—

“The missing kid is here.”

On the top of the roof, where the students stayed for the night, there were several people who wore black attire along with veiled masks.

Each of the mask they wore had followed an image of a beast; Eagle, Boar, Snake, Mantis, Monkey, Bear and Tiger. Of course this was to hide their identity.

“Mantis, go ahead and follow him, make sure you won’t be noticed and if possible, listen as to why he was out for so long.”

“Roger, Tiger.” The man that wore a mantis mask nodded towards the man who wore a tiger mask. Mantis disappeared and did what Tiger ordered, the rest went back to watch over the vicinity of the inn to prepare if something went out of hand.

“Eagle, any luck about the man named Jackson?” Tiger asked as he looked over the man who wore the eagle mask.

“I haven’t seen him yet. I’ll tell you when I do.” Eagle said without looking towards Tiger, Eagle was still keeping an eye on his surroundings.

“Do we really need to make sure each of them are present in order for us to do our plan? I say we make a move now, doesn’t really matter if that person comes or not, the plan won’t fail anyway.” Boar asked Tiger.

“We can’t do that.” It was Snake who interjected “While the plan might be good, there might still be some unknown variables. We need to be prepared so let’s just follow it. In the end, if it failed our superiors won’t take it out from us since we just followed the plan they made.”

“It would be really nice if you learn a thing or two from Snake, Boar.” Tiger sneered and didn’t paid attention to him anymore. Boar glared at both of them before going back to his post.

“Anytime soon and the Beast Domestication Center will be in shambles. Then we take the kids as hostages and create a massive unrest. These stupid citizens will then panic and chaos will start spreading everywhere. Oh, how fun this place would be if that occurs!” Monkey shivered in excitement as he said these words.

“Yeah, I’m also itching for a good brawl, those pimps back at the camp can’t even give me a good fight.” Bear added while gnawing some meat as he watches over his spot.

Tiger could only shake his head in defeat as he heard the banters of his group. He was starting to doubt the management of the guild for allowing these fools to be a part of his team. Of all the people who came with him here, Mantis and Snake are the only people whom he could place his trust to. As for the others, good luck for him.

“Hey, Worm #1 and #2 are back.” Monkey screeched while pointing over his spot. Tiger’s ears twitched as he walked over towards his side to confirm the news.

He saw two people who wore a similar themed outfits as they did but their mask was only painted with black and had a drawing of a worm with a number beside it. Worm #1 and #2 jumped through the roof and went to their knees.

“Sire!” Both of them greeted.

“What’s situation over your side.” Tiger asked while his arms were crossed.

“Reporting to Sire, we saw that aside from a few guards, almost all of the personnel disappeared inside the center. We believe that the vines must’ve started their carnage.” Worm #1 reported.

“Good!” Tiger clapped and gathered the attention. “Listen up team! We are about to-”

“Wahh! The stars are so bright this night!”

“Eh?” All of them uttered this word as they heard a very unfamiliar voice closely. As they all turned their head towards where the sound came from, they saw a female with a red tinged hair and sparkling eyes staring at the stars in the sky.

“Your right! It really is a good time to stargaze since the skies are very clear!”

“What are these kids doing here!” Tiger quietly exclaimed.

That’s right. Without knowing where they came from, there were suddenly six kids that climbed to the roof with them. Undoubtedly, this was Raven and his crew.

As the group were suddenly flabbergasted by this new scenario, Mantis appeared beside Tiger soundlessly. Tiger immediately glared at him and asked:

“Mantis! What the hell is happening? How come these kids are here?” He snarled in a low voice.

“Beats me!” Mantis said exasperatedly, “As the kid returned back towards his room, I saw the rest of his friends! Apparently they already have plans to stargaze tonight and they literally dragged him out here! I can’t stop it since we can’t blow our cover up!”

“Damn it!” Tiger snarled once more. “We were about to start our plan and now this?”

“Calm down Tiger.” Snake interjected. “Don’t shout, though we have Stealth Marks and a Communication Rune on our masks, it is still possible for these kids to know that we’re here. Let’s think about how we could deal with them first and then once that’s done, we could proceed with the plan.”

