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Rather than any guards, the gate inhabited old, dried blood that stained its umber form.

"Looks like the lacryie have had their fun," Memo said.

"Unfortunate," Archard muttered to himself in lamentation.

"It\'s nothing we aren\'t used to now, as adventurers," Samfrey said as he followed the snowy-haired man past the gates, followed by the rest.

It was after passing the gates that separated the mountain road that the atmosphere of death grew more dense.

The natural, rocky formation of the trail past the gates was changed into one pathed by stone, bolstered by reinforced walls, though none of it seemed to matter.

Painted in crimson, the stone pathway that curved and led upwards to the castle had blatantly fallen to the lacyrie.

"...Aren\'t lacyrie usually fine hiding in the shadows? What brought them to be confident enough to pillage the land of a nobleman," Memo asked, tightening his black gloves as they were in the enemy\'s territory now.

"I\'ve never encountered them myself, but I read up on them before accepting this quest," he answered, "Old Treyna isn\'t as densely populated as other regions, so monsters tend to be more ballsy. That, and lacyrie supposedly evolve as they consume humans…so I\'d bet we\'re looking at something out of the norm."

"That\'s right," Calytrix said as her smile didn\'t fade even in the scenery of death, "they possess an archaic form of dark magic, one that feeds on death and grows with it."

"So we kill them before they turn into a bigger problem, got it," Samfrey said, removing his daggers from their holds.

"I think they may already be a problem," he stated, looking forward down the curving trail.

Being within the territory of a mostly unknown, unseen enemy, the group moved with stealthiness and caution in tact, following behind him as he kept his eyes peeled for any signs of a lacyrie.

It seemed the further they went, the closer they got to the castle itself, the more corpses of the nobleman\'s guardsmen made themselves known.

Most of the victims of the lacyrie were killed in ways beyond normal, humane ways; their bodles mangles unnaturally with their legs twisted behinds their heads, and their arms bent backwards into an array of directions. Some had their entrails spilled out, or rather, propelled from their backs in a volatile matter. Even more concerning was the miasmic degradation to the flesh of those who fell to the lacyrie; blackened and eaten away by a malicious darkness.

"This…" He muttered, inspecting one of the bodies.

"This is the result of the lacyrie\'s dark arts," Calytrix answered, standing beside him.

"Looks pretty brutal to me," Samfrey said, pulling the outward collar of his jacket up to his nose.

Calytrix continued, "The dark arts they wield are honed specifically for the killing of men."

"You seem to hold yourself as some sort of "expert" on dark magecraft, right?" Memo asked with a hint of sarcasm, "so what stage do you think they\'re at then? From this."

Tapping her finger against her lips, Calytrix hummed for a moment before giving her answer as all eyes were on her.

"At this point? I\'d say they pose a phantasm-level threat, or perhaps greater."

"Then we don\'t have any time to waste," he said, returning to his feet.

—Just then, the air shifted as an ominous hum filled each of their ears.

It was by total surprise—leading to the one taking the initiative being Archard as he placed himself in front of the rest of the group.

"Licht: Sun Shield!"

A magical barrier resembling the shape of the sun was formed just as an explosion of darkness collided against it.

"A lacyrie?" He said, drawing his sword.

"Sneaky bastards really got the jump on us," Samfrey scoffed.

Memo unhinged his gigantic great sword from the sheath on his back, "I\'m not going to complain if they want to come to us."

After the momentary shield was released, their assailant was revealed: a hunchback orc, clad in tattered, black robes with blood dripping from his form–not of his own, as it watched them with beady, malicious eyes.

It was much larger than expected–and it wasn\'t alone; three more showed themselves, matching the numbers of the adventurers as they each bore a similar size, towering over each of them–in height and weight.

They seemed to have arrived through directly burrowing the side of the cliff that hung closest to the castle as the orcish fiends stepped over loose rubble.

"Alright, it\'s time for each of you to show me what you\'ve got," he said, holding his blade between his fingers, "but I\'m not going to watch from the sidelines!"

