Chapter 17: Erin Cronoff (1/2)

The sun hung high in the sky, shining brightly, the heat it radiated felt like it was still the middle of summer, however, the occasional cold wind that blew through the dried fields would remind everyone that winter was near. Erin stared at the sun in agitation as she lowered her hood more to cover her face.

The female ogress that had been the first to welcome her stuck closely by her side, she had the same pale red skin as the others and a single dark horn on her head, she was a young woman of around twenty in the flower of her youth. She had a pretty face, and she was cute in the way a kitten or other small animal would be. still, while she looked adorable she had a predatory glint in her eyes that seemed to aim at Erin's chest.

Though she masked it well with a cute but playful smile, she locked her arms around Erin's and proceeded to harass her with naughty and inappropriate questions. Although Erin was older than her, she didn't really pay attention to such 'trivial' details.

”Why didn't you come out drinking with me last night, you promised.”

”I didn't say such things”

”Oh come on... I begged you to come and you nodded.”

”I didn't”

”You're so mean.”

”...”

”So how bout tomorrow, we're free right? we can go shopping for underwear.”

”I'd rather not...”

”If you don't come, I'll come over to your place and...”

Before she had a chance to continue the other female ogress noticed her naughty hand movement and ran over giving her a kick in the face, ”Keep your hands to yourself you perv!” her head was flung backward and her feet left the ground. She hurriedly got up, holding her nose she complained, ”Hey!” ”Hmph... are you okay Erin?” Erin looked at her chest that had almost been molested and chuckled, ”I'm fine, it's nothing you guys are so extreme.”

The second ogress was a woman with twin dark horns, she had curly red hair that was messily cut, it was in a good length for movement and didn't look as if she cared much about her hairstyle, she also had a pretty face and she had a keen edge to her eyes. Her arms were muscular and her palms were covered in callus from wielding a sword, she looked more like a warrior than Callie the bow-wielding ogress.

She was quite surprised by Erin's response, it wasn't that she never spoke to them or even smile at them but, most of the time the only reason she spoke was because of Callie, with her pushy and naughty personality, she was the only one able to get such a reaction from Erin.

Kela ruffled her hair, ”You really shouldn't enable Callie like that, she's already too bold as it is.” Erin nodded and before she could speak one of the guys in the front spoke. ”That's enough guys we're already here.”

The group had left the town for quite a while now, they had made it to a dried field, further ahead was an entrance to the Darknar forest. They didn't need to enter the dangerous forest as the beast they hunted usually roam this area. All the monsters here would be around the Tier 2 or 3 standards, a party of six like them could handle a group of these monsters.

Although higher-leveled beasts sometimes wander out of the forest, this wasn't a problem for their party, even without magic, ogres were natural-born fighters. Following a party member who had a skill that could be used to track and locate they have successfully found some game in record time. He had used the skill back in the town's gate and located a group of twin-tailed warthogs.

The Twin-tailed Warthog looked like any ordinary warthog from Earth, only much larger and obviously had two identical tails. They didn't have any active skills and because they were ordinary beasts, they didn't have much intelligence and were not that difficult to hunt. There were three warthogs in this group, they were eating the dried grass and roots on the field.

After catching sight of their prey, the group slowed down their pace and got into formation with two of the tallest male ogres in the front and two to the side, Callie and Erin were left in the back.

The twin-tailed warthogs might not be a very high-level monster to them but they possessed a very troublesome passive skill that made it hard to hunt. They had high physical attack resistance almost to the point of nullification even from higher leveled opponents, combined with their raw strength they were almost impossible to kill_____ well almost.

Everything had a flaw, every defense a weakness and this was no exception, it was also quite an obvious one at that, as long as one attacked with magic the warthog would make easy prey. The only problem was, ogres barely had any magic casters, their skills and even secret techniques weren't considered magical attacks and were almost ineffective on the beast.

The ogres had already gotten close enough to the warthog now and the two in front charged forward with a roar, the three warthogs turned their heads simultaneously and their twin tails lit up in a dark and gloomy aura, one of them immediately charged at the ogres with the other two staying on the defensive.

The ogres in front were holding massive shields, one of them wielded a battle ax and the other a halberd. They were both tall and broad it made them look intimidating. The one wielding the halberd was named Talen and the other was Hart. Talen's shield emitted an orange aura and immediately the warthog ignored Hart and chard at him, Hart didn't mind this and dash at the two remaining warthogs, he raised his battle-ax and slashed down diagonally.

A stream of orange energy escaped the ax and slashed at the two twin-tailed warthogs, they raised their heads and received the attack head-on. The orange energy shattered like glass upon impact without doing much damage. The two warthogs shrugged the attack and charged straight at Hart.

Seeing their plan succeed Hart smiled and his shield emitted the same orange aura as Talen, with that they had the full attention of all three beasts, they defended the warthog's simple attacks with ease, still, their attacks were powerful and it sent them retreating a few steps each time, they dodged as much as they could but were slowly being pushed back, with the warthogs almost perfect physical defense, their attacks had little to no effect on them.

The others sprung into action after seeing this, the two swordsmen flanked the beasts, and Erin and Callie were left to launch a bombardment on the warthog from the rear, Callie drew her bow, and an arrow made out of orange light formed. She raised her arm to the sky and shot it, the arrow flew at breakneck speed to the sky until it suddenly lost momentum, it shattered into a thousand pieces and formed new arrows. ”Arrow Rain” the orange arrows dropped down like rain on all three warthogs without hitting both Talen and Hart who knew exactly when to move out of the way.

The impossible to break skin of the warthog tore open like paper at the rain of orange arrows, this was the difference between a physical attack and a magic spell. The Warthogs growled in anger and pain, normally twin-tailed warthogs moved in groups of 20-30 and rarely strayed from the group, the party had to lure them away from their group in other to hunt, but today Jarret had located rare strays with his innate ability, Sprit Vision. The problem was Twin tailed warthogs that strayed from their group were considered outcasts, as outcasts, they develop an active ability that allowed them to survive on their own.

This ability could only be used when threatened. Rampage was a lifesaving ability that stray warthogs developed when their lives were threatened. This could be considered a gift from nature, a way to maintain the balance of power, but then again it was a problem for hunters. As the arrow rain fell on the warthogs the attack failed to penetrate deep into their skins, even though it was a magic attack the strength of the spell was lacking.