I am amazed to see the kids helping us instead of hiding in the bunkers like people, even the adults would do in the towns like Havet. I think the entire village population has volunteered to help in clearing the area.
I have not seen any elders in the village till now. Maybe they are also helping the soldiers or they have been sent to the bunkers as their presence might become a burden for the soldiers and the volunteers.
I wish all the people in the whole Almeya are like these people, will do their part to protect the way of life they know. Humanity would have never fallen this far behind if they had been united and cooperated with each other like this from the beginning.
I go to the defense wall and climb the stairs to see the outer parts of the forest and shocked to see many volunteers are busy building traps and obstacles near the wall as if the dungeon can't be cleared and an outbreak is inevitable.
Looking at them, I wonder how many times they have done this as I can see lot of professionalism and experience in their work and they have tactical disadvantage when it comes to the defense as the forest covering their enemy's movements giving them less open area for the ranged attackers like the archers.
This will be beneficial for me as I can use the forest terrain and humidity to my advantage in battle, but it is going to be difficult for Vimal as he has less range to cover and could be dragged into a close combat with the others if an outbreak happens.
But, we are here to prevent it from happening and I am damn sure it can be done. With Vimal, myself and Jack accompanying the Defense corp soldiers to clear the dungeon, I am confident in clearing it without much trouble.
I am also excited as this is going to be my first time to fight against humanoid monsters who are intelligent. This will help me to find the advantages and disadvantages of my combat style against other humans like the thieves who attacked me in the forest before my second awakening.
Looking at the volunteers in the village, I feel a little disappointed as there is no one over the High-F grade. This means only one thing, there are no monsters that are over F-grade around Azalea which will make it very easy to be cleared for the Defense Corp.
When I turn around to leave the defense wall, I see Vimal standing behind me looking at the volunteers just like me. He startled me as I didn't sense him even when he is this close and he came in so silent I didn't even hear his footsteps.
Looking at my surprised face, he says with a smirk "We are in dangerous territory Alexander, you need to stay focused on your surroundings too or you will become an easy target to the enemies."
What he says is true, right now we are in the middle of a battlefield where the danger can pop out anytime. I should have been more careful and keep my instinct at peek if I want to survive in a place like this.
I nod at him and start going down the stairs to the Hunter's Guild tent to meet Jack who can tell us when we will be moving out to clear the dungeon.
When I am almost at the bottom of the wall and see Jack coming towards the wall with speed I have not seen him walking. He looked like he is in a hurry to go somewhere, so I start to follow him after he passed me with a nod when he looked at me.
He reaches the top of the defense wall within a minute which took me more than two minutes to climb. I see Jack standing next to Vimal and looking at the stairs waiting for me. I look at them panting, trying to catch my breath as I ran as fast I can to climb the stairs to get to Jack as soon as I can.
"We are moving out now. The Defense Corp scouts have notified the command about a group of Pigmen moving towards the village. We are tasked with removing that threat." Jack says as soon as I get close to them while still troubling to stop panting.
I can see excitement in Vimal's eyes when he hears the side mission we are getting. I ignore that as this is not the first time I am seeing someone who gets excited for a battle and ask "How many we are going to face?" to Jack and he replies "15 to 20."
I immediately ask "Who are we joining with?" to which he shakes his heading indicating we will be going in alone on this which makes me worry. We will have to face 3 or 4 Pigmen individually and they are humanoid which will make it harder to handle even if they are in F grade.
Vimal pats my shoulder with a huge smile on his face saying "Relax man, I am enough to handle these guys, I have already fought in many battles and can handle them. It's just a piece of cake."
Looking at his proud and excited face now, I can't see why he is so proud to be in battles that have taken many lives. It will give us experience to fight longer and how hard and show us how unfair life is, but I don't think it is something to be proud of.
I don't want to tell this on his face, so I control myself and look at Jack who looks annoyed because of him. I look at him and realize this is not the only side mission we will take in this mission as there is still a hint of worry on his face which I am unable to understand.
Jack told us to check our armor and weapons before we started on the task given to us and gave us a few minutes to do that. I checked the armor and the katana that is strapped on my back to see if the strap on the scabbard is tight enough not to slip from my back and allows me to fight without any trouble.