Chapter 18: The Calm…

The office belonging to the guards wasn’t that large, there were over a hundred guards in the settlement, but this building could contain a maximum of fifty people. They had structured the place to operate in batches. Switching between the night shift and day shift. The building contained a few offices for administrative purposes, several public bathrooms and a large lounge or the so called break room.

Albert sat behind his desk signing one stack of papers after another. For a small settlement such as this, they had a surprising amount of paperwork for him to do. Although it was mostly because of their terrible organizing skills, still, having been here all day, he was starting to get bored. Standing up from his seat, he left the office in other to take a walk using the excuse of patrolling the perimeters.

When he left the office, he had to walk by the lounge in other to exit the building, looking at some of the guards on duty, laze around doing nothing, he couldn’t help but shake his head. It had been a lot peaceful lately, for almost a month now, there had been no monster attacks or siege. He walked by the break room with silent steps, non of the guard had even noticed him.

Exiting the office, he was greeted by the sight of the busy town as people move up and down the streets. it was late in the morning and the town was at his busiest, taking a step outside he heard a familiar voice scream his name. “Albert, Albert, Albert, Albert,…” the voice kept muttering his name loudly as it got closer at a rapid pace.

Turning his head he saw a child Sprinting at him at a rapid pace, as he got closer he held the brakes, coming to a sliding halt as he kicked up dirt all over the place. *cough *cough the child was affected by the dust as he broke out in a coughing fit. “Are you okay?” Albert asked worriedly, after waving his tiny arms around to get rid of the dust the child smiled and looked at him.

He was a young boy that looked like he would be around the age of 5 or 6, he had short blonde hair and a tanned skin, he had two dog ears and a short tail, he also carried a wooden sword around his waist. The child puffed out his chest and hit it “Am a man, a little dust is no problem for me.”

“Oh I see, that’s fine then.”

“Hey, hey, hey… I don’t like the doubt in your face am serious.” Albert couldn’t help but chuckle at that, the boy pouted a little and he parted his head, he wanted to protest but his wagging tail had betrayed him. “So, young man, what brings you here?”

“Am running errands for my mom, she’s been too busy lately so as the man of the house I decided to help.”

“well, that’s certainly what a man should do.”

“See, see, I told you…” Little Timmy was quite pleased with the compliment and his short tail did nothing to hide this, his face was plastered with a beaming smile. He was Albert and Erin’s next door neighbor and his father had died in battle more that five year ago so he had taken a liking to Albert who always took care of him.

“Hey you said you’ll teach me how to fight, I’m 6 today so when are you going to teach me.” Albert nodded thoughtfully and smiled, “Of course, but today’s your birthday so we have to celebrate, today’s also the day this town moved here so we’ll be having a feast later, why don’t we move your training to tommorow.”

The kid was very pleased when he heard that he hadn’t thought his mom would have the time to celebrate his birthday so he was only looking forward to spending it with Albert. “Okay, I should go now, my mom might be worried if I’m late.” Albert nodded and sent the kid off, he watched the scene for a while before heading off in the direction of the town wall.

He walked out to the wooden fence surrounding the town, it was made of sturdy Wood that had been layered several times, making it as thick as a brick wall, well it was practically the same since the thing was reinforced with magic.

The wall was over 10ft tall and had four lookout rowers in each end of the wall, Albert went to one of the towers and climbed up using the ladder. It was a tall tower and was made only of wood, after reaching the top he saw the two sentries station here sitting on the ground playing some sort of card game. There was nothing else here except a large ballista, a bell and what looked like a telescope.

They hadn’t noticed him yet and he just walked next to one of them, “You both seem relax.”, “Fuck!” They both jumped out of their skin in fright. One of them was a two horned ogre while the other was a beastman, specifically a wolf man, he had shiny sliver wolf ears and tail.

“Oh Captain it’s you… we almost killed you” Albert stared at the two clumsy idiots pointing the cards in their hands at him like a weapon.

They both followed his gaze and saw the ‘weapon’ in their hands, laughing awkwardly, they scratched their heads and straighten up, “what brings you here sir?”

“Just Patrolling… noticed anything today?”

“No sir, it’s been quiet today as well.”

“I see”

He then turned his gaze and looked out into the distance, in front of him, he saw rocky plains as far as the eyes could see with several small hills, there was no creature in sight, still being outside now and looking at this sight gave him a feeling he couldn’t explain. It was quiet, too quiet, it made him remember the feeling he had before his region was invaded, it was like the calm before a storm.

After staring at the view for a long time, the other two were starting to look at him weirdly. “Is something wrong?” the wolfman asked “sigh… no, nothing, you guys get back to work.”, “yes sire” they both answered in unison standing at attention, “you don’t have to be so formal all the time, just be more vigilant” “ye… o-okay” they said.

Albert turned around and jumped down from the tower, he landed elegantly without even making a sound or getting dust on his armor. The other two looked at him with open jaws as they applauded. It wasn’t that they were unable to make the jump, they could, quite easily in fact, it was just the fact that he had made no sound as he landed without the use of magic, such a thing was incredible.

