The sky was gray, adorned with a few remaining stars, while the ground was shrouded in a few sunlight that pierced through the clouds. It was completely quiet, broken only by the occasional chirping of insects in the grass.

Accompanied by the sound of faint footsteps, a dozen heavily armed soldiers advanced slowly into the mountains.

It was early morning, perfect timing to enter the mountains. At this hour, most of the Magic Beasts were still asleep, making it ideal for exploration.

As such, a dozen or so soldiers led by Angelo left the village and entered the mountains at this particular time. As for the young girl in the village, Nathan was left there tending on her conditions.

“Yeah, right,” Marco laughed, drawing strange looks from the others.

“What did you say there, Marco?” Angelo asked.

“Um… nothing.”

The group decided to ignore it and continued onward.

"Hey captain, see anything?" Paulo asked Angelo, who shook his head silently.

Meanwhile, Marco noticed a few soldiers collecting something in the forest.

"What the hell are they collecting?" he asked.

"Samples," Angelo simply replied. His eyes constantly scan left and right at the clearing where they stopped.

"Damn, we know they're samples, but for what use?" Marco grumbled, he slapped away an insect that landed on his neck.

"To study," Angelo simply replied again.

"Seriously? We're soldiers, not like those nerds from the Research Institute. We're here to hunt monsters!" Marco retorted.

“Didn't you forget the command said we should also collect any interesting objects in this world… except we should proceed with caution.”

“Once we deal with this, we'll hunt some dangerous Magic Beast,” Angelo added, “According to the Magic Radar, there are only magic beasts at Level 1 or Level 2 within a hundred-meter radius, so none of them were even a threat to us.”

Marco gave up trying to chat with two of his friends and walked up to one of the soldiers crouching over a plant. "Hey, whatcha doing?"

The soldier turned and lifted up a small transparent container with a sample of a leaf inside. "Well, we are cataloging the plants to see if they can be eaten or used in some way." He gave the bottle a little shake before placing it carefully into his bag.

"Eh, okay." Marco straightened up, unimpressed. "So these red plants are edible?" He plucked a leaf off a small tree. Most of the leaves of the plant life in this forest are reddish in color with a hint of green.

"Well, not this," the soldier said, standing up. "Over here," he waved Marco over and kneeled down to a tiny growth with red fern-like leaves. "This here is a kind of tuber or root, in case you jug heads don't know what a tuber is."

The rest of the soldiers laughed as the soldier continued his explanation. "The guys at the lab say it tastes like a mix of carrot and potato and carries the same nutrients and vitamins as them. So they called this a 'car-rat-o'."

"Oh wow," Marco rolled his eyes while Angelo watched with interest. "So other than the tuber root 'car-rat-o'. Nothing more interesting found?"

"Hahaha, we heard they found plenty, even in our lands," The soldier proudly said. "There is a tree sap that tastes like maple syrup but when dried becomes like rubber."

"And there's these berries that the farmers found," The rest of the soldiers chipped in stories.

“Yeah, it's unbelievable how new food and vegetation has been appearing in our nation lately.”

“And don’t forget that huge monster fish that the fishers catch."

"And the mushrooms from the..."

Marco listened with half an ear to the excited soldiers talking about new discoveries found in their nation. He waved away the insects buzzing around his face and leaned against a tree. He boredly looked around the clearing, pulled out a pack of protein bars and started chewing on it.

"Marco," Paulo said in a soft tone. "Marco, something is watching us."

"What?" Marco jolted upright. "Where?"

"I am not sure." Paulo slowly rotated on the spot to look around the forest. His eyes narrowed intently trying to pinpoint the source of his unease.

"Are you sure?" Marco fingered his weapon's safety.

“I don't think so,” Angelo interjected as he examined the readings in the magic array device, “I still don't have any strong readings other than the weaker magic beast in the vicinity. But just in case…”He walked towards the soldiers still deep in a lively discussion. "Men, we should move forward.”

"But we are not done here, captain!" The soldiers protested. "We only collected less than half of the samples needed."

"We can finish another time. For now, pack it up. We're moving forward," Angelo ordered.

Sensing something was not right, the soldiers quickly gathered their gear and equipment. Less than a minute, they are all ready to move.

