"We need you to scout this area, check for dangers and enemy positions, find a route through this forest, and then report back to us."

The military officer was talking to the boss as he trailed his finger through the map. Apparently the military wanted a safe trail through the forest in Helsreach, without drawing too much attention from demonic patrols. Without the heroes, it would be suicide for the soldiers to get caught out in the open, for the demons possessed potent magical spells that could wipe out entire battalions.

I wondered why they didn't just use military scouts. Why hire mercenaries to do the job? What was the point of training scouts and devoting resources to an existing unit when you were going to spend unnecessary money for someone else to do that job?

Perhaps they don't want to sacrifice their own valuable soldiers that they spent so much resources training on suicidal scout missions. Unlike those soldiers, we mercenaries are expendable. No one cares if we get killed during the mission.

I could guess from the way the officer looked at us that he didn't think highly of mercenaries. He did well to hide that condescending attitude, concealing his scorn behind a pleasant and polite fa?ade, but having experienced a tremendous amount of emotional, physical and verbal abuse from Kobayashi and my former classmates, there was no way I couldn't detect the underlying condescension from him. But at least this time it wasn't directed solely at me.

"We'll get you the route," the boss promised. But he frowned. "Still, the problem would be solved if the heroes would just come to the frontline and cast a protective spell. Doesn't Nagano or what's her name have such a spell?"

"The heroes are not to be disturbed," the military officer replied stiffly. "After their great success against the Demon Lord and bringing down the fortress at the border between Helsreach and Midgardia, they deserve a break."

"..and you soldiers don't?"

"It is none of your business," the military officer snapped. "We exist only to serve the Emperor."

"Right, right." The boss shook his head, but didn't probe further. "Don't worry. We'll get the job done. We justify the high fee with a thorough job. You'll see."

"Yeah." The military officer didn't sound like he believed the boss, but then again he needed us to do a good job so he wasn't exactly dismissing us either. "Good luck. If we work together, we'll be able to defeat the demons. I'm sure of it. For the Emperor."

"For the Emperor," the boss echoed. And that was it.

A few hours later, our party of mercenaries found ourselves struggling deep inside the forest, bashing through thick foliage and shrubs. More than once I winced when my flesh got caught on thorns and tore, but my Regeneration was quick to kick in and heal the wound. Nobody seemed to notice, especially since I didn't make too much of a fuss.

I was a guy, after all. A little injury was nothing.

However, it wasn't the injuries that bothered me. It was the bugs.

It wasn't the first time I had to trek through a forest – I was forced to travel through it shortly after I came to Restia, having been unceremonially dumped in the middle of nowhere and forced to flee through a forest from Minamoto Kureha and Tsukishima Tomoyo (both of whom were now dead, so I had gotten my revenge). But it still wasn't a pleasant experience. Most people claimed to love nature and wanted to experience the great outdoors, but they had no idea what the reality was like. The mountain trails for hiking, the nature reserves..all of those were human constructed simulations of nature that weren't even close to the real thing.

No, the real "Nature" was harsh, cruel and merciless. The uneven forest terrain that made it hard to traverse..the countless bugs that buzzed around, leaving angry red welts, itchy scabs and other forms of terrible marks with their bites and stings – and that wasn't even taking into consideration the possibility that they were capable of carrying diseases. More than once, I overheard one of my comrades cursing as he tried to burn a leech off his skin.

Ugh. I hated leeches. Fortunately, there was something about my undead blood that was unappealing to them, so most of them avoided me (along with mosquitoes). Unfortunately, the flies and beetles were attracted to me a lot more than the others, precisely because of the same undead characteristic that protected me from bloodsuckers. They swarmed around me annoyingly, no matter how many times I swatted them away.

"Huff.."

One of the mercenaries stumbled over a log, only for Reading to catch his arm and keep him upright.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Just keep moving."

Even the veteran mercenaries were finding it difficult to move across the forest. The terrain wasn't flat and were filled with bumps, sudden clumps of soil, soft ground that easily gave way, mud, overgrown roots, shrubs, dense foliage and thorny branches. The boss was leading the way, hacking with his machete as best as he could, but even his big knife and even bigger form wasn't able to completely clear the route.

