“Monster is a vague term right?” Vivian asked Eldrian, which caught him completely off guard since he wasn’t expecting a question from Vivian.

“I think so, since it can mean anything monstrous,” Eldrian answered after thinking for a while. He found that he never really thought of it before, but the monster was indeed a very vague word to class something under. Since anything strange can be called a monster.

“That is why it has been divided into more concrete groups. These groups are determined by the characteristics of said monsters. The main points taken into account would normally be their appearance and intelligence.” Vivian said, while Eldrian nodded to show he was following along.

“In the end, it was decided to classify them into four groups. Humanoids, beasts, undead, and real monsters. For simplistic sake, I will just briefly explain each.” To which Eldrian nodded again to indicate he agreed with keeping it simple for now.

“Humanoids have human-like characteristics. They also generally have higher intelligence than the other monsters. Common types of humanoids would be orcs, goblins, trolls, demons, devils, and so forth.”

“Beasts are generally animals who have evolved via magic, either internally or externally. It is thus generally possible to trace the origin of any beast monster back to the animal it had evolved from.”

“Undead, as the name suggests is a thing which had died, yet it is still alive. They can be from any race or species. It is possible to run into undead beasts or undead humans or anything really. Generally, the undead would be weaker than its live counterpart, but there are a few cases where this does not apply.”

Eldrian was still nodded after each explanation as a way to show Vivian that he was keeping up.

“Real monsters on the other hand are normally made via malicious design. Unlike beasts who evolved from animals, real monsters mutated from any living species even plants. They generally look far more hideous, but again there are exceptions.”

“This is what I was thought, but I have never seen any type of monster before and can only relay what I learned,” Vivian said as she finished the first part of the explanation she was planning on telling Eldrian. She then took a break before beginning again.

Eldrian nodded again to show he had no problem hearing what she had heard. Since it was far more than he currently knew.

“Every type of group of monsters then also have sub-categories, which we use to determine their threat level or origin. This together with knowing a monster’s Tier can help you determine if you should run or fight. Which is why I am explaining this part to you.”

Hearing this Eldrian nodded again as he felt it was someways off from their current situation. But when you knew nothing, then everything would be valuable.

“I am just going to explain the beast side of this, since other information won’t be useful for you right now,” Vivian said after she thought for a while. She didn’t want to explain everything about all the monsters, since it had taken her a long time to learn it all. She did not want to spend the entire travel time explaining it to Eldrian.

“Beasts come in 5 different, let’s call them classes. Namely evolved beasts, demonic beasts, bloodline beasts, ancient creatures and mythical creatures.”

“Evolved beast is the first rank of beast-like monsters. Generally, they still look a lot like the animal they evolved from. After this rank would be demonic beasts, where the monsters can start looking far different from the animal it evolved from.”

“After demonic beasts are bloodline beasts. I think they are called bloodline because this rank normally has a linkage to the ranks above it. It is often said that these beasts are distant offspring of stronger classes of beasts, instead of the next evolution step for beasts to take.”

“After bloodline beasts comes ancient creatures. They are generally very rare and strong. But different from mythical creatures, which is the last rank, they can be found in specific areas. But if you do encounter one you should generally run as fast as you can.”

“Lastly is mythical creatures, who seem to have disappeared from the planet. Well not really, but they are really hard to find and generally they are all loners or just a family. Ancient creatures would still congregate together and form packs. But from what I have learned mythical creatures live as families and would never form a pack.”

“That is quite a lot of different classifications. Why is it so important though?” Eldrian asked after Vivian explained.

“A few reasons first is the strength difference, a Tier 1 mythical creature is as strong as a Tier 8 evolved beast. Which means a newborn mythical creature will be able to kill a Tier 7 evolved beast with ease.”

“Wait, are you saying a baby mythical creature can kill an adult monster?” Eldrian asked feeling confused, as this defied the logic he was used to.

“Well, I feel you don’t understand what a mythical beast is. A good example is dragons.” Vivian replied, which immediately made Eldrian feel it made sense. He also felt that a true dragon of any size or age would be able to roast most common monsters.

“In any case, this is just how we classify the monsters which evolved from animals. Some of them are even good-natured so monster might not be an apt name to group them under. But that is semantics.” Vivian said, shaking her head at the end.

“Other than that there is also the case that not all beasts of the same species are the same.” Vivian continued and this sentence confused Eldrian, but she soon continued further. “For example in a pack, there would always be an alpha, who would be the leader of the pack. And under the alpha, there would be betas. They are all far stronger than the rest of their species.”

