After hearing about the worrisome possibility, Jane took a seat next to Lyrus - her back facing the Guild's entrance - and they both waited for Robert who went to pass the message to the attendants of the Guild. Jane's questioning gaze was directed at Lyrus, who according to both him and the Guilds, has been here for 4 years, this being the fourth one. Common sense told her that someone who lived through 3 swarms was bound to have a good deal of experience in the matter, even more so for a warrior who is in constant threat of death on the front lines.

After waiting for several minutes in silence, with Jane constantly looking between Lyrus, the table, and the quest board, Robert came back and Lyrus sat straight to talk with his teammates while waiting for the final member of this small party. Jane was the first to speak, looking at the experienced warrior as if asking for insight in the matter while doing so.

"So, how much trouble this swarm means?"

"It depends on our luck. If this 'early season' is just a coincidence and the swarm is at a normal level we should be fine. However, the previous two swarms were definitely more dangerous than normal, so I doubt this one will be different, it might even be worse than these previous ones." Answered Lyrus while looking at the table, as if seeing a map of the region that's soon going to be dominated by monsters.

Jane felt a little troubled because she couldn't piece how dangerous this swarm would be compared to previous ones, after all, she never experienced a swarm, and starting with such an impossible challenge would not be nice in her opinion.

"But isn't the swarm about armies of monsters trying to invade further into the continent? What is different this time 'round?" Voiced a confused Robert, who had the same question as her.

"During the swarms, monsters would take control of all the land they can with great numbers, slowly advancing over time. However, while doing that, they would fight among themselves for territory, each species would form an army guided by certain leader or leaders and invade other monsters' territory and dwindle their own numbers, thus making it easier for us to hold them back and exterminate them later on."

While listening to Lyrus, Jane started to relate his words to the spike in the number of monsters in these previous swarms. Guessing the line of thought of Lyrus before he could tell about it just to give herself some credit for discovering it before him. 'After all, if I didn't hear his thoughts, they never happened right?' She gave herself this excuse and proceeded to confirm them with Lyrus' explanation.

"So something happened that prevented the monsters to fight each other and forced them to invade further?" She asked, turning her head to the quest board as if it was right in front of her, she could already read the quest about joining the group of one hundred soldiers in reclaiming the fort that was sure to come.

"Something like that, yes. Perhaps their leaders decided to avoid facing each other and invade further into the land, or something else appeared that kicked them out of their place." Answered Lyrus, lost in thought and looking at the ceiling once again.

Jane wanted to ask him why he kept on doing that but decided that looking at the board and imagining the problems the village was facing was much more entertaining than knowing the reason his weird habit's existence.

While she was fixated at the board, intently staring at those reports far away, something swiftly touched her shoulders and slightly shook her body forward, this unexpected development scared her a little bit and her spine jumped as she turned with an "Ah." to look at who did this.

Standing there with a humorous sneer was the girl named Alice, the member of the party they were waiting for and had just reached twenty, the girl kept on giggling at Jane's reaction with azure eyes that stared at her with a childish friendliness, Alice spun her body and with an accurate jump seated herself beside Robert, leaving her bow and quiver at an unoccupied table beside them, all the while still giggling at Jane.

She wore a gambeson like Lyrus and Robert but this one didn't cover her arms and only reached her waist, showing the green clothes beneath it, her hair had a ponytail like Jane's but it was slightly shorter and blonde instead of dark. She slightly leaned her body on the chair, she rested an elbow on the table and let out a small laugh along with Robert, saying "The face she made." while at it.

Jane sighed and looked back at Lyrus, who completely ignored the prank in front of him just to continue immersed in his own world. She rested her head in her palm and spoke, bringing back Lyrus from wherever his mind was.

"So, let's say that something is forcing them away from their territory, what could it be?"

"A species thousands of monsters strong? A stronger type of monster that formed an army? A disaster that destroyed their homes... probably not. It also could be the two things at the same time? Oh, didn't see you there. Hi, Alice." Said Lyrus, scanning the people around the table.

"Good morning, friend. By the way, what are you guys talking about?" Asked Alice in a curious tone.

"What do mean the two at the same time?" Jane ignored Alice and asked Lyrus.

"Perhaps the monsters were always waiting, fighting each other out of instinct to conquer the land, and now whatever they awaited for appeared and they are following its orders. This would also explain why they simply stopped attacking each other and 'united' against us." Lyrus answered

"That last one is too big to be true, you didn't smoke anything before coming here right?" Alice - in spite of having no idea of what was happening - commented with some humor in her voice, her precision amazed Jane.

"I never said this was the case. Besides, the world doesn't seem to like common sense these days, just the fact that monsters focused their attacks on our settlements alone these last swarms - having no internal fights while doing so - shows how south things have gone.

Jane shrugged, then leaving the chair and picking up her bag and staff beside the board, coming back to face Lyrus and ignoring the bored Alice that was looking at her fingernails, she spoke.

"We're all here so let's not lose more time and go get some goblins."

"So that's your preference?" Asked Alice, leaving Robert - who was about to make the same comment - no chance to say anything.

The rest of the party then prepared to leave with a sighing Jane on the side. Lyrus and Robert just stood up and exited the Guild, Alice followed soon after picking her quiver and her bow. Robert explained to the girl what they were talking about on the way to the gate.

After exiting through the large gate, the party continued to walk into the deep forest, the air - although hot - was pretty humid, puddles - some small enough to cover some bumps on the ground and some big enough to occupy a house's area - could be seen behind the closest bushes.

