“Okay, Pan sick’er.”
Lockon pointed towards Lila who was kneeling on the ground waiting with delighted face. Pan, the newly named red panda, stood up on this hind legs while letting out a soft cry.
“Arooo~”
Pan then softly and cutely pawed at Lila. Who could not stand the adorable sight in front of her anymore and picked up Pan squeezing him tightly who let out a displeased cry. Rina was also quietly protesting in her mind. Although it was only because she wasn’t the one currently hugging Pan.
“Lila, you can’t have Pan.”
Hydra who walked appeared from a bush called out to Lila. While Lila puffed out her cheeks and let her guard down. Pan quickly escaped ran towards Hydra, before coming to a stop. It then stood up on its hind legs and pawed at Hydra. It stared up at Hydra giving a ‘Praise me I learnt something new’ look. At the sight he was unable to deny how much he wanted to spoil it. He lifted it into his arms and quickly patted its head. Pan happily cried out and then licked Hydra’s cheek before crawling into his chest falling asleep.
“Hydra, gimme!”
Rina stretched out both her arms expecting Hydra to be handed over easily. Surprisingly though Hydra handed off Pan to her without any reluctance.
“Don’t spoil him!”
‘You’re the one who spoils him most!’
Everyone retorted in their minds. While at this moment Hydra quickly gave a small wave towards his companions. It was time he left….
They had already arrived close enough to the Liza clans’ village that Hydra went off with Goliath to do some quick scouting. The situation however most grim than they both had first thought.
“Are you sure you want to do this? There must be at least a thousand Liza gathered in this town at the moment.”
“I already made up my mind. It’s my first quest and I can’t leave that boy’s father to die.”
“Well you certainly are brave. If it wasn’t for the fact that you had stealth I would PK you right now to avoid future troubles.”
“PK?”
“Ah I forgot you nub, it means player killer jeez look up some basic gamer terms. At this rate you’ll stay a casual.”
“Ouch, that one hurt.”
“Haha, let’s get back we can keep checking on the situation, you can’t act until night fall anyways.”
“You’re right.”
Goliath and Hydra snuck back to discuss with their remaining members. Running through the bushes after putting a distance from the village to their camp he was deliberately allowing the branches hit Goliath in the face. Goliath didn’t seem to blame Hydra because after all they were running through the forest. The last branch came with a ‘whoosh’ as Goliath was knocked flat on his back and with the extra weight of his armor a loud bang went off scaring half a dozen birds away. Hydra ran back and stretched his arm out to help him out while scolding him.
“Be careful Goliath, you don’t want to get us caught…. That would be a casual’s mistake!”
“Why you..!”
‘That’s what you get for calling me a casual’
Hydra quickly ran off with a victorious expression on his face. No matter friend or foe, his revenge existed for anyone who wronged him. Well, besides his sisters… and the Old man….. and definitely Sarah. Now that he thought about it.
‘I must have been rather stressed no wonder I feel that revenge feels so sweet. All the people I know in my life would definitely kill me if I tried to get revenge on them.’
Hydra shuddered while ran a bit quicker hoping to forget about it. It was only a few more minutes and Hydra arrived back at the camp. It was nicely set up with two tents one for the boys and the other for girls plus Pan. Yeah it was unanimously decided that Pan would stay with the girls so that they could cuddle with it all night. For some reason Hydra felt wronged, his opinion didn’t even matter. But it was wrong to say it did in this situation. They all knew he wouldn’t take a pet with him that couldn’t prove useful in combat, not to mention he wouldn’t be able to bear the scene of Pan being cut down, and thus Pan was left with his friends until he could clear his quest. Through a vein popped every time he came back they were teaching Pan a new trick.
“How dare you teach my pet a trick before I do!”
“Awh don’t be such a poor sport we found him together right?”
“That’s right!”
“No, seriously lying straight to someone’s face like that is pretty low you know.”
“The Shadow I know wouldn’t let something of this level phase him right?”
