"Look at it! It's massive!" Rachael shouted while staring at the serpent beast.
"You seem abnormally happy about this" Alex said as he walked by her side.
"I've always loved snakes, I actually have one back at home." She said
Aaron turned to stare at her in shock.
"What?" Rachael asked noticing his stare.
"You do realize that that snake became a monster too right?" He said.
Rachael and everyone else's eyes went wide hearing that. Most, if not all of them had pets back at home.
"Well, whoever was at your places when the awakening happened is royally screwed." Aaron said while standing to his feet.
"Anyway, we should continue moving. I need a new shirt though." He said.
His shirt had gotten torn during the fight, all that was left were rags.
'My MANA's almost recovered, this arm isn't healing anytime soon though.' He thought while trying to move his injured left arm.
'Sigh. Just great.'
"Are we going to lave this monster here?" Alex asked.
"You think you can carry it bac?" Cecilia questioned.
Alex shook his head and sighed.
"It's a huge waste though." He said
"I could drag it along with us or just wait here for you all to get back." Aaron said.
He tore the remainder of his shirt off, showing his well defined muscles and wrapped it around his left arm.
"That's not a problem, we will meet up here when we get back." Cecilia said.
Aaron nodded and jumped to the top of the serpent's head and set down.
"Alright we continue moving!" Cecilia ordered.
'Its amazing how composed they are after seeing so many people die. They must have seen some pretty gory scenes yesterday.' Aaron thought as he watched the group members walk off.
Remembering something, he jumped down the the beast's head and used his right hand to pry it's mouth open.
He immediately regretted his actions. The serpent's mouth smelled like death, no pun intended.
"You really need to brush your teeth dude."
Aaron sighted what he was looking for, the sword he'd thrown earlier. Unfortunately though he had no way of retrieving it or the mouth would close on him.
"Whatever, I'll have one of the others do it."
Bang!
He let let go of its upper mouth and let the mouth close, releasing a muffled sound.
"This is gonna be a boring wait."
---
The search party
"This is the second time he's had to protect us during a search, we can't keep letting him handle all the dangerous fights." Alex said.
"We'd need to be much stronger for that, I don't think any of us can handle anything as strong as that snake." Dave replied.
"I know, but we can't keep having to rely on him. Like right now, he's injured yet even in that condition, he's still the strongest among us." Alex said.
"We need to kill more monsters and level up or we'll die if he's not with us." He concluded.
Everyone kept walking in silence, letting the weight of Alex's words sink in. Most of the party members honestly didn't put much thought into getting stronger, all they wanted to achieve was to survive until the military showed up.
But hearing his words and remembering the previous fight, they chances of them dying before that happened were uncomfortably high.
"We can think about later. We need to concentrate right now, monsters could attack us at anytime." Cecilia said.
About fifteen minutes later, they reached their destination.
"Alright everyone, pack up the supplies." Cecilia said as she walked into the building.
"Some of the food supplies were destroyed in the fight, so they won't last as long." Alex said.
"I figured as much. But if we can use the monster meat, it won't matter." Cecilia replied.
"Someone's here." Alex said the second he walked it.
"Huh?"
"Come out, we already know you're here. Lest we attack." Dave said while brandishing his dagger.
"Wait! Please don't attack!" Someone said and walked out from behind a door, followed by five others.
"We meant you no harm. We've been chased around since yesterday, so we're really sensitive to sounds. We hid as soon as we heard you coming." A certain brown haired student said.
"My name is Eric, I am, was a student here." He said with his arms raised.
"You've been chased since everything happened?" Cecilia asked.
Eric nodded, recalling the tens of people he'd watched die over the last 2 day.
"Damn, that's got it rough." Oneof the search party members said.
"Yeah, goes to show how easy we've had it" another added.
"Are the six of you all your groups made of?" Alex asked.
"There were over forty of us at first, but they all died." One of the six said.