"Quickly now, let's go," Angelo led the way with the rest covering the rear. The group quickly marched through the forest, climbing over massive tree roots and in certain areas, dense foliage.

Just then…

“Aooo~!”

“Aooooo~!”

“Aoooo~!”

A series of howls suddenly echoed through the mountain forest, causing Angelo and his team, who were quite far away from the source, could not help but feel a chill run down their back, finding the forest a little creepy and terrifying.

“Did you hear that?” a soldier suddenly asked, gulping in nervousness.

“Shit, I think I just got a flashback,” another soldier said as he became incredibly tense.

Exhaling a long, deep breath, Angelo looked at Paulo and nodded, stating in a grim voice, “If I’m not wrong, it should be a pack of wolves, but I can't tell if they were magical or regular ones.”

“Captain, are they close?” Marco asked.

“No, not really,” Angelo replied as he examined the Magic Array device on his wrist, “But I got a magical reading just for a split second. It's like they were only staying more than a hundred meters from us.”

Saying this, he swept a gaze at his men and cautioned them, “Hold on tight to your weapons, we can’t afford to let our guard down.”

“Yes, sir,“ A dark-skinned soldier raised his machine gun with a smile.

"Good. Let's go!" Angelo urged the group to travel faster.

They pushed through the dense foliage and emerged out into a field of grass. Sensing the wind causing the grass to sway like waves.

"This is not good," Paulo said as he scanned the surroundings. The closest treeline is about 200 meters away. "It's too open."

"You, hold the rear. We'll advance by leapfrogging," Angelo instructed the group. "I'll go first. Once I reach the treeline, I will give a signal then you guys are next. Just run okay? Don't stop till you hit the trees."

He looked left and right before dashing across the field in less than forty seconds before he arrived at the edge of the forest. He quickly got into a ready position to cover the rest and waved the others to start running. The soldiers, seeing his signal, quickly ran towards him.

Suddenly, a loud beep echoed in the device on his wrist. His eyes widened as he saw a large magical reading rushing towards their position at incredible speed, already covering a hundred-meter distance in less than five seconds.

But what made him shudder even more was its level.

‘A Level 5!’

Immediately after he thought of that, a huge roar erupted behind him, prompting him to leap aside just in time to dodge an attack from a wolf, which is the size of a bus, that leaped out from the foliage and slashed it's meter-long claws that split a tree into splinters.

Everyone stood and stared in amazement before yelling for Angelo to run. The giant wolf-like creature has metallic jaws that look like it could crunch steel, and gray-red colored fur coat that blended seamlessly with the surroundings.



The wolf made a leap towards Angelo again, who was running towards the trees under the encouragement of the group.

Among the group, Marco flicked his safety off his M7A1 and took sight on the creature. Through the 2x red dot sight mounted on the weapons seemed to enlarge the creature furthermore. Once he was certain Angelo was out of the line of fire, he triggered his weapon, sending a long burst of fire into the beast.

This time, instead of the C-type rounds, he was hot loaded with AP rounds.

The AP bullets slammed directly into the center of the creature, causing it to tumble. Sparks and blood burst out from the impacts. The wolf yelped in a very dog-like manner and as it rose up, it shook its body causing specks of blood to scatter all over the fields.

"What the fuck!" Marco roared in anger. "It's bloody armor-piercing rounds! Fucker just shrugged it off!" Pissed, Marco continued firing at the creature.

“FOR ONCE!! LET US KILL SOMETHING WITH ONE FUCKIN’ SHOT!!!”

By this time, Angelo made it over to the others. Immediately, he and a dozen other soldiers hoisted their Heavy Machine Guns up and fired a stream of bullets at 1,400 rounds per minute. The tracers from the HMGs were like a laser, striking the creature, and tearing it into chunks of meat.

As the echoes of the HMGs died down, the soldiers together with Marco cheered.

"Don't fuck with us humans, bitch!” Marco shouted, kicking the wolf’s corpse while swapping out a new magazine for his partial emptied magazine from his rifle. "Hey, does that giant wolf have a metal jaw or what?" he asked the soldiers crouching next to him.

"Eh? I have no idea. We need to bring the corpse back to study. But it does have a metal jaw. Were they man-made? Nature?” the soldier replied excitedly, as he peered intently at the dead creature. "Or weird magical evolution in this world?"

