"You act like you wouldn't love the opportunity to carry on through the night, Brute. We both know you're itching for a fight." Alex chuckled as he answered Brutus.
Brute was a nickname Brutus had given himself, and Alex laughed when he heard it.
He felt it was very fitting for him, he was a very bulky and tall man and it was the shortened version of his name. It fit him perfectly.
Brutus had told Alex over the last few hours of his adventures in the wilderness. He had killed many beasts in one on one battles and sometimes even 2v1—all with the goal to take their beast core (if they had one) and increase his power.
In the event he was lucky and the beast he killed had a beast core, he would absorb it on the spot. Otherwise he would just turn the corpse into the beast hall in exchange for some gold.
Not all beasts had missions put up for them and the beast hall would be glad to buy any beast corpse whether it was for a mission or not.
Brutus had continued this same routine up for the last 6 months, managing to upgrade his soul core from F- to the peak of F+ in that time. He was right at the precipice of E- rank just like Joanne.
***
The team rested for the night at the makeshift campsite and left right as the sun rose. Not much happened during the day except for a few scares from some movements in bushes nearby, but those turned out to be nothing.
This continued for the next 3 days, until one morning while hiking the group of nine a tower of smoke reaching the clouds in the distance.
This smoke wasn't from a chimney, this was from something big, like a whole village big.
"We should hurry, the situation in the village must have worsened since the mission was posted!" Raymond shouted to the rest and started running towards the area the smoke was coming from.
Him, Joanne and Brutus were the fastest of the group. Joanne and Raymond ran ahead of the group, while Brutus stayed behind to keep up with Alex and the rest.
Nobody thought anything of Raymond and Joanne suddenly separating from their group, they just thought that they were both worried for the village and wanted to get there as quickly as possible.
However, Alex felt their actions went against the whole reason Raymond had recruited them.
'Separating from the group you gathered right as we are about to reach the enemy, really?'
'I knew something was fishy from the beginning, what exactly do you have planned Raymond?'
Alex kept his thoughts to himself, he didn't know if anyone else in the group would be in on whatever Raymond and Joanne were up to.
It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the peak of a hill where Raymond and Joanne stood, overlooking the scene beneath them.
Swathes of buildings were crumbling, burning to ash by the second. Over fifty houses, with fifty families living in them were wiped out. Bodies lay on the ground in various conditions, some completely charred, others still barely clinging to life.
Tears could be seen welling up in Joanne and Raymond's eyes, while the everyone else just stood there in shock, stupefied.
"We were too late." Raymond gnashed his teeth together as rage welled up within him.
Joanne didn't say anything but her fists were balled up so tight blood started dripping from them.
Alex completely forgot about any schemes Raymond might be cooking up as his attention was wholly focused on the scene in front of him.
Deja vu.
Alex felt an extreme sense of Deja vu looking at what remained of the village.
His mind took him back to when he first entered the Primordial Expanse. Those thousands of refugees in the clearing, all slaughtered by the Galephant. The destruction then looked just like this.
Instead of feeling the uncontrollable anger and rage like the others did, Alex just felt a sense of emptiness.
The natives heard about the destruction of whole towns, villages and cities all the time. The constant war against the beasts was never ending, and while humanity competed with each other for resources to advance their own power, against beasts the natives were united.
To outsiders like Alex, they could never feel what the natives felt when whole societies were destroyed as the Federation was the complete opposite. The Federation was in its most peaceful time in centuries, there were no divides in nationality anymore as all citizens were united under one banner.
The only threat to the federation were pirates and the occasional death of an awakened, which spawned a beast of the same rank in the universe.
"This is the true face of this world. There can never be peace for us while beasts still continue to exist. This is why beast hives are prioritised over every other mission. If we were a day earlier, we could have prevented this." Raymond said through his clenched teeth.
Raymond looked at the village one last time and sighed, forcing himself to calm down.
"Let's go, there is nothing left for us here. The best we can do for this village is take revenge for them, the beast hive has to be nearby since the destruction is still fresh." Alex said this time as he weighed in on the heavy atmosphere.
Brutus looked up for the first time and nodded at Alex's words, still somewhat in a daze.
"There are still Mantis tracks everywhere, if we are lucky we can catch up to them!" Joanne blurted out of nowhere, looking intensely at some marks on the ground near the edge of the village, heading out into the forest.
This time some life returned to the group.
It may have been too late, but at least they could take revenge in honour of the villagers!
No communication was needed, everyone simultaneously left the top of the hill they stood on and followed Joanne as she followed the tracks of the Mantises through the forest.
Alex had completely forgotten about his suspicions towards Raymond and Joanne by this point...