled mobs tend to hunt by sound and scent. She knew she was at fault but her pride wanted her to defend herself.

"Relax all of you, As long as Im here... monsters below the Rare rarity, could never find us." The cloaked person and Allan arrived. Monster rarity is also the same as Item rarity, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, Mythic, Legendary and Immortal. Insania's arm was healed and as she was about to leave the cloaked man spoked threateningly.

"You're off the hook this time, but if you do something this stupid next time. I'll kill you myself"

"I'll keep that in mind" Insania nodded. The group departed early thanks to Insania waking everyone up, this in turn made them grumble and curse Insania, some of them were keeping a watch last night, not having enough sleeping hours was torturous for them now that they've resumed walking. Hours passed again and Insania apologized to the mercenary group one by one. The journey was boring and draining and all Insania could do was talk with Allan.

"How long is the journey, from here to Atoru?"

In which Allan answered. "10 days"

"Ugh... And how long is the journey from Atoru to Elveden?"

"2 months, if you keep asking" The cloaked man answered. Allan just shook his head.

"I wasn't talking to you though... Allan?" Insania harrumphed and ignored the person. Insania was scared of the Magician, but if he's really as powerful as he say he is... Then he is bound by a much heavier contract compared to the 11 who accepted this escort quest.

"He's right, Atoru is just too huge, If we don't use teleportation its exactly that long just to cross it" Hearing Allan finally speak, Insania irked. SHE DIDN'T HAVE THAT MUCH TIME! if she couldn't get to Elveden within a month she'd go bonkers due to the CURSE!!! Insania was having a mental breakdown when explosions went off underneath the carriage, startling the stallions and destroying the metal tires.

"It seems we have company" The cloaked man spoke calmly then he chanted a spell and conjured a spherical mana barrier around the carriage and horses.

[Mana Barrier](Active): Caster conjures a transparent wall of mana that can negate 600(+100% INT) magical and physical attacks.

Manacost : 20 per second

Cast-time: 2 seconds

140 meters from them, a hundred or more beastkin could be spotted, and another hundred appeared 113 meters behind them.

"Listen up! All of you do as I say if you wanna live!" The cloaked man shouted and gathered everyones attention.

"I'll need 20 minutes to write a Teleportation rune on the carriage and I can probably hold the ones in front for 10 minutes with a spell, I want you all to stall for 10 more minutes" He continued.

"I'll need all of you to kill the ones charging behind us and once Im done I'll teleport us out of here!"

A giant Panthera Tigris carrying a giant pike saw the barrier spell and shouted "Chaaaarge!" The beastkins charged like a tide, they all clawed the ground as they ran with their four limbs. Increasing their movement speed by 100% percent making the distance of a 100 meters vanish. Taking off his cloack the man chanted a very powerful spell in under 15 seconds and launched a spell towards the rushing beastkin.

The spell was [Hailstorm] from the Ice affinity element. The spell didn't hit anyone but it made the beastkin stop their charge. Seeing the spell miss so blatantly like that Insania shouted.

"What the fuk! You could've killed all of them with that spell! HOW COULD YOU MISS?"

"It is the law of the jungle... I cannot bully the weak. If I did kill them, it would only reduce my strength."

"What ?" Insania couldn't understand this. The current players still had no idea about this information. She scanned the man and saw his whooping Level.

331!!!

She had no time to think as the mercenary group formed a line, a solid formation with Vtts, Russ, Juli, Oreuq, and Rez at the front and Hetir, Lainey, Mal and the Ranger, at the back.

She didn't know how to integrate herself in their formation so she just stood there at the back and scanned the beastkin charging at them, she exclaimed after noticing a familiar beastkin.

"Jackus!?" Insania expressed her shock, she didn't expect they'd see him here! especially in the battlefield! and from the looks of it, Jackus is the one leading the army that charged at them from behind. The Ranger saw Insania's expression and hurriedly lunged at her, gripping her throat and raising her up the ground.

"YOU LED THEM RIGHT TO US! DIDN'T YOU?!" 

"No! wait I can explain!" Insania frantically tried to escape his grip, but she didn't expect him to have a higher Strength stat than her.

"Don't lie to me! I saw the look in your face! YOU CLEARLY KNOW SOME OF THEM!" The Ranger ignored his teams cries and gripped Insania's neck more tightly. He believed in the saying, When a persons life is truly on the line, then the truth and lies will be etched clearly on their faces.

"Jack... kusss.... wa..s my spar...ring part...ner." Insania couldn't breath, she was running out of air whilst she desperately tried to form the least amount of words she could to explain her relationship with said beastkin. But the entire group misunderstood her words and was deeply shocked, Even the Level 331 Magician couldn't believe what he was hearing.

'SHE FUCKED A BEASTKIN?' They all inwardly asked themselves and was terrified of the thot among them.

"P... l...eaasse.." Insania was about to faint, then the Ranger let her go, making her crawl over the ground and gasp in deep breaths of relief.

Kuah... She vomited blood and slowly stood up. Taking deep breaths, she faced the Ranger.

"I know that you'll never trust me, but I will try my hardest to get us out of here."

The Ranger just nodded and went back to his position. The beastkin were now 10 meters near the line they made and was about to clash with the human wall. But then a barrier erected itself infront of the humans, stopping the beastkin in their tracks. Some splatted their faces in the transparent barrier and others crushed the ones infront with their momentum.

The barrier disappeared and the mercenaries started their counterattack. Rapidly cutting down the beastkins numbers.

Insania saw that the situation was just fine and the Magician was writing runes on the carriage. Meanwhile Allan clashed blades with muscle heads that obviously put all their stats on Strength, clearly lacking grace and skill with their normal strikes. Finishing them off would have been a piece of cake if they didn't swap places everytime they become half-dead. The numbers advantage was a real pain in the ass.

Lainey created a [Mana Barrier] that spanned from their rear to the sides blocking the beastkins from flanking them, she didn't cast any other spells and just focused on her [Mana Barrier].

The fight was going well and Jackus still hasn't charged into the fray yet. Insania used [Concealment] and headed towards the Archers in the back lines.

She stood in the middle of 12 clumped up beastkin Archers.

[Re-charge]!

[Dis-charge]!

*Ting you have stored [59.6 lightning damage]*

*The lightning damage will be stored inside users body for 30 minutes*

Insania was glad that she could spam the two skills three times before being forced to used [Over-charged], all she needed to do was to address her current Mana problems.

Insania's body appeared in the middle of the beastkins and electricity spread out of her body engulfing the twelve beastkins, she then rapidly spun herself like a top and sliced the still standing beastkins in half with her swords dealing a whooping 160 damage. But the beastkin weren't frail, and thanks to [Rockhide] that gave them a 30% Physical Armor it dropped Insania's damage value to merely 112.

But it was more than enough to clean up the twelve Archers that never puts their stats to PHY and just relied on the Physique stat given by worn equipment.