Chp.6: Adventurers

Both Haku and Darbi had the scent of human beings imprinted on their minds. They remembered very well how easily they had been caught in one of their traps, and as a result had grown accustomed to associating them with extremely dangerous creatures. Therefore, just smelling them was enough to make them snap like springs.

"Quick! Activate the invisibility rune now!" Haku whispered gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted was for humans to notice them.

He didn't like that situation. Maybe they'd get lucky and what they sensed was just a bunch of farmers… but they were pretty close to the border by now. What were the chances of finding farmers or merchants or any other category of harmless human beings so close to a war zone? It was much more likely to come across soldiers, people trained and armed to kill.

Haku bit his finger and tore off a scale, causing some blood to emerge; then he pressed hard on the rune of invisibility he had engraved on his body. In an instant, he disappeared from everyone's sight. His brothers hastened to follow suit.

Now that they were invisible, Haku felt safer. Very silently, he climbed one of the few trees that sprouted between the hills and took a look down from there. Thanks to his extraordinary eyesight, it was easy for him to spot a group of three in the distance. One of them was tall and massive with a thick beard, while the other two were shorter and thinner. All of them had some sort of armor on, even if it didn't look very fine. One of them held a magic staff, a sign that it must be a mage; a druid, or perhaps a similar category.

While he was still looking at them something hit him; evidently some of his siblinga also had the same idea. That problem of not being able to see each other when they were invisible was really annoying. In order to avoid further messes, Haku deactivated the invisible power of his rune. "You can become visible again. They are too far away to notice us" he said as he jumped to the ground. Then he had second thoughts: "But to be sure, stay hidden in the tall grass anyway" he added; after all, he didn't know if the human mage knew how to use some sort of magic to enhance his vision or his sensory ability.

His siblings reappeared before him; Haku was pleased to see that they had followed his advice, even though with bodies as big as theirs it was hard to hide in the grass. Their horns and the spines on their backs protruded through the turf. "Soldiers?" Darbi asked worried.

Haku shook his head. "Too few. Human armies have very strict rules in case of war. Soldiers would never move near the enemy border in a group of only three people" he replied. "I rather believe that they are adventurers"

Haku knew about the adventurers thanks to Ethan. They had been one of the first things the human had explained to him about the world outside of his mother's territory. Apparently these were people who did not wish to be drafted into the militia, but still wished to fight; for this, there was the so-called 'adventurer guild'. The guild sought out all those missions that regular soldiers didn't perform, and therefore it employed many people.

Actually, thinking about the guild system, Haku had concluded that it was a great tool to increase the strength of human kingdoms. In fact, according to human laws, any warrior or mage above the level gold would have to enlist in the army. The guild, offering the possibility of improving evryone's strength level with various missions, training or the possibility of buying magical items, attracted many warriors and mages into it; sooner or later, some of them would be lucky enough to break through to levels above the level gold. Therefore, the guild helped to increase the military strength of the kingdom by creating new soldiers. Not to mention that many adventurers could be recruited as mercenaries, so even those not above the level gold would contribute to the protection of the nation. From Haku's point of view, the adventurers' guild was a perfect way for locating talent that might otherwise have gone to waste. Another demonstration of how ingenious humans were.

In any case, if the humans near them were adventurers, then perhaps they weren't such a great danger. Technically they shouldn't have been above level gold, otherwise they would have been together with their army by now. However, that didn't mean they were harmless: humans possessed many traps and dangerous items, and Haku preferred not to confront them.

"Why do you think they are here?" Corgorin whispered.

Haku reflected. "If I remember correctly, Ethan said that adventurers can be explorers, mercenaries or hunters. The first hypothesis is impossible since there is nothing new to explore here, and the second hypothesis is also unlikely since the area where the war is currently taking place should be far away. So, they are probably hunters. But they could also be mercenaries who enlisted late, or hunting for bandits"

"Hunters? And of what? There are no animals here" Kialandì pointed out. "And no bandits too. We haven't seen any so far"

"Maybe they hide very well" Haku replied. "Or maybe there's something else going on..."

"Who cares why they are here!" Darbi exclaimed. "What matters is that they are dangerous. I say to activate the invisibility rune and get as far away from here as possible"

Many of their siblings immediately agreed. However, before they could do as Darbi said, Haku stopped them: "Wait! I don't think we should leave right away"

Darbi looked confused. "Why, brother? You know it's dangerous to be here!"

"Yes, but Kialandì is right!" Haku said, and the sister in question looked a little proud of it. "There is no reason why adventurers should come here, not among those we know at least! Maybe something has happened that we don't know about. If we just leave, we risk running straight into the predator's jaws!"

