Ah. I already hate this.'
An imposing, relatively young elf was standing in bloody dirt. He ran his hand through his dark hair, but the locks refused to fall in place. It was alright, anyway. Nobody expected a dark elf to look clean right after battle. His usually scary face had no hint of intensity in its brown eyes, and his disheveled hair made it look like he just got out of bed. The sliced remains of the attacking beasts laying at his feet told a different story.
He looked at the four hunters under his command.
A stunning, long haired woman had her hand on the dirt, her eyes closed. She looked focused and serious. It was nice, because that job was quite important. Choosing her had been a no brainer. Not only was she a noble, ensuring a perfect education and serious conduct, but her blessing was supremely useful. She was slightly older, and had time to master combat as well as survival.
If only everyone was as reliable as her.
Right behind her, another woman with scarlet short hair and burn scars all over her body was crouched, staring at some still smoldering hound corpse. She held her face in her hands and contemplated her own doing with a pleasant smile. This one had been a tough choice, but she was too powerful to pass up.
And she wasn't even the only worrying person here.
Between the two girls and the captain whose apprehension didn't seem to stop growing, was a completely average looking guy, calmly dissecting a corpse. He had long, black hair, a somewhat pale complexion, and his presence was disturbingly hard to notice.
The impressive part, tough, was that the autopsy being conducted was going extremely well. All of the organs and most of the blood vessels were intact, and his sharp tools were making discoveries at a frightening speed. Even the gloves he always wore outside of combat were spotless.
Across from him, finally, someone was using the allowed break to actually rest. A tall, impressively muscular woman was catching her breath on a flat rock. Her tilted back head allowed her curled, black hair to fall behind her back, and her generous figure would've turned a few heads had there been anything else than hunters and dead meat in the area.
Although she was the only one still tired, she had every right to be. Her job in the agreed-upon strategy was to fight as many foes as possible at once to allow the rest to quickly cull the distracted targets. Only her could do such a job thanks to her freakish physique.
Despite getting the hard part of the job, it seemed she had fun.
The bunch of them looked like a battle hardened team, each one maintaining their composure despite having just risked their life.
'I really miss my bed right about now'
Baoba and his team had only left for about an hour.
'It's not going to stop, is it?'
He shaked the blood off his curved bone longsword, glancing around to assess the situation.
'Looks like no one got injured. Good.'
He didn't actually have time to complain : in this damn forest, threats seemed to come out of nowhere. Luckily, this was an elite team.
"Pando, are we good ?"
The scout hadn't needed that input to do her job. She lifted her hand from the ground and turned towards their leader.
"Of course not. Three new packs are coming from there, there, and there." She pointed in three directions roughly to her right. "And two groups of hidons are also rapidly approaching from the other side." Once her report done, she put her hand on a nearby tree to try and detect further.
'Right. No deviations from the plan.'
"Should I prepare more ammo ?"
Capcsium's eyes were glowing behind her outwardly clam demeanor. She was clearly itching to make some more bombs.
"Are you actually trying to set fire to the forest ? " Urtica sighed. " 'Cause we'll need to wait until we're a bit further to do that." The surgeon had apparently stopped playing with his wound-free victims, and was instead cleaning his gear attentively, eyes locked on the finely carved details of his silver blade.
"Let's not do it at all, thank you very much. Remember this is all the same woods. If we shake the environment too much, it'll throw off our previsions." While thinking, Baoba tried his best to stop his team from ruining the whole operation. After preparing for this long, it was preferable not to fail a single hour in.
'Since we're here already, might as well win this thing, right?'
He really wanted to turn back.
"Let's just follow the plan and advance. The hordes will be fighting each other and leaving us alone to find other dangerous beasts."
'Did these woods really have to be so densely populated?'
"Too bad." Said Venus, stretching." I was kinda hoping to practice for the big ones." She was right.
It would only get worse from here.
The sacred mother tree around wich Medio was built had always somehow repelled the truly terrifying monsters, allowing the very unenchanted walls to keep the citizens of the capital safe. The batch of hounds they had just massacred, while being no pushovers, were nothing compared to the might of the distant predators in this cursed forest.
However, this hunt had been a long time coming.
"We've practiced enough. Fighting useless battles will only tire us and attract more foes."
Baoba threw a look at Pando, who returned a nod.
"Let's go."
They did not retrieve the arrows or the meat.
'Please let this be under a year. '
Walking ahead, he brought a hand to his mouth. A light blue glow came from within his dark palm, and a thin, steady stream of clear water, created from nowhere, fell through his lips.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and put his closed right hand on his collar, thumb up so that it touches his neck, making a menacing gesture.
"Down with the Lord." That sentence, at least, was said sincerely with full determination.
The four other members of his squad imitated the gesture, and echoed in unison :
"Down with the Lord."
If it had been a straight line with no trouble, the group might have reached the destination in about three months. However, going that far from the mother tree, they were bound to encounter the strongest monsters.
They were counting on it, really.
The target was the Cursed Lord. Presumably, the strongest of them all.
Recently, monsters had been observed successfully fighting back against the repellent effect of the sacred tree. This phenomenon appeared out of nowhere and only grew stronger over the last few years.
Diviners seemed to agree on the explanation : a Cursed being was born, lending his might to fight against the Blessed.
It had to die.
It had to die quick, as well, because leaders had the wonderful idea to turn this extremely real existential threat into a competition.
On the other side of the forest, humans, a five member squad just like theirs had just departed after five years of training and preparing, just like them.
If they got to the target first, then the human Kingdom would absorb the elf nation.
If not, then Saltus would get to keep existing, with extra territory.
Baoba's job was to save his country twice over.
'Seriously, who put me in charge ?'