–With his command as the guild leader, they each set out, picking their own from the squadron of lacyrie to fight on their own atop the mountain trail.

Approaching the straight-standing lacyrie who wielded an unrefined axe, Momo garnered his attention as he landed in front of him from a high leap, slamming into the soil that caved beneath his landing.

"--"

The lacyrie spoke in an unintelligible, gargling tongue, though even if it spoke understandable words, the bored-eyed, red-haired man wouldn\'t have listened as he wielded his large blade with both hands.

"Vulcan: Forge of The Steel Mountain."

Momo\'s incantation came calmly through the black mask over his mouth as flames spiraled around the steel of his greatsword, lapping around it to form a spiraling, flaming essence.

I\'ll prove myself now and save myself the trouble of grinding up the ladder of Gladiolus. I\'ll be the top dog–and nobody else, Momo thought.

Before he could make the first move, the aggressive behemoth of an orc lunged towards him with its axe, now bathed in miasmic darkness.

He stepped to the side, not allowing even the tangible darkness emanating from the orc\'s steel to touch him as he dodged its attempted strike, responding with a swift kick to its side. The resulting kick caused the three-meter tall lacyrie to tumble over before jumping back to its feet in a quick recovery.

I see. These things are particularly aggressive–more so than normal orcs, Momo thought.

"----!"

In a distorted language, the lacryie stomped forward while holding his axe upwards, slamming it down as a pulsation of darkness cascaded through the soil towards him.

Never holding a sense of urgency, his laidback, golden eyes kept forward as he simply reared his massive blade back before swiping it forward as the flames rode against the soil, overriding the dark pulsations before colliding against the lacyrian orc.

"Burn away and be quiet," Momo said quietly, disinterested as he began to return his blade to his back.

–He was stopped as despite being engulfed in flames, the lacyrie stomped towards him, wildly swinging its axe.

Just before it could swing its giant, unrefined axe towards his skull, he ducked down in a seamless, instantaneously movement, before uttering once more, magecraft:

"Vulcan: Blood Smoke."

–With a strike of his greatsword so fast that it stopped the boorish entity in its tracks, an implosion of flames flew from the lacyrie, turning its blood and flesh to a reddened mist before any of its tainted form could land on Momo.

"...What a pain," he muttered as he sheathed his blade behind his back.

Compared to the flashy style of the much more youthful adventurer, the quiet Archard clashed blade-against-blade with one of the large lacyrie that bore its mandible-like tusks as it slobbered out in hunger.

"...Eat…you…"

Common tongue? He thought.

The intelligible words came oddly from the mouth of the hungering lacyrie Archard pushed it back, following up with a swift spell:

"Licht: Purifying Rings!"

Forming around the wrists of the lacyrie, bands of light etched into its wrists with a scalding heat, spurring roars of pain from the brutal orc.

While it was distracted by both the burning essence of the bands around its wrist, and the nature of light that suppressed darkness from forming, the experienced, wizened adventurer pushed forward with his broadsword ready to be swung.

There wasn\'t much elegance in the movements made by Achard, but the simple movements he displayed were activated swiftly, as if decades of experience cultivates them into second nature.

Without a warcry or grunt leaving through his obscuring helmet, Archard swiped his standard, ordinary blade across the throat and belly of the lacyrian orc.

–Even then, the lethal slash didn\'t seem to stop the orc as the bands dissipated, allowing it one final thrash as it lunged towards the armored, veteran adventurer–being stopped by a slash from behind.

As it was split into two from its scalp down to its midsection, the lacyrie fell, revealing the one responsible for the cut to be Memo, who returned his sword to his back.

"...Thank you…" Archard showed his gratitude.

In the fact of his gratitude, the slender, youthful adventurer walked past him with uncaring eyes.

"The world of adventurers isn\'t fit for old men," Memo whispered to him as he moved past him, "I\'d get lost if I were you. You\'ll only get in the way."

Archard was left in silence in those abrasive words, standing there wordlessly.