"fuck."

The group drew their weapons, as they looked all around them, but the silence remained unchanged.

The silence was so thick that they could have heard the sound of the grass growing had it not been for their footsteps, but there was only the sound of the wind rustling through the tall grass.

The wind made a slight whistling noise as it was blowing through a gap in the street, and the tall grass of the fields bent and made a soft sound like the wings of a grasshopper, and all these different sounds created an extremely eerie atmosphere. From these noises, one was distinct. Footsteps in the mud.

The footsteps were quite far away and faint, but it was still clear. There seemed to be multiple people. However, it was hard to tell how many. Saul looked around, and saw that everyone's eyes were locked in on the direction of the footsteps in front of them.

They sounded like human footsteps but were much heavier.

"Stay close."

Saul commanded quietly, without any of the cheer from earlier. The others nodded and tightened their circle as they moved forward.

Even though the area appeared to be quite spacious, they were extremely careful. The sound of footsteps became louder and louder.

Just then, Saul spotted a figure in the corner of his eyes — Human like mutants who had a tribe near that lake.

They were called 'Karakter' – a mutant race that resembled humans in appearance. They were not much stronger than humans, and it was not known if they could use human language, but they were not a weak race. They were just hard to deal with because they could use tools.

They had the same basic proportions and bodily parts as anyone, but they were more muscular and their bodies had a few distinct features. Most notably, their arms were almost twice as long as that of a regular human, but the fingers were longer as well. Another notable factor was that the colour of their iris was pure white.

The clothes they wore were made of animal skin and woven grass and leaves. Some of them wore jewellery made from various materials.

For them, every member of their tribe was a valuable and precious existence.

The Karakter were also fiercely protective of their people and could be called savages when it came to protecting their own.

They had a tribe near the river as far as Saul knew and they never went out of that area so finding them in the wild was extremely uncommon. Even more in a place like this.

So why were they here?

Saul was thinking over what to do, but there wasn't enough time to plan anything. The sound of footsteps was now very close, and they could hear the sound of heavy breathing. Just then, from one of top of one of the wall's, something jumped down and a scream was heard.

Turning around, Saul saw an adolescent Karakter welding a rudimentary knife as it cut the thorat of Aoi.

"AHH!"

Aoi stumbled back, holding his neck as the blood poured out.

"Ah..."

However, Aoi's expression was not of pain, but rather of surprise when he saw the Karakter. He reached out with trembling hands and muttered,

"…A...Child?"

"THAT'S NOT A CHI—"

Before Saul could say anything further, another arrow flew towards them.

The arrow shot out of the blue, and there simply was no time to avoid it. The arrow hit Aoi in the head, and went directly through his forehead, tearing through the back of Aoi's head and leaving a gaping hole as it exited the other side.

Aoi's body went limp and fell back onto the ground. His legs and arms twitching like a puppet on a string. Blood poured out of the back of his head and his eyes staring blankly at the sky, he was dead. The Karakter's were standing up at various locations of the wall staring at them and holding various types of weapons.

"A-aoi..."

"…"

Everyone stood shock still. They were looking at Aoi's lifeless body. It had happened in an instant. Aoi's death was so sudden that they all stood motionless.

"…"

This moment of silence lasted for a few seconds but felt like an endless moment. Saul was the first one to break through that silence.

"That...little bastard…"

He clenched his fist so tightly that his fingers cracked in an audible 'Clack.' His eyes were locked on the Karakter who was standing in front of him, the same one who had stuck Aoi with the knife. It was clear that Saul was furious.

However, that anger wasn't the only thing on his mind. Something else was bothering him – the Karakter's actions did not make sense to him. Karakter did not go out in such large numbers when hunting, and Karakter usually never attacked humans. It was the other way around. And yet, they had attacked them.

Whatever, it didn't matter anymore.

Before Saul could take out his katana and slay those bastards, Nomi grabbed him and Luna and ran behind a building while Lucifer, Ox, Taguchi, and their intelligence specialist — hirata went behind another.

