LUCY ELDAREISE POV:
I'm carefully gazing at the image of a girl. She has pale blond hair, sky blue eyes, fair complexion, a face considered by many to be extremely pretty. The image is my reflection of a hand held mirror. I'm wearing a tight fitting top with different shades of blue that seems to have put great emphasis on my growing chest, an adventurer skirt that's a darker shade of blue and black boots accompanied by knee high white socks.
I'm currently riding a carriage along with four other age mates of mine. Sitting besides me, is my cousin April Nightingale, She has shoulder length black hair, brown eyes, has a lighter skin tone compare to Jacob, and is currently dressed in a long sleeved black top, dark brown shorts, black knee high socks and black boots. She's currently dozing off, she's just as lazy as Jacob, correction, lazier than Jacob. Even when she's sleeping she's pretty but then again she's a Nightingale, so of course she's pretty.
"Hey Lucy, once this mission is over, wanna spar with me?" Asks Daniel, a brown haired boy, that has a similar complexion to Jacob, has blue eyes a bit darker than mine and is currently dressed in a blue top, dark brown three quarter pants and of course black boots. Must really be in fashion nowadays.
"Stop bothering her, Dan." Says Luke, a grey haired, blue eyed, fair complexioned boy. Dressed in a rather simple Outfit, a white long sleeved top and black bottoms. A "prince" is what they call him, due to his well....princely features. I'm just saying he's handsome, perhaps a bit more good looking than Jacob. Daniel is also good looking just not in the same level as the two.
I then look at the girl between the two boys, She has long black hair, blue eyes and a face that can be best described as beautiful. She's dressed in a similar clothing to mine the difference being that it's all red. Her name is Lisa and believe it or not, she's Luke's twin brother.
"Oh come on man, don't be like that, Its just some light sparring." Daniel pleads with Luke.
"No." Luke replies in flat tone.
"But....." Daniel tries once more to convince Luke.
"Anyways, is it really wise to be travelling at night, especially with the recent vampire attacks?" Lisa asks interrupting Daniel in the process.
"What and stay in this dense forest?" I respond with a question of my own.
"No, I'm just saying, we have already completed all our group assignments, so can't we just enjoy the summer back at home, instead of experiencing another winter...in the same year."
"Relax Lisa, due to the vampire attacks, the teleportation gates have currently been put out of service, so we'll have to travel by sea. And to arrive to the ports at the earliest we will have to travel by night as well, okay?"
"Yeah."
Silence lingers for a while and then suddenly I feel a strong mana signature, even more potent than our teachers'.
"What...is that?" April asks as she gets up, a bit disorientated due to waking up abruptly.
"I don't know...we should check it out." Daniel says this with uncharacteristically serious expression.
"Oh yeah, and risk death? no thank you." Luke says with the same stoic expression.
"Oh come on Luke, what if people are in danger? are we to just stand by because we don't want to risk death?" Daniel asks seemingly having made up his mind.
He then gets up and leaves.
"What if they are no people in danger? And we're about to disturb a very powerful mana beast." Luke shakes his head as he follows.
With no longer any choice, we decide to follow the boys. As we are running I notice a fire and a.....grilled boar? What? As we get closer to the apparent source of the monstrous mana, what we encounter is anything but. As we arrive I see a lady in all grey outfit along with a couple of kids feasting on boar meat.
Stunned by this, we all share the same sense of confusion as to what to do next. As I look at Luke, he just shrugs and is about to leave when suddenly the lady speaks.
"Hey, you guys want some meat?"
"....No." I answer on behalf of my friends.
"Good, Coz I wasn't gonna give you any, anyways."
"..." Silence. Just about all we can give at this point, completely baffled by this beautiful woman's actions.
"Lisa, what's up?" I ask as I notice her focused on a random direction.
"There's some intense fighting going on over there." Lisa points in the direction which she's facing.
"I'm not sure, judging by the mana levels, several AA rank and one AAA rank monster fighting against.... something I can't quite put my finger on."
"Whoa, It might be manaless adventurer, we should go help." Dan says as he prepares to run.
"It's just Jacob, he'll be fine." The gluttonous woman interjects.
Wait, Jacob? manaless, Jacob. No, it couldn't be. I look at April and see concern written on her face. Without any words, we both come to an agreement to go towards the source of the unease.
Lisa seeing our determination leads the way, On our way we encounter a destroyed village. Another one, huh? So many lives lost, but I must focus on getting to Jacob. We enter the forest right outside the village, a few moments after entering, I hear growls in the distance. As we arrive at the source of the growls, shock is an understatement of how I felt as I witnessed a young boy probably around my age, blocking and dodging the werewolves'? attacks.
As I look at my friends to gauge their thoughts I see their expressing the same sentiment as mine. Just what are we looking at?
*************
JACOB NIGHTINGALE POV:
You know what's worse than werewolves, werewolves that can use mana. Damn, I just can't catch a break. The wolves' speeds increase as the ferocity of their attacks intensify. Due to their sheer number, I'm losing more and more ground. Some of them are even moving faster than me, well speed has never been one of my strong assets. Really at this point, the only thing keeping me in this fight is my toughness.
