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Chapter 16

Tiana's jaws dropped to the ground after seeing the way Raine knocked the monster boar. “What the hell was that?!" She thought incredulously.

She was not shocked that Raine was able to lift the massive boar to the ground but by the method he used to render the poor beast unconscious.

"Just what is that technique? Could it be wresting?" She asked herself.

Tiana have left her home many years ago and traveled the land before deciding to stay and work for Noreen due to her admiration for the daemon king. During her travels she studied and observed various fighting techniques including wrestling. Although she studied wrestling, Tiana was not good at it due to her small stature. As a woman, her physical strength falls short to that of men. Even if she knew how to use grappling techniques her strength was usually not enough to fight larger and physically stronger opponent. To compensate for her small stature, would use reinforcement magic to increase her strength, speed, and agility. Taking advantage of her natural talent, she would usually employ hit and run tactics.

Looking at the unconscious monster boar whose mouth was foaming, Tiana have the urged to show herself and ask Raine but held herself as she doesn't want to get the boy in trouble.

"I'll just ask him once where out of this miniature world." Tiana decided.

Raine looked at his handiwork with a satisfied expression. Despite the impact that the monster boar suffered, it beast was relatively unharmed which was thanks largely to Raine's control of the situation. Raine kneeled down near the head of the boar and examined the monster's tusks. Nodding to himself, the boy broke the spear like tusks with his bare hand. The tusks broke off without much resistance and without harming the beast.

Even though the tusks were broken off by Raine, it would not affect the monster boar that much. After all, its tusks would regenerate and start growing in matter of days. In reality, Raine did the beast a favor by breaking its tusks. If left alone, the tusks would keep growing and would trouble the monster boar in the future. The monster boar whose tusks were overgrown would usually ram itself on boulders and trees in order to break them. If the beast was in a foul mood, it might even ram its tusks into animals and other monsters where it would usually break off, lodging said tusks into the poor creature’s body. If the victim failed to remove the tusk, the wounds would pester, killing the poor creature in a few days.

That's the main reason why even though the monster boar was just an ordinary monster, other creatures would avoid it like a plague in fear of becoming the victim of its mood.

After putting the tusk in a gunny sack, Raine observed his surroundings and went into deep thoughts. "There's still more than two days left before the deadline which means that I have two days of free time. I wonder what I should do to pass the time." Raine wondered to himself.

Raine thought for a few seconds and then smiled. Since there's still a lot of time, he decided to explore the miniature world a little. After all, it might take a while before he could return here. So he might as well take advantage of the situation. Anyway, Tiana's there to assist him if ever he got into trouble, and it's not like he's going anywhere dangerous.

"It should be okay. I could also look for the others and see how they're doing."

Having decuded what to do, Raine left the still unconscious monster boar. With the monster's fierce reputation, it shouldn't be in any danger even if left alone to fend for itself. Seeing Raine leave, Tiana quickly followed and soon only the unconscious boar was left in the area.

Several minutes later, the monster boar finally came to its senses. It stood and groggily looked around its surrounding with confusion. Sensing no danger, the monster boar snorted and left the area angered and confuse as if suffering from injustice.

Somehow its memory is fuzzy and could not clearly recall what happened or why it was sleeping in that watering hole. But even though it could not recall what happened, the monster boar vaguely remembered that something attacked it which makes it wary. That's the reason why it quickly left the place despite not sensing any danger.

The boy, unaware that he had unknowingly traumatized the monster, jumped from tree to tree like a ninja. Even though he could travel on the ground, using the trees to travel is a lot faster not to mention more enjoyable. The boy would stop from time to time whenever he sees anything that caught his interest. That way, Raine manages to collect samples of rare herbs that were difficult to find even outside.

"My luck seemed to be really good today! I never expected to find these herbs here. Hehehe. This is quite the haul if I say so myself." Raine gleefully said to himself.

The boy felt no qualms taking samples of the rare herbs in the area. Anyway, there's a lot of them and plucking a few won't affect the local ecosystem. Besides, everything he found inside the miniature world belong to him and the teachers won't mind or say anything even if he took some back.

Tiana had seened everything that Raine had done until now and was surprise by the boy's luck at finding those rare herbs. Of course he won't stop Raine for picking up herbs since it was allowed anyway nor would she take those herbs for herself. Anyway, she's just happy that Raine found something worthwhile while exploring. Raine continued his exploration while picking useful things along the way. Not long after he finally came across a group led by none other than the princess herself, Silvia.

Silvia's team of three was composed of all girls. There's Silvia, then a beastfolk girl from the leopard tribe named Lumi, and lastly, there's a black-haired human girl name Natalie. Not too far away from the girls is a dog-eared female teacher, Anselle who belonged to the canine tribe. As for which canine tribe, Raine was not sure.

The dog-eared teacher, Anselle was also surprised to see Raine nearby but did not say anything as teachers and protectors were not allow to converse or communicate with any of the students regardless of status unless necessary.