This happened so quickly that Saul didn't even have time to protest.

"Hey, what are you—"

When they reached the behind of he building, Nomi threw Luna and Saul on the ground.

She was breathing hard. They had managed to find cover just in time, but were still exposed from the side. They had entered an alley way between a few broken buildings.

Saul got up, and walked over to the entrance of the alley and took a peak — there were atleast 200 of those bastards here. He could see them everywhere.

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"...You..."

Saul clenched his teeth, trying to suppress the anger building inside of him. The image of Aoi dying played like a broken record in his mind. One of the Karakter walked over to Aoi's corpse and it seemed to be looting him of anything valuable.

"How can they....!" Saul said aloud, his voice low but trembling with anger, "they killed Aoi...why?"

Nomi stood on the other end of the alley, she stood completely still — her back was pressed against the wall of a building, her breathing still slightly heavy and ragged. It was quite shocking how she had not shed a single tear yet.

"The real question is what should we do now.."

This comment made Saul to think for a moment. What should they have done? What would be the most logical choice of action here?

A few moments later he spoke again.

"First we need to hide. Then, regroup and see if we can escape."

"Escape?"

Nomi repeated. Her face was expressionless, her eyes staring at the ground. The word sounded alien to her, and it seemed that the idea of running away was unacceptable to her but she had to grit her teeth.

Dying in this line of work was common.

It happened.

There was nothing they could do about it except for moving on.

"I know it must suck, but that's all we can do. We don't know how many they are, and fighting isn't going to do us any good."

"…I know. That's why…" she muttered.

Saul turned his head to look at her.

"It is what it is. Luna, can you contact Taguchi?"

"Yeah, sure, give me a second."

Luna pulled mentally called Taguchi and as soon as he picked up, she transferred the call to Saul.

"Hello?"

"Hello, where are you?" Taguchi's words came through the call, a tone of worry in his voice.

"We're hiding out in one of alleyways, between a bunch of buildings, opposite to you."

"We're inside..what looks looks like a house? Maybe probably. So, what's the plan?"

"We hide until their focus is gone from us and then we regroup and escape."

"I see."

"So, where's Sato-san...?"

"He's...umm..."

————————————————————

"what the..."

Lucifer sighed deeply, and mumbled to himself.

Lucifer had been trying to get close to these people. They were great people, and the way they loved their each other (platonic) was quite enviable. Lucifer had lost his parents and friends, thus all this time had been jealous of them. Therefore, when he thought of an outstanding group for this world, Lucifer immediately thought of the blood wolf's.

He was filled with rage when he had seen what happened right now.

However, he felt something was wrong about him displaying this anger, when anyone else — for whom that anger was far more justified — had set those feelings aside.

He looked at Hirata or Taguchi, their eyes were empty, not a year in sight. As he wondered whether he should try to comfort him, Taguchi wiped a single tear away and smiled:

"I still have a little sister. I can't lose myself in sadness forever."

"You're a very strong person Taguchi-san."

Had he been Hayate sato, he would've probably said something like this but he didn't. Instead, he raised up a hand to his helmet and wiped some blood which was staining his helmet away, looking down at it on his fingers — This was the blood of Aoi.

Strangely, the strong emotions swelling up in his heart died down on their own, replaced by a hollow sensation.

"Hmm…"

Lucifer looked over to a certain part of the village, sighing as he did.

There, he saw several humans lined up in a row. There were men, women, and children of all ages. He could see a motherly looking forty-year-old woman as well as teenagers. The one thing they had in common was the depressed look on their faces, which might even be mistaken for hostility. It was a clear sign that nobody here was in the mood to play around.

A Karakter with a bow addressed the humans.

Even Lucifer's heightened sense of hearing could not make out his words over the great distance.

After a while, the line of human's slowly raised their bows. They were simple, shabby shortbows which looked warped and were probably self-made.

After drawing their bows all the way back, they took aim in the blood wolf's direction which they some distance away.

The Karakter must have given an order, because the human's loosed as one.

