Chapter 36: Signal Flare

BOOM!

A signal flare went up, startling the knights securing the area around Wesnar mountain.

"Haah… Seriously?" one of them scratched the back of his head as he craned his neck to follow the trail of white smoke.

BOOM! BOOM!

BOOM!

Several other flares went off in different directions, making the mountain look like it was on fire by the sheer amount of smoke rising from the canopy of trees.

The knights were in a frenzy with the number of participants forfeiting the game and asking for rescue.

"What the hell is their problem?!" a senior knight complained when his junior reported the signal flare locations to be around the base of the mountain.

They could not understand why so many people were asking to be rescued not at higher altitudes, but rather on the base where the weakest of the weak monsters reside.

"Tch! The participants this year are USELESS!" the senior knight said, but he had no choice other than to do his job, albeit unwillingly.

He called the patrol group into their tent and gave them their tasks, "the two of you, go to this side…" he pointed at one side of the map laid on the table then he turned to another pair and pointed to yet another region where distress calls were dense.

He made the knights go in pairs and only left the bare minimum to maintain safety in the borders.

"Report back to me as soon as you rescue those useless people." The senior knight commanded.

"Yes, Sir!" the pairs answered in unison.

In a short time, an organized rescue operation was underway.

Crunch… crunch…

Two armored knights with swords held on one hand fearlessly treaded over the fallen leaves, confident that they could slay any monster in such a low-danger level area with a single strike.

True enough, the pair of knights slew giant Ermine moths and other E-class monsters that they encountered without breaking a sweat.

"This is too easy…" a red-haired junior knight said while cleaning the green monster blood off his sword, "why do you think so many people asked for rescue?"

"That's simple." His buddy went down on one knee to inspect a bloody trail left on the dried leaves, "Either they were too weak or they were wimps."

He stood up and stared at a distance, "Let's go that way." He said as he pointed to the bushes.

As they neared the location where the signal flare was fired, evidence of struggle became more and more visible.

Splashes of fresh blood stained the ground, and parts of shredded clothing hung from the bushes.

"Judging by the amount of blood, I'd say whoever the victim was had already kicked the bucket." The junior knight casually said while his stoic partner surveyed the surroundings in search for the dead. After all, they had to at least bring a corpse back for reporting purposes.

A puff of white smoke caught his attention.

The two knights approached the signal flare which was still emitting wisps of smoke.

"Hey, is that a hand?" the red-haired knight asked, his eyes glued to the hand that held the flare stick.

The rest of the arm was hidden beneath the bushes. From a distance, it looked like a person had buried himself under the thicket to hide from a monster.

"Well, I guess we found the first person on our rescue list." The junior knight grabbed the hand sticking out of the bush with the intention of hoisting the rest of the body, "Sir, we have come to rescu—what?"

To their surprise, the 'body' that they have come to retrieve was nothing more than a severed arm.

You are reading story Death Ascension at novel35.com

"What the heck?" the junior knight held the arm up.

It was cut at the elbow, but something was out of place—the cut was too clean to be a monster bite. Rather, it appeared to have been sliced with razor-sharp mandibles.

"Isn't this characteristic of Killer ants?" the red-haired knight scoffed, looking at his partner with disbelieving eyes, "He got done in by a KILLER ANT?! SERIOUSLY?!"

The knight's incredulous expression was understandable since killer ants were designated as the weakest monster in the Wesnar mountain. Graded as F-class monsters, the killer ants were the hunters' favorite game during the competition. Not only were they weak, but they were also numerous as they form colonies. In the previous competitions, participants almost invariably brought in only Killer ants to claim their prize. It was considered to be the safest monster to kill so, the fact that a participant was killed by a mere F-class monster came as a huge shock to the junior knight.

"This just means that he was weak." The stoic knight marked a parchment to tally their 'rescued' participants, "Come on, we have more people to save." He folded the parchment and placed it in his pocket.

The Knights continued their search but found no other victims. As if they had vanished into the mountain, leaving only their blood and a smoking flare.

Several hours passed and their fruitless rescue operation ended with a report to the senior knight.

"Sir, we have found a total of thirteen flares on the east side of the mountain, but there was no one to rescue." The stoic knight said.

"The same goes for us, Sir. Nineteen flares, no bodies, and no tracks to follow. As if they magically disappeared…" commented another, but when he noticed his superior's disappointment, he hastily added, "but we do know they were attacked by killer ants."

"Haah… I know. The other groups said the same thing." The senior knight sighed, rubbing his temples as he sat in contemplation.

"Are we going to ask for backup, Sir?" Asked the stoic knight.

The senior knight went silent. He was extremely reluctant to report to the higher-ups. After all, aren't killer ants their only problem? If other senior knights found out, they'd tell their wives, and he'd be a laughingstock in high society in no time.

Finally, the senior knight came to a decision.

"Let's not make this a bigger deal than it needs to be." He stood up, turning his back on his juniors to face the 3rd Knights Order emblem embroidered on the tapestry that hung on one side of the tent.

He has committed more than half of his life to the Order, and he would go to any length to safeguard its honor.

"We will not ask for backup." He resolutely told his juniors, "We shall solve this on our own."

The Knights nodded, oblivious to the fact that their endeavor to maintain their prestige would lead to a greater tragedy.

Meanwhile, Deon was confronted by the very monster that caused the knights' confusion.

Opposite him was a 1-meter Killer ant whose antennae hypnotically swayed to scout its surroundings.

"F—ood…."

Mikael heard its garbled speech through the Reverse Clairvoyance skill and asked, "Deon, do you still have left-over bread? The ant is asking for food."

He had gone back to the medium to preserve his MP. After the encounter with the mercenaries, Deon and Mikael immediately canceled partial integration as their mana pools were almost drained.

They wanted to avoid useless battles for a while to recover but then the ant appeared like a wild pok*mon on their way to pok*center.

As any pok*mon-loving trainer would, Mikael decided to use 'Run' before he 'faints'

"Huh? You can talk to monsters, Sir Mikael?" Deon asked as he cautiously eyed the killer ant while fishing out bread from his space ring.

"Yeah… well, to be precise, I can talk to any living being."

"I see… that's so cool." Deon threw the bread in the opposite direction, like a dog owner playing fetch.

But the Killer ant ignored the steaming bun. Instead, its compound eyes zeroed in on Deon.

"Mu..st… find… foo..d…mus…t…feed…Qu..ee..n…"

--Chapter end--

You can find story with these keywords: Death Ascension, Read Death Ascension, Death Ascension novel, Death Ascension book, Death Ascension story, Death Ascension full, Death Ascension Latest Chapter