His siblings thought about it, and indeed that reasoning made sense. According to their information, the war should have taken place away from that area, so it was impossible for mercenaries to be there; there were no places to explore, so even explorers had no reason to come; and the dragons hadn't seen or smelled or recognized the tracks of any animal for all the time they'd been in those grassy hills, so hunters were unlikely either. So, there was no reason why adventurers should come this way. But then why were they there? That question might have had an answer that the dragons wouldn't like.

"So what do you suggest?" Kotaru asked him.

Haku snorted. "We don't know why they're here, but maybe their tools will help us figure it out. Humans usually surround themselves with documents of all kinds. Ethan's map and diary, for example, allowed us to get by very well in the forest. Maybe these adventurers have something useful too" he replied. "Let's rob them. If they're adventurers, then they can't be higher than gold level. We can do it"

"How?" Sisna rightly asked doubtfully.

"We just have to wait for them to camp. When they will do it, we will just need to use the rune of invisibility to create an illusion that attracts them. They will run towards it and abandon their saddlebags and their tools not useful for the fight, and we will be able to catch them and escape before let them come back" Haku responded.

"What if it doesn't work? What if they spot us?" Rhaegal asked.

"They won't be able to do that as long as we have the invisibility rune active" Haku said. "And even if they should see us for some reason, we have the superiority in numbers and numerous runes all over our bodies. It would be easy to eliminate them"

Many of his brothers and sisters still looked very dubious. "I don't like this plan" Darbi said. "It's too risky. Let's just leave"

Haku was about to reply, assuring him that everything would be fine, or reminding him that they had done far more risky things in the forest, but then he stopped; his relationship with his siblings was already in the balance enough and he didn't want to further give them the image of him as a dictator who didn't take 'no' for an answer. So he tried to sound more democratic: "I don't like it either. But it's much more risky to continue our journey without knowing what we're getting into. If we come across something we're not prepared for, we could get in serious trouble"

That argument was very convincing: after all, none of them aspired to venture into the unknown. Haku had done everything to have a clear picture of the situations they could have encountered in their journey just to avoid unexpected events. Throwing yourself headlong towards the goal was certainly not a good strategy to survive: halfway there was the risk of being attacked from behind by a predator or bitten on the foot by a spider or snake. The situation of Haku and his siblings was no different: one misstep was enough and they could have run into newcomers, who would not have hesitated to tear them apart.

"Why don't we just kill them?" Keita asked. "That would be easy. Just approach them with the invisibility rune and hit them straight on the head. With a quick and single blow they would be dead, and we could get what we want from their corpses"

Several of his siblings nodded. That method actually seemed much safer. But Haku wasn't of the same opinion. "This time the situation is different. We are no longer in the forest between two warring peoples, where we could do as we pleased. Humans have some means of keeping in touch. battle, that would arouse suspicions. We could end up drawing unwanted attention to ourselves" he responded. "Killing them this time must be our last option. We will only do it if they leave us no other choice"

Haku absolutely didn't want to attract the attention of humans. If adventurers went missing for no reason, the guild would notice right away. This time they weren't several hundred kilometers away from the nearest human population center, as had been the case with Ethan: the human cities weren't far away, and so were the guilds. And humans, as far as Haku understood, used to write everything that happened around them on different types of documents. Therefore the guild would have immediately noticed the disappearance of those three adventurers: surely they had signed what humans called 'contract', so the person with whom they had done it would have noticed their absence. In a few days, the guild would grow suspicious and could send more adventurers. Even if Haku and his brothers would be moving on by then, it couldn't be ruled out that the guild would alert the other guilds in the other cities scattered along the border, who would in turn send more adventurers to investigate. Therefore, by killing that three adventurers, Haku and his siblings risked attracting tens if not hundreds of others of them.

Unfortunately, facing humans wasn't like facing ogres. They were on a whole other level when it came to transmitting information. It was very difficult to carry out an assassination without alerting what they called 'law enforcements', meaning adventurers, soldiers or anyone else concerned with enforcing law and order.

Keita thought carefully about these things, then she sighed. "You may be right" she admitted. Many of their siblings agreed with her.

Haku nodded. "Then it's settled. We'll do it tonight. As soon as they've made camp and put down their saddlebags, we'll lure them elsewhere with an illusion and steal everything from them. It'll be a simple and rapid job. Even if they look for us, we'll already be far away"

"What makes you think they're going to look for us instead of going to report this to their guild?" Kotaru asked him. "We could attract many other adventurers here"

Haku laughed. "Try to imagine the scene: the adventurers, the same ones who are supposed to fight dangerous animals and bandits, who get robbed. Wouldn't that be a shame and a stain on their reputation? If I were them, I'd at least try to find the thief before asking help" he responded in an amused voice. "And even if they rushed straight to the guild... how do you think their comrades would react? They'd probably burst out laughing. They'd become the laughingstock of everyone. If anyone even comes looking for us, it'll be when we're long gone"

Kotaru had to admit that reasoning made sense. After all, nobody liked to be laughed at and humiliated. So, finally, she agreed too.