Fujutsushi Satsuki is a highschool student who loves to play games. Since her father passed away, she decided to follow on her father's footsteps and take up his passion, which was developing games of different genres.
Her first step of doing that was playing the games he had made, and she stumbled upon the last game that he haven't finished yet. A game called Idle Units.
It was an Idle Game, though unknowingly there was something more to it than she realized.
This was the story of how these "Units" changed the world beyond her screen, while she unknowingly conquers it in her name. Only thinking it was a game in the end.
Year 2032. This is the date when many programmers gets a surged of activity. Due to the advancement of modern technology, programming became more easier that many tried to do their own things.
This is the Age of Computer, and as such, many wanted to join the ever-changing economy of the cyberworld. Most people tried making digital music or animations, while others are for content creation. There are those who made useful programs for some tech companies, and others are just messing around in it.
But game programming is more popular than any of those. Many people wanted to create games, as many people of this generation grow up with these games in their childhood. Due to the convenience of programming in general, many attempts to do it themselves.
So why am I saying all of this?
Well, one of those aspiring game developers is my father. He recently passed away last month, and he has left a lot of his projects after his passing. Not like it is important to the world, as there are many games around that are just like his.
But for me, as someone who also grow up with these games, and as a way to respect the legacy that my father left behind, I decided to play the games he left in this world.
It's Year 2045 now, and I'm now a first year high school student from a nearby high school. My father only managed to finish three games, and he has two unfinished projects. I played all his completed games, and if I may be honest, they are literally below average. Barely acceptable to put on sale on a comiket.
My father likes a lot of genres, but his most preferred is games that have leveling systems in it and have an inflation of numbers included in the system. Idle games or RPG games are just the things he loves to make, and it is reflected to his games.
His first game is a rogue lite rpg game that has infinite progressions on it. It's even a dungeon crawling game that barely have any plot in it, and all the sprites used within are all public domain sprites instead of his own. It's not marketable at all, but it is somewhat good as a time waster.
The second game is an idle game about increasing numbers to ludicrous degree. It's literally just that. There is nothing else. As it is text based and there is no story behind the game at all, it's just a good time waster for an hour or two.
The third game is a mix of his first two games. It's dungeon crawling game with no level cap, item cap, or even any limits to the system. Last time I checked the codes inside, he put the limits to null, which meant players can easily level up as much as they want.
The third game has a plot now, though it's the basic demon lord vs heroes. You build a party of heroes and go on a journey to save the world. The game is styled in pixels, just like his first game. There are a lot of side quests in the game that doesn't progress the plot, and there are even a lot of unresolved storylines in it.
Due to how easier it is to program games, take all the needed resources for it on the public domain, and other stuffs, the expected game time for it is surprisingly 25 hours. At least my father likes writing a bunch of dialogues on the game, even if he forgot a lot of details on the plot later down the line.
It's been three weeks since I started playing his games, and I have just finished all three of his completed games along with one of his two unfinished ones. The one he hasn't finished that I played is a game about building an intergalactic empire. It's just a text based idle game with an inflation of numbers, but this time with stock images as a way to visualize everything.
It can be considered completed if it's only about the first cycle of the game. As it is an idle game with inflation of numbers in it, it has a prestige system which I simply dubbed as cycles, and as I said the first cycle is completed.
The next cycle hasn't been implemented yet. Which is why it barely qualified as an idle game at all. Due to how incomplete it is, any player can finish it for an hour.
So yeah, if I have a lot of time in my hands I could have finished all of these games within four or six days, but I have school so there is no way I can do that!
I have another reason why I am playing all of his games. It's because I wanted to continue his legacy as a game developer. I'm a gamer at heart, so I can't see myself being good at game developing, but I wanted to try as a way to honor my father.
"... Now that I'm done with that, let's see the last project that my father left."
I moved the cursor to the folders where I transferred all of my father's game projects, and within it I quickly picked the last folder that I haven't played yet.