It was already an utter defeat. He could only slouch his shoulders and depressingly sit down until it was time to check village again. But every time he looked sad without fail Pan would come over, showing Hydra the trick it just learned. How could anyone not smile after such a thing? Truly Hydra wanted nothing more than to show his two sisters Pan. They would absolutely go crazy over him.
“Okay, but Pan better be the last one to die if anything goes wrong….. and you steal the loot he picks up….”
Hydra unsheathed his sword to intimidate his friends. Although it was more jokingly than serious, his friends immediately shook their hands and agreed.
“I would protect PanPan with my life!”
“Me too!”
“I’ll try to meet Shadow’s expectations.”
While they were all high leveled than Hydra, they were absolute sure they could not win 1v1 against Hydra. After all his class was made for fighting solo opponents. Lockon could have a change but if he missed or was caught off guard even if he was much higher level than him Hydra would just play with him. For Rina’s case it was obvious a healer had damage magic, but it was simply impossible to deal enough damage before the [swordsman] or [Aether Blade] arrived which the same as a death sentence. Lila on the other hand had the best opportunity out of the three however she was the lowest level of the three at 30. Not to mention she wasn’t as lucky and her equipment was on the lacking side of things. Hydra knew that as well that’s why even as a level 9 he could make threats like that. Even though it wasn’t possible for him to truly carry those out. It was also only possible for Hydra to act confident when going against another human being. Being trained physically for years he was able to timely dodge most incoming blows, as long as he knew what was coming before hand. This was another reason why Hydra was so worried when fighting the spiders. He had no idea how they would react and thus instead of taking a big risk he opted to play defensively and wait for the spider’s to act first.
“Well after seeing how much you guys love the little guy so much anyways I didn’t think you’d leave him to die. But… The loot..”
“Yes! We will gather it in a nice little pile just for you Lord Shadow!”
Hydra ran off before they could see him smile. He wasn’t about to let the act fall at the end and he almost couldn’t hold himself back so he quickly left. Though it was easy to see through Hydra’s plan they willingly played along. Naturally every one of them immediately rushed to pick up Pan first. Who unhappily cried out for his master.
“aoooooooooo…..”
Meanwhile, Goliath was calling out to his friends and ‘whispering’ them although in the end he was completely forgotten about. The reason he was calling out to his friends? He was lost. And just when he heard a bush move. He saw a sight that was already forever burned in his mind. A red pig.
———————————
The sun was falling and the darkness was swallowing the sky. Naturally, it was time for Hydra to act. He had already been travelling for a few minutes when he thought he heard the screams of a man. But he was in the middle of the forest near the Liza clan so he was probably just imagining things. When the last bit of sunlight disappeared he called out.
“Stealth.”
As the shadow erupted from his sword and enveloped his body, he felt a tingling sensation but it was hardly able to even tickle him. As the shadow fully clothed his body it tightly fitted around him turning translucent.
“Alright. Let’s do this.”
Hydra, crept slowly into the village naturally not entering through the village entrance. When he looked around it was a village made out of clay houses. There was a giant bonfire in the middle of the village which rose to about 20 feet. Although Hydra could not see the case of the fire, judging from the fact that he hasn’t met with a Liza yet he assumed they were gathered around that area. He thus decided to avoid the fire and snuck to the back of the clay houses.
Sneaking by, occasionally he would go stiff and stop moving. A giant bipedal Liza would walk past him, and everytime they came within a single step of him he felt the experience slowly diminish from his body. It didn’t take long for him to get curious and check their stats.
‘Identify’
Liza Warrior Level 51 Health 2550/2550 Mana 0/0 A warrior of the Liza clan. They are humanoid lizards and are extremely arrogant. If they find a human they will capture it and hold eat in during a feast. As they are not the most intelligent of creatures that are lacking in the studies of magic. However everyone once in a while a Shaman can be born in their clan. A shaman will be treated respectfully but in the Liza clan they respect strength the most, thus the strongest Liza will become the leader and receive the blessing of their ancestors from the shaman.‘Good news, I found out why there is a time limit. Bad news… it’s definitely death if I get found out….’