《Hymns of a Starless Sky》

It was approximately 3 in the afternoon. The sky was devoid of any clouds since it was the middle of summer.

If this was earth then today would be Friday. Today was the day that Miya and I had to meet our raid party.

We’d only be doing brief greetings and discussing a few things before leaving for the city. Travelling by carriage would take a few hours to get there. That depended on whether we get assaulted by bandits or have to fight monsters.

Seeing as how this part of the decade was the most dangerous to be travelling on, that was a valid concern. Not only monsters but bandits would also use the chaos to attack the unfortunate. Byron’s party weren’t filled with newbies but we still had to be careful.

“What the... Why are they so disorderly...”

Miya frowned as she looked at the guild’s front door.

The guild was packed with people. Even the street was filled to the brim with adventurers. The carriages had no choice but to take the next street. I could see that the receptionists were struggling to keep everyone under control. The people were basically running over each other.

“At this rate, we won’t be able to leave.”

We had to register our names in Byron’s party first. To be able to raid a dungeon, you’d need to sign up for a raid document first. This differed from doing normal quests after all since the guild would profit as well. Before that, we had to locate them first.

‘But how will we do that?’

“Oi! I was here first! Out of the way!”

“Hah? Stop spouting bullshit!”

“P-Please calm down everyone! There are enough quests for everyone since many nations are looking for adventurers!”

The receptionist was in tears while she tried to calm everyone down.

“Ugh... We’ll be here all night.”

We came here straight after our classes ended. There wouldn’t be classes on the weekends so today was the perfect time to raid dungeons.

I sighed as I looked at the people present. They were pushing each other out of the way so they could get in first. There wasn’t any order at all.

I stepped forward.

“Hey.”

I released my raw mana into the air filled with my killing intent. A magic circle appeared above my hand and manifested a giant ball of flame.

“W-What the...!?”

I-I can’t move!”

“Can’t you animals maintain any order?”

All of them looked at me with terrified expressions on their faces. I was releasing my large pool of mana to intimidate them.

“What the hell is up with this power...”

“How is that kid so strong...”

“If you understand then move out of the damn way.”

All of them quickly moved aside.

‘No high rankers among them. Maybe all the high rankers were sent to the HQ.’

There was no way a high ranker would feel intimidated by my power. That meant that all of them were fairly new adventurers.

I extinguished the fire, looked at Miya, and smiled.

“Let’s go.”

◇◇◇

“Quite a display you made there outside. I could even feel the power from here.”

Byron patted my shoulder with a chuckle.

“Well, they were acting like animals. Anyway, is this the entire party?”

There were about six people gathered around the big table. Each of them were wearing fairly expensive equipment.

‘As expected of an A rank party.’

With the amount of power they had, a Hydra wouldn’t even stand a chance. Hopefully.

“Yeah. All of them are the comrades I grew up with.”

“This is Aria.”

He pointed at a girl wearing a dark cloak with daggers on her waist. She had the main class of assassin. Her hair was black and short. I could see a type of collar around her neck under the cloak.

She bowed her head when we made eye contact.

‘A slave huh.’

Slavery was still a thing in this world. Be it from petty crimes or war prisoners, it was everywhere. The Holy Kingdom and our kingdom abolished the slave law so I could guess that the girl was bought outside our nation.

“Kyle.”

“Hello, kids.”

A man with heavy armour and a shield on his back waved at us. He had a friendly type of air around him that seemed to rub off on people. I could tell that he was a very social person.

“Rela.”

“Yo!”

A woman with black hair and a body similar to a bodybuilder greeted us with a smile. Her entire body was covered in scars. She was wearing very risqué clothes. I could practically see her valley. Her skin was tanned and shiny from oils.

“Let me introduce the feisty archer in our group again. This is my sister, Brooklyn.”

“Mm.”

Brooklyn nodded her head and went back to scribbling in her book. She had ocean blue eyes and short tomboyish style blonde hair. Her hair wasn’t tied up like the other day we met.

“This is our cousin, Cliff.”

“Nice to meet you.”

The young man wearing priest clothes smiled softly. He had green long hair and a feminine face that would make you mistake him for a girl if not for his voice.