My father is not good at naming his games, so he uses simple names that goes straight to the point. It can be seen now with the name of the last game that I'm going to play.
Idle Units. I can already guess what kind of game it is just by seeing the name.
It's unfinished, so I guess I can finish it all today?
It's already six in the evening, and I don't have school tomorrow so I might be able to complete this game before the weekend passes?
"Okay, let's see what's this game is all about!" After I opened the application inside the folder, it started with a black screen first before a smooth transition to the title of the game written in a stylized font.
Below the Idle Units title are two options. Start, and then Quit Game.
I pointed the cursor on the Game Start option and click it. It showed a large panel that covers the whole screen which have a series of new options. They were saveslots it seems, as they are simply listed as Data 1, Data 2, Data 3, and so on.
I wonder why my father still did this? Isn't this a single player game?
Almost every people on this world have their own personal computer. So having save slots on an Idle Game felt useless. It's not like it's a visual novel game with multiple endings or something, right?
Regardless of dubious game designs, I just go on and picked the very first option. After I did that, the whole screen turned black and then a pixelated thick white line circled in the middle of the screen in a square path, as some flavor texts appeared beneath it.
[Creating World Template... Complete!]
[Producing Laws... Complete!]
[Generating History... Complete!]
[Loading important components... Complete!]
[Generating starting location... Complete!]
[Welcome!]
Along with those words is the number besides it which is the progress of the loading screen in percentage. It got into 100% at the same time the last flavor text appeared.
"... Wow, this looks honestly good."
I can't help but be amazed. It's still a stylized pixel art, but it's high quality. On my screen is a slanted overview of a grassland with a pond on the side and a forest nearby. There is a white circular spot on it and pointing my cursor there, it showed a small indication that reads as Spawn Area.
"Okay, this already gave me a good impression!"
Not trying to be rude with my Father, but I can't believe he can achieve this kind of quality. Most of the time he only uses public domain resources to make his games. This one looked custom made!
"... A shame..." Just the reminder that my Father can do something like this, but didn't managed to finish this project makes me sad.
I think this image alone can give him the support of some of the fans from the indie games community.
I roamed the map around and quickly found out that my line of sight barely leaves the vicinity of this grassland. As I don't have anyway to accurately measure the distance between my spawn point and the forest on the distance, I'll just say it's pretty small. Maybe if there is a character sprite on the screen, I might be able to at least measure just how far that forest is?
I pointed my cursor on the nearby pond, and saw that it is only called a pond. Pointing on the small brown skeletal lines on the ground shows that they are wooden branches. As for the trees, they are surprisingly called Oak Trees instead of just a simple tree.
Is my father trying to make more types of trees in this game? What will be the purpose of that in an idle game?
"Hmm... anyway, let's start exploring my options then."
I tried looking for anything to do on the game, and clicking on the spawn point quickly reveals that with a popup of a panel. On the panel there is a single option in there.
Spawn Rate: 0s
Upgrade Cost: 0 Coin
Pointing my cursor on the only option there, it shows the cost of the Villager which is only 0 coin. Looking above the screen, I see the icons of a gold coin and a diamond with both numbers besides them being zero.
As it didn't cost anything, I pointed the cursor on the Villager option and click it once. The sound effect of coins jingling resounded for a brief moment while I looked at the changes.
Spawn Rate: 10s
Upgrade Cost: 10 Coin
Just after looking at that, I heard a noise on the screen. The noise can be likened to a muffled noise of a drop of water. Dismissing the panel I quickly realized what it is.
On the screen, there are small pixelated humans wearing what I considered to be hemp clothes spawning on the white spot with a simple white pillar effect. Surprisingly, the sprites has different characteristics instead of the same one.
There is one who spawned as a man with white and blue villager clothes, and then the next one that is spawned is a brown haired girl in twintails with a white and pink villager clothes. There are others that are showing, and all of them are unique on their own. The only thing that is common amongst them is that they have this certain vibe of a country bumpkin in a medieval world based on their clothing.
While I am busy looking in amazement at the different people, I noticed that some are already moving on their own. It seems like I can't control them.
