Child of Destiny

...…

After traveling for quite some time, Shin and the others arrived at their next destination. And when they arrived, they were immediately greeted by a sight that they didn't expect.

The village was in total ruins, the fences that were supposedly protecting the village were all broken while the gates were on the verge of collapsing. And when the party entered, what they saw was a total ghost town.

No one was around and the house seemed to be abandoned for a very long time. The rundown walls, the broken windows, and roofs were full of holes, these were the things that Shin and the others saw while roaming within the village.

"It looks like this place has already been abandoned. Are you sure that we are in the right place?" said Owen while sweeping his gaze on their surroundings.

"Or is the information that we got wrong? After all, not everything that comes from NPCs is very accurate, they are only clues most of the time," added Akailu.

Shin taught for a couple of moments before giving his instructions. "Ithilien, go scout. Luck, try to survey the surroundings outside the village with your undeads. If you find anything suspicious, inform us immediately."

After that, the two quickly executed the instructions that were given to them.

Ithilien jumped from a roof towards another with light but quick movements. She was moving as swiftly as the wind but also as light as a feather. Moreover, each of her steps didn't even make the slightest bit of sound as if she was running on air.

On the other hand, Chaotic Luck summoned a ground of skeleton soldiers with blazing heads from the ground with a simple gesture of lifting up his fingers. And immediately after that, his eyes suddenly glowed with a purple light which he shared with his undeads.

"Go!"

With simple instruction, the skeleton soldiers immediately scattered in every direction and headed outside the village.

In the meantime, the group continued to walk ahead as they were also trying to look for more clues. But the longer they walked around, the more they found nothing.

"Strange, this is really strange," muttered Cloe with a soft voice.

Hearing what she said, Shin quickly turned to her before asking. "In what way?"

Cloe thought for a couple of moments before replying. "I mean, the state of this village is too ruined. Moreover, it looks like it has been abandoned for ages. But the Chief of Misty Village seemed to be very confident that there are other villages aside from theirs."

Shin nodded his head and immediately added. "Moreover, he also said that the other knights that were sent in this place alongside him were also the heads of respective villages. But how come this place looks so rundown to the point we are thinking that no one is living for a long time?"

"So what are you implying?" asked Cloe with a knitted brow.

Shin smiled at her mysteriously before saying. "You will know about it later. But first, let's wait for the other two to finish their scouting."

"Hmph! You are always like that!" said Cloe while pouting her lips.

Not long after, Ithilien finally came back and regrouped with them while Chaotic Luck regained his focus.

"So, how was it?" asked Shin at the two.

The first to reply was Ithilien to investigate the state of the village. "The entirety of the village is indeed ruined in every corner. And I can't even see anyone aside from us within the village."

"But-…" she paused for a moment as she hesitated before continuing. "But I still found some signs of living in a couple of areas."

"Just like?" asked Shin instantly.

Ithilien thought for a moment before answering. "I saw a couple of traces of human footprints. They may look a little old but not as old as these rundown villages. There are also some traces of human activity in a couple of houses. I saw some charcoaled woods in them. They are pretty new, at least 2 days old at most."

After that, Shin turned to Chaotic Luck before asking. "How about outside? Did you see anything strange?"

"Strange? If we are talking about something strange, then the traces of battles are more than enough," responded Chaotic Luck instantly before falling into deep thought, trying to remember what he saw through the shared vision.

"What is even stranger about it is there are no heavy footprints of a monster in the ground even though there are a lot of claw marks on the trees outside. Aside from a couple of human footmarks, I have nothing else on the ground," he added while knitting his eyebrows deeply.

"Claw marks on the trees but not monster footprints? It can be a flying type monster such as birds and bats," said Akailu. As someone who bore the title of Beastmaster, he needed to be pretty knowledgeable about monsters within the game at the very least.

"That may be true. But is there any flying monster with five claws? And it is not ordinary claws either. It needs to be long claws like swords or sort," said Chaotic Luck with a serious tone.

Hearing that, Akailu couldn't help knitting his eyebrows before saying. "Is there even a monster like that? I haven't heard of something like that nor read it from the official Bestial Records."

"That might be the case currently but have you forgotten about the monsters that we encountered in the Five Penance Training Grounds?" asked Shin in return.

"Ah!"

Akailu immediately realized what he was trying to say as he also knew that the monsters that they had encountered in that particular training ground were indeed not recorded in the bestiary in the official website of the game.

Seeing that Akailu realized what he was trying to say, Shin immediately turned to Chaotic Luck and asked. "Can you show us the traces that you saw?"

Hearing that, Chaotic Luck immediately nodded his head and quickly projected a virtual screen in front of them before sharing his vision with one of his skeleton soldiers once again.

Shin focused on the traces both on the ground and the trees while knitting his eyebrows. From what he could see, it seems like the people in there were fighting a fellow human instead of a monster, or humanoid creature at the very least.

He then focused his attention on the claw marks on the tree while trying to think of what kind of monster was fighting in there. 'It is definitely not sword marks since all of those marks left on every tree are made at the same time.'

'It was impossible to live with such battle marks even for a very skilled swordsman. And if it is a strange weapon-… no, it is impossible either. Those marks seemed to be left behind by a human with overgrown claws.'

When his thoughts reached that thought, he suddenly remembered the steel-like claws that Vladimir had. 'Wait! If it is indeed a humanoid creature, then it is most likely the case.'

Unfortunately, he couldn't communicate with his Elemental Spirits right now due to the special nature of the region, or else he already asked their opinions earlier.

"Tsk! What a pity," blurted out Shin unconsciously which made the others look at him.

Hearing that, the other members of the group quickly turned their heads at him while wearing a weird look on their faces.

"What's wrong? And what do you mean that it is a pity?" asked Cloe from his side.

Shin smiled awkwardly before saying. "It is nothing, I am actually thinking about something else."

This time, the other members knitted their eyebrows and stared at Shin with an expression that seemed to be saying. – "You are thinking of something else?" –

Shin became even more embarrassed when he saw the look on their faces before trying to change the topic. "I know I know what kind of monster we are dealing with this time."

Even though the other members were quite skeptical of his words, they still nodded their heads and waited for him to continue.

"I think we are going to face a Vampire this time," he said with a serious tone.

Hearing that, the faces of the others suddenly turned stiff as they immediately realized how troublesome this mission was going to be.

A Vampire?

What is a vampire?

It was said to be one of the strongest monsters that anyone could encounter within the game. And out of the records that were documented in the official bestiary, there was only a single encounter posted in there.

And the person who encountered it was a famous Godlike Player who was ranked a hundred in the ranking list. And Based on the battle video, that particular player struggled to fight that vampire as it was very powerful.

"I think it is better if we have Alucard accompanying us right now. It is pretty obvious that his current race is a vampire," commented Akailu after recovering his composure.

Meanwhile, the others nodded their heads after hearing his words.

...