Chapter 240: Chapter 239 – Unease

“Fuck,” the lieutenant said, biting the end of the word off. “How far are they, Owl? And how many?”

Owl didn’t reply. He stared at the forest, his eyes still shining bright, as he muttered to himself. The lieutenant waited for Owl to finish. Yuna could hear his foot tapping the ground in a hurried pattern.

“Five minutes,” Owl said at last, his voice calm. “I can’t tell the exact numbers. At least thirty.”

“We have thirty based here right now,” Mason said with a nod. “Shouldn’t be a problem then.”

“Baker.” Owl’s tone drew a frown from the lieutenant. Whatever Owl was going to say, it wasn’t going to be good. “We might need more than thirty.”

“Because?”

“The lowest rank I could see was rank B,” Owl replied. The words drew a groan from Fisher who was listening beside the lieutenant.

“What’s the highest?” the lieutenant asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Possibly, mid rank A. I don’t know how many though. There are at least a few.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Mason groaned. “Owl, stay here and watch. If they start to come, have at them. Fisher, hit the big alarm and then go to the hotel. We’re going to have a very short meeting. Princess, go straight to the hotel.”

With that, the lieutenant turned and leaped off of the concrete wall, falling down the fifteen feet wall. He landed in a crouch before sprinting to the hotel, his wrist to his mouth. An alarm began to blare off to the side of Yuna, shattering the silence of the night. 

“Move your ass, Princess,” Fisher said as he ran by, heading to lift. 

“Why are you going there?” Yuna asked. She gestured for him to follow before putting a foot on the battlement of the wall.

“Oh fuckin’ hell,” Fisher started, but she didn’t hear what he said after. Yuna launched herself, diving into the air as gravity brought her down to the ground. 

A moment later, she heard a small oof as Fisher landed beside her, rolling on the ground. Yuna gave him a nod before running off to the hotel, Fisher’s footsteps pounding the ground behind her. As she ran, the townspeople were stumbling out of their houses, confusion evident on many of their faces. She skidded to a stop in front of the glass doors of the hotel. Inside the lobby, soldiers were bustling about, putting on their uniform jackets as the Lieutenant barked orders to them all, the corporals relaying them to their squads. 

“You two,” Carol said, her voice piercing through the orderly chaos in the room. Yuna and Fisher rushed over to her, slipping by soldiers. “Let me give you the rundown as we head out.”

“Aight, Mama,” Fisher said, Yuna nodding with him. 

“Squad eight!” Carol called out. At her words, six soldiers rushed, forming a rough line in front of her. “We’re going out. You boys know the plan. I’ll be out there with you all when I can. Now move!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the soldiers replied. They ran out, whooping and clapping each other on the back for encouragement. 

“Fisher, Princess. Come with me,” Carol said. “I’ll be making sure the civilians are evacuating. I’ll give you two the rundown while I do that. Make sure to tell Owl. Follow me.”

Carol marched out of the hotel lobby, Yuna and Fisher right behind her. The glass doors closed behind them, shutting out the lieutenant’s booming orders and the clamor of soldiers. 

“First, monsters invading and all that which you two should know about already,” Carol said, her words a torrent. “Second, the thirty of us inside the town are the only ones available to fight off the monsters. We have no backup. The other squads are all too far away.”

Carol knocked on any door that wasn’t open that she passed by. As she did, she would yell out for whoever was inside to evacuate, regardless if there was actually someone inside. She continued her briefing in between knocks.

“We’re doing a two man set up,” she said. Yuna nodded. That meant one vanguard and one mage, the vanguard protecting the mage. Her role was the vanguard. “Rangers will be on the wall providing assistance. You should have your weapons already as you two were on watch, correct?”

“Yep,” Fisher replied. Yuna gave another nod. 

“Good. Our squad will be lined up at the southern wall. Go.”

Yuna saluted and sprinted toward the wall, Fisher on her heels. The southern gate was now open, giving Yuna a clear path out into the field. As she ran, a sword materialized in her right hand from the storage box that was attached to the belt of her uniform. It was a standard issue sword, given to her by the Libra Taskforce for the mission. Yuna found it okay, the weight a bit heavier than she was used to, the length shorter than her personal sword. The main drawback was that the standard sword didn’t conduct magic all that well. 

‘I wish I could have brought the one Yuki made for me,’ she thought as she came to stop in the grassy field. She could barely see the outlines of the other members of her squad a few feet away from her in the midnight darkness. ‘But I had to leave it since I can’t bring personal weapons with me unless I get authorization.’

The communicator strapped to her wrist buzzed and she put it up to her ear. A voice crackled out from it.

“Heads up,” Carol’s distorted voice said. “They’re coming.”

“Got it,” Yuna replied. She raised her voice. “Fisher, you’re ready?”

“Yep. I got your back, Princess,” he replied from behind. “Let’s blow these fuckers up.”

Yuna smiled at those words and readied herself, raising her sword and taking up a stance. Her eyes were glued to the treeline a few hundred feet in front of her, searching for any signs of the monsters approaching aside from the waves of mana radiating out that were rapidly increasing in intensity and frequency.

Then she saw it. Faint red dots that were glowing brighter and brighter as the seconds slid by. Eyes.

“I got a visual,” Yuna said into her wrist. “They’re coming. Fisher, you see it?”