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“Now that I’ve introduced all five members of my party, I’ll get straight to the point....The reason we needed mages was because of the Hydra’s troublesome ability. That is, if it loses one head then more will grow out of the wound. To be able to seal their ability, we need mages to burn the wound after one of us cuts off a head. This will make it too painful for the Hydra to generate more heads.”

Each head had poisonous venom and breath, and its sharp teeth and strong jaws could kill a large variety of monsters or animals with one bite. Those heads extended from the elongated necks, so it was difficult for adventurers to get anywhere near the creature. The heads also had the ability to move at lightning speeds, and all nine acted independently from each other.

I heard that the biggest head of the creature was immortal and couldn’t be damaged with conventional weapons. Their blood could be used for making anti-venom since their blood is filled with poison. Just having it spit on you could melt your skin down to your bones.

“Couldn’t we just aim for its vitals? Why do we need to attack its head?”

Cliff was the one who asked the question.

‘Man, I can tell you’re a newbie.’

I didn’t expect them to have a greenhorn in their party.

Byron shook his head.

“Do you know how tough their skin is? Maybe Iris could cut through but it’s impossible for us. I’m not sure how effective a magic spear would be so I didn’t buy one. We’ll stick to the cut-and-burn strategy for now. Their weak points are located under their heads. It’s soft tissue so it should be easy to cut through with a good quality weapon. The only concern is their speed. Rela and I will handle that part.”

All of us nodded.

“So these are the academy students you mentioned the other day?”

The muscular woman with wolf ears pointed at the two of us. She was the Beastkin from the wolf warrior tribe, Rela.

“Yes. We’ll need them for the plan I constructed over the week.”

“I see.” She looked at us again after Byron’s explanation. “Do the two of you have any experience in hunting monsters of this level?”

I usually hunted monsters like orcs and trolls. I never hunted anything above that solo.

“Well, I’ve hunted a dragon and vampire lord before. With companions, of course.”

“.....”

“....”

“....”

All of them looked at me with shocked expressions on their faces.

“How the hell did you survive against a dragon!? And a vampire lord as well!? Aren’t those things the superior species of their race!?”

The archer, Brooklyn looked at me as if seeing a crazy person.

“Ah, well... I was part of the Divide so it was necessary for me to fight those monsters. I didn’t really do much. I only supported my party members with my spells. My companion, Helen finished off the dragon. We only managed to survive against the vampire because she let us go.”

Despite the fact that Brynhildr slaughtered over ten people, she still let us go when I offered my blood. The only she reason she attacked the city was to survive. She had to kill more in order to continue living.

“Still... Surviving is impressive enough. See? The kid is useful enough for this raid.” Byron was smiling with a satisfied expression on his face.

“Agreed.”

“Mm.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

Byron turned towards Miya.

“I-I only hunted monsters like the elder woods and ogres. I was too busy with other matters to hunt monsters.”

All of their responses weren’t as extreme as when they heard my story.

“Meh. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Your spirit magic is all we need. I’ll teach you the basics of monster hunting on the way to Lonid city.”

The muscular woman, Rela, gave thumps-up to Miya.

“Thanks...”

“Anything to add before we depart? The carriage will be waiting for us at the kingdom gates.”

Everyone shook their heads. Byron—who was obviously the leader rolled up the map of the city.

“Okay then. Let’s go.”

◇◇◇

Lonid lies on the edge of the Forest of Spirits that was near Hurge city. The city lies between two mountains. Those mountains were said to be two of the largest mountains on the continent. You could find many dungeons around the foot of the mountains and inside their caves.

The city had been around for 150 years and thrived on the labyrinth that it was built on. Even to this day, no one had ever cleared the labyrinth before. It was that large.

The labyrinth had multiple entrances scattered throughout the continent. They decided to make an entrance right next to the city so hunters, explorers and adventurers could enter safely.

The city was ruled by a count family for three generations. The current lord managed to make the city prosper far more than it did in the past. He was one of the ones who requested a lot of adventurers to come to his city.

I could see a bunch of wagons with people standing outside the city gates.

“It’s rare seeing an elf and a human getting along like this.”

Rela was the one who spoke.

Miya was soundly asleep on my shoulder. I could smell a flowery scent coming from her hair.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I hear elves are the most arrogant species on the continent just because of their long lifespan and superior magical abilities. We’re basically comparable to dog shit in their eyes.”

I smiled wryly.

‘Not all elves are that bad, right?’

