Trespassing into the areas of highly territorial Magical Creatures was an idea so stupid that it was common sense not to do it.
Not only should people not do it, but going anywhere near a non-human creature was so suicidal that it was considered pure lunacy.
However, accepting a mission to invade another country's land and steal highly valued treasures… That was even more crazy.
Although the seven-man team wanted to avoid any and all confrontations, upright breaking into someone's house was bound to draw the homeowner's ire.
Whether it was man or beast.
In fact, they were getting a firsthand taste of that right now.
Blaine gazed into the impass of trees but couldn't see any traces of black and yellow sticking out through the dense foliage.
But inside… He knew.
The creature was still there, watching them.
And it wouldn't be long before more creatures like that appeared.
Some Magical Creature species were quite similar to humans in some aspects, despite lacking the intelligence of one.
The bee-like creature belonged to one such species.
After laying his eyes on it during his earlier surprise attack, Blaine could recall information about the creature from the Online Creature Database.
The Creatures were collectively called Tristings… For obvious reasons.
While they had a much more intricate scientific name, that was the general name given to them.
A name that wouldn't lose out to the 'Rock Crabs' from earlier.
The Tristings were a species that lived in communities centred around a singular queen, forming large colonies between several tens to several hundreds strong.
The colony's strength and numbers were heavily dependent on that of the queen, with a stronger queen being able to birth stronger drones, which would then hunt more powerful prey to feed to their queen.
Making her stronger and repeating the cycle.
Based on Cecelia's Power Analyzer readings, the creatures fighting them were simply Rank 1s and only Imps and Goblins.
Basically just small fry.
But even these small fry could quickly kill even the toughest 2-Star if they managed to catch them off-guard.
All it took to kill someone was one well-placed attack.
Fighting against enemies that used guerilla tactics was an uphill battle.
Just as Blaine was searching for their second adversary, he saw the first creature move in his peripheral vision.
Two long venomous needles zipped through the air, aimed directly at Blaine's heart and head with pinpoint accuracy.
Lifting his sword, he effortlessly cut down both approaching needles in one fluid motion.
As he did this, he saw a man wielding a large war hammer jump out of the ground, bringing his weapon down on the bee-like monster's skull.
The creature had tried to fly higher to avoid the attack. Still, after taking the time to attack Blaine, it could not dodge.
(BANG)
As the war hammer ruthlessly tore through the creature's skull, the monster's body convulsed before falling to the ground lifeless.
Just as it managed to fully regenerate its last stinger, too.
Not that it would have done much to save it.
"Blaine! We'll go back underground!"
Shouting to the auburn-haired youth, Rick manipulated the earth to swallow both of them.
But before he could, a sudden voice rang out.
"No need… The one that just attacked you is dead."
Appearing from the same direction as the sudden earlier assault, a middle-aged woman holding a pair of daggers announced.
Following her was a dishevelled Delsie.
Lyn threw a look at the killed Tristing and then another at Rick.
"The Princess?"
At Lyn's questioning, the ground opened up, with Ginny and Cecelia stepping out.
Lyn studied the princess for a few moments before nodding her head.
"We need to get moving as soon as possible… Lest we encounter any more of their kind. It won't be long before they swarm our location in large numbers."
Rick frowned for a moment before dejectedly nodding his head.
It seemed they wouldn't even have the time to harvest the mana cores from the slain creatures.
Being a 2-Star didn't diminish the mana he would get from a Rank 1 Mana Core.
At the end of the day, mana was mana, after all.
But considering the danger of their current situation, it was a perfectly logical choice.
Quickly returning to their abandoned backpacks, the group hastily fled the area, running as fast as they could.
Lyn even took Cecelia's backpack from her and carried it herself to avoid wasting as much time as possible.
While they occasionally encountered the odd Tristing, luckily, none of the creatures managed to get the drop on them.
Despite the immense drain on her mana, Delsie began constantly channelling her Mana Art to maintain her sharpened senses.
Using this, the captains reversed the Tristing's tactics back on them.
Making use of handgun-like weapons, they shot and killed each creature from a distance.
Although they each had a primary weapon they used, it was standard procedure to keep one ranged weapon for long-range enemies.
These were smaller versions of the unique rifles that the soldiers typically used. These rifles used special mana cores that acted like batteries to store mana.
This stored mana would then be fired off as beams of pure energy.
While the strength of attack depended on the strength of the mana loaded into the weapon, it allowed even people without mana cores to use them.
Having loaded it with their own mana, the energy blasts from the weapons were on par with an attack from a 2-Star.
Something more than enough to take down Rank 1 Magical Creatures.
Their military supremacy allowed them to effortlessly take down all creatures they encountered.
However, as time passed, the group began to notice a concerning trend.
The number of bee-like monsters began to increase the further they travelled.
At first, they would encounter one or two odd bees wandering around, but over time, that number became three or four, and the frequency of encounters increased as well.
Soon, they were ambushing groups with upwards of five Tristings every several minutes.
Lorie cursed as she checked the remaining charge on her handgun.
It was already falling below twenty percent.
While they didn't eat up as much mana as Blaine's Rank 3 longsword, the handguns didn't exactly have small appetites either.
It was so bad that it would cost Rick less mana to swallow their targets under a tide of earth.
If the guns weren't already pre-loaded, they wouldn't even bother using them.
"Damnit! What's going on? Are they somehow tracking us?"
Ginny shook her head.
"They shouldn't be smart enough to read our movements… So it's probably something else."
Delsie narrowed her eyes as a dangerous thought emerged in her head.
"Hey… You don't think our path cuts directly through their main nest, right? That… That would be too horrible, even for a joke."