After walking for approximately ten kilometers when something finally happened something that caused her to feel nervous, extremely nervous.

The two voices she had been following turned into four, a minute later there were six, and just when she thought that was all, two more people joined them, yet their voices were different. The voices of these final two no longer sounded human at all, listening to them she got a headache even with her bloodline suppressing the voice that sounded as if it consisted of the screams of tortured souls.

The first to speak was the smith’s companion.

“Alright, so as we said we would, we got weapons for everyone. Swords, spears, and stray pieces of armor made from blue mythril. It’ll enhance our magic power quite a bit, should allow us to have a decent shot against the elders.”

One of the unknown voices replied.

“And we made wands from cretarwood, enough for all of us. The elders might’ve banned the use of wands but that no longer matters now, let’s use them to take the bastards out!” Ruby could hear the excitement in the somewhat unsettling voice.

Lastly one of the ‘people’ with a voice completely unlike humans spoke “Hmmmm, yes! KILL! Today elders die! Kill them all!”

After this, Ruby could hear the group prepare, some of them were audibly donning their pieces of armor while others tried using the wands.

After five minutes had passed in this manner, the smith’s friend spoke once more “And now we fight!”

Following this exclamation came a roar from the other seven people here as they pumped themselves up.

---------------------

Villin cursed inwardly as he thought of a way to escape. He noticed the eyes of the creatures before him were somewhat large, the pupils especially. Perhaps he could use the first spell he ever learned once more, ‘Illuminatus’.

He thought of this as the creatures approached closer and closer, still believing he was unconscious. Yet just as he was connecting the nodes within his web, a sound attracted his attention.

A roar seemed to be coming from someplace behind him, the female creature perked up and looked past him, into the cave hallway that existed there.

Before Villin could react, the male creature had sprinted forward, all the way up to the upside-down cross Villin was hanging on.

He ripped the entire cross out of the ground and put it, and Villin, to the side. Allowing them a full view of the place the sound came from.

A second roar echoed through the cave as both of the creatures pointed at the hallway warily.

“We KILL!?” the male creature seemed to ask.

“YES KILL!” the response came.

After some time, a few figures appeared at the end of the hallway but the two creatures still didn’t make a move.

The two figures turned into four, then six, and finally eight. Six of the people that were arriving still seemed like exactly that, people. They had a mutation here or there, and somewhat different skin-tones and voices, but they could still be called human.

The final two were different though, even though they weren’t quite as bad as the creatures that captured Villin and Leonardo, they could no longer be called human with their grey skin, lack of hair, arched back, and oddly proportioned faces. As for their voices, it was the same as the voices of these two ‘elders’ that kidnapped Villin.

“YOU!! YOU WANT TO REBELLL!” the female elder said pointing toward the eight that had come.

This time, the two-meter tall smith replied “We just want the two people you got today, we get them, we go about our business.”

A loud hiss came from the male elder that did considerable damage to Villin’s mental wall. “YOU DARE?! YOU DIE!!”

The creature seemed to be about to cast a spell when the female elder pulled on his arm “OUTSIDE! We don’t want the food to get squished!”

This seemed to get his attention as he let out another hiss before turning around and going out of the cave they had come from.

The eight people that had come to kill them silently followed, when they saw Villin in the corner they looked at him full of desire but they let him be for now as they continued following behind the two elders.

After this room came the elders’ living room. They had no beds, tables, or chairs, only a few items they were in need of, and patches of dirt and grass to sleep on.

This area was connected to a relatively dark clearing. The mountain on this island was an empty volcano. In the middle of it was a massive hole, reaching all the way down. Hence, even during the day, this area would only be brightly lit at midday for a few hours. Currently, the area was only lightly illuminated.

The eight people that followed were mostly content with this arrangement, it would be a fair fight uninfluenced by the arena.

That was until the sudden attack of the two elders.

The eight ‘challengers’ had only just entered the clearing when they were promptly attacked. Yet unlike what they expected they weren’t bombarded by spells.

Instead, the two creatures jumped at them in their mostly naked state. Even though Villin couldn’t see what was happening outside, he was expecting some great fight to be happening, something that would destroy the entire area, yet he was completely and utterly wrong.

What happened wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter.

The two elders gave in completely to their savage side, they jumped toward their enemies so quickly they didn’t even have time to raise their wands. They jumped onto their chests and ripped their necks out. In the entire duration, only three spells were sent out, all of which missed. The only ones who put up a fight were the other two inhuman creatures but even they got promptly demolished.

Sadly, Ruby was of a similar thought as Villin, thinking a long and arduous battle would be taking place, and hence once she made sure nobody stayed behind, she quickly entered the cave looking for those that had been captured.

When she saw Villin nailed onto a cross that was put aside she was visibly shaken, still she quickly went ahead and freed him, earning herself some thanks. When it came to the nails Villin simply used his strength to take them out, even though the wounds worsened somewhat he didn’t want to spend any more time here and put as much distance between himself and the surviving party of cannibals.

“Villin, are you okay?” Ruby asked once he was freed.

Villin nodded, he didn’t register his pain currently, and he was happy for it.

“Get my and Leonardo’s stuff and let’s run, we have to get out of here!”

Realizing the severeness of the situation Ruby looked around before grabbing the backpacks and wands that were laying in the side of the room.

Villin nodded when he got his backpack again “Alright, we should have at least ten minutes, let’s ru-”

Villin’s voice faltered mid-sentence as he looked at the exit the ten enemies had taken. There stood the two creatures that had captured them, they had red and black blood covering parts of their body, their faces especially, yet none of it was theirs.

“H-how? It has only been two minutes!” Ruby exclaimed. She had heard the eight people practice earlier and even though she couldn’t see them, the frequency of attacks was high, a lot higher than her own, for them to be beaten so quickly… it was hopeless.