*"...ur, ...thur, Arthur wake uuup my little child. Art my sweet little child open your eyes." Art opened his eyes, which were full of life and happiness, as his mother patted and stroked his head while he lay on his mother's lap. "What are you doing, little one?" one of his siblings expressed with a little mock in her tone. Art was still laying on his mother´s lap on a meadow and a gentle breeze blew. His sister took his hand and drew him into the flower fields with his siblings, who were all smiling and genuinely happy, and a certain warmth could be felt in the air. While the sun was setting, Art was running after his siblings and parents through the flower fields. He came to a halt and looked at his older brother, who was smiling strangely."Are you okay, big brother?" Arthur asked, out of concern and with sensitivity. "Yes I am," his big brother said, as he put his hand on Art's shoulder with a sinister and evil grin. Suddenly, his elder brother started to laugh, which was filled with evilness. The sky was as red as blood and clouds that were pitch black were covering the blood red sky. Around him, there were rivers of blood and ruins instead of meadows or flower fields. The sun slowly turns into a blood-red and black fireball and everything catches fire. All he could hear were the screams of people being tortured and how his mother told him to survive. "*
Arthur wakes up on the bed in his room at the orphanage, extremely tired, not because of the fight but because of his nightmares, which never end, night after night. *knock, knock* "Come on in!" he exclaimed, rising from his bed. It was Anthony who had come in to give him a letter, and then he had left. Inside the letter there was nothing important, just information about what they could investigate inside the orphanage. "The dead ends in this orphanage are quite a few. We should investigate this matter." He thought to himself and went on his way to the buffet to eat breakfast. As he was making his way to the dining hall, he observed the children, and to his surprise, nearly all of them had the same green eye color as the citizen. "Be wary of their eyes." He reminded himself of the warning the strange voice gave him. While eating, some kids approached him and asked if he could play with them, to which Art agreed after seeing their eyes weren't green. As they were playing, he searched around as inconspicuously as possible in order to find something. Upon searching, Anthony and Arthur arrived at a dead end. Anthony vented his rage by leaning against the wall and pressing some bricks, while Arthur stepped on a tile that sank in slightly. Suddenly, the floor split open in two and both of them fell down into some place like a pitch black hole. Art poured aura into his eyes so that he could see what was around him, followed by his sharp aura sense. "Damn, that was a close call, Anthony. We almost fell down into an abyss and I honestly don't wish to find out what kind of monsters exist down there." Art said, with a horrified expression on his face. Anthony then also used magic that grants night vision, and both of them made their way deeper into this cave, searching for its purpose and for the secrets it was hiding.
*step, step, step* As they were wandering through the labyrinth of caves, unlike Arthur, who keeps getting lost inside the caves, Anthony knows how to move in this labyrinth. "It's fascinating how he knows his way around caves; I thought elves and half-elves only lived in the forest. I guess I was wrong." After many twists and turns, they came across a large opening with a large crowd of people dressed strangely. "What the heck is this? That's not a normal amount of huma-" Arthurs gasped out of shock while trembling and pointing in one direction. "T-that are ch-children. A-and ove-er th-ere are monst-ers, creppy monsters. " Overwhelmed and furious, Art placed his left hand on the dagger hilt and was about to dash there to save everyone who could be saved when a hand suddenly grapped his shoulder."What are you doing here, young maannn?" A certain voice spoke from behind, and Art slowly turned around only to see the orphanage director standing right behind him with a disgusting smile, speaking in a deep and slow voice, as well as twisting his head from time to time. He also had a pretty long neck and his spine bones were unusually long and sharp, as if they wanted to break out, to pierce through his skin. One word is enough to describe him, disgusting... "Take thi-!" Goodwill punched Art very powerfully as he was trying to pierce him with his dagger, and he flew into the middle of the crowd of humans or whatever they may be. He coughed up some blood whilst he was trying to get back up. Soon after, Anthony followed him too, *booomm*, and crashed pretty hard too, and a fog of dust built up. They managed to get up and, after the fog was completely cleared, they were able to see the situation they were in, completely surrounded by their enemies, quite a disadvantageous situation for the two mercenaries.
