Author note: Short chapter before last few chap of the opening part(And another round of test week for me).

That's all. Enjoy the chapter.

It had been weeks after the escape incident.

The others already gave up on hoping them to come back, and focus themselves on earning money for their living.

They already blend in with the villagers. They were already accepted as one of them, and somewhat live a good peace life. Although can’t be compared with their previous way of living.

This world’s date was also consist of seven days a week, twelve month a year. The only different was that every month consists of thirty days, and the name of it.

This world doesn’t have the name of the date. They only have number to point out a date, such as first day of the fourth month in the year five hundred.

It was mouthful for the Heroes who are not used to it. To them saying the date was like doing a tongue twister. For convenient reason, they still use their way of saying date to each other.

It was around the seventeenth day of the fifth month in the year five hundred.

That morning, the villagers were restless about something. The heroes, who were outsider, didn’t hear anything about the reason behind it.

Since morning until afternoon they held a meeting at the village chief’s house. Right about evening, the meeting finally finished.

For some reason the heroes were called into the village chief’s house.

The village chief’s house barely fit all of the sixteen heroes, and few villagers including the chief.

The chief was a small man on his sixty. His long beard and mustache made him look much older than he actual age, but he was still fit enough to mow the field.

His usual has a laid-back smile, but this time there was a sign of seriousness on his face.

“Sorry to take your time, but there’s something important I like to talk about. This might be boring for the children, so can you play with the children?”

The chief said that toward Jane, and his daughter, which already in her twenty. From this action the others were more or less became aware of the heavy talk he was about to talk about.

Seeing that the other already prepared for the talk, the chief sent a sign to his son in law that was standing near the wall.

He bought a half object wrapped in white cloth, and put it in the center. He seems hesitated for a moment, but in the end he uncovered the white cloth.

“W-wha…!”

Everyone was surprised. Even after preparing themselves for the heavy talk, they were still frozen after seeing what was offered in front of them.

It can’t be helped. After all, the thing beneath that cloth was an arm.

It was a thick arm that has a rough looking in it. The arm has a burn warn on where it was cut, but other than that it was an ordinary arm of an adult male.

The thing was that there was familiar looking steel around it. A gauntlet is what people usually refer it to.

Upon seeing that, Yuu’s face was grim. Mary also noticed the familiar looing gauntlet, and sent her gaze toward Yuu, as if looking for an answer. However Yuu was strangely silent.

Yuu froze just like that with his eyes open wide. Both of them alone, knew about the thing in front of them.

The others were still clueless about the arm, so the chief began explaining.

This arm was found in the morning by his son in law, Cliff.

He was doing the usual routine of checking the deeper forest, when he caught a smell of blood. He followed it, and found a group of grey wolves.

Grey wolf, just like it name has the appearance of a grey dog with bigger size and teeth. They were a special species that neither categorized as animal or monster.

Because of their strength that locate between animal and monster, depend on the area they can be treat as both animal and monster.

The wolves were gathered around something. Although they were below monster, it was dangerous to fight a group of grey wolves. He was about to retreat before they found him.

At that moment something entered his sight. It was the steel gauntlet that can be seen between the wolves’ leg.

From the amount of blood around it and that gauntlet, it wasn’t hard to imagine what happened there.

Cliff, who was about to return, decided to bring that gauntlet.

As a fellow human at least he want to offer a pray for the unfortunate fellow. So he took his bow and shot an arrow.

He intended to change the wolves’ attention to him, so that he can make a chance to take the gauntlet. But, the wolves unexpectedly decided to retreat after the warning shot.

That action was strange. Cliff, who was an expert, noticed the irregularity. Usually after the shot, the wolves would come after him but, this time they didn’t.

With that in account, Cliff proceeded with caution.

He thought the blood around it was horrible. It has the sufficient amount of a human but, there wasn’t anything left except the arm inside the gauntlet.

He speculated that the wolves ate the rest of it.

Then he noticed a familiar mark on the gauntlet. It was the signature of the maker. A two-sided hammer with the word, K, in it. He remembered about the old blacksmith in the village.

Thinking that he might know who the owner of this gauntlet was, he returned to the village.

After he returned, he immediately showed it to the old blacksmith. It was at that moment he know about the owner of the gauntlet.

There was only one person in this world that owns this gauntlet, Feral, was that person.

One of the heroes that lived in this village. Week ago, he left the village to fight the demon lord’s daughter. Since then they lost contact with him.

This made the air heavy.

The heroes were already considered one of them. Because of this, it was quite difficult to tell them about this news. So they held a meeting at the village chief’s house.

In the end they decided to tell them about it.

The heroes’ reactions from hearing about this were simple.

“That Feral……No way!”

That word alone summarized everyone’s thought.

Disbelieve.

It was such simple word. However the shock they felt because of it was huge.

The least they thought to die, the strongest among them, the mad-dog. For him suddenly die like this surprised all of them.

Of course if you thought about the thing he wanted to do, it was a natural outcome. However, even so. They didn’t believe that death would come to someone they know this quick.

Even if they barely knew him, he was still one of them. They still feel grieve for losing him, while some of them still can’t accept the reality.

And the one who didn’t believe the most was not Yuu but, Selia.

Just week ago, she had fought him for her revenge. It was a When she think that time was her last chance. She can’t help but bit her lips in frustration.

“Is……there a possibility that he’s still alive?”

Yuu said that with a small voice. There was a sign of hesitation, as if he didn’t want to hear about it.

Cliff shook his head.

“From the amount of blood and grey wolves, it was impossible.”

Yuu fell silent.

He didn’t want to know that answer.

Then as if to end this meeting, the chief opened his mouth.

“It’s very unfortunate but, your friend, Feral, died.”