Frautz immediately goes serious.
"you heard the Captain, the villagers need our help getting rid of the hell beast nest, let's go!"
Jillian, a female demon with short pink hair, and short horns puts a brake on his enthusiasm by asking him.
"so where do we start looking for these hell beast?"
he replies with a smug face.
"it's obvious, we have to look for the cave they set their nest up at."
I face palm in disappointment and then I smile as I remember how straightforward Frautz always was, Jillian rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
"that sounds like a terrible plan."
even though I know exactly where the cave is located at, but it would be suspicious if I take them directly there, I then think to myself.
"I should give Frautz a suggestion that probably won't lead us to the cave, but it should be believable enough when I lead them to it."
I then whisper to him.
"what if we ask the villagers where they were frequently attacked by the hell beasts?"
he takes a moment to think about it and then nods I agreement.
"yeah, there are no rules against investigating this matter, so that we can locate the cave."
Frautz then turns his attention to everyone and said.
"we are splitting up in groups of two and we are going to ask the villagers where they were frequently attacked at, and then we'll investigate those locations."
he points at me.
"Darius you are with me."
I nod.
"yes, sir."
he smirks, showing how much he liked being called sir, and then he tells the others.
"we'll meet back here and share what we learned from the villagers."
as we walk back inside the village, he said to me.
"good thinking, I wouldn't have thought of that."
that is true, the way I remember how we did it, is we split up to search every possible cave near the village until we finally found it, and that process took us a while, and even though we completed the mission with minimal injuries, but we got scolded and lectured by Captain Reenon what steps we could have taken to locate the nest quicker, I then get out of my thoughts and reply.
"me neither, but we need whatever information we can gather if we want to complete this mission efficiently."
as we walk around asking around the villagers about the hell beast attacks and roughly where the attacks happen the most, they usually give me a strange look because humans usually don't come around demon villages, but after explaining to them that I've become a Demon-Human the strange looks they give me goes away, Frautz who feels confident that we have gathered enough information to investigate the locations where the attacks took place at, tells me.
"don't worry what other demons may think of you, as far as I'm concerned you are my brother, even if
we were adopted by Mistress Isabelle."
I reply.
"thanks that means a lot to me."
I smirk and think to myself.
"he wasn't like this before, he never referred to me as a brother back when we served Mistress Isabelle."
while we wait for the others to meet up with us my mind begins to wonder.
"my actions have already altered a few things in this weird second life that I'm going through."
Frautz asks.
"you feeling okay?"
I nod.
"yeah, just thinking about some stuff."
he asks.
"like what spot we are investigating first?"
I snap out of my thoughts and reply focused.
"the lake should be the first spot we should look into since that is where most of attacks happened."
he agrees.
"yeah, and from there we'll take out any of hell beasts that show up."
I shake my head in disagreement
"I don't think we should do that."
he asks.
"what do you have in mind?"
I reply.
"we observe any hell beast we find, and see of they are just a random wanderer or if they are in a hunting party."
hell beasts tend to send out hunting parties to bring back food for the nests, and they tend to hunt far from nests, while wanderers roam in the wild with no packs, he then asks.
"did you read about them, in Mistress Isabelle's library?"
I nod.
"it doesn't hurt to study what we can."
even though I've still got all the knowledge from before, it would be strange if I somehow knew everything, so I would make sure everyone saw me spending most of my time in Mistress Isabelle's library to keep up appearances that I'm very studious, he chuckles.
"you can study all you want, but that won't help in combat."
I roll my eyes on how ridiculous that sounded.
"you can't be more wrong about that."
he grins.
"I guess we'll see about that."
after the others show up, we all gather and exchange information and came with the same conclusion that since most of the attacks came from the lake, that it should be the first location we should investigate, and before setting off I tell everyone.
"Frautz suggested to me that we should observe the hell beasts to see if they are a hunting party or
a lone wanderer."
he whispers to me.
"you came up with the idea though."
I whisper back.
"I really don't care about taking the credit, I just want us to complete our first mission successfully."
he sighs.
"and here I thought I had you all figured out, but your not as selfish as you think you are."
as we walk down a well traveled dirt path that goes through the forest near the village, I remind everyone.
"don't let them outnumber you, and you should be fine."
Frautz agrees.
"he's right, we been training hard, and now we get to see the results of it."
after arriving at the lake which is hard to miss since it is located by the dirt path, Frautz gives us all am order like a leader would do.
"stay hidden, and just observe the hell beasts if they show up."
I find a big bush that has a good view of the lake and I lay down inside of it, thinking to myself.
