DARKWOOD FOREST
It was the late hours of the morning, the sun hanging in the sky had already begun bathing the earth with its bright and fairly scorching illumination.
Alister and the Muzez Kingdom's crew could be seen journeying on horses through a lonely path leading to the exit of the darkwood forest.
Theobald and Alister rode beside each other in front of the crew, both mounting agile white horses. Behind them were other soldiers riding on black horses.
King Julian and Osborne were in the carriage at the middle of the crew, and there were other soldiers riding behind them, keeping watch.
More than three hours had passed since they began their journey.
The journey so far had been peaceful compared to what they had expected, there were no attacks from wild beasts, and no bandit group had stepped up to sabotage them.
This was very unlike the previous days, when they got attacked almost every hour of their journey. Some of the soldiers even began to speculate that the presence of the great hero had brought luck, preventing all sorts of adversaries.
"Your uniform? Where is it from? Are you part of a special league of heroes in your world?"
Theobald asked curiously.
"Nah, this is a school uniform."
Alister replied calmly while observing the path ahead cautiously.
"School uniform? What's that?"
'I forgot they have no schools here,' Alister sighed and explained what a school was.
He did not forget to make sure the captain realized there is no such thing as heroes on Earth.
"Are you for real? You only read books back in your real world without a single military training, and you can already swing your sword like an expert swordsman who has been practicing for decades. How is that even possible?"
Alister shrugged without answering. Even he knew that his feat at the battle last night was impossible.
On Earth, he couldn't even dare to fight a group of three annoying teenagers, but here he fought and slayed dozens of beings who were several times faster and stronger than an average adult. But how could he explain to the captain that he was that weak back in his world?
Captain Theobald was pretty talkative, even when Alister tried to end the conversation by acting uninterested, the huge captain kept asking different questions to keep the conversation alive.
Another hour passed peacefully, the scorching ray of the sun had become even brighter and hotter, making the atmosphere pretty uncomfortable for the crew, but they kept pushing forward with a single mission in mind.
"We are getting close to the exit. Prepare yourselves, wild beasts usually lay ambush close to this point to attack passersby."
Captain Theobald announced in his loud, hoarse voice.
Following his announcement, the soldiers drew out their weapons and became even more vigilant.
Some of the soldiers riding at the front of the King's carriage slowed down a little and divided themselves into the left and right side of the carriage to protect it from danger attacking those points.
At the front, Theobald and Alister also prepared themselves.
The path became eerily silent, except for the peaceful sound of leaves dancing and birds singing, nothing else could be heard.
The crew proceeded cautiously and vigilantly.
'Why do I feel so uncomfortable?'
Alister felt strange moving along the path even though there were no abnormalities in sight. The feeling was akin to what one would feel while venturing inside a haunted house.
Minutes passed and nothing happened.
Each minute, the crew kept drawing closer to the unseen exit of the darkwood forest.
HOWL! HOWL!!
And then abruptly, several loud howls erupted from different directions, causing turmoil amidst the formerly peaceful crew.
NEIGH!
The horses cried out in fright and halted in their steps, refusing to budge from their positions.
"Wolves."
Alister muttered to himself as he equipped his sword and dismounted his horse, alongside the captain and every other soldier.
"We might be facing a fearsome pack. Your wild-beast extermination training would finally pay off for those who bothered to take the training seriously."
Theobald announced while his eyes scanned his surroundings for the presence of the ambushers.
The place fell eerily silent once again. This time an even more ominous atmosphere wrapped around the crew, a few soldiers even began shivering while scanning their surroundings nervously.
HOWL! HOWL!!
Once again, the loud howls of the wolves reverberated across the place, louder than before, but just like the first, it came from all around, making it difficult to pinpoint a certain direction.
Alister found this extremely odd — wolves on Earth typically hunted in silence, relying on stealth and strategy rather than revealing their presence with a howl.
'Is this a sign that I am about to be greeted with yet another abnormality of this world?'
He wondered.
As if answering his question, the bushes around them began to rustle noisily, revealing the closeness of their adversaries.
The soldiers maintained their stance and engaged their eyes even more.
And then suddenly, several huge figures darted out of the bushes and cornered the crew.
The appearance of the new adversaries quickly unsettled the group.
"Wolves? Horns? Fuck!"
"Damn!"
"It's the infamous horned-wolf species!"
"Ahhh, why them of all wild beasts? This is going to be a difficult battle!"
Cornering the crew were a pack of wolves. They had the same body structure as usual wolves except that they were about 2 meters tall and had bull horns on both sides of their heads.
The huge abnormalities stood and observed their prey with immense killing intent.
Upon seeing them, the soldiers immediately began lamenting.
Even the horses let out loud cries, clearly troubled by the presence of the wild beasts forming an offensive circle around them, blocking all paths of escape.
At the front, Alister had a calm expression on his face despite the appearance of the strange and powerful-looking wolves. He already expected them to appear different thus he wasn't that shaken.
But the soldiers were different.
Theobald could not help but turn his head to his frightened men and sound a warning.
"Stand firm! If horned wolves can shake your courage so easily, how will you face the horrors waiting at the feared South Bridge?"
Of course, there was no response.
Theobald shook his head, clearly disappointed.
He turned to Alister.
"Are you ready?"
"Always."
Alister replied and took an offensive stance against the horned wolves in front of him.
Theobald smiled brightly and nodded, then raised his sword before sounding a war cry to send both soldiers and beasts into motion.
"ATTACK!"
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Deathsketcher corner — Welcome To a new week everyone. We would be holding a weekly power stone mission for bonus chapters release as it is the second week of the novel.
50 Powerstones — 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Powerstones — 5 Bonus Chapters
PROGRESS — 10/50
Bonus chapters would be released immediately.