"No shit, Sherlock. It's definitely magic evolution or some shit," Marco rolled his eyes. Damn nerds.

"Everyone, it's not over yet," Angelo’s calm voice cut into their conversation, laying his eyes on the Magic Array device with a frown. "More incoming."

In the distance, the sounds of something heavy crashing through the foliage grew louder. Snarls and growls seemed to grow nearer and louder, and a sudden howl heralded the arrival of four more giant wolves, each as huge as a car or minibus.

"Oh shit," Marco muttered as the group of wolves appeared at the opposite side of the field. "Run!" He yelled and the soldiers sprinted.

“These things are smaller and only Level 4. Everyone! Covering fire!" Angelo shouted to his men as he opened up with his machine gun.

Marco, Paulo, and the others opened fire with their weapons and backed off slowly. Angelo ordered his men to direct the spray of tracers onto the nearest and largest wolf in the group. Sparks, smoke, shreds of meat and fur flew as the tracers came into contact. Seeing their target dropping, they swept their fire to the next closest wolf. Clumps of dirt and torn grass flew as the bullets wrought destruction in its path.

The wolf roared in agony and raised its front paws to protect its venerable face, as bullets slammed into its body. The other wolves quickly leapt into action and split off towards the left and right respectively to escape the storm of bullets from the human soldiers.

The heavy fire managed to suppress and take down the two of the wolves but the other two moved too fast for any of them to get a good lock on them.

"Fuck! How can a dog shit like that move so fast?" Marco cursed. He tried to get a good aim on the closest wolf but it kept dodging his shots. "Damn it! You dog! Stay still!"

Angelo ceased his fire, turned around and covered the group's flank and fired at the other rapidly approaching wolf. He fired a short burst and waited after the wolf made a dodge by leaping to the side before he opened fire at where he estimated the wolf would land. The laser beam-like tracers tore the area where the wolf landed into smoke and blood, even igniting a small fire in the grass.

Finally, half of the group also managed to bring down the second wolf, just barely ten meters away from them. The wolf crumpled down, dying of internal injuries. Even in its dying breath, the giant wolf let out a snarl and roared as it struggled to raise up and its limbs clawed desperately in its attempts to move its body. Slowly the hate in its eyes faded as Angelo and his men watched it slowly stop moving.

"Any more?" Paulo asked. He reloaded and crouched down keeping his machine gun in a ready position.

"No more readings, nothing left," Angelo replied after examining the Magic Array device. He lowered his weapon and checked his ammunition counter.

"Phew, thought that last one was gonna get me," Marco sighed in relief. He walked up and poked the wolf carcass with his smoking rifle barrel. "These guys are tough. I'm using AP rounds!" He bent over, examining the wolf, and pulled something from its fur.

"Holy shit," He said, holding up a complete bullet, with the tungsten alloy core tip slightly flatten. "This shit is supposed to penetrate up to 14mm thick steel plates!"

Angelo took the bullet from Marco and examined it. He walked a full circle around the body and gauged. "Roughly five meters long, two point five meters tall." He noted, tapping on the jaws of the wolf. "Steel jaw."

"Damn, we bagged a big one eh?" Marco grinned. "Think they allow us to mount its head up in the sub?" He posed with one foot on top of the giant wolf like a big game hunter.

"We can make big bucks with this."

————————————————

Soon after, the group returned to the village with the body parts of the wolves in tow.

Their arrival brought a slight chill to the village, and the villagers had heard about it and turned out to see the nine strangers. Marco happily basked in the glory of all the attention as he bragged about how he killed the giant wolves.

Meanwhile, in the south part of the village was a low and dilapidated room that remained in a perpetual darkness. It was damp and gloomy. The paint on the wall had long since peeled off, and its surface was uneven.

At this moment, a groan suddenly broke the deathly silence in the room.

Much to Nathan’s astonishment, the eyelids of the pale girl lying on the bed trembled slightly.

“Uh, could she be waking up?” Slightly surprised, Nathan also found himself momentarily stunned.

The girl’s eyes fluttered open, and she was met with Nathan’s face, who couldn't help but feel his heart pounded as he looked at her.