Although elves do hate humans, they hated dark elves more. This was why Camilla was so isolated from the rest of the palace servants. This had something to do with Rodion as she said.

As Rela said, elves were superior to humans in every way. They lived long but they didn’t lose themselves to their desires like humans do. They could literally go hundreds of years without having sex. That was because they were natural asexual beings.

The reasons they hate humans so much was obvious. Look at all the conflict we had in the past just because everyone didn’t agree with each other. This was why wars occurred. There had never been a single war in the Elca Kingdom before.

For humans, there would always be that group that had opposing decisions. This was why some nations had different factions. Take the Holy Kingdom for example. They were divided into two sections of the same kingdom. Rosalinda IV ruled the northern side while the church ruled the other.

Maybe the queen didn’t trust the Pope that much. She was the one that divided the kingdom immediately after her coronation.

“The two of us share a special connection. I noticed this the first time we adventured together.”

“Oh? Have you two, you know~”

Rela teasingly made a circle with her fingers and pushed her one finger through it. She thrust her finger in and out.

“W-What!? Of course not!”

“Hmmm~? Didn’t you say that you share a special connection?”

“That’s not what I meant...”

The other members laughed at our conversation.

“Leave the kid alone, Rela. It’s their business if they had sex before.”

Brooklyn, who was sitting on my right chided Rela.

“But I just said...”

“No need to be shy, just be proud. You managed to court an elf. Not many humans are this lucky.”

I sighed.

‘Do we act like a couple or something?’

“When we arrive at the city gates then we’ll head straight to the guild. I need to give the official report to the guild master there.” Byron spoke to all of us when the city came into view. “After that, we’ll look for an inn and stay the night. Get up before sunrise because we need to be at the labyrinth entrance before any of the other adventurers.”

All of us nodded in agreement. The carriage sped up a little which caused Miya to wake up.

It was beginning to get dark so we had to hurry to the adventurer guild. Chances were that some inns were also full of people that travelled from afar.

When we got off the carriage in front of the city gates, I had a sudden thought.

‘Why don’t I have those dreams anymore?’

It was strange how I didn’t dream of the future anymore. Maybe it shouldn’t be called the future, but instead visions from another dimension. It was the past of old Clyde after all.

It stopped since a while ago so I didn’t pay much attention to it. But now I had a bad feeling about why it stopped.

‘It couldn’t be that the next disaster is close, right?’

Maybe that wasn’t the case. I was filling in the gaps myself so I couldn’t determine what was the right answer.

I got a sign before the first disaster happened. That sign was when I sensed the gaze of that being that was observing the kingdom. I was sure that it was Zero.

‘If I were to have told them what I felt would they have believed me?’

It was ridiculous to believe a child like me could detect an enemy of Zero’s might. Not even the Order was able to detect him without Laura’s help. I was only able to detect him when I sensed his mana. Maybe he casted a spell to teleport away because his presence disappeared from the sky a few moments later.

‘I haven’t received a sign similar to that yet.’

Maybe I was just paranoid after what happened during the teleportation incident. There was no telling when the next disaster would even happen.

We managed to enter the city after it was our turn.

When we stepped through those gates, I saw how overrun the city was with adventurers. I could tell since all of them wore gear and had weapons on their bodies.

Walking openly with your weapon was only allowed for adventurers.

There was a variety of people that we walked past. They were crowding the streets.

I saw a sign that said 【The Red Hunt begins in 1 day(s)!】

That meant that the red portals would open tomorrow. Lots of demonic monsters would pore out in the thousands.

We weren’t concerned with the Red Hunt since our only job was to slay the Hydra.

We were standing in the middle of a plaza when we stopped. Byron turned to all of us.

“The village chiefs that requested our party should be at the guild master’s office so it will take a few hours for us to come back.”

Byron took out a bag of coins and gave it to Kyle.

“Find a suitable inn for all of us to stay at. Rela. Let’s go.”

“Yes, leader.”

The two of them headed in the opposite direction that we were going to. The Aria girl who was holding Byron’s hand was left with us.

“Well, I guess I’ll look after the kids.”

Kyle said with a big smile.

“Hey! Who are you calling a kid? I’m 18, you know!”

Brooklyn complained to Kyle.

“Alright, alright. Anyway, I’ve been to this city before so I know of a place where the service is excellent.”