After reaching the clearing, we noticed that the actual buildings for UniPo are farther than we thought. There should be over 1.5km between us and the possibly struggling students. The other thing we noticed was that the buildings themselves weren’t that broken down. Actually it looked like a 4 floor high one was in a really good state considering the circumstances.

The last thing we noticed was a group of people that was heading toward us. People, not monsters, or at least, they are humanoid enough and don’t have elongated limbs like the ones we saw back in the ruined town.

“Brace!”

Following Captain Hertz’s command, the soldiers are back in a fighting formation, surrounding us non-combatant. Paul “drew” out his antler-sword and Jeremy is now in his usual fighting stance, fist clenched.

We continued walking towards the group, but slower than usual. However, the group didn’t seem to slow down. They’re now close enough to make out their features, they’re humans! There’s one guy wielding some sort of weapon. It looks like a broomstick with a knife stapled on it. He is quite muscular. Another one wears some kind of knuckle-dusters despite his skinny looks, contradicting with the usual anatomy of fighters. There’s a girl that is looking all around in the forest behind us and finally, a really tall dude. The guy is taller than the rest of his group but he doesn’t really strike me as a fighter somehow?

Now stopping 10 meters away from us, the tall one talks:

“You are soldiers? Do you know what happened?” He asks, confidently. “We are from UniPo and have isolated ourselves inside our dormitory since the strange notice. There are wolves living aro-”

“They’re coming! Eleven o’clock! Three of them.” Interrupts the girl that was watching the forest the whole time. Now her eyes at the position she noticed.

“We’ll continue talking later! Paul, John, can you manage them?” Asks the tall student.

To the mention of his name, Paul is a bit surprised but the muscular man with the homemade spear answers before Paul can react further.

“I can manage one if Lea supervises all of their movements.”

“I can kill one with enough time if the last one doesn’t interfere with the fight.” Says the knuckle-duster wearer.

“Could you fight the last one?” questions the tall one. “I’m sadly not a fighter and you somehow came from the forest, I guess you could manage, right?”

It would seem this guy has a skill similar to mine because Hertz is already acquiescing.

“Alright, soldiers, in formation in front of the civilians! All the non-fighters stay behind. Paul, Jeremy could you occupy the Monster? We will be flanking the left one.”

The two men agree and are already off.

“Beware, this one acts differently compared to the others, it might be this pack Leader.” says the wary girl, Lea.

“Roger.” Is Captain Hertz’s curt response.

Hurrying towards the apparent Leader of this group of students, I look behind me and see the skinny student actually punching the black wolf in its snout. A yelp comes out of the creature and it is pushed a bit by the impact.

“I can’t believe it, how can someone so skinny do that?” I whisper.

“That’s John’s spell, he can punch harder with magic.” Says Lea, still a few meters away from me and still warily looking at the fight.

“Wait, you heard me?!” I let out, surprised by her acuity.

“Yes, that’s the point of my Class, being on the lookout.” She supplies. “Paul! Attack it’s left hind leg!” She shouts.

To that, I look toward where she was looking. It’s the middle wolf, the one managed by the muscular man. He just did as she said, puncturing the limb without any retaliation from the animal.

“Focus on its head now!” Lea shouts again.

And there Paul delivers. The handicapped monster didn’t have the time to react and got its right pierced by a swift stab from Paul’s make-do weapon.

The fight ended.

Rectification, the fights ended. It would seem that the first punch from John was enough to stun it, which then let him finish the creature off.

For our group’s part, the distractions were enough to make the wolf fire off his black balls towards the constantly moving Jeremy and Paul while the sheer number of soldiers cornered it.

Then, the muscular student just lifted the wolf and took it on his shoulders.

“Alright, we got a bit more meat now.” He says walking up to us.

“That’s good. I propose we walk back to the dormitory to actually talk, then.” Says their Leader. “I’m David, by the way. Nice to meet you. I’m the students’ chosen Leader.”

“I’m Captain George Hertz, this group of soldiers leader. We were thinking of checking up on you after what happened. We walked from the town center to here for the past 14 days after having noticed that the center was too dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Are there wolves too over there?” Asks David.

“No. Nothing of the sorts. The Notice startled more than one and lots of accidents arose in the first few minutes. Add to that Creslins, and it was the end.”

“Creslins, what is that? Is this one of those famous species from another world?”

“No, I don’t think so. They were here from day one and attacked everyone that wasn’t one of them. They looked like small children with elongated limbs, grey skin, claws and eyes totally black. They also had pointy ears.”

“I see, so other monsters then? They never tried talking?”

“Indeed. They gave a bit of beast and dark.” Adds Paul.

“Oh, so like the Nheic?” John tunes in.

“Nheic?” asks Captain Hertz.

“Yes, the wolves. I was the one that got the kill so I saw its name. However it would seem they got more Dark Aspects.” supplies one of the soldiers.

“Oh, it would be interesting for Mélanie to kill some, then, wouldn't it?” asks Lea.

“Yeah, she’s a Dark Mage indeed, it might help her-”

“What? Mage? Aspects help them?” I cut David off.

“Ah! We will fill you in with all we know inside.” He answers, looking a tad surprised. “Come on! Enter, this is our bastion of 60 students trying to survive with electricity and water coming only from Mages.”