The following morning, Alderick and the Protection Agency got up and had a quick breakfast and started packing up their equipments. Al notice that both Astra and Teiki had bags under their eye and moved sluggishly. “Did the two of you not get enough sleep?” he asked. “Thanks to a certain crybaby, we didn’t get any sleep.” Astra replied, and pointed towards Poku. Al then notice that Poku had a few bumps in the head along with his right cheek red and swollen. “It wasn’t my fault!” Poku cried out. “It was!” Astra shouted back. “You cried out at the smallest thing, waking us up.”
Al didn’t recall being woken up in the middle of the night after switching with Astra. “But, I saw things moving around in the darkness. What if it had been a ghost?” Poku stated. “It wasn’t a ghost! We didn’t even see a ghost yesterday after walking through.” Astra then went on to lecture Poku, and seeing that it was going to take awhile, Al decided to go help the others pack up. “At least it looks like you had a good night sleep.” Al said to Luna as he approached her. “Yep, I did. I didn’t even hear Poku cried out.” She replied and started giggling as she watch Poku get lecture. “Those two have always been like that, so don’t mind them.” “Is that so? I also didn’t hear him cried out. If those two have always been like that, then they must be good friends. Are they the same age?” “Oh, no. Astra is the oldest member in the group. He’s over 3000 years old, while Poku is only 500. Since we are on the topic, both me and Teiki are almost 700.” Al was shocked at their age, having forgotten that elves are immortals that only die to unnatural causes. He was mostly shocked at Astra’s age.
Due to his age, Astra was among the first elves to be created by Marellda, who created them to help the humans defeat the demons that was rampaging the world at the time. Since then, the humans and Elves had an alliance together along with the Dwarves that was created by the goddess Senpai, and the Beastman, created by The god Bravius. It was due to this event that made these three Divines the most revered among the Divines. “Does Astra know alot about the history 3000 years ago?” Al asked, curiously. “No don’t-” Teiki shouted to Al. “Why yes I do. Where shall I begin?” Astra interrupted, his eyes now fully awaken due to the question. Poku, Teiki, and Luna all let out a long sigh. “Why did you have to ask him…” Poku said quietly.
Al was confused to the three’s reaction, and then had a bad feeling that he had started something he didn’t wanted to. “We… will go on ahead, you two can cover the rear and follow behind.” Luna said then motions for the three of them to move on ahead. Al was about to chase after them, but he was stopped by Astra. “I think the best place to start would be the human’s war against the Demons and their prayer to the Divines for aid.” Astra said to Al while smiling. Al then deeply regretted asking. “3152 years ago. The humans…”
“We should be reaching the village tomorrow if we keep going at this rate.” Teiki said, looking at the map to determine their location. “We should find a suitable place to camp, even though there is still time before it gets dark, since after this small plane would be the Rocky Pass, and I rather not make camp where theres rocks everywhere that can cover any potential threat at night.” “Ok, that sounds good. We’ll make camp at the bottom of this hill. Its a open field so we have a wide field of vision even at night.” Luna said, and pointed to a open area at the bottom of hill they were currently on.
Poku looked behind them, at Al and Astra who were some distance away from them. Astra was still talking, while Al looks like he was worn out both mentally and physically. “I feel a little bad for Al.” he said. “We should’ve warned him first.” Both Luna and Teiki laugh at the situation. “But then we wouldn’t have gotten to see this poor boy get his ears talked off by Astra.” Luna said, laughing away with laughter. After calming down a bit, the three walked down from the hill. Once they reached the bottom they started setting up camp. Luna asked Poku to go gather some firewood from the nearby small forest a little off in the south from where they currently are. Poku hesitated a little about going by himself, and wanted to wait for Astra and Al to reach the group first. “Please Poku? That way you’ll be back sooner and we can start cooking.” Luna pleaded to Poku, in which made it really hard for him to say no.
“I’ll make Chad go with you.” Teiki said. “No thanks.” Poku said. “I’m sorry, but he was what scared me the most last night. He made me think I had sleep paralyze yesterday.” “So you rather go into the dark, scary forest all by yourself?” Teiki jokingly remarked. Poku hesitated again. “Fine. But he has to stay within reach of me so he doesn’t scare me when he walks on a branch.” He walks towards the forest. Teiki pats Chad, and he purred, then he followed Poku to the forest. As he got fairly far from the camp, Al and Astra finally reach it.
“And that was how the Elf general slew the Demon King and brought peace to the land.” Astra said, seemingly finishing his story that he started early in the morning. “That was a really interesting story.” Al said in a worn out voice. “I think I will take a short rest to think about everything you just told me.” He walked over to a nearby rock, and sat down, completely worn out from the long lecture of history, not to mention the walking without a rest stop that, which seemed to have been going on for days, had also worn him out physically. “Where did Poku ran off to?” Astra ask Teiki. “We sent him to go get firewood from the forest over there.” “By himself? Pretty soon he's going to come running back once he hears a noise.” “I think he’ll be fine. I’ve sent Chad with him. Come on, help us set up camp.”