I think they are just going to move aimlessly while I just build up on my units. The next thing that happened shocked me!
On the bottom left corner of the screen, event announcements were popping up suddenly.
[Villager acquired Wooden Branch x2]
[Villager acquired Wooden Branch x3]
[Villager is preparing for a shelter]
[Villager is looking for food]
[Villager acquired Stone x2]
[Villager acquired Grass x2]
It goes on and on, and I can see that some of them are moving back and forth on the place besides the spawn point. Almost everyone of them have unique animations. Some are kneeling and doing something on the ground, and some are smashing something to a stone. There are others who are either looking at the pond, talking to each other, or even doing something on the nearest trees.
It's only been a few minutes but I'm already becoming hooked at this game!
"Is this really made by my Father? How come the AI of this game looks so sophisticated?"
This is so confusing. Even if programming became easier, it's still hard to make a fluid AI like this. I'm not a programmer, but I studied some this last few weeks because I am planning to be a game developer too, and I know just how ridiculous it is to make something this diverse!
Each of these actions would need to be inputted on the code of the game. The conditions so they can do a single action, and even the chances if they can do it or not, this must be hundreds of even thousands of codes needed before they can do something like this!
What I can say is that I am surprise. My Father actually made something like this!?
... Now I felt that it is such a shame that my Father passed away before he completed this game. I think this game will be a hit if people sees it!
I wonder just how far this game goes? Fujutsushi Satsuki was clueless about the reality of this world. Within this grassland surrounded by the wild forest, these mere "Villagers" were all living and breathing beings.
Spawned on the Circle of Summons, these nameless villagers moved around with purpose. Their first goal was to create a shelter, and sustain themselves with the resources on their vicinity.
Unlike the one that their "God" saw on the screen, their spawn rate on the Circle of Summons was ten minutes per unit. It was because she was watching at accelerated time, that these people could do a lot of things before a Villager spawns again.
And this world was a parallel world full of fantastical creatures, wonders, and strife between great civilizations. Unknown to both the Player and this world, this new budding forces would later caused waves that would change the status quo of this whole world.
This was the start of the nation with the limitless army!
It's been so long since I write something. I took a long break because I'm really tired and I can't think of anything to write.
... But I really want to write something, and this little idea came to mind while I'm trying to brainstorm something.
That is why... I'm sorry for making another story. I really just want to write this one...
I hope this is good? And I'm sorry for wasting your time if it's not really that good...
That is all. I hope you have fun reading this...
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
It's been a few hours since I played Idle Units. I learned that the day and night cycle of this game is pretty slow at normal speed. A day just passed after thirty minutes of me playing this game.
Good thing there is an option just below the event announcement panel that indicated the icons for fast forwarding. The icon had the two play-buttons stacked together and a bar besides that icon that shows the numbers x1.00 in it. It is the speed of the game, which means it is the original speed of this game.
By just clicking it, it gave me the cursor indicator that I can write on it. So I quickly erase the x1 speed and immediately typed x2.
It is surprising to see the game actually accelerate at the speed I am hoping for. It also affect the spawning speed of my units at the white circle.
Sadly I can only capped it out up to x2. Whenever I go beyond that number, it will still default to the maximum acceleration speed which is x2. As for lowering the speed, surprisingly when I tried going to x0.1 speed, it actually changed into "Real Time". It's incredibly slow though, so I decided to put it to x2 again.
The speed of my units spawning increased at the same time I am accelerating the game. Instead of 10 seconds per unit, now it spawns a villager every 5 seconds.
And I managed to shorten it much more when my Villagers starts to hunt for food. They can't actually hunt the animals that were near our camp, but they can catch fish or take edible plants and fruits on the vicinity. These action gave me coins, which I can use to upgrade them.
Upgrading my unit shortens the time it takes for them to spawn. In normal time, it decreases 0.1 second for the Villager unit. I manage to get them to level 5, so their spawn rate becomes 9.5 seconds.
