For the normal passerby the sight was extremely surreal, walking down the street of the capital was a group of three girls, one was an elf, dressed in a worn cloth pice, which has lost it original green colour to dirt and time, her extremely frail body pointed to her being nothing but a beggar of the streets.

Next to her was a young girl barley older then ten, she was wearing a red shirt and a black skirt, her blond hair was long and almost reached the cobblestone of the road, despite the fact that her clothing depicted a higher financial status then the average person, the picture was ruined by the fact she was drenched head to toe in red liquid, and you didn’t have to be a genius to understand what that liquid was.

The last girl of the group was taller then both and had short black hair and eyes, she wore simple blue and black leather armour, comfortable yet protective in battle, while not slowing you down at all, she obviously was an adventurer, the odd thing about her was the fact she very clearly had no weapon, at all.

Together these Girls walked the streets, the two human girls had a light step and a smile on their face, while the elf was very clearly annoyed and less then enthusiastic. All three of them also carried one large leather sack on their shoulders, that probably being the reason the elf was so annoyed since she was clearly weaker then the other two, at least physically.

They made their way towards the city‘s eastern gate, the guards stationed there looked perplexed like everyone else they came across and held their walk and asked for explanation. The reply was a simple 'butcher shops can be messy.'

Wihout a reasonable enough excuse to arrest the three, they simply asked to be shown one item of each of the bags they were carrying, out of all came a pice of meat, and so the girls were free to leave the city.

They followed the old road southeast through the Willow Plains and towards the Morning Valley, they knew an long journey laid before them and they all dreaded it equally.

"Oh god I can already feel boredom creeping in, I sure hope we reach that village soon…" Hanna complained.

She really did not want to do this, but she would be a fool if she were to stay in the capital. She had been seen, murder can be directly linked to her and she didn’t fancy the idea of completely changing her appearance completely, that just sounded exhausting.  So she used the only option left really: Get the fuck away.

Hanna was strong, but she was no fighter, she could beat many with brute force alone, but anyone skilled enough could give her serious trouble, not even mentioning that she would have to fight groups of them. There was no way she would win, so she had to flee and lay low, they had found her, but they had no way to identify her as the Dark Margenko they were looking for, they probably think it’s dead thanks to the story she and Adeline told the Guildmaster that one time.

They probably thought of this as a one-time incident, all she had to do was lay low for a bit and the thing would be long forgotten and she could roam more freely once more.

What Hanna failed to remember was Koal, who was alive and was currently in the custody of the royal family, she also didn’t account for the fact that her story was not bought at all and so she was absolutely not save, her identity would soon be revealed, her face would soon be linked to that of a Dark Margenko.

What she also failed to notices was the group of 5 tailing her group for the entire time.

 

Two days later in the throne room of the kingdom of Fahrgust.

The room was filled with voices and arguments, the king sat on his throne concern written all over his face, before him in a half circle sat 12 people, among them were the four captains of the royal knight orders, a representative of the church and the 7 leading nobles of the kingdom. They were gathered her to discuss a potential threat to the kingdom, greater then all crisis faced ever since the Great War almost 100 years ago.

A Dark Margenko, a beast of legend, had suddenly appeared in the capital city. No one knew for how long, but two days ago the beast had been found in the sewers and having killed at least over 89 people in the sewers. To tell the truth no one really missed these people, as the once killed where almost exclusively members of the gangster groups plaguing the lower city levels, but the fact that such a beast had not only emerged, and also entered the city undetected was a cause for great concern. They were lucky criminals were killed, and not innocent people.

They had been discussing for the last two hours already and during these discussions two very obvious groups had formed. One the one hand where those who wanted to hunt down the beast as quickly as possible, they argued that they had an obligation to hunt the beast down, as they had signed the treaty of Mélhund, a Treaty that united all that singed it together in order to exterminate the Dark Margenko threat. This side was comprised of The Knight orders and the church.

