Liam remained where he was for a long while just sitting. The gruesome corpse of the hobgoblin lay beside him, silent and unmoving.
'What else is a dead body supposed to do?' Liam gave out a small laugh but it sounded hollow. The water from the lake touched his feet. It felt cool and had a somewhat calming effect on him.
He really didn't know what to do or where he even was. What was he supposed to do now?
When he thought about it he realized that he must be in a Zone of some kind and that thought alone…
Sigh.
He looked up to the sky. The grey clouds moving slowly among streaks of blue. The situation just felt hopeless. Would he even survive here…wherever this place was? He thought about home for a bit.
His mom, dad and his little sister.
'Well she is turning 16 this year so maybe she isn't really that little'
If she was here she'd probably say something along the lines of:
'Why are you just sitting there, doofus?'
That was just the way she was. She was bright and optimistic. And her optimism seemed to have infected him as well because a moment later he stood and walked around the lake.
His destination? The entrance to the cave that lay on the opposite side of the lake.
***
Chaos.
The entire city was frantic. The sounds of sirens, horns and tires screeching could be heard from anywhere in the city. The presence might not have made itself known but it had certainly left behind a whole other conundrum.
News networks were buzzing. Ambulances burning rubber through the streets. There was a large number of people who were injured by whatever that force was. But the issue that really took the cake was the Zone collapse.
Hunters had been deployed to clean up the site and whatever remained of the goblins but the biggest threat had been the hobgoblin which…was nowhere to be seen at all.
"Fucking waste of time" Lad cursed under his breath as he used his unsheathed sword to smash a goblin's skull open in a single strike. The goblin fell lifelessly to the ground beneath his feet but a second later Lad covered his mouth with a palm and coughed. When he removed it though it was covered in blood.
Lad looked at his palm, his expression visibly annoyed.
He was an A-Rank Hunter, dammit! Yet just two minutes ago he had been forced to his knees and injured by some unknown entity then before he could even gather his wounded pride he had been dispatched to help clear a Zone that had collapsed — and not just any Zone, a level 1 Goblin Zone.
Veins throbbed along his forehead.
"At least give me the hobgoblin, dammit!" he screamed in the air. The only response he got though was a bonk to the back of his head.
"Oh shut up will you. My ears hurt enough without you yelling" a woman spoke beside him.
Lad winced and pitifully rubbed his head.
"Hey, that hurt you know" he grimaced.
The woman merely walked away, her short brown braids waving in the wind. Lad followed after her.
"Dalphine, don't tell me you're not as frustrated as me?"
Dalphine looked up at him from the corner of her eye. "The only frustrating thing to me is the fact that almost everyone is taller than me"
"…"
Dalphine sighed. "I get what you mean but it's no one's fault that most of the D-Rank and C-Rank Hunters who were supposed to deal with this situation are currently indisposed"
They walked through the destruction and blood in silence for a while. Every few moments they passed by a body, human and goblin alike.
A testament to the tragic events that had just occurred. A gloomy shadow fell over Dalphine's face. This was something that never should have happened in the first place. It was their guild's duty to oversee this city and now this…
"Something about this feels fishy" Dalphine eventually said.
"What does?" Lad scratched his chin.
"All of it. How did this Zone remain so undetected in the city?"
Lad shrugged. "I don't know, maybe the scanner broke"
Dalphine had to squint her eyes to resist the urge to knock him over the head.
"The Zero-Day Protocol doesn't just break. It's the most reliable way to predict when Zones will appear within a certain radius…or at least it's supposed to"
"Hey, you asked me, okay, I just gave my thoughts" Lad muttered under his breath.
Dalphine merely shook her head.
"We're done here anyway, let's meet up with the Vice Leader"
Lad almost choked when he heard that. Hurriedly he turned to her:
"Vice Leader's here too?" he gasped.
"Yes. And with what just happened today we should expect the Boss to make an appearance soon enough"
Lad visibly paled at the very possibility of the Leader returning from her off-city campaign so soon.
"Really…" he looked around with caution as if the very mention of her would make her appear. Then he leaned into Dalphine's ear and whispered, "…t-that monster?"
"Ugh" Dalphine gave him a slight shove. "Your breath reeks of garlic. And to answer your question, yes she will"
With that she quickened her pace. Lad stood in a daze for a moment muttering incoherent things under his breath for a short while before he released a sigh that sounded…defeated.
