Derb slammed the door shut, loud enough for all the goblins to freeze in shock. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Guys, I really messed up. Like, really bad.” The goblins gave way as he rushed towards the pack to take out the badge they'd given him, marking him as a common rank mercenary. They gave it to him along with a fancy pouch, something he was grateful to get after the fight. He wondered if they'd take It away, or worse, punish him for telling them inadequate information. Connor removed his helmet and chest plate while he searched his book on demons on whatever could possibly have been out there.

Connor had gotten used to the spastics and erratic acts of his master, deftly removing the armor without inconveniencing him. He left on the gauntlets and pants, however. His master was too busy for him to take care of those. He sat down in the corner of the bed as Derb flipped through the pages, looking for anything on that level of strength. Something that could fling apart monsters that heavy with pure strength, while having the magical capabilities to take out Connor before he could even see it?

Slowly but surely the options narrowed down to three options, two of which were obviously no use thinking about. The monster in question was either a cockatrice, a fire elemental, or a goddamn dragon. The fire elemental was probably the least likely since there wasn't enough fire mana in the area to create it. A dragon that was similar in the mana would be absolutely nowhere near the density required to birth a dragon. Also, the dragon would have destroyed the entire area long before any of them would have the chance to figure out it was there.

All that was left was the cockatrice, a dragon like entity with a beak for a mouth and other birdlike features. It was twice bigger than a warhorse and four times as strong. It could breathe fire and had certain mind magic as well, able to paralyze its prey as long as it maintained eye contact. It's poisonous claws and teeth helped kill its prey while it was paralyzed, usually aiming for the heart. That's all he knew since the drawings of the monster in the book looked like a child with poor hand-eye coordination had drawn them. It was supposedly a high-ranked monster, something a small town like this wouldn't be able to handle. And all he had reported was a bunch of ogres…

He rushed out of the inn with the badge and book in hand, leaving behind his sword and upper part of his armor. He ignored the confused looks of people as he ran as fast as he could, scaling past a wall and leaping onto a roof. He jumped over a building to land right in front of the guild, rushedly opening the door and knocking someone down in the process. It was Francis, the archer of the group he'd fought in the arena, the one with the summoner. "Oh, I'm sorry, man. I wasn't looking."

He reached a hand out to help but was slapped away. He suddenly remembered Francis liked him the least of the group. He stood up and dusted off his clothes, sneering at Derb. "A lot of help you've been recently, where were you all day? Ever since you told us about the mana surge you disappeared. " Derb paused before realizing that's probably what they called the rise in mana density. "I'm sorry about that, I was checking out the forest a short while ago and-" Francis grabbed him by the shoulder, shock and anger clear in his face.

"You went BACK in there? I heard you almost died last time, you idiot!" He turned Derb around and pulled his shirt up, checking Derb for any wounds. "H-hey! Get off me, I was extra careful this time so don't worry about me." He wasn't, he was just lucky, or maybe Mist was good at avoiding monsters. Francis let go of his shirt and folded his arms, unsure whether he'd let him off. "You idiot, there's been a surge of poisonous monsters in the forest lately, if even one got through your armor you’d have to spend over a hundred silver to heal it."

Derb reeled at the cost, making sure to not step another foot in the forest while whatever was happening was happening… speaking of which. “Thanks for the information but I have to warn everyone about something. Make sure you don’t let anybody you know into the forest for now, ok?” He pushed past the archer to get to the counter, everyone was in disarray today as well, only a few of the counters were occupied with personnel. He noticed the girl from before, one of the only ones that looked calm about the whole situation. “Hey, uh… what was your name again?”

She gave him a tired smile, obviously a bit exhausted over what was happening. “It’s Cherryl, and thank you for the information yesterday. We’ve sent mercenaries in already and are hoping to finish this by the week. I can’t hand you any bounties for now but-” Derb slammed his hands on the counter, horrified about what he heard. “What!? No, wait. You don’t understand, there’s something much worse than ogres and poison whatevers.” He flipped the book to the bookmarked page, the one with the cockatrice. “I went back to the scene and saw the aftermath of something that can tear apart ogres.”

She looked at the book with mild disinterest, only to close it and push it back to him. “We’ve already considered the idea of a brute-rank poison demon entering the forest, the poison… monsters ticked that off.” She put a hand on top of his, her eyes full of worry. “You seem a bit tired, make sure not to take all this on on your own. If you want you can enter the expedition tomorrow, we’ll be able to take care of everything faster with more people.” He opened his mouth to argue, before realizing how he looked. His hair was disheveled from the helmet and matted to his forehead with sweat.

The dark in his eyes had sharpened the past week due to stress. He’d spent little time actually relaxing and mostly went around trying to either gain money or worry about money. Even today, a day that was supposed to be one of fun and relaxation, had blown up in his face. He realized that he knew a lot less than everyone here, an idiotic charge through a forest wasn’t going to change that. “Yeah… I'll do that. I guess I've just been running around a lot.” I’ll be here tomorrow, I'm going to read or something.”

She nodded as he picked up the book and walked away, heading back to Francis. The man was sitting alone at a table, drinking while staring at the ceiling. “What’s got you looking so down? And why are you alone? I thought you and the rest of the team were all buddy-buddy.” The archer glared at Derb before taking another swig of his mug. “The forest is full of poisonous monsters, high-ranked ones. Unfortunately, their poison isn’t natural, purely made from magic, so I can't do jack to them.”