One of the wolves attempts to claw my face off, I duck underneath and land a punch in it's chest blowing it away with great force. Alright time to get serious, I enter an offensive stance and prepare to strike. 3 wolves get in my striking range and with one swift movement, I take them all out with a roundhouse kick.
The remaining werewolves attack me with great fury, Instead of dodging I decide to take the hits, this decision boosted by Hestia's words on me being able to withstand 10 gigatons of explosives. Big mistake, a powerful claw scratches leaving deep gashes, realizing I've been hurt, I jump up high into the air.
Hestia should rephrase her words, instead of withstand she should say "survive!", god dammit, the would rapidly heals due to my healing factor.
As I'm falling I realize that with my "insane durability" out of the question, I should formulate a new strategy. You know what? Forget it Imma just go all out.
As I'm about to land I curl my hand into a fist and strike the ground, completely shattering it upon impact, leaving a massive crater. As I look up I realize that the wolves have been blown away by the sheer repulsive force of my punch.
As I'm about to celebrate my victory, The black wolf which I assume is the leader, lunges right at me. I reflexively punch at it, but to no avail as it ducks underneath and slashes at me with it's....iron claws? the force of the attack causes to crash through a nearby tree.
The werewolf, without giving me time to recover, lunges at me. Given no other choice I summon my sword and slash the werewolf under it's left eye. This causes it to fall on me. I then push it of with ease and kick it into a nearby tree for good measure. As it struggles to get up, I make my way to the werewolf. I raise my sword in the air, readying for the final blow.
"Wait please don't?" Says the black wolf in a deep voice.
What?
"You can speak!?" I ask as I lower my sword.
"Yes."
"How? Werewolves shouldn't be able to retain their senses when in wolf state."
"It is due to the power of the moon stone."
"Moon stone?"
"Yes, it is a powerful artifact that helps us control the effects of the full moon."
"Hence, why you can talk?"
"No, that's just me, I'm a bit of a special case."
"I see, why did you attack me then if you're capable of communicating properly."
"When my pack and I heard Ezra's howl of distress, we rushed in thinking of you as an enemy."
"Why would you think that?" As I ask, I then take notice of the unconscious werewolves surrounding us answering myself in the process.
"Well I really had no choice but to fight, the dude literally attacked me first." I defend myself.
"Our mistake, we've recently suffered a brutal attack from the vampires, so we're on edge. That and you have the scent of our cubs."
Cubs? as in kids? But the only kids I've met are...Oh.
"I think I now understand, the village back there is where you lived?"
The werewolf nods his head.
"Ah, do not worry, they are currently safe, I assure you."
"Ah, thank goodness."
"Can you please do something for me?"
"What is it?"
"Can you please detransform back, it's really weird talking to you as you are."
"Understood."
He then changes back into the body of a bare chested man, with grey pants. I then look at the surroundings and see that everyone else has changed back as well.
"How could you leave the kids alone? That's so irresponsible of you?"
"We would never, we left them with two of our strongest."
"Well, I only sensed them when I arrived, so, yeah, no one else was there."
"How could this be?"
"I don't know man, I wasn't there." I then look at the unconscious people.
"How long are they gonna be like this?"
"A while."
Silence then lingers for a few moments.
"Did you come with friends?"
"Friends? why are you asking that?" I question skeptically.
"I'm just curious to know these people that are approaching us."
He then points at the people standing behind me. As I look behind me, my eyes widen in realization as two of the five people approaching are my sister and cousin.
As they arrive.
"April? Lucy?"
"Jacob?" they ask in unison.
"Yeah it's me, but what are you guys doing here?"
"We should be the ones asking you, aren't you supposed to be training with Grandpa?" April asks.
"Its a long story, but my training is kinda done."
"Yeah no kidding, just look at what you've done."
"Yeah, A lot has happened."
"I'm sure you'll tell me all about it." April gives me her "you better" smile.
As she and I talking, Lucy just walks towards me and as soon as she arrives, she punches me in the gut.
Why!? is written on my face as I hold on to my stomach.
"That...was for not showing up whenever I visited you, And this.." She then straightens me up and hugs me. She smells like vanilla. "....Is because I have missed you."
What? a rare showing of emotion from Lucy, I'm truly shocked. Could it be my absence has changed her.
She then releases me. "Don't get a big head over this loser." Lucy says this with a rather cold expression.
Of course she didn't change, A few minutes pass by as I'm introduced to the rest of the group afterwards, the "villagers" wake up and we head to the "village." I also get the name of the black wolf, his name is Lysander.
As we're heading back, I can't help but feel that I've seen Lisa somewhere before. Maybe I'm mistaking her for someone else, but how many beautiful girls have I seen that can compare to her other than April and Lucy. Ugh, I'll leave this thought for another time.
As we arrive at the fire, we see Selene having kept a whole boar for the people. I asked her how she knew about them and she replied by saying "intuition" while shrugging.
I look at my chest and see my clothes have completely recovered thanks to Ivy's restoration magic I presume.
We then eat around a fire and all is good for a while but I still need to know. So I look at Lysander.
"Hey, just what happened here?" Having had my question silence dominates the once rather "cheery" atmosphere.
"Well....how much do you need to know?" Lysander asks with an expression that indicates how much he wishes to avoid this topic. But I can't just let it go, even if it will cause some of the survivors to relive the trauma of the events that transpired.
"Well it all started like this....."