“Did you… save my life?” she whispered.

————————————————

In the dark, quiet night, several people were sitting around a fire pit in the Village Chief’s house. Not far from them, dozens of villagers and soldiers from Angelo’s team were chatting and enjoyed eating dinner.

After the catwoman woke up, the whole village erupted into cheers and were grateful for the strangers. As a reward for waking the Village Chief’s granddaughter and killing the wolf pack that haunt the village for a week, the villagers offered their best meal to the soldiers who had helped their village.

The family members of the Village Chief and some villagers were busy preparing supper in the kitchen. These weary soldiers, who had traveled a long distance, had not had a hot meal yet.

Although the soldiers had intended to refuse, they could not resist the villagers’ hospitality.

Not to mention, one of their comrades was the one who awakened the Village Chief’s granddaughter and cured her from the venom.

The villagers were extremely grateful for this, and even brought out meat that they had prepared for them.

“Holy shit, it's been so long since I ever tasted meat!” one soldier cried in joy as he hungrily ate the meal in front of him.

“Yeah, I'm tired of eating seafood. This is heaven,” said another soldier, munching the piece of meat he and the others ate.

At this moment, an extremely beautiful girl with long black hair tied into a ponytail and cat-like ears happened to be sitting beside the fire. Her eyes were very clear and pure, without the trace of any impurities, they resembled two pools of autumn water.

She was the Village Chief’s second granddaughter.

She was the sleeping beauty who had been sleeping for a long time, refusing to wake up. However, just now, she woke up after one soldier named Nathan helped her.

“Thank the gods you’re awake,” the Village Chief said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye as he looked at his little granddaughter sitting not far away with a dotting expression.

She was his last hope. It was already a huge blessing that she had woken up.

“I'm fine, grandpa,” she replied with a reassuring smile.

Meanwhile, Nathan, who was also sitting by the fire, looked at the young girl.

‘I don't know if it's me, but she does have similar characteristics to my girlfriend back on Earth.’

As if sensing his gaze, the catwoman looked at Nathan, who startled slightly and averted his gaze.

“Thank you for saving my life, mister,” she said.

“Oh, it's nothing really, haha,” he chuckled nervously.

‘Damn, I feel like a virgin again,’ he thought.

“But I like to ask, why are you here?” asked the young girl sitting by the side with an innocent look in her eyes.

“What else could bring us here apart from the rampaging Magic Beast? We are here to gather information,” Nathan replied with a smile, nonchalantly waving his hand.

He quite liked this young girl named Lyzbeth. So, when she asked, he naturally started talking.

“Oh…” she said, drawing out her voice as if pondering.

After a moment, the girl proactively asked as if she thought of something, “By the way, I heard you and your team were able to find the Magic Beast very quickly. How did you do it though?”

“Well…” Nathan’s lips parted, but no words came out, seemingly hesitating to reply. But the next moment, he decisively shut his mouth after glancing around. Although it was not classified information, he felt that the villagers still should not know about it.

“Is it something you can’t say?” The cat girl lowered her head as her voice became softer.

“Haha,” Nathan chuckled and shook his head before affectionately glanced at the girl and smiled, “No, it’s not like that.”

Saying so, he then pointed at the sky.

“We have detected abnormal fluctuations there with the help of something in the sky. That's why we are able to find them easily.”

“Oh, so you were helped by a deity or something? You're religious?”

“Oh… haha, you could say that,” he said sheepishly. Even though he is Christian, their success was actually due to the technological power of the Mana-Monitoring Satellite.

“Interesting,” Lyzbeth said, shifting her gaze from the forest back to Nathan. “By the way, I have something to show you.”

“What is it?”

————————————————

Watching as his squadmate, Nathan, and the cat girl rushed out into the forest, Angelo frowned and looked at the Village Chief.

“Is it unsafe for my men and your granddaughter to leave this late?”

“Don't worry, lad. She is taking your men to the lake she and her sister always like to play at,” the Village Chief assured him, “It has strange magic that keeps lesser Magic Beasts away.”

“Interesting, I should research that later,” Angelo mumbled, “Anyways, thank you for the information you gave me, old man.”

The Village Chief nodded. “It's my pleasure.”