I wondered how an entire troop of Imperial Army was going to move through this trail quietly and unnoticed. Even our small group was making quite the ruckus as we bashed our way through the forest. Ironically, it was the dense vegetation of the forest and the cacophony of animal cries and screeches that camouflaged our noisy journey, our forms concealed by the tightly clustered trees and our heavy breathing and footsteps easily mistaken for that of creatures. Occasionally we could hear the snapping of branches and growls in the distance, but we dismissed them as wild animals – if it was the enemy, they would have attacked us the moment they heard us.

"How long more, boss?" Meek panted as he struggled to keep up. He wasn't exactly lagging behind, but it was clear that most of the men were tiring.

"How would I know? Depends on the forest, doesn't it? You know how it is. It can take anything from three hours to two days."

"Ugh..damn it!"

Meek threw up his hands in despair, but he quitted his whining. The boss wasn't unaware of the predicament of his men, so he raised a hand and called for a break.

"All right. Break time. Everyone, drop and hydrate yourselves."

The humidity of the forest was practically steaming, and I could see rivulets of perspiration rolling off the mercenaries' faces. At the boss's order, they gratefully dropped to their rumps, some of them actually splaying across the forest. They didn't even bother to get rid of their baggage, using the field packs as some sort of cushion. A few of them unscrewed the caps of their bottles and took a huge gulp of water.

It was a good thing the boss forced us to bring at least three liters of water. Over the hours, our water supply had been slowly dwindling as we consumed them to replace lost fluids, and we probably had one-third of our water gone. Even though the burden had been lightened, there was still no sign of the destination in sight.

"The army wants us to find a route through the forest so that we can circle around the fortress and find a backdoor to it?"

Sitting down and leaning against a log, Reading asked. The boss nodded.

"Yeah. The military's top brass thought it would be impractical to try and siege the fortress from the front. It's sturdily built, and it'll take far too much time. In addition, there's too much of an open space where they would just slaughter the soldiers..like shooting turkey in a barrel with lots of arrows. They want to make use of the forests from the sides as cover, to minimize losses taken when sieging the fortress. We're here to ensure there's a safe route there and take note of enemy sentry positions or patrols in the forest."

"Right."

While the two more authoritative men discussed our objectives, several of the men lapsed into idle chatter.

"Hey, kid."

Bold was glancing at me, looking intrigued.

"You seem pretty..used to this. I half-expected you to be whining or falling behind, but you've done well in keeping up."

"Hah! He's even better than most of the others!" Metzen scoffed, the mercenary lying down on the grass despite getting his ponytail messed up. He resembled a geeky computer programmer or writer, what with his slightly overweight constitution and unkempt appearance. It was kind of fitting that he was my squad leader.

"Yeah, that's why I'm surprised. You don't seem to be a stranger to these woods."

"I've been through a forest before," I replied shortly and left it at that.

After my first few days in Restia, I had been forced to escape through the forest and survive in the wild all by myself. Truthfully, though I somehow managed to survive by feeding off the wild animals, it wouldn't have been good for me long term. Becoming one with Nature and living off the land was not as simple as most na?ve people thought. I was a city kid from Tokyo with no knowledge of the land, creatures and plants of the new world. If I wasn't undead, I probably would have died from starvation because I didn't know what plants were edible and not. Even as an undead, I couldn't survive indefinitely by living in a forest infested with dangerous creatures such as anacondas, cockatrices and even more powerful monsters.

I might had succeeded in killing one or two of them, but that was after much trouble. It was impractical for me to rely on luck and circumstances to keep up such a lifestyle – one small mistake, one tiny slip, and I would end up in the stomach of alpha predators rather than the other way around. It was so easy to tell me that I needed more confidence of self-belief, but such people were just armchair critics or keyboard warriors who had never truly been in a life-and-death situation before. Trying to live in the forest with such threats bombarding you from twenty-four seven..even if I survived, it would eventually wear my spirit down and I would collapse from exhaustion. The nutritional balance – if I was alive – would also be messed up. I didn't know how nutritional balance worked for an undead, but it appeared I wasn't suffering from scurvy, malnutrition or any usual symptoms of nutritional deficiencies that most people would display. That said, I probably would succumb eventually to the predators..

