29 25. Paradise Lost

Rei and Tweyen were running towards the village gate, but when they were about to leave the village, someone stopped them both.

"Both of you, stop! Don't leave the village yet because we have found many monsters roaming around," the hunter guarding the village gate said to Rei and Tweyen.

"This is an emergency, someone is still outside the village and we both want to bring them back," Rei replied to the hunter.

The hunter, upon hearing Rei's words, immediately looked serious. "Still outside? Who is still in the forest?"

"It's my grandmother, she's still gathering herbs in the forest so we want to bring her back," Tweyen replied anxiously and quickly to the hunter.

The hunter, seeing Rei and Tweyen looking panicked, finally allowed them to go out to search for their grandmother.

"Alright, but both of you should quickly find your grandmother because a horde of monsters will soon be moving this way."

"I want to help you but I have a duty to guard this gate and watch the surrounding, so I just hope you are successful in finding your grandmother."

Rei and Tweyen nodded and ran out of the village and entered the direction of the forest where Rei and Tweyen's grandmother usually searched for herbs.

After a while, Rei immediately spread out his four black wings while running and then he went behind Tweyen.

"Kyaaa!?" Rei easily princess carried Tweyen and with a flap of his wings, they both flew.

Rei and Tweyen flew over the forest and then Rei tried to listen for any sounds that could tell him the location of Tweyen's grandmother.

"Damn... I can't hear anything except the wind blowing through the leaves and some monsters, how about you Tweyen? Do you see anything?"

"..."

"Tweyen?" Rei felt confused because Tweyen hadn't spoken at all and so he looked down to see what Tweyen was doing.

Tweyen was holding onto Rei's shirt tightly with a very red face because she had never been carried like this before.

Meanwhile Rei seeing Tweyen's very red face, even reaching her ears, felt like he want to tease Tweyen just like when she's doing it to him before.

But unfortunately, they didn't have time to joke around this time. "Tweyen! Snap out of it, Tweyen, stop daydreaming! We have to find your grandmother before it's too late."

Hearing Rei's shout, Tweyen immediately woke up from her daydream. "Ah!? I'm sorry, you're right, we need to focus on finding my grandmother first."

Rei finally decided to fly around in few area in the forest, while Tweyen stared very focused at the forest to find her grandmother.

After a while, Tweyen informed Rei, "There, Rei! I can see something," pointing in a direction.

Hearing that, Rei flew immediately in the direction pointed out by Tweyen.

When the two of them were close to the location pointed by Tweyen, they could see a large tree and Tweyen's grandmother on one of its branches.

Under the tree, many monsters can be seen growling towards the grandmother on the tree.

"Grandma!" Tweyen felt very worried seeing her grandmother trapped on the tree and she could see that her grandmother is also injured in her arm.

Tweyen's grandmother hearing Tweyen's voice began to look around but could not find anyone because Rei and Tweyen were in the air.

Rei then floated in front of Tweyen's grandmother to place Tweyen near her and check her grandmother's injury.

Meanwhile, Tweyen's grandmother was very surprised to see Rei's wings. "Rei? Those are wings? Why do you have wings on your back?"

"Grandma, let me check your wound first before we can talk about that later" Tweyen immediately approached her grandmother after getting off from Rei's arms.

Rei looked down at the tree and could still see many monsters growling upward, as they could smell tweyen grandmother blood.

"Grandma, Tweyen, I will take care of the monsters below, while you Tweyen try to give first aid to your grandmother" Rei told them both and drew his sword from his waist.

"Be careful Rei, after I finish treating my grandmother's wound, I will come to help you right away," Tweyen nodded and focused to treating her grandmother's injury.

"Be careful Rei, I don't want you to get hurt trying to help this old woman," Tweyen's grandmother warned Rei.

Rei hearing that nodded and covered his sword with his aura. He did not use his golden sword for fear that an attack from it might accidentally cut the tree where the grandmother and Tweyen were.

