"They better pay us for this. We are basically doing their clean-up job" Ann muttered.

She pulled out her dagger from the goblin's head, wiped the blood on its clothes, and put it back on her belt.

Handling monsters in the forest area came under the jurisdiction of the local lords which was the rule throughout Orion.

The Ashfords conducted yearly expeditions to round out the monster population throughout Ashford County and keep them under control whilst making sure that they do not reach any of the residential settlements.

And as a part of it, Maria took Ann on yearly trips to the Finnel mountain during the hunting season. It was something that Angelica continued to follow after Maria's death.

Considering the number of goblins that attacked the entourage Ann deduced that the person in charge was doing a poor job at controlling the monster population in the area.

'The imperial family is a joke' She sighed.

First, it was the Nasia slave traders' case with the Moore family, then the Frost Vs Esdel war that almost happened, not to mention the number of assassins running loose throughout the country... the list went on.

It was evident that the imperial power has been steadily weakening in successive years. It was the reason why in the novel the Crown Prince tried his best to bring Helen into his faction to rise the declining imperial power.

But in the end, he falls head over heels for her, like literally every other guy in the world, and decides to start a war.

'I've lost all faith I had in the imperial family a long time ago. Not that I had any in the first place...' Ann scoffed and shook her head.

"There should be at least an outpost at the town's entrance where we can collect a bounty for these goblins" Eugene said as he jumped down from the carriage, still in his beast form.

"Yeah"

Ann turned towards him and frowned as she said,

"It's just like you said there should be at least eighty dead goblins here"

Talking about goblins reminded her of something that relaxed the tenseness on her face.

She nudged Eugene's arm and smiled mischievously as she said,

"Reminds us of old times huh?"

"It certainly does"

Right then, Ann noticed Kalan getting down from his horse and walking towards them looking grim.

"Umm... Are you alright?"

'Sh*t I forgot about him' She bit her tongue.

"Yes" Kalan replied, looking around at all the scattered bodies of goblins.

"It's actually not a pretty sight. We gotta clean up before we move. Might take a while though"

As they were talking Oliver came running towards them with a panicked face.

"Hey!"

He whispered something in Ann's ear that caused her eyes to grow wide.

"What?! How?!"

"You should come and take a look"

Oliver pointed towards the front and started walking away without waiting.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kalan. We need to go"

"Is there a problem?"

"No.... You should check on your men too"

Ann followed Oliver without turning back, dragging Eugene by the collar with her.







Meanwhile, Raeden was tending to an injured coachman whose foot was pierced by a stone dagger from the goblin attack.

During the attack, when the goblins started throwing stones at the front carriage, the horses were startled and threw the coachman off his seat.

Though he was not injured, instead of keeping inside the defensive circle the coachman panicked and ran into the forest.

He was attacked by a goblin that sneaked up to him from behind and got stabbed at his foot.

Luckily Raeden noticed the coachman running into the forest and followed him. Before the goblin could injure him further, he caught it by the neck, subsequently killing it.

Seeing a wolf three times his size charging towards him for the first time in his life was enough to scare the soul out of his body. He fainted in fear resulting in Raeden carrying him back to the carriage.

Raeden finished bandaging the coachman's foot and stood up from his seat helping the coachman stand up.

"Thank you"

The coachman bowed his head and awkwardly apologized. Even now he was uncomfortable from seeing Raeden's beast form.

"Sorry about that. I got scared and passed out"

"It's my fault for letting you get attacked"

"No no. I didn't follow your instructions for when there is an ambush...."

The coachman halted his words, his eyes fixed on something behind Raeden. His face turned pale and for the second time in a day, he felt as if he was about to lose his life.

It was because behind Raeden a furious Ann was glaring at him with folded arms and a smile plastered on her face. From the looks of it she had heard their conversation and was not happy about it.

"I think someone just called my name...haha" The coachman excused himself and disappeared from the scene.

As he was passing by Ann, he could feel a stabbing sensation on the back of his head until he went out of her sight.

"How did you get injured?"

Ann asked Raeden, searching all over his face. She made him sit down, ruffled through his hair, checked his eyes, and opened his teeth to search for any injuries. Since he was in his beast form it was hard to see through his dark fur.

But before she could check more Raden caught both of her hands and pulled them away from his face.

"What did you tell her?"

He turned towards Oliver, who was standing next to Eugene whistling in a carefree manner.

"I said you were bleeding" Oliver shrugged and looked away, right as Jade and Noah came back from checking the people in the carriages.

"Who's bleeding?" Jade asked, confused.

He and Noah had come back from checking the carriages. There was no one injured aside from the coachman and a few of the Tullus mercenaries, who were receiving treatment on their end.

And with their arrival, the Nero mercenaries were huddled together in a small circle.

"Nobody is bleeding. It's just a cut on the lips"

Raeden said as he let go of Ann's hand and transformed back to his human form.

"See"

He pointed towards his face. There was a straight cut on the right side of his lower lips.

The bleeding had stopped but for some reason it made Raeden's face sparkle in Ann's eyes.

'Why is he glowing?' Ann's eyes were as wide as a saucer. The small cut on his face made his handsome stand out more.

"How did you cut your lips?"

Ann worriedly checked his injury sitting down next to him.

"A goblin threw a stone at me. It's nothing serious"

"Actually there were three" Oliver clicked his tongue as he extended a first aid kit towards Ann.

"What?!"

'Damn you goblins for trying to destroy this beautiful face!'

She seethed in anger, then realized something was similar.

"A goblin threw a stone at me too. They are evolving"

Ann took the kit from Oliver and started cleaning the wound on Raeden's face.

"This might sting a little"

Now that the wound was cleaned, she applied an antiseptic solution to it before putting a small bandaid to cover the wound.

"All done"

"This is it?"

Though Raeden felt it was unnecessary to worry too much over a small wound. He complied with Ann and patiently waited for her to finish treating the wound.

When he reflexively tried to touch the bandaid she slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch it!"

"Hey. I'm hurt too"

Noah extended his hand towards Ann. But there was not even a scratch visible on his hand.

"Where?" Ann raised her eyebrows. She could feel where this was going.

"See this cut on my pinky"

"Treat it yourself" She sighed and threw a bandaid at his face.

"Not fair! I pricked my finger!"

"You're fine as long as you don't fall into a beauty sleep. We can't go hunting for princesses to wake you up"

Noah and Ann started squabbling as he complained of the unfairness in treatment causing the others to laugh.

"But don't you think it's suspicious?" Eugene frowned as he said in a serious voice.

"The goblins attacked us in large numbers. But none of them tried to steal or take anything from the carriages. It was like their only target was the people and not the loot"

"But it's possible that their plan was to kill us all and then take everything" Jade interjected.

"I mean.... eighty-three is not a small number"

"Or you could both be wrong and they attacked because of boredom. Since goblins are the dumbest monsters in monster history." Ann rolled her eyes and thought back to the time she had an encounter with goblins.

"Yeah. Like the last time when we were attacked because Oliver had a loaf of bread in his bag" Noah nudged his brother.

"Exactly! Wait.... Are you blaming me?"

It was not the first time the Nero mercenaries faced a goblin attack. There were frequent requests by the guild master to exterminate the goblins inhabiting the forest containing trade routes.

In fact, it was during one of those that they were able to meet Angelica.

Or rather attacked by her.