I have a bad feeling.
When I woke up, I was laying down on the side of the road. I could tell that it was the real world immediately because of the wind.
There was no wind in Yomi's developer area but here it seemed to flow all around with no particular direction. I wonder how long I had been gone for?
The road in front of me went from east to west, I picked the direction with fewer trees and started walking until I came across a small settlement.
A sense of foreboding washed over me as I noticed the makeshift fence with sharpened spikes at the top and a watchtower surrounding what looked like a small farming village. Whatever they were trying to protect themselves against must be formidable judging by the effort they must have put in.
I have a very very bad feeling about this.
The sense of foreboding I felt started to turn to dread when I picked up the metallic smell of blood and saw drag marks all over. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that this was the site of a great battle except that there were no corpses or weapons.
Only blood.
On getting to the entrance to the village, archers trained their arrows on me. Apparently, whatever the villagers were afraid of, it may have human and not monster origins.
"Identify yourself," came a voice from behind the wooden fence. "We don't have room for anyone at this hour."
"It's still light out," I said looking at the sky.
"Nevertheless you should be on your way stranger," The voice said curtly again.
"What is the fastest way to Dorn?" I asked
"There is no path to Dorn at the moment," the voice replied. "Only fools can try to use the roads when monsters abound."
"Tell me about the monsters," I said.
"Don't trouble yourself, I have sent for adventurers from the main guild in Dorn," he said. "If you can survive till tomorrow, you may be able to pass."
"What if I killed the monsters before the adventurers arrive?"
"Then I was right about you being a fool and a special kind of fool at that," the voice said. "Head towards the forest to the south, it won't take long for them to find you."
"Can you tell me anything about the monsters?" I asked finally.
"Good luck. May Stendarr save your soul," the voice said.
***
By the time I reached the forest, there was no more light in the sky and the silence was absolute. Not even the crickets or frogs dared make any sounds. Either they had all been killed or were hiding for their lives. If the latter was the case then I probably should be hiding as well.
But I was different than before.
I felt dead inside.
My friends had been captured and were probably dead already. I was supposed to die at Lindisfarne if not for Yomi's intervention.
I quietly decided that I was going to get stronger even if it killed me.
A few moments later, after scouting for an hour, I saw some strange beasts through the trees. They gave off a reddish hue. They were human-like in the fact that they seemed to stand upright and had arms and legs but that was where the similarities ended. They had massive jaws and teeth that were too big to sit comfortably in their mouths. Their eyes looked like they were sewn shut and they shuffled around mindlessly.
I was only able to make two clones. My plan was to use them to hide my real position. My clones and I scattered at high speeds in different directions as I shot one arrow after the other. The arrows bounced off the monsters like a pebble against a wall but they helped me to confirm that the monsters were truly blind and couldn't see the arrows.
I was able to wound one with a little bit of magic put into the arrow. They still couldn't see me. A sliver of fear crept down my spine as I noticed their numbers. They seemed to be several dozens of them of different sizes. Some tall and some short. Some short and some fat. I wondered if they were real people first that were turned into monsters. A fair distance behind the mass of slow-moving monster herd, a large one with purple-tinged skin shrieked loudly and the rest of them suddenly moved with blinding speed in my direction but they passed me by and attacked where I was standing a few moments ago.
That's when it clicked in my head. The purple one was like an ant queen giving instructions to her minions. The monsters were strong but couldn't see. Instead, they sensed fear. At least their queen did.
I had to find a way to leave the forest and avoid being overwhelmed. I needed better armor and a more powerful weapon like Auriel's bow. A weapon that could fire tremendous amounts of magic attacks with minimal mana usage. My mind drifted to the townspeople. They were terrified and all in one place. If these monsters came close, they would surely go into a feeding frenzy. Again, a sliver of fear crept up my spine, the purple queen shrieked again and the red ones mindlessly rushed to my location at blinding speed.
This time though, I couldn't shake the fear. It crept up my spine and stayed with me. As a result, they kept changing direction and honing in on my position while ignoring my clones.
The monsters chased me through the forest until I ran out of magic and arrows. I was only able to wound one but it regenerated at a very fast rate. They seemed unkillable and because my clones didn't give off fear, the monster's ignored them and came directly after me.
A few times I came close to dying and only just barely managed to dodge a swing of their large arms with elongated talons on the end.
Just as I thought that I was done and completely exhausted, the sun came up and they retreated.
Bruised and battered, I made my way back to the village only to be greeted by the same annoying voice.
"You survived?!" a familiar haughty voice said from behind the fence.
"You sound way too surprised," I said. "Are you going to let me in now?"
A part of the gate was lowered and I caught a glimpse of the man behind the voice for the first time. He was tall and had a hook-like nose. He also had cruel eyes that seemed to look down on people and a permanent grimace on his face.