'Damn' everyone remarked inside.
"Do you wish to join us? We don't have much but we can at least offer food and security to some extent. " Cecilia offered.
"Can we really? Are you sure?" Eric asked.
"I offered, so yeah I'm pretty sure." Cecilia said.
'The rest don't seem to be bothered that she's making decisions without her consulting them. She must be the leader.' Eric analyzed.
"Yes, I'm the leader." Cecilia said, as if reading his thoughts.
"Am I that easy to read?" Eric asked with a bitter smile.
"Yes. So don't worry, you can come along." She said.
"Alright, then thank you in advance." Eric said.
"Help us load the supplied in this building, anything edible with the exception of alcohol." Alex said.
Everyone among the six had no qualms with helping, so they did just that.
A few minutes later, everything was loaded and they were ready to head back. But as always, nothing ever goes as planned.
"We have in coming." Dave said while staring to his left.
"Numbers?" Cecilia asked.
"I'd say 3." He replied.
"Alright, we can manage that." She said.
"Tanks, shields! Rangers, prepare to attack!"
"They're here." Dave said.
The second he said that, 3 silhouettes appeared attop a near by building. They stood in place for a few seconds, as if to scout them out and then jumped down.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Their landing created cracks on the ground.
All three seemed to be cat based monsters, with two brown furred and the largest one in the middle black.
"I'll take the middle one, it's probably the strongest. Dave you handle one. Alex, you and Rachael deal with the last one." Cecilia ordered.
"Right" Alex and Rachael said while Dave just nodded.
As if waiting for them to finished strategizing, the beasts attacked the next instant.
Swish Swish Swish
"Shields!" Cecilia ordered when the got within 5 metres of the group.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The beasts rammed into the shield wall right then, not even pushing them back. The four didn't waste the opportunity.
Cecilia vanished and appeared right above the black beast's head and thrust her spear right into its head. Killing it instantly.
Dave sprinted towards his opponent, reaching it before it could react and slitting its throat.
Alex gave a boost to Rachael's spell, which she fired right into the last beast head. Easily killing it off.
"These things were pathetically weak. Was there a need to use the formation?" One of the tanks asked.
"You can't be too careful, we still have no reliable way of gauging their strength." Cecilia said, removing her spear from the beasts head.
'Level 3 Huh? This spear made it easier than it would've been with my practice spear. I should be able to take on a level 4 with this.' Cecilia thought.
"Whoa, they actually managed to kill those monsters." One of Eric's group members said in awe.
The rest were equally as shocked, those monsters looked way more powerful than the ants they'd fought earlier.
"Load the bodies as well. Then we get moving." Cecilia ordered.
It took a few minutes to load the beast's with how heavy they were, and they could finally begin their journey back.
As they were moving back the six were put in tge middle, as no one knew what abilities they held.
"Have you had anything to eat yet?" Alex asked with a smile.
"Yeah, we were actually eating when we heard you guys approaching. But we didn't to finish." Eric replied.
"No worries, you can have something when we get back to the gymnasium." Alex said.
"Gymnasium? That's where your group made its base?" Eric asked with a raised brow.
"Yes. Don't you remember? The gymnasium was made into a shelter after the strings of terrorist attacks four years ago." Alex explained.
"Now that you mentioned it, I do remember hearing about that on the news but it completely slipped my mind." One of the six said
"That makes the gymnasium the best place to be right now then." Eric commented.
"Yeah, that's what you'd think. But with what we recently saw, the monsters could tear that place to shreds if they have a high enough level." Alex said witha bitter smile.
"Huh? You mean there are monsters that could bring a shelter mean to withstand a barrage of explosives down?" Eric asked
"That's exactly what I'm saying. You'll understand when you see it yourselves." Alex said.
"See what?" Eric asked.
"What happens when two monsters fight. Then maybe you'd be able to imagine what would happen if one were to attack the shelter with no one to stop it."