"Well there goes my easy life" he followed after Dalphine.
…
They found the vice leader of the Vulcan Guild talking to an officer, the lower half of the officer's leg was covered in a cast. They stood by the back of an ambulance among dozens. Even with a distance of more than ten meters, they could hear him quite clearly — for Hunters at their level it was all a matter of filtering out the noise and concentrating only on what you wanted to hear.
"Are you sure that's everything, Mr. Norse?" they heard the vice leader say. His voice was smooth and calm. It was a voice most suited to the corporate office.
"Yes. That's all I could observe given the chaos of the situation" Norse nodded. His cuts and bruises had been treated so now he sat with his shirt off and his chest and arms covered in wraps.
"Commander Ivan!" Dalphine waved at him as they approached.
The vice leader, Commander Ivan as those of his guild called him, turned away from Norse and faced their direction.
Commander Ivan was a tall man with dark hair swept back and a goatee on his chin. The armour he wore was compact and light, almost like the combat gear worn by members of a SWAT team. The only difference was that it was made from the hide of a Zipple-Drake. A creature that lived in heat-infested regions, their bodies were highly resistant to both physical force as well as heat.
"No sign of the D-Rank monster, Commander" Dalphine reported as she stood right in front of him.
"What?" Norse interjected, shock written all over his face. "That's not possible"
All three turned to him and Norse couldn't help but be slightly nervous. He felt like a deer being peered at by savage predators but he didn't back down. He couldn't, after all...
"That shouldn't be possible because..." he lingered, a look of shame now replacing the shock. He really didn't want anyone to know of his deed but it had to be done. If he remained silent then no one would know about Liam's bravery in holding off that beast, all for the sake of the little girl now sleeping soundly in the ambulance. "...there was a boy who saved the girl from the beast when we were separated. I tried to fight it off but before I could the boy came over and told me to hand him the gun and that I should get the girl to safety_"
"Wait a minute, so you're telling me that you let a boy distract what could have been a D-Rank Hobgoblin while you ran away!" Lad said, his voice filled with irritation and disgust.
"Lad!" Dalphine tried to stop him.
"What!? I know we're all thinking it! This man is nothing but a coward"
Norse looked down, his fist clenched, before he looked at Lad with a firm gaze.
"I am not a coward and I'm not the one who made that decision. It was him" Norse said.
"The kid?" this time it was Dalphine who spoke.
"Liam Blaze is…was a student from Bright Academy. He knew he didn't have the strength to carry the girl to safety and at the same time I didn't have the strength to fight either_"
"So the kid suggested a switch?" Commander Ivan stated.
"Outright ripped the gun from my grip" Norse nodded.
Ivan lingered, scratched his chin before looking around once more. There really was no sign of the D-Rank hobgoblin. He looked towards Dalphine and said:
"I want you to go through the student files of Bright Academy and find out what you can about this boy."
Dalphine nodded before she went off, taking out her communicator in the process.
"Have all the goblins been cleared?" he turned to Lad.
"Yes, Commander" Lad nodded.
"Good, then we should be about finished here" Ivan gestured that Norse was free to go. The man said nothing as he hopped back towards the ambulance, his shoulders slumped as though burdened by an invisible weight, as he sat beside an unconscious little girl whose arm was covered by a tiny cast of her own.
"You believe him?" Lad asked.
"So far everything he said checks out" Ivan replied.
"Minus the hobgoblin"
Dalphine returned. She handed Ivan her communicator — a stronger variant of the smartphone of old.
Taking the gadget, he studied the contents of the screen for a bit.
"Did you find the boy among the survivors or the deceased?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Dalphine shook her head. "Didn't see anyone resembling him at all"
Ivan sighed. Nothing about this was normal.
"So we have a missing boy and a missing hobgoblin" he muttered.
"What do you want us to do?" Dalphine asked.
"We'll be monitoring the situation a bit further. For now, tag Liam Blaze as M.I.A"
"Got it" she nodded.
"And tell everyone to get ready for the worst. Our Vulcan Guild is definitely going to take a hit from this and others will be looking to take advantage"
"Well not if that monster has anything to say about it at least" Lad interjected.
A small smile played at the corner of Ivan's lip. "I just hope she returns before things blow out of proportion