Staring at the night sky, Angelo went deep in thought. According to the Village Chief, during the past month, the people here had heard the news from the Kingdom that the Queen was dead.

And her brother, the new king, had caused much suffering to many people in the kingdom, mostly on the manaless and humans in small towns and villages. This village, however, hadn’t been affected much because they were far from any major cities of the kingdom, which was good to hear.

Still, he needed more information to gather.

————————————————————

The shimmering radiance of the starry sky once enveloped the night, blending seamlessly with the distant darkness under nature’s guidance. As the clouds slowly dissipated, they exposed the bright, lustrous moon that illuminated the land from above, making this beautiful paradise even more beautiful. At this moment, Nathan and the catwoman named Lyzbeth sat around their own campfire, slowly enjoying the grilled fishes they caught in the huge lake.

“My sister and I used to swim in this lake every day,” Lyzbeth said while looking at the moon’s reflected on the lake’s surface.

Nathan nodded. The moon above, larger and bluer than Earth's, seemed to magnify the splendor of this place.

"Speaking of swimming, I used to compete with my girlfriend whenever we swam together," Nathan said, finishing his grilled fish coated with butter.

"You mentioned that your girlfriend is now out of this world. I'm sorry for your loss," Lyzbeth said sympathetically.

Nathan chuckled inwardly, thinking, 'I meant that literally.'

"Well, we've all faced our share of hardships and adventures. We need to move on, or we risk becoming burdens," he said, meeting Lyzbeth’s golden gaze.

She smiled. "I hope you're fine."

"Don't worry, I already am," Nathan replied.

Suddenly, an idea struck Lyzbeth. Smiling, she declared, "Well, Nathan, you did say you're a master at swimming. Let's have a bet!"

“Oh? I'm curious.” Nathan smiled, focusing his eyes on Lyzbeth, who pointed her finger at the lake in the distance and announced the condition of the bet.

“A swimming contest. The winner will be the king for one hour, and the winner's orders are absolute.”

"Wow! I'm in." Nathan’s eyes sparkled with a dark luster as he stood up. He was confident in his swimming skills as he is an athlete at swimming during his College days, so he believed he wouldn't lose.

————————————————

“So, are you sure there aren't any sea monsters in there?” Nathan asked.

"My sister and I have swum in this lake our entire lives, so no," Lyzbeth replied.

Later, Nathan looked at Lyzbeth, who wore a swimsuit that looked like a part of the Racer Back swimming costumes collection.

‘How the heck does she have something like that??’

He had expected her to swim naked, never imagining she would wear something so modern. Nonetheless, the swimsuit highlighted her beautiful form. She tied her hair into a ponytail with an elastic and started stretching. She had that Cheshire grin that seemed to announce that she was sure of her victory.

Nathan could easily imagine what her orders would be if she won. She would ask him to catch a hundred more fishes in the lake.

‘I mean, holy hell. I managed to catch dozens of them and she ate most of them hungrily. Probably it's her cat side,’ he thought.

Shaking his head, Nathan positioned himself. Right now, he was only wearing a pair of trousers, the gray trouser made a great contrast with the silver moonlight.

“Are you sure you have any second thoughts about this bet?” Lyzbeth asked smugly, “You might lose.”

“Nah, I'd win.”

Nathan flipped a coin into the air, and when it landed on the ground precisely on a stone producing a sound, both of them leaped into the lake. The race distance was thirty meters, marked by a tree at the far end.

Just after they jumped into the water, Nathan was the fastest to move as he had started with the butterfly stroke, making him move so fast that he quickly put some distance between them, and he seemed like a professional swimmer, no calling him a mermaid would be an understatement.

In life people have hobbies, especially rich people, who have even more. Some of the richest people have a collection of supercars, yachts, and watches. Nathan had one hobby added to all those things.

He loves swimming. All his residences had the largest pools, one of which almost matched the length as the largest pool in the world, the pool at San Alfonso del Mar, a resort outside of Santiago, Chile.

Every night, he would swim in his pools to relax and enjoy the feeling of water caressing his body. Thanks to this hobby of his, his swimming skills were unmatched, well, when compared to his other friends and normal friends.

