Hazel and the rest of the group left the not-so-safe confines of the Jetport building, rushing over to the Airfield, where the village was located and where Zoe and the other players were battling the rest of the invaders.

  Hazel, Astrid, and Chegyaeyi were at the front, leading the other players into battle. While making their way to the village, Hazel used the opportunity to catch glimpses of the village with her Astral Eye. Since she was running, her vision was constantly switched back and forth so that she could pay attention to her surroundings to avoid tripping over something.

  The last thing she needed was to get distracted and fall on the ground during such a serious situation. Especially in front of her mom and everyone else. If she was by herself, then that was fine. But she refused to humiliate herself in such a way. If that were to happen, she would want to kill herself to end the embarrassment right there and now.

  While briefly looking through her other perspective, Hazel caught a glimpse of the village they were heading toward. For one thing, the entire airfield was practically covered in a canopy of trees and the like. Looking closer from above, she got a view of a large opening in the rather vast forest that occupied the airfield now.

  Within that opening were multiple houses, tents, and other buildings, making up a decent-sized settlement where a small community could live in. It was the village that Zoe and the others were talking about. And it was currently going through hell.

  Moving her Astral Eye down to the village, Hazel could see several battles and fights occurring throughout the village settlement. The conflict was between the human players and a small variety of monster players from goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, and even a new group of monsters she had never seen before.

  The newly discovered monsters were about the size of the goblins if not a couple of feet taller and looked like humanoid lizards like Chegyaeyi. However, these lizardmen looked more primitive and inferior compared to the Lizardfolk warrior. In fact, they look more like crocodiles or alligators due to their long scaly snouts. Perhaps they were distant relatives?

  Putting that irrelevant thought aside, the group slowly made their way to the forest, rushing past the plethora of trees and bushes planted all over the forest. Hazel only caught a glimpse of the vast greenery around her as she ran forward.

  “Mom, does Zoe know that we’re on our way?” Hazel asked, using her Astral eye to look at her.

  “Yes. They’re currently holding them back, but could use some reinforcements so they could end the fight a lot faster before they experience any further casualties.”

  Judging from Hazel’s other Astral Eyes, a good majority of the invaders appeared to be in the village. Which Zoe and the rest of the players there were practically in the hot zone. Taking that into account, she wasn’t surprised by the idea of casualties occurring.

  However, that didn’t mean that the body count had to go any higher. If they lost too many people, then they likely wouldn’t be able to keep the invaders at bay and would either die or retreat somewhere else, possibly losing their base in the process. And Hazel couldn’t let that happen.

  Hazel took another look at the battle taking place in the village. She witnessed several monster invaders attacking the human players, pushing them back, or killing them. The humans did their best to fight back against the creatures but were unsuccessful due to the number difference. There were far too many monsters compared to the human players, which resulted in them being overwhelmed and slaughtered in the process.

  The sight was so horrific that Hazel had to change her vision before witnessing one of the Gnoll invaders take a vicious bite out of one of the human player’s necks. A part of her wished that her Astral Eyes didn’t allow her to hear everything she saw through them. Just hearing the tearing of flesh followed by the pained screams of dying players gave her chills. She doubted that she could get any sleep tonight after what happened today.

  Moving away from the dreadful sight of death, Hazel changed her objective and decided to search for Zoe. If she and the others could regroup with the Knight, they might be able to deal with these invaders once and for all.

  Her Astral Eye zoomed across the village, blurring past monsters and humans alike without even catching their attention in the least. A bit of searching later, and it wasn’t long before Zoe the Knight was finally spotted. Hazel watched through her magic floating eye as the blond-haired knight easily cut down one of the Orcs that stood before her. The sword she wielded pulsed a rhymical blue aura while embedding itself into the hulking green-skinned monster’s flesh.

  The Orc howled in pain, desperately backing away to pull the sword out of its body, but Zoe didn’t let that happen and dug her weapon deeper into the monster before completely cutting through it with a second slash attack. The two halves of the Orc collapsed on the ground, its blood and intestines spilling out from the exposed opening of its insides.

  Just as she slayed the Orc, a couple more monsters charged at her like feral animals. One was a Gnoll and the other was the crocodile/alligator creature. They appeared to have planned on attacking Zoe together, basically tag-teaming her to take her down that way. Sadly, that plan failed when two fireballs burst forward from behind Zoe, colliding with the two monsters.

  Their bodies were instantly set ablaze, causing them great pain and agony as they slowly burned alive from the intense heat engulfing them. Their screams of anguish could be heard along with the sound of the crackling fire and burning flesh.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Zoe watched the monsters burn to death before turning around to spot her savior, who was the mage that had been accompanying her since the beginning. Apparently, her name was Anais, and she possessed the Sorcerer class; the one Hazel was offered as one of her evolved classes.

  Behind Anais was the Brawler player, who rushed past both her and Zoe and blurred toward one of the Gnolls that was about to attack them. He pulled his gauntleted fist back as it radiated a violent red energy. Once he was only a couple of inches in from the Gnoll, he then thrust his fist forward, practically burying it in his enemy’s stomach. The resulting force from his punch blew a giant hole, pushing out remnants of its intestines and organs that weren’t destroyed by his attack.