I got a bit distracted at other things to level them up furthermore, because as my Villager units are doing their own thing, the main panel for upgrading them shows a new section. It is at the upper corner of the main panel, besides the image of a person. This one has an icon of a hand in it.
Clicking that icon changes the display of the main panel from my units into a series of options that seems to be related to the Villager Unit. Pointing my cursor on the hand icon, it shows that it is indicated as Upgrades.
All of the upgrades affects the Villager unit. The list of upgrades that are revealed includes Farming I, Carpentry I, Fishing I, Hunting I, Lumberjack I, Smithing I, etc.
All of these upgrades costs lesser than upgrading the villagers. Each time I upgrade the Villager unit, the costs increases by ten. These upgrades only costs 10 or 30 coins at most. I also discovered that getting coins is pretty hard even with the acceleration because taking plants or fruits only gives me 1 coin. As for fishing, most of the time they fail at catching any, but catching one small fish gives me five coins.
I also discovered that without a shelter, they are limited to what they can actually do. Villagers needs a house so they can do more actions. Those who didn't have any place to stay can only roam around the place and help on taking fruits or plants. As for those who have a place, they are staring a lot of things like building roads, upgrading their tents into proper houses, fishing, hunting, creating farms, etc.
Despite having a lot of people to act as the Population, only a few of them helps me at increasing my income. This is why I decided to focus on their upgrades first in hopes of getting more houses for my Villagers.
It is thanks to it that now more tents are being built around the spawn area, and there are some plots being prepared for the eventual proper houses. The tools are being created quickly and now there are some who are preparing a land for their farms, and paving the ground for a dirt road.
I am surprised at how intricate they act. It felt like watching an accurate simulation of how people build villages, only that it is done a lot faster than real life.
I think it is done a lot faster because even though many days has passed in-game, they barely have enough place to shelter the growing population. There is still the food scarcity issue even though I upgraded their abilities to gather food.
I also noticed that each people have their own unique traits. By clicking on one of the people that is randomly spawned on the spawn area, I see that he has his own status and age. I can even name him whenever I want.
These people can feel hunger, and there is a popup of a red bubbly icon that indicates they are hungry. So more food is needed. The game also has a sense of realism in it because the resources around the place is actually being depleted instead of it magically spawning out of nowhere.
If not for the spawn area and the idle spawn rate of my Units, I might have thought this is a survival simulation game.
Nothing much has changed since I played this game. There is no new unit that revealed itself even though I had upgraded them. I'm still waiting for the farm and the city to be built soon. I think it is getting to that point, seeing them building a lot faster due to the upgrades I bought for them.
This is what my Villager unit's status now.
Spawn Rate: 9.5s
Upgrade Cost: 50 Coin
Carpentry I
Farming I
Fishing I
Foraging I
Hunting I
Lumberjack I
Smithing I
Weaving I
"Hmm... It's getting late. I should wrap this up and sleep." Noticing the time, I decided to quit the game first. I checked out to be sure, but it really autosaved on the last second before I quit the game, so I can just go back and continue where I left off. "But still, I didn't thought my Dad made a game like this. It might take me some days before I finish this!"
I wanted to explore more on the game. I wanted to know just what kind of features it has, until I exhausted every options it had. I am hoping that there is a lot more inside it. I never felt so excited playing a game like this one!
"I can't wait!"
With excitement boiling within my heart, I quickly left my room to do all my things like washing myself up, and changing into my pajamas before I go to sleep. Two weeks since the emergence of the Villagers deep within the unknown forest, they made a decently sized settlement. It was more apt to call it a Town rather than a Settlement due to how large it was, and how many people there were living in it.
There were few houses that were built by logs instead of the simple tents they erected through leaves and branches. They were varied in their designs, and each of these wooden houses have different purposes.
A few days after they were spawned through the Circle of Summons, they suddenly got a revelation from above, bestowing them talents and knowledge about many things. The knowledge of carpentry, farming, hunting, fishing, and many more. As time passed, they became more proficient on the gifts that were given to them by the one who guided them.