“It would be really nice if you could learn a thing or two from Snake, Tiger.” Boar sneered as he threw Tiger’s exact words back at him. Tiger glared at Boar while Eagle appeared between them and also glared at Boar.

“You’re not helping!” Eagle said, Boar sneered and humphed. Monkey laughed, Snake shook his head and Bear only had a deadpan expression on his face.

“Why do you guys wanted to stargaze anyway? I just came back from a long errand! I haven’t even rested and you dragged me out here.” Raven ‘complained’ as he watched over the tantalizing gazes of his friends.

“Oh come on! Loosen up will you? We’re on a trip! Don’t be so focused in training all the time!” Paul snickered.

“What’s that had to do with this!” Raven replied and glared at him, Mark on the other hand just swung his arms around him and said…

“Relax! It’ll be alright, this won’t take too long anyway.”

“What are we looking at then?” Anne joined in and asked.

“We’re gonna look for constellations!” Ellen replied, she pointed at some random bunch of stars and continued: “See those? If you connect them over, they will form a pattern. I believe they are called the Monkey Constellation.”

She was using such a passionate tone that even the unseen people with them couldn’t help but look over to where she was pointing. Without a doubt, the most entranced about this was the man who wore the Monkey Mask. He was deliberately making an effort to search for his own constellation so to speak.

Without these people knowing, Ellen sneaked a wink over at Raven, to which he then replied with a thumbs up.

“You’re talking about the constellation that looked like this don’t you?” Raven crouched and used a pen to etch the ‘Monkey Constellation’ at the roof. Everyone bunched up and looked over to the symbol he wrote.

Monkey mask was also about to go when Tiger pulled him back and asked: “Where are you going?” In a whisper.

“It’s fine! I’m just gonna look over. They won’t know!” Monkey escaped his grasp and hopped over to the children’s side to look over. The symbol made him nod his head in appreciation, it was well written and definitely resembled a monkey.

“Alright! You guys look for one as well! Our goal is at least six or seven constellations!” Ellen energetically stated.

“My turn then!” Paul said and started walking over the roof while casually looking at the stars. The unseen people even had to move in order to avoid them, while they weren’t seen nor heard, their bodies are just hidden not gone, if they made contact with someone, that person will feel them, and they definitely don’t want this kids to know.

“Ooh found one!” Paul excitedly said, “I see the Boar Constellation!”

And just like Monkey’s reaction, Boar also couldn’t help but be moved when he heard this. He even slightly puffed up his chest like he was saying: ‘Hah! Take that you fools! This Boar is mighty, so mighty that there a constellation for me!’

Raven also drew the constellation on the roof so that everyone could see what the Boar constellation looked like. Again, just like Monkey, Boar also looked over to see what the exact symbol looked like and couldn’t help but to be more proud of the mask he was wearing.

And just like this, the kids spotted one constellation after another. Coincidentally, they spotted one for each mask that the unseen people was wearing. Raven drew each symbols for the constellations at different spots of the roof and none of them found it weird to begin with.

“Okay, so we found Monkey, Boar, Bear, Mantis, Snake, Eagle and Tiger constellations! A total of seven!” Ellen said to which the crew nodded in agreement.

“But we also seen a Worm-”

“Oh who cares about those filthy things!” Ellen snarled, making Worm #1 and #2 grimace behind their mask. “I say we head back now. I’m quite sleepy after this.”

The unseen people sighed in relief as they heard this. Finally! That only took them thirty minutes before they were done! Once these kids are out of here, they could move on to the plan. But as Snake watch the kids retreat, he couldn’t help but to shiver. Warning bells suddenly rang in his ears as he immediately said…

“Quick! Don’t let those kids escape! Catch them! Hurry up!” Snake urged them, Tiger doubted him but decided to do as he says anyway and rushed towards the kids.

However, before he could even come close to the kids, he suddenly felt like he slammed into a thick metal door. Before his vision adjusted, he swore that he could hear Paul sneering…

“Oh, looks like someone finally noticed.”