Speaking of which..

"..where are the monsters?"

If this was the territory of the demons, then it stood to reason that there would be monsters dwelling in the forest. Yet, all I had seen so far were bugs, plants and trees. There was no sign of dangerous creatures like the anaconda or cockatrice I had encountered during my first few days here. Their absence was making me uneasy.

"What, you want to run into them or something?"

"Not really, but..their absence is making me jumpy. Like..there's something wrong with the place."

"Oh, we'll run into monsters soon enough," the boss told me. "When we push deeper into the forest. When we do, just follow Metzen's lead – we have a few formations and tactics to deal with them. I'm surprised you know about them."

"I've encountered them in the forest before."

"And you got out alive?" Bold demanded, his eyes going round from shock. "Wow, kid..you're quite the surprising one."

"He's a mercenary, Bold." Reading was shaking his head and sending me an apologetic look. "He might look young, but you don't get to chrome rank without being in a few skirmishes. The kid can handle himself."

To my relief, the conversation slipped away from me and into more idle matters. I didn't want to have to explain about my past and experiences.

After fifteen minutes, the boss decided that we had enough resting and clapped his hands to get us back to our feet.

"All right, enough slacking around. Let's get up and continue! We don't want to be stuck in this forest forever, do we?"

There were collective groans and complaints, but every single mercenary picked himself up and followed his lead. It wasn't long before we fell back into the usual rhythm of hacking and slashing our way through the thick foliage.

This time, the journey wasn't as smooth.

It wasn't even an hour before the boss suddenly stopped, his eyes and ears peeled for strange sounds. As I mentioned earlier, the forest had been saturated with ambient sounds, whether it was the chirping of birds, the cries of tiny mammals, the buzzing of insects and even the growls of distant predators. But it seemed that at least several of those "distant" predators were no longer that far away. I could hear snarls drawing closer to our position.

"Dire Wolves," the boss murmured. Turning back to us, he nodded. "Arm yourselves, man. Formation delta. Ring of steel, and don't let them in. Cover each other's backs."

The mercenaries efficiently and silently carried out his orders, drawing their weapons. I obeyed, taking my staff out of my magical pouch and holding it in both hands. Glancing at Metzen, I followed his lead and stepped into the spot where he quietly directed me to.

"Here?"

"Sh!"

I felt stupid when Metzen hushed me. Right, we weren't supposed to give our positions away. As much as I had survived the forest on my own, this was my first time fighting as part of a group. I was still unfamiliar with the rules and manner of combat.

The gray wolves came out of the forest, snarling and growling. I almost couldn't see them, just a flurry of claws and teeth before they hit us. Men shouted before they were knocked down by a couple hundred kilograms of pure muscle and fury.

I wasn't in any position to help them. I had to fight on my own, twirling my staff as I kept a Dire Wolf at bay, preventing it from tearing my throat out. I struck it in the snout, causing it to fall back with a whine, and then blasted it with a Doombolt spell.

If I was alone, I could probably flood the place with Corrupting Darkness, but that would mean drawing my allies into friendly fire. The whole point was to support them and help them, not to kill them along with the enemies.

Would summoning work?

I wasn't sure what the reactions of my allies be if I summoned zombies. Worst case scenario, they would set upon me and I would be forced to kill them. Not exactly a wise decision because that would leave me stranded alone in the middle of a forest in foreign territory without any way of getting back to civilization. As I said, I wasn't very keen on surviving on my own in the wild. A few days in the wilderness was fine, but the cruel reality of Nature would wear me down eventually and drive me to my death. I was too much of a city kid.