[POV Anthony]
How should we survive this? I know it's hard, but we have a huge disadvantage in numbers. Well, Arthur is quite strong and has great stamina, but in this fight, he cannot take turns like we did with the chimera, and to top it off, we don't even know the enemy's skills, techniques, and so on... "H-hey Art, d-do you have a plan?!" Damn, I keep stuttering, I am quite nervous, haha. "Ahm... how about surviving?!" What did he say?!! And with a smile on top of that! I mean, it's obvious that we want to survive, but still, don't you have a better plan at least?! Sometimes I would like to know what he is thinking because I can't read him at all. Well, anyway, he is right... We need to survive, so let's calm down and focus on fighting as little as possible while killing as many as possible, I-I guess. *sigh and a nervous laugh*
Well, it seems that Anthony got a hold on himself, well, but surviving is all we can do right now." Art thought to himself, to which he spotted some flaws in their movement and formation, and off he went, dashed through them, killing quite a number of humanoids, or should I say humanoid monsters. After he finally escaped their formation, he used his flames and his wind to make a wide-ranged powerful attack in order to support Anthony, who is now also fighting quite a number of monsters. All this caused an uproar, and monsters from everywhere started storming inside and attacking the two as if they disturbed a bee hive, but there was no lake where they could hide inside. All of the monsters, weak or strong, small or huge, attacked the two of them, but they were powerful enough to stop them from overrunning them and slowly but surely kill an uncountable number of monsters. When they thought that they could manage it, Goodwill attacked them, and they were thrown against the cave s wall and crashed down in pain. Goodwill, whose body started to change, is devouring the dead corpses of the monsters and children. Suddenly, his body gets cracks all over it and a strange light is emitted from them. It exploded. Goodwill's body had exploded and there was a huge cloud of dust where he should have stood. Art interrupts and disagrees with Anthony. "One big problem down, easy p-", "I don't think it is this easy." a faint shadow where you could barely recognise its body canture, which by any means was not that of a human. "A-a-a... a manticore" Art blurted out, completely overhelmed and hirrified. He couldn't believe that such a creature existed, much less that it stood right in front of them.
The fog still did not clear out completely. *swosh* Arthurt held his dagger up, "Should I use it? If I do, I should be able to defeat it without too much effort, I think..." Art thought and some strange energy started to gather around him faintly. "NO!" He refused to use his power, which he had to keep hidden, so he strengthened and hardened his blade with aura as much as possible, but he was still pushed back and his dagger took a significant amount of damage. His trembling hands held the damaged dagger pretty strongly, and he slowly let his hands down. Now his focused and faintly glowing eyes could be seen. They examined the enemy very accurately. "Damn... that was a strong strike." Art said, strangely calm. He let his left completely down because it felt numb, but he was still grabbing the dagger pretty tightly without so much as a sign of letting it go. Calmly breathing in and out, slowly...
The manticore started to mock Art and laugh at him for being ignorant and arrogant, but Arthur was not shaken by his crude and rude remarks. Instead, he watched his opponent very carefully. So on. Habits cannot be altered simply because one's body changes. While observing the manticore calmly, he took out his sword with his right hand and prepared to fight."He may be a manticore, but not complete, or easier said, not a real one, but a fake one." Arthur whispered to himself while being in a fighting stance without any openings. "I still don- shouldn´t underestimate it..." Focused, he observed the enemy. "Battle Focus activate!" Arthur activated his skill, covered his whole body and weapons with aura, as well as strengthened them, but the blades were hardened and sharpened with aura, and on he dashed. Towards the maticore with full speed, ready to kill it. The manticore was about three meters high, two meters wide and about ten meters long with his tail. Even with that size, he was still incredibly fast and agile. The monster and the mercenary engaged in an epic battle, and the clashes of his blades and the mantcore's tail and claws filled the caves, astounded every being, dead or alive. Skillfully rotating his dagger in his hand and striking as well as parrying and deflecting the manticore's strongest attacks. Despite this, neither of them could land a critical hit or seriously injure the other. It was a fight that was dragging out fairly. Neither the manticore nor Arthur were slowing down, but instead they went faster and struck even harder at each other, without any rest. As the monster lunged to attack Art, Anthony used a magic spell to protect Arthur and buff him. "I guess the magic of elves is pretty awesome. And you are way better at magic than at close-range fighting." Anthony simply laughed innocently while rubbing his chin in response to Arthur's words.
The fight was coming to an end, and the manticore was on the verge of death. "Knock, knock. Who is there? Your DEATH! Isn t it so for you, Mr. Goodwill Manticore?" Arthur grinned at the badly wounded beast. "Now die!" Something felt strange in his chest. He slowly looked down and saw a blade piercing his chest, narrowly missing his heart. "W-why?!" Art asked as he coughed blood out of his mouth. "Just because!" Anthony mocked and brutally took out his sword from Arthur's chest, to which he fell down, and blood started flowing out quite a lot and fast. "So you were the mastermind," Art summarized as his vision was getting blurry and his senses were getting number by the second. His hearing feels like he is underwater and his confidence is starting to fade away slowly but surely... "Is this it?" This thought passed through his mind as he completely lost his cool.
Unknown voice: "Do you really think so?!" Unknown is grinning full of malice. "Just wait a little."