Back at the village

- Monsters! Monsters!

Marcus ran as fast as his legs let him and when he saw the village a bit further than the bridge he started screaming, warming everyone of what he saw. People were curious, Marcus wasn’t known to make ruckuses, so when he crossed the simple wooden wall that was usually enough to protect the village from simple wild animals, that usually wandered around the zone, he was bombarded with questions.

The boy was too tired to listen to them, but he did tell them about the situation. He described that while he was looking for his sister, he found the monsters on a clearing and pointed the general direction where he saw them. He followed by detailing how the creatures looked like, but that wasn’t of much help to the villagers, because they, similarly to Marcus, hadn’t traveled the world that much and barely knew some other sapient species with different sizes.

The villager chief took Marcus from his hand and took him to his house, where he had different books, amongst which a bestiary, by the orders of the Munny Kingdom, because “every village with more than 100 Munny citizens should have access to general information about survival”.

- Look inside and tell me when you find them.

The middle-aged man told Marcus, as he went to his desk and took a paper, preparing a letter, in case of the worst. The situation didn’t look good, the strength of a creature didn’t usually grow linearly with its size, instead it was closer to a quadratic formula, each new increase being more significant than the last.

- Here, here! – Marcus shouted worriedly.

On the book this monster had a danger ranking from two to five skulls, meaning it could pose a danger for as little as a group of people or as much as a full town, even with stone walls. The scale went from 1 to 9 or 10, being one a danger to an individual and 9 danger to most sapient beings in a zone larger than a country. 10 is also considered in the scale, but it only has ever happened twice in the recorded history and one of these is barely recorded, because on the event not only many species turned extinct, but the survivors were also too far to be affected by the disaster.

Although they still saw some form of light that turned three days and nights into a single continuous day. The other event also isn’t very well documented. There was a dragon being corrupted by “something” that made it lose its consciousness and destroyed a whole, although relatively small, continent. There is still some corruption left there to this day, so most people don’t go there except to study said corruption or are criminals running away from the law.

- Rakshnurs, huh… This is what I expected. You said you heard them talk about being weak because of an attack, right? They probably came from the Politt Kingdom… I hadn’t heard anything about the King sending a division here.

Town and city leaders were either chosen by the people when the population was small or chosen by the Crown when there were more people, or the town had special importance. The village Marcus was in fell into the second category, as it was close to the border with the Politt Kingdom.

- If they are weak, we should have a chance. I know the King won’t want to send an army here to prevent any more political trouble with the Politts… So, we’ll need to fare by ourselves. Call every able adult to the plaza, we are going to prepare ourselves.

As everyone in the town congregated into the smallish plaza and the chief handed out instructions Marcus was trying to soothe his mother, but he didn’t know how. He had used all his free time practicing his stealth skills, so he didn’t know very well how to be empathic, but he was trying his best, telling her things such as that the chief told him that these monsters didn’t kill women, only men, so his sister would be safe. This didn’t appease his mother, as she knew what it meant, while Marcus didn’t.

Just then, a roar came from the river, it sounded just as loud, if not louder than when he was in the forest. They had come faster than what the village chief expected, so the villagers hadn’t finished their preparations, but they were at least mostly ready, with weapons in hand and close to the positions they planned on protecting, leaving the wall behind, as it wouldn’t pose much help against humanoids that were almost as tall as the wall and strong enough to break it after a few hits.

Therefore, the chief made everyone evacuate to the middle of the town and all people capable of fighting went to specific locations between houses or in them to try to attack the heads or ears of the attackers, as these were their weak points. Their eyes themselves were already not that good, so they usually used hearing to improve their “vision”. So, if they lost both organs, they would be mostly blind, significantly reducing the damage they could do.

But these monsters weren’t simple beasts, they had two simple beliefs. “If you’re weak, get stronger.” And “if you’re strong, get stronger” And following that philosophy the surviving Rakshnurians were normally the strongest and had gradually increased their risk rate by one. They also knew pretty well how not to get hit, because if they didn’t know that they’d be dead already.

Therefore, the prior knowledge that the villagers had of fighting beasts such as wolves or the occasional bear couldn’t be compared with what they would experience. Right of the bat the walls fell and tens of Rakshnurians flooded the town. Marcus was forcing her mother to calm down and go to the town center where she’d be safer, but she wanted to fight and get her daughter back right at that moment.

Marcus couldn’t beat her in strength, so he resigned himself and went with her to fight the invaders. They went towards the sound of battle, trotting towards the gate when a body fell by their side, crashing into the wall of a house, leaving the person heavily wounded. Mother and child both were shocked at the sight and Marcus’ mother was the first to despair. She recognized the man as Deimen, one of the strongest guards of the village and he was already out of the fight. Her knees fell to the ground and she started crying, begging Marcus to run away with her, that there was no hope left.

Marcus didn’t know what to do. He wanted to protect his home and save his sister, but he could also see how hopeless the situation was. So, they started running away, trying not to get found by the monsters. They managed to get out of the village via a smaller door in the wall, but jus then a Rakshnurian got in their way to prevent them from escaping

- Nuh-uh, not gonna let you through

Said the loud monster, crushing the little hope Marcus and his mother had left. She knew that Marcus could run faster and maybe he would’ve managed to escape if she weren’t with him, but it was too late to pick a different choice. She took the kitchen knife she had prepared to fight the Rakshnurians and instead of pointing it towards the 2.3-meter-tall humanoid she put it towards her neck and shouted:

- Let my kid go or I’ll kill myself! I know you want the highest amount of woman to live to reproduce! So please, please let my boy go…

The monster, even though he had a brain and understood each word took some time to understand the meaning of what she said and then took some more time to think what would happen if she died. He decided that leaving a little snack escape wasn’t as bad as loosing two or three more possible Rakshnurians to the tribe.

- OK, he goes, and you stay. Give weapon to me.

- NO! He leaves first and then I’ll give you my knife! When he is far enough for my taste, I’ll give you my knife!

Marcus normally wouldn’t want to leave his mother behind, but he was just a 14-year-old and his senses made him feel only fear, nothing else, so he was just quiet, looking for a way to escape. As the Rakshnurian accepted the deal and moved a tiny bit to the side he immediately started running. His mother would probably also do the same thing if she were her son, Marcus thought to himself when he was safer to calm himself down and feel less guilty, but he still felt very guilty. He would search for help.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the village, the battle was starting to end. Even though the villagers had fought bravely and even killed a pair of Rakshnurians the difference in power was too much, they would have to be at least regular soldiers to be able to stand their ground as a group, much stronger even if they wanted to fight them one-on-one.

As the people in the main plaza saw this, they had started to run away, failing as they either got killed or immobilized by the approaching monsters. The battle had ended in less than eight minutes, massacring all males within the town and leaving widows and orphans behind.