Rei then moved away from the tree a bit, but the monsters seemed to ignore him as they still wanted to climb up the tree.

After a sufficient distance, Rei immediately struck the ground with his sword creating a very loud sound that sent some of the monsters around flying.

*Booooommmm* The monsters that heard the sound immediately turned their focus towards Rei.

Rei pulled his sword from the shattered ground and saw many monsters ahead of him, slowly advancing towards him.

Rei then took a deep breath and let it out, meanwhile the monster slowly started to approach Rei

"Come at me!" Rei directed his sword covered in his dark aura towards them.

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >

*Slash* Rei easily slashes the monsters attacking him.

*Slash* *Slash* However, even though Rei can easily slash those monsters, their large numbers really overwhelm him.

*Slash* *Swish* Rei slashes and dodges the attacks from the monsters, but their numbers looks like never decreasing.

*Swoooossh* *Stab* Rei hears the sound of an arrow piercing one of the monsters in the head, killing it instantly.

"Rei, I'll support you from behind, just focus on attacking," Tweyen shouts from a direction, seeming to have finished tending to her grandmother's wounds.

Hearing this, Rei smiles and finally attacks the monsters again with no need to worry about evading.

*Stab* Every monster trying to attack Rei is successfully stopped by Tweyen with her bow and arrows.

Rei continues to keep slashing many monsters without worrying about defending, while Tweyen shoots her bow to assist him.

After some time, Rei and Tweyen successfully defeat all the monsters.

"Hahhh.....haaahhhh...hah...." Rei looks exhausted and releases his sword from his grip.

Rei's body is covered in the blood of many monsters, and even his white hair no longer looks white but instead is covered in blood.

Tweyen jumps down from the tree and walks over to Rei, first checking if Rei is injured or not.

After seeing that Rei is unharmed, Tweyen sighs in relief and then she took out a handkerchief from her pocket.

She then wipes Rei's bloodied face while smiling, "Good job, Rei, we successfully defeated all those monsters."

Rei lets Tweyen wipe his face while he tries to regain his strength as he is truly exhausted.

But as time passes, Tweyen's hand starting to slows down, and eventually she stops.

Tweyen is currently gazing at Rei's face in awe, she already knew Rei's face was very handsome, but up close she truly appreciates the beauty of his face.

Meanwhile, Rei, sensing Tweyen has stopped wiping his face but her hand is still on his face for some reason, starts to turn towards her.

Rei can see Tweyen's brown eyes staring at his face, and Tweyen also looks back at Rei's blue eyes.

They both remain in that position for a few moments, Tweyen holding Rei's cheek and Rei gazing at Tweyen's face.

"*Cough* I don't want to interrupt you two lovebirds, but we still have to return to the village," Tweyen's grandmother's voice interrupts their moment.

Tweyen immediately lets go of Rei's cheek, and Rei quickly looks away from Tweyen's face, pretending to look at the tree.

"Grandma!" Tweyen yells towards her grandmother, hearing Tweyen yell makes her grandmother laugh, while Rei can only scratch his cheek as the atmosphere has truly changed in that moment.

A few moments later, the three of them started walking back to the village, but this time their journey was faster than before because Tweyen's grandmother knew a route that would get them there quicker.

Rei did not use his wings as he was conserving his energy for the upcoming battles.

During the journey, Rei and Tweyen explained why Rei had wings and what had happened in the village.

Tweyen's grandmother was amazed because in all her life she had never seen someone with wings like Rei, but when she heard about the conditions in the village, she became serious, and the three of them walked even faster.

As they arrived at the village, the day was growing darker. Upon entering the village, they could see many people going back and forth and carrying supplies for other hunters.

However, they also noticed few peoples carrying injured hunters to the medical area. Seeing this, Rei thought to himself that the battle must have already begun.

"It looks like the battle has already started..." Tweyen spoke as she observed the injured hunters.