Besides, it seemed that the mercenaries were holding their own. I could see from the corner of my eye that Metzen had sliced the throat of a Dire Wolf, sending the monster plunging downward in a spurt of blood. Bold had used his not insignificant bulk to stand forward and bludgeon another Dire Wolf before finishing it with his axe. Meek was darting in and out of the pack, his dagger Shadow stabbing with lethal fury. In spite of the speed and sheer size, the Dire Wolves never knew what hit them, their vital points suddenly leaking blood.

I was impressed. The mercenaries were clearly professional killers, methodically setting about their work with cold efficiency. They were very different from my former classmates, the so-called heroes who treated everything like a game and played accordingly. If they didn't receive the divine, cheat-like powers from the goddess Evelyn, I was sure the whole class would have been slaughtered in their very first battle.

It wasn't long before the forest was stained with blood of the wolves and the surviving members of the pack turned and fled. Again, another difference from the game. The pack of wolves didn't stay until the very end to get killed by the mercenaries. Once they had sustained heavy losses, they were smart enough to fall back and retreat.

"Why you bastards..!"

"Hold your ground! Don't give chase!"

The boss's cool, composed voice rang across the forest, and in an instance the crimson haze of bloodthirst that had gripped the soldiers vanished. Breathing deeply, they obeyed and took a step back, shaking their heads.

"Good job, everyone. Report."

There were not many mercenaries who were wounded. A few had sustained light scrapes and cuts, but nothing major. The medics treated them with healing spells that closed up their wounds, so there was no need for me to reveal my Regeneration ability.

"Yeah, well..these are just small fries. It would be weirder if any of us died from that."

Meek scoffed, but his hands were still shaking. Swallowing a gulp of water from his bottle, he sheathed his dagger with his other hand and glanced around warily. In spite of our victory, he was still jumpy.

I didn't blame him. Having lived in the forest, I knew that the moment I let down my guard, I would get killed. That was why I said it was mentally unsustainable for me to live off the land and hide in the wild for any extended period of time.

"Five minutes' break and we move again."

There were groans and moans from the mercenaries, but no one argued against the boss's decision. They were probably grateful that we had a break at all.

Taking a deep breath, I gratefully dropped onto the ground and shut my eyes for a few minutes.

After five minutes, I reluctantly dragged myself to my feet. The mercenaries were moving now, grimly soldiering on despite the recent skirmish. The boss in particular, looked more solemn than ever, as if expecting more trouble ahead.

That didn't bode well.

"Boss?"

It wasn't just me who was worried. Reading had stepped forward, lowering his voice to a concerned whisper.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Reading studied our leader for a second before turning away.

"You seem more on edge than usual."

The boss laughed hollowly. "Of course. We're venturing deeper into a hostile forest that's infested with monsters. Those Dire Wolves are only the beginning. Mark my words, there would be more terrifying things crawling out of the woodwork."

At the back, I gulped. I didn't like the sound of that. Fortunately, I was no longer on my own. With my comrades beside me, I could relax a little more instead of jumping over every little thing like I did back during my first days in Restia.

Having a group of teammates watching your back made a world of difference. Even if I couldn't unleash all my magic, I didn't have to. My teammates had proven to be more than capable of taking care of themselves.

Or so I hoped.

That sentiment was put to the test later when, not even thirty minutes after our first encounter with the Dire Wolves, we ran into a new pack of more formidable monsters.

I didn't even see them coming.

The pack of Kobolds silently emerged from the forest, almost like shadows. There was a scream, and then..silence. The whole group of mercenaries spun around, but saw nothing. Except..

"Feth! Rawne is gone!"

"..what?"

"Holy Terra!"

"Aaaaah!"

Another scream ripped through the air, and a second man went missing, dragged into the foliage. There was no sign of him except a trail of blood and the violent rushing of bushes.

"Bush!"

"Draw your weapon!" the boss roared. We did so, falling back into Formation Delta and creating a ring of steel where we could cover each other. The vegetation all around us continued to rustle ominously, but we kept our eyes peeled out.

"Kobold!"

