With the sea breeze fluttering the branches, leaves shook. So fell to the ground, while others stood against the wind. A poppy farr looked toward the sun, his gaze worriso. He exhaled deeply, expecting sothing bad to happen soon.
Yet there was still hope in his eyes, for he had requested help from the Adventurer Guild.
"God, send soone brave to save us," he pleaded, his gaze suddenly turning darker.
Before his eyes, a swarm of darkness moved toward him and his field. He slowly stepped back.
He blew the horn and then dashed off in the opposite direction.
The sound of the horn echoed across the entire poppy field.
Along the edges, people erged from the poppy fields. Torches were lit in their hands.
Stray hay mixed with certain fauna was imdiately set ablaze, encircling the outer edge of the field. As the wind blew toward the forest, the n who lit the fire quickly turned back, covering their faces with wet cloth.
One of them cried, "Don’t breathe the smoke!"
The smoke slowly grew and moved toward the swarm as the incoming mass tried to push through it.
With the winds blowing hard, it collided with them. The swarm wavered for a second and stopped in its tracks, but then suddenly surged forward again.
"Run! The stingers are coming!" one farr cried out.
Others quickly took the higher ground, while so went underground to hide.
The swarm of bugs slowly began devouring the poppy fields as soon as they made contact, and within minutes everything was gone.
The farr who first signaled watched in tears as the poppy field was ravaged by the stingers before his eyes.
His friend beside him touched his shoulder and said in a warm voice, "Don’t worry. Next ti, we will get them."
Even as he spoke, his own voice trembled slightly.
"Adventurers will co to rescue us," soone said.
With a long beard, high nose, and wrinkled face, the old man looked wise and weathered. "Stingers are carnivorous monsters that rely solely on instinct. They are strong but stupid. An experienced adventurer can easily kill them. It is only a matter of ti we have to wait."
With assurance in his voice, he continued, "Savark has already filed a silver-rank adventurer request. We will soon be getting help."
Savark was with them too inside the underground bunker. He thought for a second, then whispered to the old man, "I thought you wanted just an adventurer."
"What do you an?" the old man frowned.
"I hired a bronze rank..." Savark replied.
Everyone’s head turned toward him, their eyes filled with astonishnt and anger.
With the wind blowing through the grassy plains, Rosacer moved silently, hiding between the tall grasses, for there was sothing trying to find him too.
In a mont, his intuition flared. He crouched down and crawled like a snake. Sothing dangerous was walking across the field.
His eyes fluttered, trying to figure out what was moving through the grassy plains, but all he managed to catch were glimpses of shadows.
For a second, he thought it was Gringha following him, but the amount of bloodlust the thing gave off was astronomically higher than any human could possess.
"What the hell is it," he muttered to himself. Still crouching, he moved slowly. From ti to ti, he stopped whenever his intuition flared or when he felt as if the thing was getting closer to him.
From the sounds of the encounter, Rosacer guessed the creature might be four-legged, judging by the sounds made by its footsteps, but he was not sure. It could also be two bipedal monsters moving simultaneously.
"Why there are too many damn monsters outside." he cursed inwardly. as he kept his presence low.
Crouching, he tried to pass through the entire grass plain, and if necessary, ignite the whole field in flas.
With careful, precise movent, he successfully hid his footsteps and noise, slowly nearing the edge of the grass field.
He almost reached the boundary when he heard it.
A strange whispering noise reverberated above him. It sounded like a horde of buzzing flies singing a dreadful song before feasting on the dead flesh of the fallen.
Without turning to see what it was, he quickly pulled out his gun, Gewehr, and fired at it.
With a booming noise, the shot tore through the air, striking sothing above.
Then Rosacer, using the grafted sigil, conjured eyes behind his head.
All he needed was a quick glance, and then he would run like crazy. But...
What he saw gave him a grotesque sensation.
Up in the sky was a horde of bees, buzzing and reverberating in a cacophony of sound. Around the Gewehr bullet, droplets of his own blood were being devoured by the swarm.
Rosacer’s eyes widened in horror. He did not have the luxury to stay still. The footsteps were nearing. The four-legged monster was close, very close. The gunshot had alerted it and made Rosacer’s location obvious.
He flicked his wrist in a second, disappearing from the plain.
Back inside the guild, he jumped out of flickering flas. He exhaled in heavy sighs, already out of breath, not because of Oblivion’s effect, but due to the sudden panic the monster’s appearance had caused him.
"What was that?!" Rosacer cried out.
Bri was close by too. She ran from the counter toward Rosacer, calling out for help.
"Adventurer, are you alright?"
Rosacer shook his head in confirmation and turned toward Bri. "I saw a monster. Bees buzzing around, making faces as they moved."
Bri looked confused but still held his shoulder to support him. "Adventurer, there is a healer in the guild. I will escort you. Co."
Rosacer did not object as he slowly, with her help, moved toward the infirmary.
"Sothing is not right..." he thought inwardly. No matter how bizarre that monster seed, it should not have caused him a panic attack.
There was sothing fundantally connecting him to the monster, he thought. There was a connection he felt, and therefore the fear was able to transfer fully, Rosacer concluded.
He asked the system to tell him more.
Thankfully, this ti the system obliged.
[Buzzling Death: Similar to the user’s Blooming Death, Buzzling Death is a stage where the body of an immortal enters self-defense and protection mode to safely perform resurrection.]
"So, it was that... So an immortal died a few minutes ago... Might be that monster that killed him," Rosacer thought. His mind ran through all the theories he could co up with, and this was the best one he could conjure.
For now, he went with it.
The infirmary room was approaching, and Bri quickly held the door open for Rosacer, gesturing for him to slowly step inside.
Rosacer nodded and entered.
The first thing he noticed was the white sheets covering most of the room, and a figure sitting between them.
It was a feminine shape.
"A patient?" she asked, her voice smooth and alluring.
Rosacer could not see her clearly as she stood behind a hanging white sheet, but from her voice alone, he imagined her to be angelically beautiful.
"Yes," he replied, and Bri answered at the sa ti.
Bri then glanced at him before turning around. "I think you can handle yourself better," she said as she left. Her cheeks were red. She was blushing.
After Bri exited the room, Rosacer turned his gaze toward the lady.
"I saw sothing strange, and because of it, I was thrown into a panic attack. I am fine now, but I am curious why it happened," he said straightforwardly.
The lady paused. She did not reply imdiately. A strange patience lingered in the air around her.
Then, with her sweet voice, she spoke, "Perhaps you share blood or fate with the thing you saw, and that triggered an extraordinary reaction within you."
After saying that, she fell silent.
Rosacer also did not speak for a mont.
A brief pause settled between them.
"What’s your na?" Rosacer asked, his voice low and warm.
The lady giggled softly, then chose to remain silent.
Rosacer did not press further. He imdiately stood up. "I will be going then. Thank you for your help," he said, turning around.
The lady spoke again, "I did not do anything."
But Rosacer had already left, not hearing her.
He strolled down the guild corridor, his footsteps slow, carrying a quiet emotion within him.
The scent of herbs from the infirmary still lingered in his mind, along with the soft echo of her voice. He could not see her face, yet the calm patience she carried unsettled him more than comforted him.
Blood or fate, she had said, and the words stuck to him like wet fabric.
"An angel... perhaps," he murmured as he walked.
He stepped outside, the guild gates standing tall before him. The afternoon wind brushed past his coat as he crossed the threshold.
For a brief mont, he paused, glancing back, then shook his head and stepped onto the road ahead.
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