"We once again thank our Almighty Lord for gracing us with their presence. We will do our best to meet up your expectations, oh Our Goddess!"
The man, the first person that was summoned to this world, was the one who led this worshipping act. Behind him were the other villagers who gathered near him on the town center. All of them were either kneeling or praying with their utmost.
As that was happening, the Circle of Summons kept spawning new Villagers for them. All of them weren't surprised by it, as they originated from that circle too. That circle alone was the proof of existence for their Goddess.
They took the bestowal of talents and knowledge as a sign of their Goddess' intent. They would make a thriving city and turn it into a nation. These knowledge were enough to sustain themselves even if more Villagers appeared.
"Village Chief... no, Town Mayor Clint. What is the next thing we must do?" One of the female villagers asked as they looked at him for guidance.
As the one who was first summoned, Clint was seen as the leader of these Villagers. He graciously took that role, and was devotedly doing everything he could for the sake of this budding nation, and for their Goddess.
"We are still too small. We should quickly expand our territory. Create more roads and take out the trees! We also need a lot of food, so we must quickly make a storage room for our food and hunt animals! With the knowledge bestowed to us, I am sure we can hunt even dangerous beasts!"
Despite having the talent for farming, it would still took awhile before they could harvest anything. For now, they had to rely on hunting, fishing, and foraging. Which meant they would be taking a lot of things on their surroundings.
The others nodded at his words. It was just right because they were planning to expand their territory. Taking off the trees and taking anything they could on the forest would make it easier for them to build roads and houses, along with other important structures.
"Town Mayor... should we look for alternative resources? We can't keep using these ones!" One of the female villagers asked as they showed the stone axe they carried.
"That is right. We will look for a new resource. Preferably something that can improve our tools!" Clint nodded at her words.
They lacked a lot of knowledge when they got to this world. Most of their knowledge came from the one who was guiding them from above. They just learned about metals and ores after they were given the talent for smithing, though they didn't know where they could find it.
"I will quickly arrange a hundred men to explore distant areas to find these ores. As for the rest, we will focus on expanding our city!"
The others nodded at his words. A hundred men, even if it was a small amount of their total population, was a decent group size to explore the area. Since encountering dangerous beasts like wolves deep within the forest, they didn't dare let others go there on their lonesome.
Now that there were a lot of them in this town, and with the relevant knowledge of hunting and the stone tools to protect themselves, they felt like they could go there with a decent chance of being safe from the dangerous beasts within the forest.
"That is all. Continue with your work everyone!"
With the town gathering finished, all of them returned to their jobs once more. Clint on the other hand quickly acted and arranged for a hundred men to explore the deeper parts of the forest.
They would leave the village on the sunrise tomorrow.
On the next few weeks, they wouldn't have any of the guidance from their Goddess as that goddess was busy with her own life.
I got a headache calculating how many days will passed based on the time difference I introduced between these two worlds. I finally managed to learn that an hour in real life is equal to 2.5 days within the fantasy world that she was playing with. With 2x speed, that is doubled into five days per hour.
The game has offline progression in it, so even if she isn't playing, the people on the other world is still progressing and the idle spawning is still working. The only thing that will happen when she quits the game is that the game speed will return to x1, which meant every hour on real world, 2.5 days will pass on the fantasy world.
I hope that's a bit understandable...
If you want to support me, you can go to my Kofi account here.
A week passed since then, the expedition party in charge of finding more resources deep within the forest had explored at least ten miles deep on the forest to the North and Northeast from their still nameless town. This distance was their limit of activity, as they didn't want to get farther than their territory.
It was a bit slow, but it was understandable as they were cautious about the wolf pack that they discovered within this forest. There was a pack of wolves that claimed this section of the forest as their territory, and the few animals like deers and rabbits that still stayed within this forest were far and few in-between. Only birds were more numerous than the land animals that roamed this part of the forest.