“Yes I do, Princess. I can’t blast them until they get into the open though,” he said. “Owl, can you snipe some of ‘em?”

“I’ll try,” Owl said, his voice barely audible from the communicator. 

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A shaft of light followed his reply, zooming by as it sliced through the air until it disappeared into the forest. A roar erupted out in reply, shaking the ground.

“I might need a few more shots,” Owl said.

“You don’t say,” Fisher replied.

“Heads up, they’re here,” Yuna announced, tightening the grip on her sword.

The monster erupted out from the forest, their eyes shining. The front was led by lesser fenrir wolves and hobgoblins. Following them were trolls and ogres of various sizes all ranging from large to very large. But as Yuna watched their approach, she felt something was off. Every so often, the monsters would glance back only to double their speed. They threw each other out of the way, not a sign of organization even from the lesser fenrir wolves.

But there was no time to think about this. Yuna rushed forward, sword in hand, and intercepted the first wolf that tried to pass by her. This grew that odd feeling of unease within her, but she chose to ignore it for the meantime. She had a job.

The monsters clashed against the thin wall of soldiers, their roars shaking the air. Yuna made a semicircle around Fisher, protecting him from any incoming attacks. She sliced through claws and paws alike as she whirled around like a hurricane. The wolves proved to be the easiest of them all. So too were the hobgoblins. The ogres and the trolls were a different story.

With them, Yuna changed tactics. Just from a few clashes, she could tell their strength surpassed hers. If she were to fight them head on, she would be risking major injury. Magic would have been the best way to kill them, but her sword wasn’t made for such combat. Luckily, she had a friend.

“Fisher, focus the trolls and ogres, leave the small fries to me,” she yelled. 

“Got it!”

Yuna disengaged from the seven foot troll she was holding off and snaked her blade into the head of a wolf that tried to attack her from the side. Changing her grip, she yanked it out and thrusted it into the ribs of a hobgoblin, ducking under a sloppy attack as she did. 

A fireball flew by her head, smashing right into the face of the troll that Yuna had just been fighting. The troll howled, and Yuna took the opportunity to unleash a flurry of blows into the monster’s body, backing away before it had fully regained its bearings. The fireball brought it down.

It wasn’t long into the fight when Yuna realised that there were a lot more than thirty monsters. She had killed ten by then, and there still seemed to be more pouring out of the forest. 

“Owl,” she said, trusting that her communicator would be able to pick up her voice over the screams and howls of the monsters. “How many did you say there were?”

“I did say at least thirty,” he replied. A pause, and a hail of blinding arrows fell from the sky, lightning flickering off of them. “So I’m not wrong. It seems that their numbers grew in those five minutes.”

“By how much?”

“It looks like it tripled,” Owl said. “Good news. It brought the overall ranks of the monsters down. Bad news, it’s still high and you have more to deal with.”

“Beautiful.”

The battle went on, monsters being felled left and right. Injury reports streamed out from her communicator, but none of them sounded serious. Information of the type of monsters came too, as well as the locations of monsters that were deemed a higher threat level. 

One such monster was a minotaur that wielded a giant double bladed axe, the blade chipped from the experience of battle. Rank A from Owl’s reports. At its roars, rocky spikes would erupt from the ground, indiscriminately ripping through anything that got in their way, and earthen chains would follow, binding anything they touched. It took the entire squad combined to take it down, two members sustaining injuries that required them to pull back.

At last, when the sun began to peek out from the horizon and the sky was painted a deep violet, the battle waned. The last of the main threats were defeated, leaving only the fodder for the soldiers to clean up. 

“Injury report,” a voice crackled from Yuna’s communicator. It was the lieutenant. “Sixteen sustained injuries that prevent them from further combat. Five with light injuries. The monsters have stopped and all have been eliminated. Good work everyone.”

Cheers erupted from the soldiers, Yuna smiling at the sound. But the smile was soured by the unease that had only grown in her during the course of the fight. The monsters seemed like they only wanted to get through her rather than kill her. It was as if there was something they feared that far outweighed their instincts to kill. 

“Owl,” Yuna said into her wrist. “Did you think there was something odd about the monsters?”

“I sure did,” Fisher said, his voice coming out from both the communicator and behind her. “They were scared motherfuckers.”

“You saw that?” Yuna asked, putting her wrist down and turning toward him. 

“Yep. They seemed scared of somethin’ out there. It sure ain’t us,” Fisher replied. “Makes me wonder why they’re so grouped together in the first place. That ain’t normal.”

“What do you think?”

“I think somethin’ spooked them,” Fisher mused, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Spooked them enough that they focused on runnin’ instead of killin’ one another. It just so happened that this place was right in their path.”

“What do you think spooked them?” Yuna had learned a while ago that Fisher was much smarter than he sounded. His assumptions had a tendency to be more correct than wrong. 

“I dunno. But whatever it is, it’s got to be some scary ass motherfucker in order to scare fuckin’ rank A’s.”

“Something stronger than rank A’s.” Dread rose up within Yuna as the implications became clear. There was only one rank higher than A.

“Yeah. You’re thinkin’ the same thing I am, aren’t ya, Princess. I don’t like it.”

She was.

“A rank S,” Yuna said. Fisher nodded, his mouth grim.

“A rank S,” he repeated.