Truth be told, Nathan could be considered having the best swimming skill he ever encountered except that one guy, but if he thinks that he would win with this, then it was a huge mistake.

Because all of a sudden, a faint glow began to envelope Lyzbeth's body, and before Nathan realized, the catwoman moved, her speed increased drastically to the point where she caught up with Nathan two meters ahead.

Now shoulder to shoulder, the two looked at each other. Nathan was dumbfounded but Lyzbeth smiled. With all his might, Nathan launched his body forward like a fish that took a jump outside of the water surface. He could see the goal ahead, he became more sure of his victory as he swam forward, everything disappeared, his mind was clear like never, the only focus in his mind was that tree ahead. He saw victory. However, the reality is harsh as it slaps you when you're less expecting it.

Like a hurricane, Lyzbeth bypassed him and arrived at their destination just before he could. The speed which she passed was godly, and to make matters worse, she winked at him before using the Butterfly stroke when she passed him as if to say ‘I had this in the bag from the start.’

"No fair! You used your magic or whatever!" Nathan protested.

"Didn't I say mana wasn't allowed?" Lyzbeth replied with a wink. “But I did try to ask if you had second thoughts about this.”

Nathan could only sigh. Well, she does have a point. He should have clarified the rules before accepting so readily.

Looking at Lyzbeth, who was smiling as she stared at him, Nathan sighed for the second time. Shrugging his shoulders, he swam forward and stopped right in front of her.

“What are your orders, ô mine, Queen!" he asked theatrically.

Lyzbeth’s lips twitched at Nathan's tone. She chuckled and ordered, “Close your eyes!"

Nathan was surprised by this order. His mind raced, and he thought of a certain possibility, but he didn't dare to believe it. But he closed his eyes anyway, hoping that it was just a misconception he had, however, Lyzbeth’s next gesture proved to him that it wasn't the cause.

“What are y-?"

Just as he was about to question, Lyzbeth stole his lips. Nathan’s eyes enlarged due to how shocked he was as he hadn't seen this attack coming, so he was completely caught off guard.

The kiss was sweet, unlike any he had experienced on Earth

This woman’s kiss was not the same as those of his previous girlfriend, but was instead stepped in a passion that ignited something within him. Magical was a perfect word to describe it.

Wait a minute…

“Are you sure you're not a monster that kills their prey by seducing and kissing?” Nathan asked with suspicion.

Lyzbeth seemed genuinely offended, “Why do you think about that?”

“Nevermind, I'm going to continue even if you're definitely going to kill me,” Nathan laughed as he reciprocated. The kiss turned heated as they explored each other’s mouths, trying to learn more about one another.

As the two became lost in the kiss, they seemed to be in each other's protective cocoons on their own world. Their faces flushed red as their kiss grew hot, passion was ignited as their hands started roaming on each other's naked bodies.

Just as things were about to escalate, both sensed something wrong.

Nathan frowned. He could sense an ominous feeling and a shadow not far from them. Holding Lyzbeth by the waist, he quickly pushed her behind a tree while grabbing their stuff and his weapon, which was an AA12 Shotgun. They both hastily dress while Nathan inserts the disc-like magazine filled with shotgun shells into his weapon.

He crouched low, moving steadily crept forward to observe the terrain ahead. Once they were under the cover of a tree root, Nathan slowly removed his motion detector and scanned the surroundings, but there were no return signals on his scanners except for the movement of the small bird above.

"Did you sense something?" Nathan whispered.

Lyzbeth nodded. "Yeah."

Same as Nathan, Lyzbeth’s sixth sense was telling her something is wrong ahead. The forest was too eerily quiet, like it was holding its breath, waiting for something.

That was when they both heard a soft hissing from the trees. The two froze and only moved their eyes upwards to see a large coiled creature in the trees, several tens of meters away.

“Hissssss~...”

The two stared at the snake, none of them dared to look directly at the eyes for fear as it might sense them, so they both used the corner of their eyes to carefully observe it.

A trickle of sweat slowly rolled down Nathan’s eye. Ignoring the stinging sensation of his eye, he softly touched his mike key and radioed his captain.

"Contact, big snake on a tree in my location, over." He whispered softly.

But all he got was static.

“What the…?”

‘Please don't tell me something bad happened to the village, or it's just some magic interference bullshit,’ he thought.