Colbert was the leader of this expedition group. He took hunting as his profession after the bestowal of talents and knowledge of hunting from their Goddess. He was also talented in it, so their Town Mayor decided to make him the leader.
Since they got deeper within the forest a day after they started the expedition, they have encountered a pack of dire wolves and had defeated them at the cost of a few of their men. It's been a week now, and out of the original 120 that came along on this expedition, only 70 of them remained. Less than half of their forces killed due to the constant night raids and ambushes from the wolves that lurked within the forest.
There were also other dangerous animals within it like a ferocious lone bear, and wild boars that were rare around this forest. They had to be careful with the bear as it exuded extraordinary strength, while the wild boars were extremely dangerous when they charged at them. They don't have the necessary tools yet to pierce the thick skin and furs of these animal, so they tended to escape instead of further decreasing their numbers by fighting these creatures.
Weapons made from wood and stone wasn't enough to deal with the dangerous elements within the forest. So they were hoping to find better resources so they could upgrade their weapons.
There was no changes within their town for a week now. They thought their Goddess was only watching, so they decided to prove themselves so they could further acquire more blessings from her. They hoped to impress the Goddess, and be graced by her.
"Colbert, we found something!"
One of the men that acted as an advance scout called out at the top of the tree. He looked up at the man.
"What is it?"
"It's a cave but... I spotted a lot of wolves around it!"
"A lot of them!?" He was startled.
They were at least ten miles farther than their village. It might be a long distance, but for these wolves who were faster and territorial, it was still a danger to their community which was a bit close to here.
"How many!?"
"Uh... at least a hundred of them!"
He couldn't helped but gasped at that. The wolves were already a threat to a majority of them. A pack of one hundred wolves would surely be devastating when they started attacking their town. Colbert quickly acted without thinking much about it.
"Men, mark this area. We are going back to the village and report this to our Town Mayor!"
The others nodded gravely at his words.
Thus, they quickly left the place. These group of Villagers doesn't know that these wolves weren't just ordinary wolves. It wasn't obvious to them as they haven't seen a wolf in real life, and their knowledge only covered the normal ones. These canines with dark gray furs were monsters called Dire Wolves. These Dire Wolves were easily distinguished from their normal wolf counterparts.
For one, their size easily reached the chest height of an average adult human. That was when they were on all fours. They were more taller than a person if they stood on their two feet.
These monsters had evolved from a normal pack of wolves commonly seen on a forest. Their evolution was caused by the toxic magical particles, or simply dubbed in this world as Miasma. Due to prolonged exposure on these magical air, they became monsters, beings who originated from magic.
Including everything that a wolf could do, their instincts and senses had increase tremendously since they became Dire Wolves, and along with that was intelligence. They acquired human-like intelligence, making them terrifying.
Unknown to these group of Villagers, these Dire Wolves had already detected them. Though instead of ambushing them, they had let them go.
Their alpha, a larger dire wolf with scars that ran through his left eye and had a grizzled appearance of a veteran stared at the direction where they retreated, and then let out a growl. The other wolves that sat on the cave stood up from their lazy posture after it growled. Their tail swishing in anticipation.
To the animals who lived within this forest, these pack of wolves were known as the King of the Forest. Out of every monster faction that lived within this vast greenery, these wolves were the most dominant.
And it was because of their numbers, unity, strength, and most importantly their intelligence that they became the rulers of this forest.
That cunning would be shown once more, as some of them drooled. Already seeing those new peculiar strangers as their new source of food. On the nameless town, the Villagers gathered on the center. After the expedition group came back, they quickly told the Town Mayor about the nearby nest of the pack of wolves.
"I gather all of you today to announce about our expedition team's discovery. There is a dangerous group of beasts near our village, nesting on a cave. It will be dangerous if we let them be, so I am going to ask for any volunteers to form an extermination squad. At least a thousand men is needed to ensure the success of this extermination!"
The others gasped at that revelation, before they quickly became enthusiastic. The existence of a large amount of dangerous beasts might just be a good way for them to show their bravery in front of their Goddess.