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Everyone had finish setting up their tents, and now just waited for Poku to return with the firewood so they could start cooking. Al sees something in the distance to the south of them. He alerted the group and they all looked over. “It looks like Poku.” Teiki said. “Looks like he’s running away from something.” “I’m sure he got spooked by something and just came running back. Is he carrying the firewood at least?” Astra replied. “He is. But there’s something following him.” Al focus his eyes to try and see better. Poku was running with all his might, dropping a few of the pieces of wood he had gathered. As he drew closer to the group. He started shouting. “Help me!” “Giant Wasps!” Teiki shouted to the group, after realising what was chasing Poku. Everyone grabbed their weapons, and got ready to fight the large group of wasp that was chasing after Poku.
Luna raised her bow, and pulled her bow string, aiming at the wasps. “Aren’t they too far to hit them?” Al asked. “Don’t worry. She’s one of the best marksman in elven history.” Astra replied. Energy started to form at Luna’s bow, and then took on the form of an arrow. She lets loose of the arrow and it flew far and fast. It pierces through three wasps, and they dropped. She then continued to fire away at them, withering their numbers a couple at a time. Once they got close enough for Teiki, she readies her bow, and then started shooting as well. Although her arrows didn’t penetrate like Luna’s arrows, she shot her arrows at a much faster rate than Luna did. She shot her arrows with insane precision, not missing even once. Not losing to Teiki, Luna started firing multiple arrows at the same time. “Multi-Shot” She shouted. Her bow now started forming three arrows instead of the one, and even though there were more arrows, her power and accuracy was still spot on, taking down five to seven at a a time.
The wasp now had their attentions on the two archer shooting at them, and ignoring Poku. They flew past him and headed towards the two. “Can you give me Boost: Agility?” Astra said as he drew his two swords. "Sure thing” Al replied. “Boost: Agility.” “Thanks.” Astra then turns towards the group of wasps that was fast approaching them. “Accelerate” He then ran towards them at even greater speed than they were going. He ran so fast that it looked like he was flying towards them. He quickly slew a few that was near, but didn’t stop, instead made his way towards Poku, cutting down every wasps along the way in a flurry of swings.
Luna and Teiki continued to support him from a distance, killing the wasps that was just a little to far for his swords to reach. Some of the wasps was about to reach Luna and Teiki, but Al canceled his buff on Astra, and drew his dagger to cut them down. He cut down a few when one of them got past him and flew towards Teiki. As it reached her and was going to attack, it was then swatted down and squashed just before it could do so. “Thanks Chad.” Teiki said, not even batting an eye at the nearby wasps, but instead focusing on the wasps that was in the distance.
Astra finally reaches Poku. “Just drop that and help us you idiot!” Poku then dropped the firewood and then drew his daggers. “I-I don’t know why I didn’t do that in the first place…” He then started attacking the nearby wasps that was around him. Al was slowly moving farther away from Luna and Teiki and closer to Astra and Poku. Once he was what he assumed to be the middle between them all he stopped moving. “Aura of Agility.” Al then focus his energy on maintaining the Aura, but was still able to attack the wasps near him. Due to the Aura, everyone was able to quickly cut down all the wasps.
“What happened in the forest Poku?” Luna asked. “Uh… well… When I was gathering the firewood, I came across their nest. I was about to sneak past them and then come back, but… their nest was much bigger than I thought. I stepped on a part of it, and it collapsed and then they started chasing me so I just ran. Chad also stepped on their nest too and made more came out.” Poku said, trying to get Chad in trouble too. Chad slapped him down for it. “Hey, don’t try to blame Chad for it.” Teiki said angrily. “But… He did it too though. It’s not completely my fault that there were so many of them. He also just left me behind afterwards.” he started to rub the cheek that was hit by Chad. Chad then bit into Poku lightly in anger for trying to get him in trouble. “You stupid cat.” Poku and Chad started wrestling around on the ground. If Al didn’t know about the Shadow Cat, he would’ve thought Poku was just rolling around on the ground for no reason.
“I’m going to tell Tami to stop giving you fish when we get back!” Poku shouted as he continued to wrestle the beast. “Tami?” Al asked. “Oh, She’s our cook.” Teiki answered. “Your cook?” “Oh, uh… Yeah she’s a member of the Protection Agency. She cooks our meal for the group.” “Poku, as punishment for dragging us all into a pointless fight, you will be taking watch at night between everyone.” Astra said. “What? That’s so unfair! I won’t get any rest then.” Poku cried out. “That’s a little harsh Astra.” Luna said. “Besides, with this fight, we all now better understand how well we work together and it could be helpful later.” Poku crawls up to Luna and hugs her legs. “Thank you! I won’t forget this!” “But you will still be punish.” She said with a evil looking grin on her face. Poku smiled turned upside down, and his face now turned paled.
“You will be taking first, middle, and last watch. And breakfast better be ready by the time we all wake up.” “What… that’s a little…” Poku mumbled. “Would you rather take every other watch instead?” “Breakfast tomorrow will be fresh caught fish at the nearby lake over there!” Poku shouted. Al felt a little sorry for Poku, but then remember how he did just left him alone with Astra the whole day, and the feeling vanished. “Oh, Poku, seems Chad is a little upset with you, so he might try to scare you in the middle of the night as revenge. Don’t wake us up or you’ll get it.” Teiki said as she crawled into her tent. “Good night.” Poku showed a sour face. “Don’t do it Chad. Or I really will tell Tami.”