The bows looked crude, but the arrows they launched flew in beautiful trajectories. All of them struck the area around the blood wolf's, without a single miss.

"Not bad…"

Lucifer could not help but praise them.

"Are they really that good?"

Oxy, standing behind Lucifer, could not help but express his doubt.

In all likelihood, oxy could not understand why their skills were praiseworthy. After all, they were like children at play compared to the archers at that he could create on a whim. As he realized what oxy was thinking, a bitter smile bloomed on Lucifer's face.

"You're right, oxy. Their technique is hardly something to get excited over. However, ten days ago, they did not even know how to use a bow. In order to prevent their spouses, children, and parents from being slain once more, they threw themselves into training, so that they could one day stand with weapons in hand to fight against their own kin. Is that not worthy of praise?"

What was truly praiseworthy was the depths of the Human's struggle to live, which had brought them this far.

Although, right now, nobody knew why these human's were being used by the Karakter except for Lucifer who had gotten this information yesterday night.

And that was because:

The nearby lake in which these Karakter used to live had been drained completely dry by a corporation and thus, these Karakter's were homeless. There was an small village nearby to this place which had secured enough fund's for a dome and thus they could live in peace but they' didn't have security. Thus, the Karakter raided them and took them as slaves. The Karakter planning to make this village their new home.

A large part of the town's population had been taken by the Karakter. The humans here had been driven by the fear of losing their homes, and many of them ended up surrendering as they believed that they had absolutely no power to fight back.

In such circumstances, the only people willing to take up arms were the children, teens, the elderly, and those who were deemed incapable of productive labour while the adults did labour. It had taken them a full ten days to learn how to wield them.

"My, my deepest apologies. I had not thought that far."

"It's fine. Don't worry about it so much, ox. It's true that their skills aren't really that impressive."

Lucifer watched as more arrows sailed through the air and penetrated the houses they were taking cover behind. An idea suddenly came to mind.

How strong could they become? How strong could he become?

Lucifer had attained the maximum level in Yggdrasil, level one hundred. When he came to the world, his excess XP bar was 99.1—99.5 percent full. It was just a hunch, but since his other abilities were intact, the concept of levels should exist in this world as well but that didn't (atleast for everyone else). However, he couldn't rule the fact that maybe one day the levels could be applied to everyone else as well. The question then would be whether he could obtain that remaining 0.5 percent of the experience bar to reach level one hundred and one.

To some extent, he had an answer to this question.

He could not become stronger. This was as powerful as he was going to get.

Lucifer's might was one which could no longer grow, but their weakness could be an unfathomable source of strength.

If there were no limits on the inhabitants of this world, if they could surpass the maximum level of one hundred in Hollow, then Lucifer and then his vassals would not be able to defeat them. And that would definitely—

"It's not impossible…"

Lucifer felt it was possible that the gods from the past on religions were actually Players. Although he did not know why they had appeared so far apart from Lucifer, if they counted non-humanoid beings — which had no maximum lifespan — among their number or if they possessed a class which extended their lifespans, there was a very high chance that they had survived to the present day. If for example, they were still alive and hiding and if they had begun power levelling others using their power. The abilities of powerful Players in order to gain experience faster than normal — from hundred's of years ago, it might well be possible that there were people In excess of level one hundred.

If that were the case, the reason why the these power had not yet taken over the world might be because there were other beings of the same caliber lying in wait.

It might even be the case that being level one hundred meant nothing.

As he thought about that, Lucifer's gut began cramping up again. Ifthe Gods really were Players, then he had to try and get on their good side.

He could only imagine what would happen if one of them suddenly came out of hiding and declared himself as Jesus for example and millions of Christians began to support him, fighting against Lucifer and this was just one of many things that could happen.

Lucifer sighed deeply, just then, a man ran to him. It was Hirata.

"So, what're we doing?"

Lucifer thought on it for a while, what would be the best course of action right now.

A member of the blood wolf's had died to a village of monster's and as someone who had expertise in that field, right now. There was only one thing he could do.

He reached his hand to his back and grabbed the hilt of his broadsword.

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