It was on the fourth day that everything started to look suspicious, the first person that noticed was Kaxa and the knight leader, who's mind was as sharp as his sword, decided to tell his subordinates and in turn the three knights under him started to spread the word of danger. Of something lurking behind the trees, or, rather, somethings.

"Gnolls, huh?" Jacob mused as he stared vigilantly on the open fields, his eyes went past them though and went to the forest, he was scared, sure, but then again, he also fought a giant crab to a stand still so the little bit of confidence that he felt from defeating something like that is still fresh at the back of his mind, even days later. "Asya, do you think that we can beat them?"

At that the girl shook her head, "no, not when most of us don't even know how to fight," she said, "Gnolls are opportunistic and they'll hit where it'll hurt the most," her voice had a tinge of underlying fear as she spoke and while she did, she kept her eyes on the forest, much like Jacob. "And since the knights can't be everywhere, they're gonna find an opening to get to the merchants and servants, who I think will only just carry shields and spears to fight them off,"

"And that's bad because?.." Jacob asked, wondering why people who carry actual spears would have problems with Gnolls, they have weapons don't they?

"Because they're untrained and a single hit from a muscled Gnoll will break their arms," Oh. That made more sense, if they can't even take a hit because their arms are too weak then yeah, he can see why it's a problem. "And not to mention that most of the men and women here haven't seen blood all their lives, they live in the cities and since that's the case, they'll probably run away the moment that they see blood."

"It's a waste that the divers back in the village didn't go with us huh?" Jacob said to get Asya's mind off the Gnolls.

"If they do, then the bandits waiting at the forest beyond the village will see it as an opportunity and the place will definitely be razed by the time they came back," She said, "it's already worse enough that the people get attacked during this time of the month since the bandits know that the manpower their gets reduced after Dungeon dives."

"I guess." Jacob said with a shrug.

"Aren't you worried?" She asked him and Jacob shrugged again in response.

"Not really, I can handle myself and if I need to, I can always protect you," He explained while feeling the Gnolls beyond the forest, he can feel them, but the distance was too far that he can only get a glimpse, so far the scouts that keep following them numbered somewhere around 7 to 9 and if that's how small their scouting party is, then he's pretty confident that the actual Gnolls probably number in the upper 80s.

That's not good, not good at all, and if revealing that he can sense the Gnoll would've helped, then Jacob would have done it but since it won't- not with all the untrained people not knowing how to keep their defensive positions, - then he kept it to himself. It'd just be him flaunting around something that'll probably get a powerful [Mage] somewhere to kidnaphim, "Just stay behind me alright?"

She nodded and Jacob went back to sensing staring at the forest while sensing the Gnolls.

Even with all the threats and worries of everyone in their group, nothing much really happened during the day. Well, someone did spot another Gnoll and the knights immediately assumed that it was the monsters wanting to unnerve everyone else which, after hearing stories about the creatures and what they do, Jacob can actually see them doing to their "victims".

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

And speaking of victims, the people who encountered the Gnolls didn't get to experience a pleasant death, the things were sadistic and apparently liked the sound of bone being crushed, which, apparently can be artificially made when someone's legs get broken in a specific manner, and the Gnolls know how to break bones "specifically" in that order, and when that happens, they'd tie them up in sticks and make them walk around like little puppets, well, the people would actually turn into puppets for the Gnolls to laugh at, and they'd dance and walk while their broken bones jiggle around their surprisingly intact legs.

"Some of the people that I know talked about how the Gnoll puppets that they've rescued wanted to chop off their legs," Asya said, her eyes still staring in worry at the forest, "I don't really know if that story is true though since most of their puppets usually die from pain," Asya frowned, "and that I actually know about because people talked about how opportunistic hunters watched as Gnoll puppets fainted from pain then only to wake up seconds later because of it, that cycle kept repeating itself over and over, much to the amusement of the Gnolls."

"Okay..." Jacob said, much more wary of the creatures this time around, "don't let them get near me and kidnap me, got it." He added, then curious, he asked, "do you think they also kidnap animals and do that to them?"

"No." Asya answered bluntly, she faced Jacob and when she saw his confused expression, she decided to explain further, "you know how most animals have thin legs?" Jacob understood then and Asya nodded at him when she saw his expression, "yeah... usually since animals like deer have the lower end of their legs being nothing but bone and skin, the Gnolls have nothing to work with but us humans?"

"Our calves are plump and our thighs are meaty," She added.

"That's pretty fucked up." At Jacob's words, Asya nodded.

"Whether you like it or not, that's the truth of it." She said.

"Then they like other humanoids?" He asked and Asya simply nodded, "because we walk upright and on two legs and because of that, our legs are thicker and... baggier." He didn't want to describe his legs like that but can he help it?

"Do they victimize anything else other than humans?" He asked.

"Well they like to hunt down bulls for them to eat, they also like to ransack goblin caves for all their worth, some larger Gnoll communities with bigger, stronger variants also like to burn down fairy communities, and the Gnolls who have Blasbones for mounts attack Trolls." Her explanation became worse and worse as it went on and Jacob started to understand why everyone around him was worrying about the creatures trying to ambush them, "luckily, the group surrounding us are only on the smaller side of things so we'd probably be fine,"

"If they don't catch us off guard." Jacob said as he stared down at the road moving underneath him, riding the wagon is nice but if he wanted to fight the Gnolls, then he's either gonna want to go down from here and go to the forest or, god forbid, wait for the creatures to come to him. And he's sure that if the Gnolls decide to attack them then they're probably already confident that they can take their group.

Jacob looked around at the groups of servants surrounding him, most of the girls are currently working on trying to turn the insect chitin that they had with them into semi passable armor and weapons by trying them together or by plastering them on sticks to make decent spears while the guys were training how to use said spears, and from what he can hear, the knights wanted them to only be capable of keeping the Gnolls distant, which means that it's gonna be Jacob and the three four Knights who will try to fight the Gnolls while every body else is keeping them at bay.

Great, now he's putting himself in direct danger because it's what he needs to do as a [Mage]. Whatever, he'll probably be fine.

He met Kaxa's eyes and for a split second, the Knight looked thoughtful before he nodded at Jacob and went to the wagon that carried the Duke's loot, he rummaged with his gauntleted hand for a while before coming back to holding the heating stone that Jacob wanted back at the Dungeon, Jacob suspected what Kaxa wanted him to do and his suspicions grew when he saw the Knight walking to his wagon. Kaxa soon reached them and he held out the stone, "do you know how to activate this?" He asked and Jacob took a hold of it-

Would you like to Summon [Lesser Fire Elemental]?

Huh, isn't that a pleasant surprise? Jacob smiled, "I do."