Arthur gulped down a mouthful of saliva as he lifted his head from the ground and stood up to look at the far horizon.
"Is there some kind of earthquake?" He murmured to himself with confusion.
First of all, the rhythmic beating of the ground didn't sound like a normal earthquake Arthur was accustomed to in Japan. Second of all, if there was indeed an earthquake, then signs of it would be more noticeable than this. Just from those two indications, Arthur was almost convinced that this wasn't an earthquake.
"But, if it wasn't an earthquake? What is it?"
Frowning slightly, he bent down and listened to the sound again with even more focus. Seconds passed in silence as Arthur listened. The first thing he noticed was that the sound was slowly growing louder the more he listened.
'What the hell…'
Finding it pointless to keep listening anymore, Arthur quickly woke the party since this matter didn't seem to be simple.
When everyone woke up, Arthur quickly showed them his find. Everyone listened to the noises for a moment.
"Can you hear that? I tried to understand what it was but I couldn't." Arthur explained.
"Yeah, this seems very odd," Mino murmured with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Sounds like drums to me, no?" Boriat added.
"Drums? More like an echo of the ringing of a bell!" The little magician Ani didn't agree with that comparison.
"No, it sounds like drums!"
"The echo of a bell!"
"Drums!"
"Bell!"
Boriat and Ani kept going back and forth as they glared at each other. Neither of them wanted to back down at all. So, Kali interjected the conversation before it spiraled out of control.
"Guys, it's not time to describe how it sounds. We need to understand where it comes from quickly. I don't have a good feeling about this." Then, she looked at Mino. "What should we do?"
"Hmm, I think we should start moving again. I don't have a good feeling about this either."
"Where are we supposed to even go?" Arthur asked.
"If I'm not wrong then ahead of us, just a few kilometers away from here is a hill. If there is something happening far away from here, we can see it from that hill." Mino explained.
"Sounds like a plan to me, hahahaha!"
"But, isn't moving at night extremely dangerous? We can't see a thing?"
"Hehehe, no worries." Ani smiled as she waved her staff, immediately, a big blob of light appeared floating on top of her staff.
"... Your magic is too useful…" Arthur blinked in surprise.
"I'm the best magician in the world after all! With a wave of my staff, I can create anything I want and even revive the dead." She replied with a smile.
"Hm, hm, sure…" Arthur shrugged as he started picking up stuff with the group so that they could start moving.
A few minutes later, they began their march again. Granted, they were still feeling sleepy but since their lives could be in danger, they kept their eyes focused on their surroundings and their ears perked up for any weird noises.
As they walked through the dark night, without the light of the moon, the noises grew even louder and more intimidating. Everyone felt tense just listening to them. Especially Arthur who didn't even know what this was.
The lack of vision coupled with the cold weather and the tense atmosphere made the group hasten their marching. What would've taken them at least an hour to cross, they made it in 30 minutes.
When the hill appeared in their vision, everyone felt slightly more relieved since it gave them a good high-ground advantage over whatever was making this noise.
Climbing to the top of the hill, they finally had a vision that overlooked a massive distance around them in all directions.
"Fuuh, we made it." Arthur sighed as he looked up. Their vision was still completely blind because of the darkness.
"Now, what are we supposed to do? The sound is growing louder and we can't see anything." Borait asked.
"Ani, can you shoot your ball of light in that direction?" Mino asked with a serious tone as he pointed ahead of him.
"Sure…" Doing what he asked, Ani swung her staff before she launched the ball away at top speed. The light of the ball illuminated its surroundings as it moved through the darkness. Everyone watched silently with a tense anticipation of what could this ball reveal.
As it moved farther and farther away, the shaking of the ground beneath them was now starting to feel like an earthquake. Eventually, the ball of light was so far away that it couldn't be seen anymore. That's when Ani moved her staff again.
"Explosion!" She yelled.
Immediately, in the far horizon, the ball of light detonated violently, creating a festival of lights that illuminated everything around it. For a second, the group was able to see as clearly as they could in the daytime. However, nobody gave a reaction to the explosion of light, not even Arthur.
What was revealed to them because of that explosion was something that shook them to their very cores. Nobody, not even the hero could hide their reaction at all. After all, this sight was just something straight out of a nightmare.
"You… got to be fucking kidding me…" Arthur felt his heart rate increasing exponentially as his limbs started shaking.
"M-Mino… Is what we're seeing… real?" Ani asked as fear started to settle into her very soul.
However, the hero didn't respond as he stood there, rooted in his place like a tree and who could blame him? After all, they were now basically staring death right in the face.
Far away in the distance, perhaps hundreds of kilometers away, a gigantic number of creatures were running in their direction. The number easily exceeded 20 thousand monsters, their steps were loud enough to shake the earth beneath them. In other words, that was…
"Yes, it's… a monster stampede…" Kali spoke in his stead with a shocked expression. "But, monster stampedes never happen with demons… They don't follow each other… How is this even possible?"
"It's because we killed the demon king… They… They're probably trying to return to their king as fast as possible." Mino replied with a serious voice.
'What the fuck is this?! Are we seriously seeing a monster stampede?!' Arthur started panicking as he looked around him at the group. "Guys?! We're really in trouble here! What the hell should we do?"
"We need to calm down first. The situation is already extremely dangerous as it is."
"Shit, man!"
'Wait! I can leave now, no? I might be able to come up with a plan for safety!'
But, as Arthur was about to imagine himself leaving MangaVerse, he suddenly heard the cursed ringing sound of his system.
[Ding!]
[Objectives have been updated!]
[Main plot event began.]
[You can't leave during a main plot event.]
'.... Shit!'
Arthur found himself completely taken aback by his bad luck. The moment he decided to leave, he was hit with a main event of the story which he couldn't avoid at all.
"Yeah, I'm done for now… I guess losing one life on my first story is a given…" Arthur murmured to himself. Still, even in his sadness, he opened his objectives to check what kind of challenge he had now.
[Objectives: (Monster Hunter): Kill 250 demons. (0/250)
Rewards: +50 Ink Points, +10 to all stats.]
'... D-Damn, those are some pretty good rewards… MangaVerse, you bastard! Are you trying to buy me off with these rewards just so that I would put my life at risk to get them?!'
Suddenly, Arthur gained a level of courage he didn't know he even had.
'Well… I'm going to die anyway, no? Might as well give it a try…'