Chapter 10 Meanwhile on the Human Side of Things... (2)

The duo were stunned by the sudden news. Although their team had reported the presence of a new creature in the dead forest, no one had mentioned anything about it being evil.

William hurriedly grabbed Varun and barged through the crowd.

At the notice board in the tavern, a group of armored adventures surrounded a man in an obviously expensive outfit.

"You are the noble planning an expedition to the dead forest?"

The noble glanced over with an obvious look of disdain.

"And who might you be?"

"I'm the one who reported the presence of the new creature in the dead forest. And let me just say, it is a terrible idea to go try and kill it."

William frowned. He hated dealing with nobles because they were always so arrogant and stuck up, as if being rich could stop them from being killed when fighting monsters. Of course there were a few exceptions, but the man in front of him clearly wasn't.

He also disliked that group of adventurers. They were his team's self proclaimed rivals, and would do everything they could to try and prove that they were better than William's team.

"First, that creature has regeneration. Even if it can't keep healing infinitely, it would still be incredibly hard to deal with. Both swords and magic did little to harm it. Second, it can quite literally drain your life force. Third, we have reason to believe it will not actively attack humans unless they intrude upon its territory."

Here, Varun interrupted, waving around the paper about the Kisen.

"I believe that the creature should belong to a species of ancient beasts called Kisen. They are known for being guardians of forests. As long as we don't enter the dead forest, it will not actively attack us."

The noble snorted with disbelief.

"So what if it won't leave the forest? It's still clearly an evil beast. Our mage could detect its dark magic even from the outer border of the forest. Most demons just hide in the darkness because they're too scared to face us head on, but that doesn't mean that they aren't evil or scheming anything."

And with those words, the other group of adventurers plus the one noble began to pack up and gear up. Two of the adventurers stepped forward to block Varun and William from interfering.

As the group left, one of them turned back towards William and Varun.

"Just wait until we come back and prove that we are definitely way better than you guys!"

The man sneered then returned to the rest of his group.

"Should we do anything about them?"

Varun turned to William with a confused expression once the high chance of death-seeking party of adventurers had left. This was the first time he had seen someone openly ignore such a clear warning.

"Of course, we follow, just in case! Tell the rest of the team to meet us at the dead forest border. Anyways, it happened before you joined us, but one time, a noble's son ignored the warnings our team provided and got badly injured. Even though it wasn't our fault his father, the noble, wanted someone to blame. Luckily the son was kind enough to intervene for us, but I don't know if the same thing will happen this time. We've met the forest guardian before. Maybe we can communicate with it and convince it to let that arrogant prick off easy."

Varun quickly activated a quick spell to broadcast his voice to the other three members, telling them to meet up at the border of the dead forest as soon as possible.

One the spell was complete and the rest of the team sent their acknowledgements, Varun and William grabbed their horses and set off in hot pursuit of the self proclaimed rivaling team of adventurers.

By the time the duo had reached the outskirts of the dead forest, the rest of the team had already assembled.

Sylvie, the priestess, was not in her usual robe, but she had her usual belt full of healing potions and her priest's staff.

Lilith, the frost witch, looked more prepared, wearing her usual attire for battles and adventures.

Compared to the two girls, Jared, the archer, was still half asleep, though at least his bow was strung and his quiver was full of new arrows.

"So why —yawn— did you call us to come here?"

Jared glanced around sleepily at the dead trees that surrounded them.

"Some noble kid thought it'd be a good idea to risk his life in exchange for some glory and decided to go hunt the creature we met previously. The one that was able to drain my strength and could communicate with us. With him are the group of adventurers who always say that they're our rivals."

Varun hurriedly gave a quick summary of the situation, which woke up Jared rather quickly.

"Another one? When will they learn? We're professional adventures who fight demons and dragons for a living! Why do they think they would be able to succeed where we didn't? They don't even bring actually strong adventurers..."

Sylvie suddenly spoke up.

"We have never defeated a dragon though?"

Jared waved a hand in the air, amused.

"It's just a figure of speech Sylvie. I just mean that we fight a lot of different and dangerous things."

William quickly interrupted the conversation that was starting to derail.

"Back to the topic at hand. We need to try and prevent any casualties from happening. But of course, our lives are always the priority. Understood?"

Four other choices rang in a synchronized chorus.

"Understood, Captain!"