Everything went as described the day before by the waitress.

Alaric went to the tavern at noon and she gave him a piece of copper that was formed as a cylinder, but since it was as long as one of Alaric’s fingers it was thin, with his name engraved on it.

Alaric Darkfeather

It looked strange since he never saw something like that before or thought that mercenaries would go obsolete and he was now an adventurer.

The waitress gave him two pieces of paper, one of them was his adventurer identification for official inquiries, and the other one was a quest.

The quest didn’t seem to be as difficult, it was a minor task that was given to small groups over time and the success rate was high, but the problem with this one was that it was gonna take place at night.

Alaric was hungry but he had no money to buy anything, and this quest was going to give him a small amount of coin so he could rest properly at night since last night’s rest almost broke his back and he needed a while in the morning to stretch and exercise properly.

His new party arrived at the tavern and glanced at him when they saw him.

He asked the waitress about some information about the quest and she sincerely replied she did not any more than what was described there, so he left with his new party.

“So this is the quest at Magnolia right?”, Misa asked while playing with her staff.

“Yeah I guess”, Alaric replied while reading the quest information. “It says here that we have to hunt down a pack of ghouls that are terrorizing Magnolia but I’m confused”.

“What’s confusing you?”, Enri asked.

“What are doing ghouls on this side of the continent?”.

“What do you mean what are doing ghouls in this side of the continent”, Enri asked again, confused.

“Yeah what are they doing here? From what I remember they were either in no man’s land because of the outcomes of war or they were not even close to places like big cities or even small towns like Magnolia”.

“Where were you in the last 5 years?”, Luke asked too.

“I would rather prefer not to talk about that”, Alaric replied.

“Oh... I understand”, Luke said. “I assume that you weren’t around enough to see the changes that the truce between the empires led to. Well summarizing every flesh starving creature now inhabits any part of the continent, in some places they are more concentrated than in others but there are demons everywhere. There’s a lot of things that you should know but we just got to Magnolia and it’s almost night so we should get ready”.

He was right it was almost night time and they had to prepare everything before the fight because although a ghoul is a low-class creature it can still kill if they were distracted, and the problem was that they were more dangerous in packs and if there was a pack that meant that there was at least a middle or high-class creature and that made the hunt more dangerous.

“What do you think we should do, newbie?”, Enri asked Alaric.

He was a “newbie” indeed, but only on the adventurer ranking system. Alaric had plenty of experience on hand to hand combat and war strategies since he used to be a mercenary. The tactics that he used were more useful against other humans but they would help too.

“I think we should start with a holy barrier around the important part of the town, and-“, he was interrupted by Luke.

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“You do know that if there’s a middle-class monster or demon with them that means that the barrier won’t last until the morning right?”.

“I do”, Alaric replied. “But we don’t need to last until the morning. We need that barrier to protect the good of the town and it’s people, yeah, but we need it to keep the ghouls out while Misa activates another barrier around them so we have time to kill them quickly and they don’t escape. If we do that I think the fight won’t last long so we can all focus on the middle-class demon and end the fight since it would be 4 versus 1 since I don’t think there is gonna be a large number of ghouls”.

“Woah, that’s clever”, Mina spoke.

Alaric sighed, he liked that the quest seemed fairly easy but he expected more because that was the most action he would get so far since he spent 1 year on watch and one 1 year in an actual cell, he was bored already.

Misa started to do the spell of holy protection.

Oh dear gods of what’s sacred, please let me borrow your power on this day and lead us to victory. Holy Moonlight Barrier.

The chanting created an invisible barrier that was only seen when the spell succeeded, and the barrier was set.

Following Luke’s command, Misa began to chant another spell, this time more silently than last time, and a dark outer barrier was attached to the ground.

“Enri gets ready”, Luke said.

“I am”.

“I don’t know how you are going to fight but whatever you do please tell us first and try to give us some information before so we know what to do too”, Luke said.

“Understood”, Alaric replied. “I will just give myself some backup power”.

“Flow acceleration”.

He said and a thin orangish layer ran through his body before disappearing.

“Durability Boost”.

This time it was a thin greenish layer that ran through his body, covering it before disappearing.

“Vision Enhancement”.

It was a thin, dark purple thin layer that covered his body before disappearing.

“What was that?”, Misa asked.

“Oh those were backup spells for mages but for warriors like me they are named Martial Arts”, Alaric replied.

“Martial... Arts?”, Misa repeated, confused.