"You two better go to where the hunters are gathering to find out the situation, I can go to the medical area myself" the grandmother said to Tweyen and Rei.

Because the situation seemed dire, Rei and Tweyen nodded in agreement with the words of Tweyen's grandmother.

"Yes, we will go to them, Granny, you be careful, and when you're done treating your wounds, come straight home!" Rei replied to Tweyen's grandmother, and they both began to leave her.

They arrived at the place Rei had visited before, and they could see few people still discussing something.

"Captain, can you explain the situation?" Tweyen immediately spoke after seeing the leader of all the hunters.

The captain, upon hearing Tweyen's voice, turned towards her.

"Tweyen, Rei, you finally arrived. I heard you two went to the forest to chase after Tweyen's grandmother? If you're here, I assume you succeeded?"

"We successfully brought my grandmother back to the village, Captain," Tweyen replied firmly to her captain.

Hearing this, the captain sighed in relief, feeling grateful as Tweyen's grandmother is really important to all the people in the village.

"Good job, both of you. In that case, I will explain what happened while you were away."

The captain then informed them that all the hunters were in position to anticipate the upcoming movement of the monster horde.

However, as the day grew darker, all the hunters found it difficult to aim their arrows, so now they could only hope that the monster horde would attack the next day and not immediately.

"Help! They're just too strong! We got ambushed! one of us got left behind to give us more time to run away!" Suddenly, they heard a panicked voice from outside the room.

The three of them then rushed out of the room to check what was happening.

Rei recognized who was shouting; she was a woman who usually teamed up with Rossie. Rei could also see that some members of Rossie's team were injured, but strangely, Rossie was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Ana, are you okay? Where's Rossie?" Rei asked the woman.

Ana, upon hearing Rei's voice, turned towards him. After seeing Rei, she immediately burst into tears and hugged him.

"Rei, please help... Rossie, she... she told us to leave her and that she would give us time to escape..."

"They caught us off guard, and this is the result," another member of Rossie's team added.

"So she's out there alone?" Tweyen was shocked to hear what the hunter said.

Without hesitation, Tweyen left Rei and the others.

"Tweyen!" Rei shouted after Tweyen, who left without any plan.

Meanwhile, Rossie was running to avoid numerous monsters chasing her.

"Hahh....Hahhh..hahhh...I need to be quick," Rossie continued running, but her goal was not to return to the village. If she did, she would bring many monsters with her to the village, potentially injuring the people there.

But Rossie couldn't run for too long as her body was full of wounds from the monsters attacking her.

"Aghhh!" Rossie fell as her body started to weaken from blood loss.

Rossie looked back and saw the monsters running towards her getting closer.

It wouldn't be long before she would be devoured by these monsters.

Rossie sighed in disappointment, as she had just reconciled with her childhood friend. She had wanted to invite Tweyen and Rei for dinner at her house, but after she finished crying, she realized that Rei had disappeared.

Tweyen then informed Rossie that she would look for Rei and tell him about Rossie's invitation for dinner at her house.

However, upon returning to the village, she was informed that many hordes of monsters were going to attack the village. As the best hunter in the village, she finally offered herself to monitor the monsters' location.

Eventually, she and her team discussed it and agreed to only monitor the location of the monster horde.

But they didn't expect the number of monsters to be that high, and they were eventually ambushed by the monsters.

'Sorry, Rei... Tweyen, I can't fulfill my promise to treat you to my cooking' Rossie closed her eyes and heard the sound of a monster leaping towards her.

"PARADISE LOST"

Suddenly, Rossie heard a very loud explosion in front of her. The explosion continued for a few moments until it stopped, and everything became calm.

Rossie heard someone descending from a high place, and she slowly opened her eyes.

Rossie could see a person with white hair and blue eyes staring at her with a very concerned look. Strangely, she could see four black wings behind his back.

"Rei?"