Derb wasn’t going to ask the difference between magic and natural poison, or why that mattered. “So… Farrel and the other team members are out there fighting whatever’s in there? That doesn’t seem safe.” Francis waved his arm dismissively, “Natalie’s with them, I doubt anything in there can out poison her. We’ve always been blessed to have such a kind healer on our side, it’s a wonder she stays with Francis and me.” He took another swig, Derb wondered how many cups he had.

“Uh, you three knew each other before all… this?” He motioned towards a group of cheering brawny men, one man in the middle halfway through a table full of alcohol. Francis looked disinterestedly at the group, before taking another swig. “Don’t mind them, they’re always like this before a big hunt. Out of everyone in the group, me, Francis and Natalie are the only ones who were friends as children. The number of people that tried snatching her up when they found out her attribute was insane. Some even threatened her family.”

Derb looked at the empty mug in Francis’ hand, maybe he should stop him before he said anything too private. “We had to run, it was the only thing she ever asked of us, so we ran away from-” Derb shot forward and put a hand over the archer’s mouth, cold sweat going down his back. “Look, you’re drunk. Maybe you shouldn’t be saying this to a guy you don’t get along with.” His eyes, glossed over before, sharpened almost immediately, the color leaving his face just as fast. He slapped the hand away and took a deep breath, trying to get the alcohol out of his system.

“You… piece of shit…” He said through gritted teeth, fist clenching and threatening to punch him before he calmed down again. “No... I’m sorry, and thank you for shutting me up. I don’t usually wander too far from the group.” He slumped into his chair, all the energy seemingly sapping from his body. Derb just nodded, he didn’t say it out loud but Francis did seem to be the most antisocial of the group. Even the summoner, Mana, was friendly enough to talk to others. This guy was more of a lone wolf type. He watched as Francis depressedly asked for another round, the waitress worriedly asking him if he was sure he hadn't had enough.

He cringed at the scene, maybe “lone wolf” was a bit too cool of a title. “Hey, man. I think you’ve had enough, how about we go train? The guildhall has a shooting range, right? You think you can take a good shot while drunk?” Francis scoffed, waving away the waitress. “I could make a shot with my hands tied behind my back and poison shot down my neck. Your shoulder and back should know this by now. How the hell could you move your sword with that thing in your arm by the way?” Derb grinned at the backtalk, unconsciously running his hand through the place the arrow went through, no scar thanks to his weird ability.

“My armor sticks the sword to my hand. It sucks when the other person is way stronger than me but usually, it helps me stay in the fight. I was basically fighting with one hand and a stump.” Francis smiled grimly before standing up, “Someone with armor like that wouldn’t be crying for money every day for the past week. Let’s go.” He started walking towards the shooting gallery, Derb rushing to stay behind. “It’s true! And it’s only been four days since I lost all my money, you can hardly call that a week.”

___

Derb was laying on the bed, First was jumping on top of him trying to reach the top of the ceiling, the ceiling Fifth was already clinging onto. Derb groaned as the muscles in his body strained for the first time in weeks. He practiced swinging his sword while training with Francis, who he swore was born with the bow in his hand. He trained long after Francis left, making sure to remove his armor and any enhancing spells on his body. The sword felt heavy and clunky in his hand, something that felt unfamiliar to him.

He tried holding it in one arm, the weight so much that he could only hold it out for a few seconds. His arms were so skinny, so was the rest of his body. The gauntlets had hidden most of the damage but now that he was inspecting himself he realized how much of a disaster he truly was. His muscles were tight on his skin, as if he’d been severely dehydrated for months, he guessed that was the reason he’d been feeling the need to sleep more lately. He activated the boar spell, sighing in relief as the tension floated from his body.

“Hey, second. Go to the inn lady outside and ask her to bring you as much food as 15 silver can get me. Remember to hide your face.” Second nodded, wrapping his face in a way that made him seem like a sickly child, rather than a pale goblin. He’d been used for most of the outside work since his voice was starting to become the smoothest of the five. Ironically he was the one that seemed to be using his voice the least. Only choosing to calmly speak when the situation called him. “Yes, boss. Do you have any preference?” The goblin asked, tucking his ears inside the wrappings while putting on his shoes.

His speaking mannerisms had become fancier, more eloquent. It was suspicious until Derb had caught him reading one of his books, one based on geographical battle that he never bothered to read. It had been weird at first since all the others talked like little gremlins but Second quickly became his favorite, for these exact purposes. “No, just tell her to make it balanced… I feel like I’ve been losing too much weight lately.” Second went off without a word, his little footsteps heard for just a bit outside the room.

Derb sighed and rolled over, unbalancing First’s jumping attempts and having him fall off the bed. His stomach growled as he thought about what was to come tomorrow, a giant expedition to enter the forest… and do what, exactly? Shit, he’d never thought to ask, would it just be a hunting squad? How would that help get rid of whatever was creating the mana density? If it was enough to spawn a cockatrice or whatever the hell treated the ogre corpses like scrap then surely whatever it was would be hard to get rid of.

He thought about mana cores, the things certain monsters had in them to contain a larger force of mana. They weren’t really something worth thinking about unless you were an extremely high-ranking adventurer, since only things on par with brute rank or higher-level demons ever had a chance to drop one. Monsters like them were not hard to spot, with a degree of power much higher than normal demons of the same species. He didn’t think the cockatrice was one, Connor would have disappeared in a billow of smoke after the first blast, otherwise.

How the hell do you even get rid of mana density like that? Was it like how he gathered mana around him and compacted it? How would a monster even know how to do that on such a large level!? He almost started to quantify the uncontrollable power of nature until Second came in, slowly carrying a large platter over his head. “Um, boss… were you going to eat or sleep?” Derb jumped out of bed, all thoughts leaving his head. “Come on, Second. You could have asked for more meat.”