The other side argued that the treaty was long obsolete and that they should focus on increasing their defences rather then go on a fool’s errand, as they also argued that it might not even have been a Dark Margenko, the information came from adventurers after all and adventurers claimed a lot of things. This side was mostly represented by the nobles present.

The King himself was leaning towards the side to hunt the beast down, but that would only tie the vote, he may be the king and hold greater power then any of the ones present, but only in times of crisis had the king absolute authority. It was six to six in the vote and there was one single person who would decide it all.

First Lady Kathrin, Lady of Metal, of house Kuntery.

She was known to have lost her parents at the age of 4 to a Dark Margenko, ever since then she swore vengeance and became one of the most skilled hunters in the kingdom. She wasn’t an bad administrator either, increasing her lands population by 20% and her food and revenue by over 45%.

She was capable, very much so and everyone respected her, but her disdain for Dark Margenko was not a secret and her being so quite during the entire discussion, as well as not instantly picking a side was confusing for anyone at the meeting.

At the end of a longer, heated debate between the captain of the Saphire Order and Lord Berdly of house Aviona, Lady Kathrin stepped forwards towards the king, lowering her head a bit.

The king ordered her to raise her head and to speak up.

"Your majesty, with all due respect, I think everyone inside this conference already knows which side of the problem I will choose, however I am not to blinded by my thirst for retribution, as to not see the problem, if we where to send out massive amounts of our army our neighbours might grow suspicious and they wouldn’t just accept if we would tell them we were hunting a Dark Margenko, treaty or not. In the minds of most they are extinct. Most people present thought the same not to long ago."

All eyes in the room where on her at this very moment, expecting eyes, where was she going with this?

"Therefore I propose a compromise, I go with one single Knight Order and my personal army alone to hunt down the beast, the other armies are kept behind for protection against the beast."

Everyone in the room knew all she wanted is to kill the beast herself, with no one interfering, for her, this entire thing was personal and no one dared to talk back to her, even though everyone knew this was a bad idea.

'At least one Knight Order will come with her, that’s more then I expected of her.' The King thought, before approving her compromise.

 

It was finally the last stretch towards the village, it had been long 7 days of walking for the three girls, but finally they would arrive, as they saw small lights flicker in the darkness of the night not far from their location.

Hanna was beyond bored at that point and also started to get get hungry again, it was moments like this where she truly missed her ability to eat normally like her two pets could. Although they weren’t doing all that better either.

Adeline and Luisa were both completely exhausted from the long trip and having to constantly carry the large sacks filled with all the stuff they 'purchased' off the criminal underworld, it also made them kinda nervous, since the moment anyone would find out about the contents of the sacks they would be seen as criminals, which was accurate, given their situation as pets of a monster.

Which was the reason they weren’t as happy as Hanna to see the village, well, Luisa wasn’t, since Adeline really didn’t care about anything that wasn’t Hanna, but in Luisa’s eyes this was such an unnecessary risk to take. She had voiced her concerns multiple times, but got shut down by Hanna every time, as she insisted on living in a city or village. It made no sense to Luisa, but she won’t argue with the being capable of fighting and killing over 80 people alone, and could release fire and poison from her mouth, not to mention all the other magic tricks she might possess.

Suddenly they all felt metal against their throats and they all went still immediately.

"If y‘all wanna live you better be quiet right now." A voice hissed from the darkness of the bushes next to them and slowly multiple people came from within the bushes and trees around the road.

They all were dressed in black cloths and all had weapons ranging from daggers to bows and arrows, one could basically find every single weapon imaginable amongst their ranks. They were around 40 people and you didn’t really need to be an genius to figure out what they were. Finally after some time a single figured walked up to them, it was obviously the leader of the group.

He wore an similar attire, but he also had a large brown, large brimmed cowboy like hat, if Hanna didn’t know any better she thought she was abducted by the legendary highway men.

Now of course Hanna was not a particular fan of getting a knife pressed against her throat and she was already preparing to ram her fist through the leader’s stomach when he started to talk and what he said stopped her in her movement.

"Well ain’t that quite the catch, it’s rare gettin a noble beast girl in me hands. Anyway you better call off your adventures before somthin bad happnes."