Grumbling under his breath, Nathan looked at Lyzbeth and told her, "Head back to the village and warn everyone."

"What about you?" she asked worriedly.

"You’re faster, and I’m more of a slow runner, so I might slow you down. But don’t worry, my stealth is so good that even my sergeant yelled, ‘Where the hell were you, Private?’ during stealth training," he joked.

Lyzbeth chuckled at his words, then nodded and skillfully moved through the forest obstacles like an Olympic champion.

"Huh, so that's what they mean by cat-like reflexes," Nathan mused.

As Lyzbeth rushed off, Nathan slowly readied his shotgun as he waited for the others to come and kept watch on the snake. Suddenly, the giant snake jerked its massive diamond-shaped head up in the village's direction and gave a low hiss.

Not only that, its brown scales briefly changed to blue before reverting back to brown.

"Oh, shit," Nathan cursed softly, trying to calm his beating heart, "It's coming to the village, and it can camouflage."

————————————————

"What? A Giant Blue Boa is nearby?" the village chief nearly yelled as he heard the news from his granddaughter, "Are you sure, Lyzbeth?" He looked at her in disbelief.

"Everyone, stop what you are doing!" Angelo shouted to the villagers. "Get your families prepared and ready for an attack now!"

"I simply can't believe it!" the village chief muttered. "If such a creature was nearby, we would've been attacked long ago! Why would such a monster be here?"

Angelo sighed and decided to rush out into the forest with the others.

While running, he looked at the catwoman next to him. "Is Nathan still out there?"

Lyzbeth nodded worriedly. “His communication magic artifact doesn't seem to work, so he told me to get you.”

In this rare moment of reminder, Angelo’s mood became even heavier. ‘According to the Mana Radar, this Magic Beast’s Magicule Level is over 8000, which means we’re in a whole lot of trouble. The last time I encountered such an extremely dangerous creature was during the New Year Tragedy with the Magicule Level of only 6,000, and it was as terrifying as a monster literally straight from Hell! It easily slaughtered half of my squad!’

A sigh escaped Angelo’s lips as he clenched his weapon so tightly that he might break it.

“Everyone, keep running! WE ARE NOT LETTING ONE OF US DIE!”

————————————————

As Nathan watched the Giant Python slithered its way down the tree majestically and crawled its way towards the village, he hugged himself against the tree roots and prayed that the snake would not detect him as it passed by his way.

The Boa's tongue flicked in and out as it tasted the air and it suddenly froze, before whipping its head directly toward Nathan’s position.



"Ah fuck this!" Nathan cursed out loud as the large glassy eyes of the Blue Boa stared at him before slowly stretching out its jaws to expose its fangs the size of a grown man and let out an ear-piercing shriek.



“SHIRRRREEEEEK!!”

Instinctively, Nathan aimed his shotgun directly at the mouth of the Giant Blue Boa.

"Say hello to my little friend!" he shouted, holding down the trigger and furiously pumping away at the pump action slide.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

A series of blasts of 12 gauge, 00 buckshot repeatedly fanned out into the mouth of the giant reptile, stinging and hurting it. Its soft meaty mouth ruptured with dark red blood as the shots tore into its opened mouth. The Giant Blue Boa jerked its head back in pain and surprise. An angry bubbling hiss came from its bloodied mouth as it wrapped its rear body around the tree Nathan was sheltering behind.

"AHHHHHH!!" Nathan screamed in terror as the lower half of the tree was crushed into two, sending showers of wood bark and splinters raining down all over him. He ran half-crouched, away from the destruction caused by the thrashing snake.

At that moment…

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunfire erupted as Nathan's squadmates arrived and opened fire with their Heavy Machine Guns. Clouds of smelly, dirty gray smoke shrouded the undergrowth. Nathan leaped over another tree root and slid to rest against a tree, and dug into his ammo pouches before beginning reloading his shotgun with shaky hands.

"That was fucking scary!" he muttered.

"Go, go, go! Spread out!" Angelo yelled as the gunfire intensified, causing roosting wyverns and other small animals to scramble or fly away in fright at the sudden, loud thundering roars.

"Use the armor-piercing rockets!"