Walking away from the tower he decided to take a stroll through the town to get to the other sentry towers, he hadn’t even taken a step when—

Rumble…. Rumble…. Goudou…

The earth trembled lightly, but the quake was getting stronger by the second, the sentry’s on the tower lost their balance and the ogre fell on his butt, having superhuman reflexes, the wolfman kept his balance and listened carefully. They weren’t near a volcano, and the ground in the demon continent didn’t quake for no reason. ‘what is it?’ he tried his best to fucus his superhuman hearing trying to trace the source of the quake. Soon, he picked up on the source of the quake and his already bronze complexion darkened.

Albert jumped all the way from the ground, back to the tower, not using the ladder this time. He looked at the wolfman and asked, “Raz did you hear something?” Raz looked at his captain never changing expression and calmed down a little, “It’s bad sir, a horde of large monsters are heading this way, and by the sound of it there are a lot.”

“Can you tell how many?”

“I’m not completely sure, but I’ll estimate at least 300.”

“…What! the ogre named Jin yelled in disbelief, “how is this possible? why didn’t we notice this till now—”

Albert looked at the distance and his irises turned into a slit, his vision extended and crossed a massive distance. He saw a horde of lizard-like giant creatures kicking up dust as they charged at the settlement in a frenzy ‘No, why them.’

He turned to face Raz and Jin, “Sound the alarm, and prepare the ballistas for battle.” without saying another word he jumped off the tower and disappeared from their view, Jin looked at Raz and asked, “Do you think he saw the monsters?” Raz who still had his eyes closed listening, opened them and answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised, hurry up and ring the bell”

“Oh right”

As the sounds of the bell echoed through out the town, everyone in the town apart from a few newcomers sprung to action, the children, and adults that were unable to fight were brought into the Chief’s mansion, in the inner district, the center of the town, the place was reinforced with magic making it the safest place in the entire settlement.

Albert appeared back at the guard office and gave commands, this was an emergency and everyone was to report to the town’s gate to mount a defensive barrier. The nigh shift were dragged from their houses and ordered to do the same. Kelvin Keave, the vice captain of the guard was charged with protecting the chiefs mansion, he was strong and would normally be deployed in battle but protecting the weak and leading their escape would be a better job for him.

••••••

The town guards and all the Hunters in the town had already taken their position outside the gates, the melee fighters would be unable to help if they stayed within the walls of the town, some of the ranged fingers had gone and joined the sentries in the tower and other had just climbed the wall itself, giving them a better vantage point.

The ogre chief stood at the front, he had two dark horns and a large sword almost the same size as him rested on his back, he stood firmly at 7ft tall and had a chiseled body that looked like it was cut out of stone. He wore metal inlaid armor on his legs revealing his chest and abs. Unlike his usual self though, today he had a serious expression on his face.

Standing beside him was the captain of the guards Albert Cronoff, he hadn’t changed anything since he left his home this morning, the only thing different about him was that he was now wielding a weapon, hung by his waist was a sword.

It was a thinly long blade that looked like a Miao Dao, it was completely black in colour but had some exquisite markings on the hilt, it also had magic Runes running through its blade. The other ogres and beastmen stayed behind them and readied their weapons. Warriors with shields stayed in front with the others behind them, there were a few beastmen that could use magic, they had stayed in the towers with the guards.

Looking ahead they could see the horde of lizard-like creatures stomping their way to them, they stood at almost 7ft running on all fours, they had dark green scaly bodies and large red eyes, their fangs dropped greed liquid that melted the ground on impact, they looked absolutely terrifying to behold.

Some of the guards and hunters were starting to get nervous, even if this was a ogre settlement and located in a dangerous location, they still only had about 400 people who were able to fight, this also included retired guards or hunters. which was an impressive number from a population of about 800-900.

Still, against an army of 300 strong monsters, they were surely lacking. Albert couldn’t help but turn his head sideways to the left, it was the direction Erin and her group went hunting. He was worried and a little anxious, it was almost noon and they had made arrangements to have lunch together, he couldn’t help but pray to an higher power that she wouldn’t be able to make it back on time, after all, he wasn’t confident in them winning this fight.

These weren’t any ordinary monsters, if they had been facing any other monsters he was sure they would be able to win even with such numbers, either they annihilate the monsters or they simply drove them off. He glared at the approaching mobs in anger, he had already put Erin through enough, he couldn’t bear to do it again.

‘How could this happen, how did i not sense it…’, it didn’t make any sense, why would monsters like these, monsters that usually stayed in dark places be here and in such numbers. Something was wrong somewhere, and Albert was determined to find out what. If it turns out that someone was behind this, he wouldn’t rest until he murdered everyone they have ever known or loved.

Albert was a gentle soul, he didn’t really like violence, it was why he got along with Erin so well. Still, when it came to his family, he wouldn’t bat an eyelid, and would kill whoever threatened their safety.

The monsters were only a few meters away and the chief had drawn his weapon snapping Albert out of his thoughts. He drew his black blade and, it vibrated, the others behind felt more confident seeing this and got into position as well. it was time, they couldn’t afford to be careless against these monsters, after all these were all Lesser Basilisks.