  The gnoll then collapsed on the ground with a wet thud, remaining completely still and lifeless. Once he confirmed that the creature was dead, Kane proceeded to attack the other nearby monsters like the other Gnolls, Orcs, and goblins. His attacks were swift yet deadly, easily allowing him to kill a monster with relative ease so he could move on to the rest.

  While the brawler continued to kill the other invaders, Anais and Zoe took a moment to converse.

  “To think our first quest involved an invasion,” Zoe fumed. “I knew that this system wasn’t going to make things easier for us.”

  “When has it ever gone easy on us?” Anais questioned while hurling several more fireballs at some nearby monsters chasing their members, setting them ablaze.

  The players being chased didn’t even stop when they saw their enemies getting burned alive. They simply continued to run away, thankful for the assistance and that they were given another chance to survive.

  “Evelyn said that she, her daughter, and Astrid were on their way here,” Zoe declared. “Once everyone was present, dealing with these invaders should be easier for us.”

  Hazel wanted to continue viewing the scene from her Astral Eye, but her attention was soon pulled away by Astrid’s voice.

  “Hazel, we’re at the village!”

  Hearing this, Hazel switched her perspective and realized that her dark elf companion was telling the truth. Seeing ahead of them, she saw glimpses of the village buildings. And the closer they got, the clearer she could see the structures. Along with the various fights occurring around them.

  Hazel glanced to her left and saw three players struggling against around a dozen or so goblins attacking them. The human players all wielded swords, which meant they all possessed the Warrior class. However, after appraising them, their levels were extremely low, not even past level ten while a couple of the goblins were actually past that threshold.

  Just when one of the goblins lunged at the players, they were immediately taken out by a cursed spear impaling its skill in a heartbeat. The gremlin creature was then taken away by the spear before hitting a nearby tree. Both human players and goblin invaders fearfully glanced at the dead goblin corpse that was instantly killed.

  Before the other goblins could do anything else, a flurry of arrows erupted from their left and struck various parts of their bodies. Once they were riddled with projectiles, the remaining goblins dropped like flies, leaving the players who just got saved completely speechless.

  Hazel and the others didn’t look back and kept moving further into the village settlement. Several more monsters appeared this time, their sights on Hazel’s group. One of two of the monster invaders were gnolls while the rest were goblins. The gnolls appeared to have been leading the goblins toward them since they were at the front while commanding the goblins behind them.

  “Kill for the Champion!”

  “Kill them or get killed, you bastards!”

  Hazel arched a brow. “The Champion...” She muttered to herself. “Could that be their leader or something?”

  While she was curious about who or what this “Champion” was, Hazel wasn’t going to waste her time by asking the invaders. She figured that they would encounter the leader of the invaders anyway. So why bother questioning them?

  With that mindset, Hazel proceeded to cut down the two gnolls that were commanding the goblins. Instead of wasting her cursed spears, she cast a couple of mana bolts and hurled them at her opponents. Since the spell was rank 9, they were far deadlier than they used to be.

  Her mana bolts easily pierced through the hyena-looking monsters, leaving bowling ball-sized holes in their chests. Her spells didn’t stop there and also even injured a couple of the goblins that were unfortunately within the path of them. But they weren’t killed like the Gnolls, which Hazel found both annoying and disappointing.

  Before she could finish off the goblins with another spell, Astrid and Chegyaeyi stepped in and took care of them. The lizardfolk warrior blurred toward the goblins and effortlessly swung and thrust her spear at them, cutting them up like it was nothing. Meanwhile, Astrid provided support and fired several arrows that were aiming to attack Chegyaeyi while she was busy with their brethren.

  With them, it didn’t take very long before the remaining goblins were completely slain. Once the invaders were dealt with, the group moved on, making their way to what appeared to be the center of the settlement where the chaos was happening. Everywhere they looked, there was some kind of battle occurring.

  Looking around, Hazel soon spotted Zoe and the others before making their way over to them. The knight quickly noticed the group while expelling a heavy sigh.

  “I’m glad you could all make it,” She said with a soft smile.

  “Sorry about that,” Evelyn said, rushing over to them. “There were invaders at the Jetport building, so we needed to take care of them.”

  “Yes, you said something similar in the message. But, all that matters at the moment is that you’re here now.”

  “Of course,” Evelyn nodded. “So, what’s the current-!”

  Before she could finish a distant roar could be heard within the forest, causing everyone including the invaders to stop in their tracks. Hazel and the others looked in the direction of the woods outside of the settlement, only to see a large figure emerging from within it.

  It was a hulking Orc that put the other green-skinned warriors around them to shame. His body was riddled with red and blue markings, looking like tribal paint. He wore a fur mantle with a lavish bone talisman around his neck. Judging from his overall appearance, he looked to be the boss of the monsters currently invading them. Either that or he worked directly under the leader, likely acting like their second in command.

  Just then, more Orcs and other monsters like Gnolls and goblins emerged from behind the bigger Orc, either standing by his side or standing behind him. There were likely over thirty of the invaders as they stood together with the leading Orc standing at the front.

  Taking in his appearance, Hazel knew one thing regarding this situation. They were now up against the boss of the invaders.