One of the mercenaries shouted as something leaped from the grass. I caught sight of something huge and imposing, a flash of gray that was larger than an adult man, and claws, teeth and muscle. The man who shouted swung his sword at the lunging beast, having spotted it pouncing on his comrade beside him.

The formation allowed us to deliver overlapping fields of fire. A row of mercenaries dropped to their knees and fired off a bunch of fireballs that knocked into the creature. With a yelp, the canine beast toppled back into the forest, its fur smoking. The second, standing row of mercenaries unleashed a second volley of fire, but the kobold had already vanished into the foliage.

"Behind!"

A wolf-like creature burst out from behind the two rows of mercenaries, only for a barrage of fireballs to hit it from a second squad that was covering the first. The kobold howled and thrashed about, its body dancing as a second hail of fireballs struck it. Fuming, the kobold dove back into the thick vegetation for cover.

"Damn, we didn't kill it?"

"Careful, there's more of them!"

The mercenaries were sweeping round in circles, keeping a vigilant eye peeled for the enemies' movements. Beyond the trees and dense shrubs, I could see and hear at least dozens of beasts loping about.

"We should just burn the whole forest to the ground," Meek spat as he held his dagger out.

"What, and kill ourselves along with the Kobolds?" Bold chided. "Don't be stupid."

"At this rate, all of us are gonna die anyway."

"No one's going to die," the boss snapped, overriding Meek's despair. "Close ranks and don't let any of them through. The moment we kill a bunch of them, they will back off."

"We haven't even killed one of them yet," another mercenary muttered. "Those things took a bunch of fireballs to the face and weren't even fazed!"

"Then keep firing until they're dead! Quit your whining and focus on killing!"

That shut Meek up.

The Kobolds continued to circle around us, and this time they came in greater numbers. Realizing that they were throwing away their advantage by coming at us one at a time, they came in greater force, hurling themselves at them.

Men cried and the line buckled as tons of muscle, claw and teeth hit them. Weapons and magic flared out, stabbing and burning, but the Kobolds tore relentlessly into the armored warriors. A few men went down, blood streaming from their wounds as the Kobolds ripped into them, but their comrades seized the advantage to stab into their flanks.

"Go! Kill them!"

Having ditched his machete, the boss was wielding his broadsword ferociously. Dueling with a Kobold that swiped and slashed at him, he ducked under its immense paws before thrusting his blade up from below. The Kobold yelp as it fell back, blood gushing from a wound in its chest. The boss stepped in and beheaded it.

"See?!" he shouted. "They're not invincible after all! Stand together, men, and make them pay! They bleed, just like us! They die, just like us! Show them who the real master of Restia is!"

Buoyed by his success, the mercenaries let out a roar and fought even more ferociously. Two Kobolds went down, punctured by all sides by blade and fireballs. The men poured in, hacking and slashing at a third, even as several Kobolds were held at bay by massed ranks of heavily armored warriors who carried the bigger weapons.

As for me, I had blasted a Kobold with a Doombolt, and despite grievously wounding it, it refused to go down. The damned things were tough. Perhaps I needed a Shadow Lunar Fang to kill it in one hit, but I couldn't unleash such a powerful attack in the middle of the mercenaries, and given the sheer numbers of Kobolds, it wasn't practical to spam and hit every single one of them with Shadow Lunar Fang. I would run out of mana before then.

Corrupting Darkness wouldn't be effective either. If the Kobold could survive a hit from Doombolt, I bet it had an even higher resistance to Corrupting Darkness than the orcs or tougher beasts. This was going to be difficult.

The Kobold growled, baring its teeth, before pouncing on me again. I smacked it away with my staff, almost as if I was batting for a baseball team, and sent it sprawling onto the ground. Panting, I obliterated its head with Doombolt, finishing it off.

If I hadn't wounded it with the first Doombolt, I would never have succeeded in hitting it when it pounced on me..

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to glance upward. There were still several more Kobolds around the edges, attacking from the sides and slashing at the mercenaries at the fringe. We were sustaining quite a few casualties, but to my relief most of them were still alive. The mercenaries were determinedly driving them back, taking out another three Kobolds.