There was also the matter of food. If they could kill all of those wolves, then they might be able to lighten the problem of the food scarcity within their population.
None were scared. They all stood straight with anticipation. Clint saw their enthusiasm and smiled at them with a nod. Satisfied with their attitude.
With that short announcement, the population that already reached the five digits quickly made preparations. Almost all of them stopped the expansion of their village and prepared themselves to go deep within the forest with stone tools as their weapon.
It might be a bad idea to fight those monsters with only weapons made of stick and wood, but they couldn't just ignore those monsters. It might take them long to find a new resource out there, and those wolves might suddenly attack them. In their minds, it was much better for them to attack first before the wolves did it by surprise.
They had already seen how many were left on Colbert's men after the expedition. They knew that a hundred wasn't enough to deal with the beasts that lurked within the forest. So Clint wanted to gather a thousand or more to increase their chance of winning.
Due to the enthusiasm of the people at this nameless town, it only took a short time for a group of one thousand and two hundred to form. There were a lot who volunteered, but due to the limited resources and weaponry, they could only gather this much.
Colbert and the surviving seventy men that formed the expedition team were put in the leading position. They were the ones who knew where the wolf's cave was located.
"May the Goddess' bless you with victory!"
After those words from their Town Mayor, the extermination squad left the village. Unaware of the eyes of the wolves hidden on the shades of the trees. The sun had already settled and the skies became dark when Colbert's new group arrived at the place that they marked. All of them were using the sneaking technique that hunters usually used so they could hide their presence from the beasts that inhabits the forest.
Everyone had the talent and knowledge that was bestowed from their Goddess. Though some were more talented than the others like Colbert, who had an affinity to hunting.
It was why when they got there, he suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. Like many eyes were pointed around his body with malicious intent. This feeling made his spine tingle, that he quickly glanced around. Though there was nothing on the side of the trees. Not even any traces of any animals.
'No. I sent scouts in advance before we come here. Those ten scouts are also the ones we had on the expedition team, so they will signal us if something happens!'
With full belief to his men and the absolute confidence that they would win with the guidance of their Goddess, he quickly dismissed the sense of danger he was feeling.
They decided to wait on an area a hundred meters away from the Wolf's Cave. Colbert thought that he was cautious enough by waiting for the advance scouts to come back.
It took half an hour before he felt that something was fishy. The advance scouts haven't returned yet. The forest was also eerily quiet.
"... Hey, tell some people to climb the trees and watch for anything suspicious." He told to the nearby person from him in a quiet tone.
That man nodded before he quickly conveyed it to the others. They were talking with hushed tones, as Colbert already experienced the folly of ordering people loudly when they were still exploring the forest as an expedition team.
Another hour later and the discomforting sense became stronger within his heart. The advance scouts still haven't returned, and the forest was still quiet. He stood up and asked one of the person near him.
"Are there any problems?" He asked.
"Uhmm... No, Leader. Nothing out of ordinary is happening."
He frowned, but just nodded at his men before he took a seat on a comfortable rock. Once more they waited for the advance scout to return.
And so another hour had passed, and there was no signs of their scouts at all. He couldn't take it anymore so he stood up.
"Dean, Mark, check that cave for a moment. If you see anything suspicious, run away immediately."
The two men who were young adults nodded at his words before they sneaked through the shrubberies.
He sat on the smooth inclined stone and waited for them, his foot tapping on the ground impatiently. He can't help but feel uncomfortable due to the eerie atmosphere within the forest.
There were more than a thousand of them, and all of them had hunting knowledge. If anything happened to one of their men, they would signal the others. It would be impossible for mere beast to strike them without someone from them notifying the others.
So he waited, and waited more, until two hours later, he heard it. A choking sound on the distance behind him.
He quickly stood up with his hand clutching the wooden handle of his stone hatchet. He didn't shout, and simply moved to that place with light footsteps.