Hanna looked flabbergasted at the the one in front of her, what the hell was he on about, there where no adventurers around, otherwise she would have been 100% attacked by now. She knew her stunt on the sewers would get her the attention of the adventurers guild and probably the government, that’s why she went and left the capital in the first place!

The bandit leader thought her expression was for a different reason though.

"Why you so surprised? Anyone with any presence detection spell could find them! I really don’t get ya. Why‘d you would think sending them behind ya would help ya in anyway but, it‘s easy pickings for us so we ain’t complaining."

When suddenly a bright light flashed a few meters away from the bandits and suddenly an team of five adventures stood there.

It were all humans and they were all easily enough recognisable classes. Were there the classic Archer girl, Lean and tall swordfighter, the huge and buff heavy armor guy with an large shield to boot, a female mage with classic robes and a staff and a guy wearing almost the same as the bandits, he was obviously a spy or scout like part of the team.

An word exchange between the two groups soon followed, something about how they had 'the option to come quietly or else'. Hanna wasn’t really paying attention though. Her mind was racing with all the implications this sudden appearance of this adventure group could mean.

Hanna doubted that they just randomly passed by here, it was in the middle of the night after all, and they hadn’t had any real contact to people besides the occasional travelling merchants. Which means they had been following them for quite some time!

Did they know? Are they the only ones who followed or were there more? Was her disguise busted? And many more questions that raced through her head. Or at least they were supposed to.

The thing actually on her mind was something rather different…

As the two groups got ready for a fight, weapons drawn and spells readied, Hanna and her pets were dragged off to the front, where they were supposed to be used as leverage against the adventurers, but before the bandit leader could say anything, Hanna’s voiced boomed loudly into the night.

"Have You fuckers ever heard of privacy!? How dare you stalk as for an entire week?! You fuckers are all dead!!"

Besides Adeline and Luisa, who both had expected their master to get them out via brutal murder, everyone around was stunned in surprise at Hanna’s outburst. Before anyone could do anything though she rammed a hand into the stomach of the bandit with a knife to her throat, he died before even knowing what happened.

Hanna turned to the bandits, who now gawked at the corpse in fear and confusion.

"And you! Who do you think you are to put a knife against my throat?! You are all gonna die!"

And just like that Hanna threw herself at the group of bandits, slashing through them like a hot knife through butter. Blood, guts and limbs went flying in every direction and screams of fear rang into the night.

Luisa and Adeline looked upon the spectacle, Adeline simply smiling, while Luisa sighed and rubbed her temples in frustration at how easy it was to provoke her self proclaimed 'master', but in the end she enjoyed the screams of the dying far more then her master‘s aggressive tendencies could ever agitate her.

Hanna‘s rampage was only stopped after she was hit with a bright sphere that exploded open impact, it didn’t hurt Hanna a lot, but she finally remembered the other group still present, and it was far more crucial that that group would die.

What if a few bandits escaped, it’s not like they could run to the government and start telling them about her. So some can leave, the adventurers however…

Hanna turned towards the group of adventures, in a battle ready position, Hanna smirked at them before pointing a single finger at the group.

"[Thousand Arrows]!"

Before anyone could react, and unending stream of black ethereal arrows rained down upon the group. The wizard girl tried to block with a magic barrier and the heavy-armor tried to block as much as possible with his shield, but it were just to many, soon the entire group laid on the floor, pierced by hundreds of arrows, a blood puddle was slowly forming underneath them.

Hanna sighed, she really didn’t want to fight using this, it was far less fun, but she saw no other way to beat them. They had experience and had the numbers advantage, all she had was raw power, but a well coordinated team could easily outmanoeuvre her, so it had to be done.

After checking that everyone was actually dead, Hanna and her pets decided it would be best to now go around the village once and come  in from a different entrance point, so they didn’t risk appearing suspicious, appearing at one of the villages gates facing a giant pile of dead bodies.

And so they needed another few hours, but one the next day, as the sun was at its peak, they entered the village known as 'Querum'.