The trio watched Silvia and her group as they faces of against a monster wolf. Well, a face off was a bit of a stretched, the girls and the monster wolf were just staring at each other. The monster wolf was alarmed as she stares warily at the girls. The girls on the other hand were not as wary as the monster wolf. Although the monster wolf was much bigger in comparison to a regular wolf and the girls, they were not really afraid.

Raine could not help but smile at this scene. If the three girls were to be replaced by ordinary girls, those girls would have been shivering in fear right now facing the monster wolf. Unfortunately for the monster wolf, every members of Silvia's group was not your average girls. They're students of the Royal Academy and could fight against such low level monster without breaking a sweat on their own.

The stare down lasted for a few minutes more before the monster wolf begrudgingly left. Silvia and her group did not chase after the monster wolf which indicates that it was not their target.

"It's another miss, huh?" The girl from the leopard tribe, Lumi complained as she watches the monster wolf leaving.

"It can't be helped. This forest is really large. Looking for a specific monster would be very hard. I doubt anyone among our classmates had found their target already." Natalie said as she shrugged her shoulder.

"You think so? I think Raine must have found his target already... What do you think, Silvia?" Lumi replied doubtfully and turned towards Silvia with her question.

Hearing Lumi's question, Silvi nodded her head in agreement and spoke: "If it's him then that might be the case." She said.

Tiana and the female teacher, Anselle glances at Raine's direction before nodding their heads in agreement. The fact that Raine was there listening to the girls' conversation was proof enough that Silvia's trust in the boy's abilities was not misplaced.

Raine completely ignored the strange look from his protector and teacher and continue watching the conversation between Silvia and her teammate. Not long after, the girls continue the search for their target monster. The female teacher, Anselle also left without saying anything to Raine and Tiana.

Looking at the direction the girls are going, Raine sighed but did not follow but instead moved towards the opposite direction with Tiana following behind.

While Raine was taking his time exploring the miniature world, something else was happening elsewhere...

In a certain region at the eastern part of Noreen, orange hue colored the dark night. Cacophony of screams, groans and angry roars could be heard everywhere.

Flashes of steel and colorful magic accompany the roars of both man and beast. No matter how you look at it the scene was similar to a battle in a battlefield somewhere. But what's happening is no mere battle nor was it war. In ones involved are not men fighting for their lives but men and beast locked in fierce combat with one another.

And as for their battlefield?

It was a village, or rather what's left of it. The aforementioned village, which might have been a beautiful and serene village was now bathed in flames. Debris of what used to be houses littered the now muddy ground of blood and water. Corpses of monsters along with several half-eaten corpses of humans and people from other races could be seen all over the place.

If one was to describe the place it would be hell.

"Report! All of the remaining villagers have been evacuated." A male beastfolk from the feline tribe wearing leather armor reported. The man from the feline tribe was panting heavily indicating that he might had ran with all his might.

"Well done!" The giant of man wearing a black heavy armor and cape replied.
The giant man has a single black and long horn on his forehead which indicates that he's from the daemon race. The giant man then turned his head towards another man and spoke. "Tell our brothers to slowly retreat from the village. After they’ve had retreat safely bomb and burned all of those monsters to oblivion!" He ordered while looking grim.

"But... What about the corpses of our brothers?" The man that the giant man gave the orders to asked with hesitation. A dozen of their brothers died at the claws and fangs of the monsters and the man couldn’t accept the fact that their corpses would be burned along with the monsters.

The giant man creases his brows and went silent for a few seconds. "We have no choice. There's too many monster for us to fight on our own. Although it pains me to do this, it's still better than seeing their corpses being eaten by those bastards." He said with a pained voice.

"...Understood!"

Receiving the giant man's reply the other man quickly turned around and ran towards the others to rely the giant man's order.

The giant of a man was the hunter Baska. He's a B-class hunter and leader of his own hunting team, Team Baska, named after the giant Baska. Team Baska was a large team consisting of about thirty people. Baska and his team were hunters with a bit of renown. Due to the size of his team they're often task with subjugation quest that involves a large group of monsters. Due to the nature of their usual quest it's not unusual for them to loss one or two members in a mission. Although losing comrades was always a sad thing, members of Team Baska were already used to it.

But not even this hardened team of hunters was prepared for the losses that they would accumulate this time around. In just one night, Team Baska lost more than ten members!

"Damn it... How am I going to explain this to their families?"

Baska gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as he fiercely glared at the monsters trapped inside the still burning village. Every hunter in his team has their own families, and even though a hunter's job was filled with danger that doesn't mean that he would sacrifice the lives of his teammates to complete their mission. Just thinking of the grief-stricken eyes of the families of his dead teammates filled Baska's heart with great pain.

"Leader, everything is ready!"

One of Baska's teammate came and woke Baska up from his reverie. He quickly turned his head towards the man and said," good, let's kill all of those bastards!"

"Yes!"

That night, a small village in the eastern region of Noreen was erased from map along with a horde of frenzied monsters and a dozen hunters. But unbeknownst to everyone, that nightmarish night would repeat itself and this time in a much bigger scale.

To be continued...

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