“What does this mean exactly?” Eldrian asked, not following why she was telling him.

“Simple, we are going after a pack. Thus there will be an alpha and a few betas. We should try and avoid them if we can, since I don’t feel confident in taking on a beta evolved beast.” Vivian said.

Eldrian was very surprised when she said she didn’t think she could take on a beta. ‘Are they so much stronger than the normal monster? Wouldn’t this make them like an elite monster, or boss monster?’ Eldrian thought and felt something click in his head.

‘That must be it. Then following this thought pattern, they would have far more health than the normal monsters. Probably up to twice or three times for betas, since this world is so realistic I don’t feel it would be far more. But the alpha, I wonder how much of a boost it would get.’

‘And how strong would they be? Would their damage and speed also be improved in the same manner?’ Eldrian asked himself as they walked in silence for a while.

Vivian saw that Eldrian was contemplating what she had said, which she was glad about. She did not feel like trying to convince him. She felt she would be unable since she had never faced any beast before. She had no real evidence to back her, other than the soldier’s boasting about past battles.

After a while, she began by talking again saying, “In regards to a monster pack, don’t think it is nearly the same as with animals. The huge pack we are going after should have more than 2000 monsters to be classed as a huge pack. A small pack would be made out of more than a 100 monsters.”

Eldrian was stunned to hear the number of monsters still classed as a “pack” and not a horde. But he felt the numbers made sense when he looked at the expedition team’s size. In total, they were around 8000 people, if you take both the soldiers and players.

But while the numbers made sense, he felt the word was still completely wrong.

“So to answer your question. We are expecting a pack of more than 2000 evolved beasts, which means there can even be more than one alpha and definitely the number of betas would be more than 20.”

“Even with us outnumbering them so much, don’t expect it to be an easy fight, alright,” Vivian said as she ended her monologue.

After this, they continued on for a long time in mostly silence. They only talked every now and then.

Eldrian would ask her about some random stuff as he saw something new to him. Like strange plants, which turned out to be medicinal plants or even magic plants.

He wondered why no one had harvested them, to which Vivian told him that it was illegal to harvest them without a permit or special permission. This rule was created to keep magical plants in the wild for adventuring people. She told Eldrian that the plants were also planted like crops for large-scale usage, thus the actual worth was not worth the effort of going out to find the plant, and then having to circumvent the law.

In such a manner hours flew by and the entire group had stopped to take a break. While most people weren’t really tired, everyone needed to eat. Luckily they had stopped at a woody area.

Most of the land was hilly plains, forests seemed to be very rare in the area. The forest they were resting at was the third Eldrian had seen in the five hours they had been traveling. But this did not mean there had been no trees, on the contrary, there had often been a single or a small group of trees. But a good amount of trees covering more than just 10 meters had been rare.

The forest they were in covered a large area, far larger than any other forest Eldrian had seen while walking. Eldrian felt it was easily as large as a few rugby fields and as nature intended the forest had no specific pattern and thinned out as it came to the edge. But it allowed the soldiers and players to find a shaded area to rest for a while and eat something.

The soldiers had split into two groups, one big group and another far smaller one. The smaller group had walked out of the shaded area and formed a perimeter around the resting army. With a person every 20 or so meters. Eldrian believed they were keeping watch, while the other rested soldiers rested, which was indeed what they were doing.

Eldrian felt this was a good practice, since the other soldiers had found themselves some shade and sat down, relaxing.

All the soldiers also seemed to have taken of their weapons and placed them next to themselves, which Eldrian realized was actually better than just keeping it on your hip or back, when you are seated on the ground.

“Oh, we have already arrived here,” Vivian said after a while. She hadn’t recognized the place at first because when she was here last it had just been her, her dad, and mom. A few years ago they had come here to have a nice family outing, which had turned into a strategic location, finding expedition by the end due to her.

It had been a few months ago, just after the first cases of invasion had started. When they had gone out she had started looking for places that would make a nice place to rest when running away. She had therefore dragged her dad and mom to help her search for more such places for the entire week before they had finally put a stop to her paranoia.

“Northern cross-forest,” Vivian said softly, Eldrian almost missing it. He only heard it since he had been listening closely after she had said they had arrived. He had wanted to know why she had said it, but the name meant little to him as he did not know the story behind it.