Falling back beside Metzen, whose squad was desperately struggling against two Kobolds, I covered one of my squad mates with a well-aimed Doombolt that knocked the lunging lupine creature off its trajectory.

"Thanks!"

I nodded and left the fallen Kobold to the rest of my squad mates. As I expected, the Doombolt failed to kill it, but my squad was on hand to finish the fallen Kobold off. While they delivered the killing blow to the injured Kobold, I scanned around to make sure there weren't any other Kobolds lying in wait to ambush us while we were distracted.

My caution paid off when I saw the Kobold pounce on Metzen. Unleashing a second Doombolt, I knocked it out of the air and sent it sprawling on the ground.

"Thanks!" Metzen shouted to me as he spun around, realizing what I had done. With a furious yell, he raised his sword and stabbed the throat of the stunned Kobold, opening up its carotid artery and jugular vein and leaving it to thrash about in its death throes.

"Form up again!" the boss barked, and we repaired our formation. After taking a few losses, our circle of steel had shrunk. On the other hand, we presented more difficult targets for the encroaching Kobolds.

Taking a deep breath, I fired off another spell to deter them while the other mercenaries worked together to bring down another two Kobolds. With their numbers drastically reduced, the Kobolds howled and backed off. Several of them tried to drag the wounded or dead with them, but a few well-placed fireballs discouraged them. I got lucky and my Doombolt exploded the head of one of them, causing it to slump, headless, on the soil as blood pumped out of its ruined neck.

"Good job, people."

Breathing a sigh of relief, the boss scanned the ravaged group and demanded for reports. Slowly, the squad leaders rounded us up and accounted for our strengths.

Five dead, twelve wounded. A heavy tally for our already small group and stretched numbers. The boss bit his lip and nodded, but I could tell that he was dismayed.

"Break. Faragut, Sig, you two stand watch. The rest of you, bury our dead and take some rest. Medics, tend to the wounded."

The medics nodded and proceeded toward the twelve injured. The boss curled his lip grimly as he glanced at the injured mercenaries. He knew from a single look that he would be forced to make several difficult decisions.

We couldn't bring the injured with us because they would slow the group down drastically, nor could we spare any manpower to ferry them back through the forest, not with monsters roaming about. There would be mercy killings, and he loathed to have to resort to that.

"How is it?" he asked the medics. The chief medic, Dorden, raised his aged head and shook it wearily.

"Even with healing spells, we can't save Daudlin, Freud and Ashton. They're too far gone. If we've much better potions and healing facilities, we could perhaps restore them to full health, but nothing short of an elixir can help them now."

".." the boss closed his eyes for a few seconds before he nodded solemnly. "Do what you can for them. You have fifteen minutes. If they're in no position to be moved, then..you know what to do."

Dorden had a sour expression on his face. He clearly didn't like the command, but he understood the boss's predicament.

"Yes, boss." Turning to his charges, he began barking orders. "Hurry! Stem the bleeding and infuse them with as much mana as possible! I don't care if you end up draining your energy – you can restore it with a bottle of ether later. Make sure these men can at least limp and hobble with us with support!"

"Yes, Chief!"

I watched them briefly as I shoveled the dirt over the dead. Of the five deceased, we were only able to recover three of them. Two of them had been dragged deep into the forest, abducted by the Kobolds. We hoped they were dead, or they would be subjected to a hellish far worse than death.

The monstrous forest was hell.

With the impromptu burial complete, I wandered over to the medics. The rest of my squad had plopped down to drink up and rest, replenishing their energies, but I couldn't stay still. Not when I had something to offer.

"Can I help you, kid?" Dorden asked without even looking up. The old medic, an ex-military surgeon from what I had heard, was desperately stemming the bleeding of one of the more wounded. The bandages and gauzes he used were stained red, and a whole roll of them had been discarded, having reached their limits in absorption. He had continually casted healing spells on the wound, but it had little effect.

The damage was too much-->>

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