"Are you sure we should be doing this?"
Adon was leading Zoe, Claire, and Brion through the woods. Turning to answer Brion's question, Adon did his best to disguise his nerves.
"O-of course! If Burch sees how far we've progressed, we'll probably get our Rogue crests. Then we can go in an out of town as we please!"
This made the potential consequences to their actions fade from their minds. The other three started thinking about seeing their friends or exploring a place they had never seen.
They all jumped when hearing a rustling behind them. Zoe drew her rapier and Adon brandished his spear. The other two seemingly couldn't decide whether to draw their weapons or not.
When it wasn't a monster that crept out of the woods, but Kairo, they all sighed and relaxed their grips on the weapons. Adon's relief was quickly changed to anger. He slammed the butt end of his spear on the ground.
"What are YOU doing here?"
Kairo raised his eyebrow.
"I could very easily ask you the same question. Burch said we weren't to leave the property."
"Guess we've all broken that rule now. But if you're so worried about pissing off the teacher then go home, Pet!"
With a scoff and roll of his eyes, Kairo turned around and started walking.
"I'm less worried about Burch than the creatures in this forest. He would only beat us to a pulp. Whatever's in here, will go for the kill."
The others gulped at this, realizing the foolishness of their actions. However, Adon wasn't backing down.
"What's the purpose of this training, if not to kill monsters?"
Kairo whirled back towards Adon with a scowl.
"Are you that stupid? We've been training to fight humanoid monsters up to this point. There are no creatures like that in the forest, only gremlins and dire wolves. So far, the techniques we've learned don't apply to those-"
He suddenly stopped speaking and looked around. The others followed his lead, gripping their weapons tightly in response to what they saw.
Vermilion eyes surrounded then, yips and yaps coming from all directions.
Kairo loosened his short sword from its sheath.
"We need to circle up and start moving out of the woods."
Adon pointed his spear towards the unseen beasts.
"I don't take orders from you."
Zoe stepped towards Adon, brandishing her rapier towards the hidden monsters as well.
"This is what we signed up for, and we won't leave until we've tested ourselves."
Brion and Claire also drew and raised their weapons towards the red eyes.
"Dammit."
Kairo, unsure if he could make it out by himself, joined the circle of foolish teens.
Right as he did so they attacked.
Small black furred creatures with wings swarmed them, claws and fangs ready to rip their prey apart.
Adon stabbed the closest Gremlin in the chest, then used it's body to hit another two away.
Zoe thrust her rapier at the beasts as fast as she could, killing some and keeping more than a few at bay.
Claire summoned a wall of icicles, sending them flying every which direction.
The blur of a blade surrounded Kairo, an arc of blood closely following each of his attacks.
Brions hatchet, downgraded from the large double headed axe, chopped and hacked its way through the monsters.
However, despite it being lighter and more nimble than its predicesor, the hatchet slow and not ideal for the high amount of fast moving monsters. So it was no surprise that he was the first to fall.
A gremlin found an opening to clamp onto his shoulder and bite down hard. The hatchet fell from Brion's hands as he punched the bat-like creature in a panick.
Two more sunk their claws into his legs and started gnawing at his calfs.
"Brion no!"
Adon moved in front of his heavier set friend as he fell to the ground, defending him from the onslaught of monsters.
Claire shot icicles into the foreheads of the gremlins biting at Brion, extinguishing the life from their eyes.
It was to late, Brion wasn't dead but was out of the fight. His moans of pain were drowned out by the screeches of the winged beasts, who were now in a frenzy at the smell of blood.
The four of them defended their injured comrade as best they could, but with one less person defending they started accumulating injuries.
It felt like hours they were fighting off the monsters, so when the final gremlin fell they half expected Brion to have bled out. Luckily he was still breathing, but he was in bad shape.
Adon, covered head to toe in cuts and scratches, dropped to his knees next to Brion. Tears fell onto the pale, unconscious face of his friend.
"I'm sorry, this is all my fault."
A quest completion screen had popped up for Kairo, but he completely ignored it for more pressing matters.
"There's no time for apologies! We need to get him to Differentia, but he'll bleed out first. Zoe, can you stabilize him?!"
Kairo's shout brought Zoe out of her shock. Being the only one of them who could use healing magic, she had a duty to perform.
Green light surrounded her hands and the worst of Brions wounds closed slightly, but only enough to stop the bleeding. The healing magic, being the most energy consuming to control, left Zoe panting for breath.
"That's *huff* the best *huff* I can do."
"That's more than enough. Come on guys, lets get him out of here."
As Kairo and Adon lifted Brion, new figures came out of the shadows the trees cast.
"Where do think going?"
"Yeah, fun just started!"
The four of them looked with wide eyes and open mouths at the three long eared goblins. Pointed teeth smiled back at their shocked expressions.