"I'm sorry Cynthia but I can't take you on this mission" I was talking with Cynthia on the dining table, we were alone right now so this was the perfect time

"But why? am I useless?" Cynthia asked

"It's not that, I can't ensure your safety when you go with me" I explained

"Trust me Cynthia, please" Cynthia remained silent so I continued talking

"...alright but just this once" Cynthia reluctantly agreed

"Thanks!"

"At least this is much better than you sneaking in the middle of the night" Cynthia saw through me, it was my plan B in case Cynthia wanted to come along

I took the S class quest along with a few escort quests and showed them to Marcus, I neatly hid the S class quests just before the last escort quest. Marcus, on the other hand, stopped reading the quests after stamping the first two and just stamped all of them, I'm really sorry Marcus

"You taking a lot of quests huh" Marcus laughed

"Time's are hard, I need money" I replied

"Good luck on your mission then"

"Thanks!"

I quickly left the guild in fear that they might find out what I've done. I took the Energy Pistol with me before leaving for Oculus Mountain, It will take a month by horse but luckily the escort mission I took will take me to Asgard City in the far west will be using a shortcut that will cut the time in half.

†††

"Hey there Marcus" Lea was finally done with paperwork and went to Marcus to get some refreshments

"Hi, the usual?" Marcus asked

"Yeah, give me the usual" Lea received a beer soon afterward, this was Lea's daily routine, after work she would usually be drinking beer

"Hey, Marcus, it seems that a village got destroyed in the north" Lea got wind of news

"A village in the north? isn't the northern walls defended by the 3 holy Guardians?" Marcus replied

"That's just it, the northern walls weren't breached in any way so the only possible thing that happened was that the monsters from within the walls are the one that destroyed the village" Lea speculated as she drank the beer

"Weird, monsters usually move on instinct and destroy whatever's in front of them, did a new dungeon pop out in the north and the monsters inside attacked the village?"

"No, according to my info, no new dungeons have emerged in a hundred years. The only dungeon that popped out in the entire Regalia kingdom in the last hundred years is the dungeon in the south part of this city"

"Then where did those monsters come from?"

"I'm not sure but I have a theory"

"Oh, anything's good right now"

"Before the Village got destroyed, a few adventurers actually saw a swarm of monsters head north to where the village is located"

"So this swarm of monsters was controlled by a demon then"

"It's hard to say, they said they were only bug kind of monsters but what was weird was they were never seen before"

"A new breed of monsters?"

"Probably..."

Lea and Marcus were enjoying their conversation when Rick suddenly barged in the guild hall

"Lea, have you heard the news?" Rick sat beside Lea and spoke

"What news?" Lea replied

"There was a huge explosion north, the authorities here are now sending requests all over the guild here to investigate, here, they gave me one to post here in our guild" Rick took out a quest form

Lea took it and signed her name on it to make it officially a quest that was available on their guild, she was about to put it up but

"Marcus... did someone take the S class mission?" Lea asked

"No one did" Marcus replied

"But the S class quest isn't here"

"What?!"

"See for yourself" Marcus scrambled to check the quest board and found out that Lea was telling the truth

"...Oh no" Marcus thought hard and remembered that Zeno was the only one who took a mission

"What oh no?" Lea had a bad feeling

"Zeno, Zeno is the only one who took a mission!"

"What?!" Lea was shocked

"I'm sorry, he managed to trick me" Marcus replied

"Aren't we going after him?" Rick asked

"No, we can't, I have to meet up with the other guild leaders to discuss what we will do about those new breeds of monsters... and then there's that weird explosion" Lea helplessly sighed

"Then what do we do?" Rick asked

"All we can do is hope and wait" Lea downed an entire cup of beer before ordering another

†††

It was already half a week since I went on this Mission, I was still at full battery because I asked Cynthia to charge me up before I left, I wanted to use the energy that we had on the transport ship but she insisted on it.

The shortcut we took was going through the lost forest, normally we should avoid this but if we needed to get to Asgard in two weeks then we had to take this shortcut. The merchant was fairly rich so he managed to hire level 40 adventurers to protect him, I was the one with the lowest level in the entire group because I was only level 34.

I managed to level up this much by killing all the monsters that attacked the carriage. The Lost Forest was filled with different kind of monsters that liked to play with your mind, you always have to be alert or else you'll fall into their illusion and will be separated from the group, from then on they will make you see illusions of monsters where you will exhaust all of your energy in fighting them, after that, they'll eat you.

Out of the 13 adventurers that were protecting the carriage, 4 already died. We were already half-way through the forest when suddenly...

'Zeno, my sonar is picking up some kind of noise underneath the ground' Lilith warned me

'What is it?'

'Zeno, JUMP!' Lilith alerted me

I instinctively jumped up and held on to one of the tree branches, the ground below suddenly opened up showing a deep pit where everyone except for me fell in. The carriage of the Merchant managed to make it through though, I looked and asked Lilith to scan for survivors

'Well?' I asked

'Nothing, all I detected was a worm and it's infants'

'*sigh* looks like I'm on my own now'

I climbed up the tree and agilely jumped from one branch to the other until I reached the merchant's carriage, he looked at me with an apologetic smile before we continued on our journey

4 more days passed peacefully which gave me the creeps, something bad usually happens after this so I always stayed vigilant, My thoughts were spot on because a pack of wolves surrounded us. I urged the coachman to hide in the carriage, I walked in front and faced the Alpha wolf, all of the wolves had black fur color while their alpha had 2 horns just underneath his ears.

'Lilith, how much of them are there?'

'20'

'Okay, please properly follow them with heat signatures' I've already faced a few of these wolves, they have the ability to release a smoke that they use to confuse their enemies

The Wolves opened up their mouths and released the smoke I was talking about earlier, luckily I could still follow them through their heat signatures. They kept circling around me so I unsheathed Azazel and equipped him on my right while the desert eagle was on my left, I quickly emptied out all my 12 bullets on the 12 Wolves around me before charging ahead with Azazel in hand.

All the wolves attacked one after the other, they had good cooperation, I would duck to dodge their pounce before slashing their backs with Azazel. Their numbers dwindled down and soon the Alpha wolf was forced to attack, he attacked from behind and tried to bite my foot but Lilith already warned beforehand so I managed to evade in time before beheading it.

The Wolves saw their leader die and fled out of instincts. The desert eagle completely recharged so I aimed at the fleeing wolves and shot them down, I returned to the carriage and informed the coachman and the merchant of our safety. We quickly moved away because the smell of blood from the dead wolves might attract more monsters.

We finally arrived at Asgard City, they were so high it made me think they were meant to protect the city from giants rather than a swarm of monsters, we managed to enter the city and I was amazed by the city. This city was better than Regulus City, the streets were clean and you can't even see a single beggar. Just shows how rich and prosperous this city is, most of the buildings are only 2 stories tall, and all of the citizens here had happy smiles... everything was just festive

The merchant gave me 100 gold coins as my reward, these 100 gold coins were supposed to be split amongst us adventurers that escorted the merchant but sadly they all perished. I used the gold to buy myself a new set of clothes, I now wore a long black robe that reached up to my knees along with a black turtleneck and gray pants. According to the shopkeeper, these clothes were enchanted to be just as tough as an armor made out of hard steel, I had Lilith scan it and confirmed that some kind of magic energy is wrapping itself around the fabric

I started gathering information for the upcoming battle I was going to face