Arkbridge City - People

The sun had started to set across the city's ruins, its warmth slowly dissipating, replaced by the bone chilling cold of night.

Within this city, a young man wearing torn clothes caked in blood, carefully walked the rubble covered streets, using collapsed buildings as cover.

By this point Osirus had been walking for an hour and a half, yet he hadn't come across anything, not those beasts nor humans.

Unfortunately he had also not come across any food, it seemed the entire city was ransacked, from weapons to clothes to food, the only things left were the body's of dead citizens.

As he stepped over another corpse, a familiar sound grated against his ear drums, causing his entire body to tense up, "Screee!".

He immediately took cover behind a collapsed wall as he heard footsteps closing in rapidly, from the sound there wasn't many, about 3-4.

He held tightly onto his shortsword as {Analytic Mind} got to work, calming his heart and rapidly coming up with solutions.

The footsteps continued to close in, getting closer and closer until they were right next to him, then….they continued to pass by him.

Osirus realised that they weren't coming for him, they had just happened to pass by.

Peering around the rock, he was able to see the pudgy green creatures disappear down another street.

Seeing he was safe for now, he got up from behind the collapsed wall and continued searching for food.

30 minutes later.

Night was on the verge of falling and Osirus had still yet to find food causing his stomach to continuously rumble in defiance.

Just as he had a hundred times before, he entered one of the many ruined buildings and searched inside, it wasn't long before he exited with a dejected face.

Stepping back onto the open streets, his eyes shot open as he ran back inside of the building as he watched a group of figures approached.

However, instead of the usual green gremlins, these were humans, actual alive humans!

Still, Osirus didn't let his emotions take control and rushed out to meet his fellow species, he instead stayed where he was and carefully watched them.

The group was 5 strong, made up of 3 men and 2 women, of the 3 men, 1 was practically a walking tank, standing at 7ft, wielding a massive shield and greatsword standing at the head of the group.

The other 2 men consisted of a skinny, 5ft 6in man, with blonde hair and a bow in hand, and an average 6ft muscular, black hair man who wields a single long sword.

Of the last 2 women, both had similar slim builds while one held twin daggers and the other a staff like object.

As Osirus was silently observing them, the skinny bowmen suddenly whipped his head round, nocked an arrow and aim at Osirus's hiding spot, "Come out now!"

Osirus mind went overdrive, processing how he was found and what to do now, unfortunately rely even with his analytic mind, he wasn't given time to think.

The rest of the group went on high alert with the giant man acting as vanguard along with the dark haired man and the dual dagger women with the other 2 a slight distance away.

"3!"

Osirus continued to think of what to do but it seemed that every option was impossible, he couldn't run as it seemed the archer had a way of sending him and he knew it would be unreasonable to think he could even begin to stand a chance against them in a battle.

"2!"

This only left him with one option.

"1-"

"Don't shoot."

With his hands in the air, Osirus calmly left the building, immediately the group tensed up ready to attack, however seeing he had his hands up, the slightly relaxed seeing as he was cooperating.

The largest man, who was most likely the leader, stepped forward, "Which mercenary group are you from!".

It seemed they thought he was a mercenary, however this was good as this would help him come up with a reasonable lie.

It didn't take long for him to reply, "I am from the White Wolves! My team was wiped out, I'm not looking for a fight, just a way to leave!".

The group began quietly talking to each other, all the while keeping an eye on Osirus, "Have any of you heard of the White Wolves.", "I don't think so, but they can't be that strong if their whole team died in a Level 2 Combat Zone.", "True, I think we should be careful, but there shouldn't be any harm if we just let him tag along, we are leaving anyway."

The group turned to look at Osirus once again, the large man speaking for the rest, "You can follow along, but you have to give up your weapon."

"Not a chance.", Osirus didn't even think as he answered, with {Analytic Mind} in full force, his emotions had no effect on his decisions, he was purely logical. Because of this he didn't even consider giving up his weapon out of fear or their actions, it was his only safety in this place where he had almost lost his life.

Surprisingly the mercenary group didn't even get angry in the slightest, but were actually reassured, afterall, even if this wasn't the most dangerous area, no mercenary in their right mind would be willing to leave their lives in the hands of someone else by giving up their weapon, unless they had other plans.

"Very well. You can follow us, but don't get in our way."

With everything sorted out, Osirus temporarily joined their group. Making sure to stay out of their way, they continued forward.

Since he wasn't very welcome from the looks of everyone's neutral, stone-cold face, he kept quiet as they travelled the dark streets.

They soon came across a whole building, at which time the giant man came to a stop, "We will rest here for the night. Simon, Liam you start the fire, Annie, Elisa, you set up camp."

The archer and longsword wielder began to search around in search of firewood, which wasn't very difficult considering half the broken buildings were made of wood.

The other 3 entered the building that was similar to the one he had woken up in, following them inside, Osirus watched the women with the staff, Elisa, take out to small rectangular objects, close her eyes and focus, a light blue glow surrounded the rectangular objects before they started rapidly expanding, eventually become 2, 2x1m mattresses.

Osirus watched with intrigue as his mind processed what just occurred, 'That is most likely the effect of Mana from {Mana Cultivation}, which means that she is most likely a Mage.'

Osirus's thoughts continued to flow as each woman picked a mattress for themselves as Liam and Simon entered the building holding an assortment of wood, from kindling to logs.

It wasn't long before the fire was set up, all that was left was to light it, Osirus watched with infinite interest as Elisa lifted her elegant staff crowned with a crimson gem and whispered a single word, "{Flame}".

The crimson stone on her staff began to lightly glow, followed by a small wisp of flame generating in front of it before swiftly shooting into the fire, instantly igniting the kindling.

Elisa, who seemed to be the storage of the group, pulled out some dried meat from another one of her many pockets and began passing them out, just witnessing food caused Osirus stomach to rumble, luckily they were kind hearted enough to give him a piece, even of it was much less than everyone else's share.

"Liam, you go on watch first."

Finishing his food, the giant leader, Reinhardt put Liam on watch as he walked to one of the walls, each step causing the already weak building to shake, before collapsing and laying against it.

It wasn't long before rumbling snores erupted from the man, the rest, apart from Liam also closed their eyes and began resting after quickly devouring the meat.

Osirus also quickly finished his own, the texture reminded him of beef jerky except without any flavour, making it rather unappetizing, but beggars can't be choosers. He too then laid against the wall, as much as he knew it wasn't a good idea to sleep while surrounded by stranger mercenaries, he barely had a choice.

His eyelids quickly grew heavy as his body slowly lost consciousness, plunging into his first sleep since his transmigration.