“Yeah, they could be considered minor spells that enhance the caster’s ability on whatever spells he cast. In my case Flow Acceleration is to increase my speed, Durability Boost to increase my strength to take hits and or cuts, and my overall strength, and Vision Enhancement allows me to see things at night like if I would do in daylight”.

“Woah you must be a really powerful spell caster then”, Misa said.

“It’s the opposite”, Alaric explained. “Martial Arts greatly boosts the ability of the caster, but the caster’s boost depends on his potential or body or overall strength or all of them together”.

“Ohhhh I understand”, Luke said.

“Yeah and I see nine... no, sixteen... wait”, Alaric said, surprised.

“What's going on”, Luke asked.

“That is an abnormal amount of ghouls for a pack, I can sense around twenty-five to thirty-two ghouls approaching us... it can’t be”, He said.

“That’s impossible!”, Enri spoke. “There’s no way that there are so many ghouls in one single pack when the number grows over 12 they start killing each other and eating each other. That is just not possible”.

“Well seems like it’s gonna be a long night”, Alaric said. “I didn’t think I would be so unlucky that I would have to fight a pack this big of ghouls as my first quest...”.

The ghouls got to the barrier and they started scratching it and throwing themselves against it.

The characteristic, rotten smell of a pack of ghouls was noticed by the party. It was smelled so horribly that it was evidence of the large size of the pack of ghouls.

“Ghouls are weak to fire... so we should burn them all!”, Luke said out loud.

“Yes indeed, but I don’t think Misa’s magic power would be enough or 40 ghouls, she would run out of magic power quickly and we can’t let that happen”, Alaric replied. “Instead... I have a plan”.

“And that is?”, Enri said, frustrated.

“I think we should use lightning against them. They are not particularly weak to lightning but that would stun them enough time so Luke and I could kill most of them”.

The ghouls were being more and more violent, aggressively hitting each other while trying to trespass the barrier, so Alaric had less time to think of an appropriate way to approach the situation.

“MISA!”, he yelled.

“W-What!?!”, she said.

“I need you to summon rain above us”, he demanded.

“But why?”, she said.

“Just do it!!”, he replied.

Misa started to cast the spell, she closed her eyes and started.

O angels of heaven, rage, storm bring upon us!

The rain started quickly after the chant was finished making everything outside the barrier wet.

Alaric took that opportunity and extended his left arm.

“SHOCK BOLT!”

He screamed and a fast blast of lightning was fired at one of the ghouls. When it landed on it the charge was passed to every other ghoul through the ground and since they were pushing against each other. It stuns them and most of them fell to the ground while they were being electrocuted.

“NOW IS THE TIME, SECOND BARRIER!”, Alaric said. “LET'S GO LUKE!”.

Luke and Alaric quickly ran slaying ghouls one by one, it was fairly easy since most of them were still on the ground and the other was too stunned to even realize what was happening.

Luke was cutting their heads open with strong movements of his ax. Alaric was crushing their skulls with precise and strong punches.

The “fight” ended after a couple of minutes.

Luke, Enri, and Misa were celebrating and Alaric was just staring at them, smiling.

He was remembering his old times as a mercenary with his old party, how it was after a raid, or a battle that they won, and he kept smiling softly.

That was until he sensed something else. Something dark and evil. He was going to speak up to let the other members of the party know but there was no need.

They all sensed it when whatever was approaching got close enough.

Words could not describe enough how whatever that was approaching looked like.

It looked like a hundred bodies piled up together forming a horse-like horrid shape. The rotten smell of old cadavers was so strong that Misa suddenly fell on her knees and starting throwing up violently.

That thing approached the outer barrier and when it was close enough the barrier shattered like glass.

The fear could be seen in Luke’s and Enri’s eyes, and the confusion on Alaric.

“Tha-That ca-can’t...”, Luke was stuttering so horribly that It was really hard to find sense in what he was saying.

“It’s not possible it’s not possible it’s not possible it’s not possible it’s not possible...”, Enri fell on her knees while she pulled her hair and let a couple of laughs out, and kept repeating herself as a sign of madness.

“Gods protect us from evil, I don’t want to die please please I beg you, gods, please I don’t know please”, Misa said before starting throwing up again.

“I don’t want to die. This can’t be happening to me”, Luke said before looking at Alaric who was utterly confused.

“WHAT IS AN APOSTLE DOING HERE ON MAGNOLIA?!?