As he passed the shades of the tree behind him, he gasped when he saw a trail of blood leading to the dark areas of the forest. This forest was only illuminated by the moonlight, and due to how thick the shrubberies and the group of trees were, there were many parts of the forest that were dark, uncovered by the light of the moon.
He didn't dare to check where that blood trail leads, and quickly alerted his men.
"Anyone! Be alert! Someone's attacking us!"
He didn't know what was happening, but he knew this was dangerous. He waited for the others to gather at him, but was surprised when instead of the footsteps of the Villagers, screams all around resounded consecutively.
"What!?"
He couldn't help but gasped loudly, and tried to go to the nearest scream. Though he wasn't given the chance when suddenly, a claw swiped through his back.
"Aaargh!"
He was shocked. His assailant was invisible to his senses. He keeled over, and only managed to stay on his feet with a stomp on the ground. Gritting his teeth, he looked around. Then widened his eyes when noticed that he was surrounded by the glowing eyes of the beasts.
"I-impossible!"
He couldn't believed it. Wolves were already surrounding him before he could even notice it.
"How did this happen?"
He tried to think, but nothing came to his mind. He tried to be more cautious, but it wasn't enough.
He doesn't know, because they still lacked the knowledge for these specific type of wolf. They were still Villagers even with the hunting knowledge, and the talent and knowledge they got from Hunting I was only the thing that normal village people had to live in a community that relied on this kind of life. It doesn't include monsters half the size of adults with superior intellect and strength.
These Dire Wolves weren't called the King of the Forest for nothing. They used the environment to their full advantage to kill the people on the vicinity while the others were unaware of it. They always go for the throat or the head to muffle their sounds, and with their superior strength quickly pulled them away before anyone noticed.
It wasn't just one of them. They coordinated with the other wolves to deal with a single or two person. If a person doesn't die with one of them pouncing, the other would bite a limb to give the others a chance. They were quick to act, that it felt like they had the same mind as they acted.
These hundreds of Dire Wolves easily overpowered the extermination group of Villagers. They had been outsmarted by these so-called beasts.
In the end, the Villagers were killed without mercy. And the howl of the wolves resounded on the night. The next morning, the skies were dark and the downpour of rain was threatening to fall. Clint looked above with a frown, a sense of foreboding settling on his heart.
"... There is nothing to worry about. Our Goddess watched over us!"
He tried to ease the feeling of concern within his heart with his devotion. He clasped his fingers in a prayer and silently prayed to their Goddess.
After that, he stopped and planned to check the others. To the people who didn't managed to join the extermination squad, they resumed their work for this unnamed town. There were those who worked on the fields for crops, and others were busy cutting trees and building houses. A few others were on the pond, jumping on it and catching fishes with their hands.
He was just going to go towards the area where they planned to make more houses for the other Villagers when he heard someone screamed. He stopped, and quickly go to that direction.
It was at that time that the rain poured down. Along with that was a flash of light as lightning fell. His eyes widened when he got to that place. In front of him was a female villager who laid on the ground at the pool of her own blood. And besides that corpse was a group of large wolf. Their gaze cold and terrifying as they stood. One of them had bloodied teeth and a bit of flesh that obviously came from the woman.
And on the distance, many eyes glowed on the shades of the trees, glaring at the villagers who had noticed their presence in shocked.
"... No..."
Along with shocked was a realization.
The extermination squad had failed!
This is the first introduction of this fantasy world, and what must be expected as they get further on this world. This is a fantasy world, and I don't want to just make the first obstacle to be cannon fodder.
I think it is reasonable for monstrous creatures who lived on a forest and reigned supreme within for a long time to be stupendously strong, right?
Though I don't want them to immediately encounter something like the Demon Lord or a fantasy kingdom at the start. So I decided to choose wolves. It is reasonable for monster wolves to be the king of the forest, isn't it?
Anyway, these were my thoughts while I am writing this. My original plan was actually for them to easily sweep through this group of wolves, but I think that will be pretty underwhelming and super cliche if they simply managed to brute force their way on the natural inhabitants of this world.
I hope you have fun with this chapter!~
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