"hopefully they show up, I'd rather not have to use
my knowledge of it's location and avoid any unforseen consequences, whatever it may be."
after an hour of waiting in hiding, I already start devising my plans to escape Mistress Isabelle and disappear from her radar, but it all depends on success of this mission, in which I'm confident that we'll accomplish it, and then use the next mission to fake my death, my wondering thoughts
get interrupted by a pack of five hell beasts bellowing and growling, I look around hoping that the others are paying close attention, I then think to myself.
"we just need to wait it out until they leave and then I'll tell them that I'll track them down and pretend the hell beasts led me back to their cave
nest."
the hell beasts wander around the area, drinking water from the lake, and catching some fish, I sigh in relief.
"they were gathering food for the nest, it would have been bad if we had to fight them right now, and waste more time pretending to investigate the other attack sites."
after the hell beasts leave, I quickly make my way over to Frautz and tell him with urgency.
"I'm going to track down those hell beasts alone."
he ignores the alone part.
"I'm coming with."
I shake my head.
"no, we can't risk scaring them off, I need to be able to track them without any hindrances."
he growls.
"fine, but you better come back in one piece."
I then follow the tracks the hell beasts left behind,
deep into the forest and think to myself while having one hand on the hilt of my sword.
"it's time to see if this kid body of mine can physically keep up with all my previous skills."
I catch up to the hell beasts, and I shout to get their attention while unsheating my sword.
"over here!"
the hell beast that was behind the pack, is the first one to react to my presence and immediately pounces at me, I swing the light sword in one swift motion diagonally, slicing the hell beast's head off cleanly, I smirk to myself.
"I'm much quicker than I expected to be."
I turn my attention to the remaining four hell beasts and use my newfound speed to stab and slice my way through them, I then take a breather and say to myself.
"I've got speed because of my body and the sword feeling light as a feather, but I still lack the strength to pull off my skills."
I put away my sword and think to myself.
"once I fake my death, I'll focus on growing up in peace away from the clutches of Mistress Isabelle so that she doesn't ensnare me like she did before, and then I can start gaining muscle for my body."
I find a tree to sit down at and continue to ponder about my future.
"I'll also train with the humans to broaden my skill set, since I've face many unique humans that gave me a lot of trouble in fights."
I then think about Claire Tromair for the first time since finding myself here.
"since she had the necklace, did she also get affected the same way as me?"
I wait a good while, and return back to the others at the lake, and act like I'm put of breath.
"I think I found their nest."
Frautz grins.
"nice, I knew you could do it."
he orders everyone else.
"follow his lead."
while walking in the forest, remembering the exact route we took when we accidentally stumbled upon the nest in my previous life, I think to myself.
"I can't believe I'm already referring to it as my previous life."
Frautz asks while surveying the area.
"are you sure we are going the right way?"
I nod.
"I'm confident."
he then asks.
"be honest with me, why don't you want to be leader?"
since I'm not going to tell him that I don't plan to stuck around for too long, I think back about the pain I've felt about losing soldiers under my command and reply.
"I don't want to be responsible for the lives of others, who depend on my decisions."
he pats me on the back.
"don't let that deter you, you've got what it takes to be a leader."
after a while of traveling, I spot the familiar waterfall that leads to a river, and smirk.
"we are here."
they murmur to each other, confused on why they don't see any caves, Frautz puts his hand on my shoulder and said.
"it's okay to admit when your wrong, we'll just start over and wait for more hell beasts to show up."
I shake my head and point at the waterfall.
"I'm not wrong, the cave is right behind that waterfall."
as I start to walk towards it, I ask them.
"are you going to let me finish this mission alone?"
Frautz sighs and tells them.
"you heard him, let's finish this mission."
we enter the cave by sliding against the rock wall,
I look around and notice that most of the hell beast are sleeping, I whisper to Frautz who is in disbelief that I was right about the cave.
"we should silently kill the hell beasts and dwindle their numbers, so that we don't have to fight many when they wake up."
he nods, and passes along the message to others, I then unsheate my sword and start to jamming it into the throats of the hell beasts one by one, killing them in silver, I then remember in my previous life, how we just came barging in and
woke up the entire nest and had to fight them off,
after killing the last of the hell beasts I think to myself.
"this time things went smoothly and we manage to avoid injuries."
Frautz pats my back.
"good job, I shouldn't have doubted you."
I reply.
"it's fine, let's go report our success to the Captain."
we return to village and report to village elder and Captain Reenon that the nest was cleared, anr then after confirming that the nest was cleared, the village elder thanks us while Captain Reenon congratulates us.
"you all did exceptional well and without any injuries, Mistress Isabelle will be ecstatic to hear my report."
she then said to all of us.
"now let's get some rest, before we returning home, you've all earned it."
I chuckle to myself
"previously she didn't give us time to rest and we went straight to the castle."
I then sigh in relief.
"another step completed."