The trees far from the road blocked the sunrays and made the deeper parts of the forest almost as dark as the night, small animals jumped in and about by the forest, insects traveled by the bushes and trees and cicadas sang with an annoying sound, the ambient still suffered from yesterday's rain.

But even this damp and dark forest didn't stop a certain girl from bravely challenging its dangers.

Lyrus thought in wonder at how Alice could simply change personalities when entering the creepy forest, her childish attitude turned into a serious looking face while she quickly ran further down the road, eyes scanning bushes and trees close to the road, sometimes going out of the road to check the deeper parts of the forest for anything to hunt. She seemed to be especially wary of the puddles covered in mud that could either barely touch the soles of your boots, or engulf half of your legs.

The party had nothing to talk about today because Lyrus was still dozing off at his own world, Jane was constantly thinking the report about the goblins in her mind, Robert was just worried about the danger that could befall the party in the near future and Alice went further the road, away from the party.

After going deeper in the forest through the road, sometimes the party would pass in an area where all the trees and some shrubbery had disappeared. Splinters of wood here and there in the ground.

This was not the first time the group saw this, it's just that this phenomenon was supposed to happen further in the forest, north-west, in the direction of the sea. However, as worried as the group could be, they could do nothing more than guess that it should be related to monsters and keep going, searching for whatever caused this.

Instead of finding a tree-eating monster, however, the party found a group of 8 goblins resting beside some bones that they used as weapons, some were laying on the ground and other were sitting on the grass, close to a cave of sorts.

The green monsters were around 1,40 meters tall and just used leather as clothing, covering their lower half. Their faces were horrendous and had long noses spiking out of them, their heads constantly turned to this side and the other like chicken's and the ones standing were almost in fours when walking.

After catching sight of their prey, the party prepared an ambush, Lyrus went with Alice to find a good place to shoot, while Robert stayed with Jane waiting for Alice's first strike.

Soon enough, the first arrow stuck to the throat of one of the beasts laying on the ground, the rest of the monsters turned to the origin of the arrow and ran on all fours, bones in hand.

However, before approaching the bushes 2 of them were hit by stones the size of their heads, one was hit in the waist and fell to the ground in pain and the other flew half a meter away, half of his head missing and part of what would be his brain all over the ground. The confused and unintelligent bunch of beasts paused for a moment before turning and heading to where the stones came.

Another arrow came from the forest and took out another goblin, but this time they ignored it, still heading in Jane's direction. Jumping through the bushes, the monsters were received by longsword of similar size as them that took the life of other two monsters, of the remaining two goblins one went head on trying to beat Robert and the other went for the human's right side.

However, the monster that tried to circle Robert was hit in the chest with a rock and couldn't get up again, the warrior didn't need to worry about being cornered and easily disposed of the goblin in front of him, using the height and reach advantage to deal with the monster.

After killing the two injured goblins, Lyrus left from his spot along with Alice and took his ID crystal out of his pocket, he passed it in front of the monster's eyes - except for the one that got his head blasted away. A fait blue light shined and some 'beep' sounds came with a mechanical voice that said.

[Organism detected, scanning... Organism identified as 'goblin', monster's bounty confirmed, record saved.]

With a nod, Lyrus lead his teammates deeper into the forest, they could still hunt another group before heading back to the village, so they kept going. Alice once again ran in front of the group, eventually leaving their sight.

The shadows in the forest deepened and the yellow rays of the sun turned redder and brownish along with the passing of time, the sun was just a few hours from reaching the horizon, giving the already disturbing forest an even creeper edge.

In the middle of the road, Alice ran back to the group, everyone knew that this meant monsters ahead but the warning came anyways.

"Monsters ahead, a nest of spiders, around fifteen outside. The road is part of their territory, follow me, I'll get us through." She said objectively, turning to their left.

Lyrus looked at what could be seen of the sky through the leaves and brushes, he noticed that the light was somewhat weak, almost gray colored. He then faced Alice and said, a calm and practical voice left his mouth, almost as if congratulating her diligent work inside the forest.

"No. It's getting dark, let us go back before night comes."

Jane took a map out of her backpack and asked Alice to mark the monster's territory, then the party went back to the village. On the way back Robert asked the group.

"Hey, is the swarm really coming early this year? I didn't notice any difference from before."

"Oh, it is." Answered Lyrus, sure of this fact. "Remember those goblins we killed before? They were not from the group who invaded Fort Baxter, if they were, their weapons would be made of iron as is with all other goblins forming an army. And I bet that Alice didn't find the other end of that spider nest back there."

"So today we just weren't lucky, huh." Commented Ronald, more to himself than anyone else.

Jane then hit her palm with a fist and said after making sure everyone's attention was focused on her.

"Hey! The reclaim of Fort Baxter will happen next week. Let's join the troop!"

"Agreed." Said Lyrus after a few second of thoughts, aware that - even though the call hasn't been announced yet - the village's military would not leave the fort empty, not to say filled with monsters. Robert also accepted though he was a bit pessimistic about that request and everyone already knew that Alice - who already went to scout the way back - would not even think twice before accepting the offer after reaching the village.

And so their days on the forest ended without tragedies; when they returned to the Guild to fetch money from the goblins deaths and the spiders' nest in the forest, a call from the military hanged on the guild board, confirming Jane's guess about the fort's retake.