The Giant Blue Boa rampaged as hundreds of .50 caliber and AP rounds slammed into its body. Most were deflected off by its tough scales, but some managed to penetrate into its body, the soft lead bullets ballooning inside the flesh of the snake, tearing muscles and severing nerve endings. It swung its massive body towards the creatures that sting and hurt it, but the tightly packed trees blocked its attacks.

If the battle took place in an open area, it would definitely be a massacre.

The boa decided to run no matter where it tried to attack as more and more of the strange creatures appeared, stinging it with their loud weapons. It turned tail and tried to slither away its way from the stings when suddenly a loud crash threw the creature against a massive tree trunk and broke it.

The snake wiggled feebly, trying to escape, but its back was torn to shreds.

It felt the lure of sleep calling it into its embrace and gently surrendered to the darkness.

Far from the battlefield, Paulo can be seen hoisting the smoking bazooka he had fired at the back of the retreating giant snake.

The armor-piercing rocket had taken less than two seconds to impact against the back of the snake, where it punched through the thick scales and dumped all its explosive warhead within the snake, ripping out a huge chunk of flesh as the force of the explosive slammed the snake into a tree and breaking both the tree and snake into two.

The stench of blood and cooked meat rose from the aftermath of the one-sided battle. Other than a few scratches and torn skin, the Special Op soldiers suffered no other injuries. Angelo received the all-clear from the team and invited both the Village Chief, his granddaughter, and a few villagers capable of fighting over to take a look at the dead giant snake.

The villagers stiffened when they saw and smelled the gory scene and quickly covered their nose while the Village Chief’s eye glinted with excitement. He stood over the dead carcass of the snake and peered at the damage of its body.

"Did you use magic artifacts to kill this thing? Fascinating!" he exclaimed.

Angelo nodded, not wanting to disclose their full strength yet. "We will need some of your people's help in dismantling the meat, bones, and skin of this Magic Beast," he said. "And fast. This amount of blood is going to attract a lot more trouble."

"I'll get my people on it quickly!" the Village Chief replied. He turned to the villagers, who agreed and hurried back to the safety of the village.

"Still, very powerful magic artifacts," the Village Chief praised Angelo and the guns they carried. "Your warriors are very strong to defeat this monster. From what I’ve heard, that monster should be at Level 7 or Level 8. It would take over hundreds of humans to fight and take it down, with at least half, or two-thirds dying in the process." He spoke in a respectful manner. "Many must have died fighting that monster, and I give my regards for their sacrifice."

Angelo nodded and did not share that there were virtually zero casualties at all. Nevertheless, he thanked the Village Chief and watched as more villagers appeared nervously and began to butcher the snake, skillfully separating the meat from the skin and bones.

In a span of the turn of two-hour glasses, the giant snake was cut up, quartered and carried back to the village. The villagers were in high spirits as the meat will be a vast improvement over their current rations that will last a month for the entire village.

As they left the area, snarls and cries were heard as lesser monsters and creatures fought over the scraps left behind.

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While Angelo’s team began their mission, other teams in each nation immediately established information networks throughout the entire Third Civilization Zone.

Like Angelo’s team, they first contacted other humans and promised them salvation. It was an immensely risky move, but the humans agreed without hesitation. This strange pattern suggested there was something influencing the humans of this world to follow them, which means more information must be gathered.

They got to work quickly, gathering all sorts of information throughout the nations of this world that they were able to send a squad of special operations officers.

Days turned into weeks, and various intel was pouring in, including the fetishes of aristocrats of different nations and their preferred foods.

The humans of these nations wholeheartedly keep sending them all sorts of information, so much that it was becoming too much of a burden to sort all of them. However, it was their job in the first place so they bide their time sorting through all the information trying to find the useful ones.

For the people of Austronesia, the reports that they were seeing were immensely painful to see. The way their fellow kinds were being treated was enough to put a hole through their hearts. These kinds of videos that were being recorded by the special operation soldiers were being sent back to the Empire, and were all being freely distributed towards the populace. The cruel treatment their fellow humans were receiving was enough to generate heat of intense outrage that could burn metals.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a prime example of the power of propaganda.

Unfortunately, for the Austronesians, all they could do for now was bide their time until they were ready to liberate their fellow humans.