Chapter 39: If not here, then it means he's dead!

All the soldiers that were waiting for the signal of the commander were anxiously readying themselves.

Everyone held different kinds of emotions within. They were both excited and afraid. Afraid of the terrifying strength that causes the whole area to tremble.

But they have to steel themselves.

They even have different ideologies on this battle. Some of them wanted to finish the monsters to give justice to their fallen brethren and to retrieve the land from the monster's reign, while some wanted only for their own gains.

Before the sun peeks, many of the soldiers already expressing different kinds of excitement, and fasten on different parts of their bodies were different kinds of trusted equipment.

The commander walked to the front, then he glanced at everyone's faces. After confirming that each one of them was ready, he took an object from his pocket. The object he took was 2 inches square with a flat surface.

Suddenly the commander's right hand which held the object exuded golden color glow. After that, the object glows as well and some ancient imprint has surfaced on its flat surface.

This object was an ancient artifact known as the Voice of God. It enables the user to transmit his voice to everyone in a limited area. The commander lifted his hand which holding the artifact towards his mouth.

"Everyone, it's time to retake our fallen land, let's go!" He commanded. His voice was simple and no flowery words. Even though, they could die inside this place. But everyone knows, flowery words were unnecessary at this moment where many of their comrades had already fertilize the land with their blood.

All the soldiers that were waiting at every entrance of the so-called sewer dove in after hearing the commander's order.

When they entered the sewer, their mouth couldn't stop cursing because of the foul smell all over the place. But they still continued to step deeper.

"Hey," from behind, Mina heard a familiar voice.

"Why?" She asked without sending a glance at the person calling from behind. But she knows that it was Hannah.

"Where is he? Why he's not with your group?" Hannah asked her, with a tinge of curiosity.

Mina wrinkled her brows. Wondering why these people keep asking him the same questions. And why do they have to ask about him at her? She wanted to refute but she needed to focus on this battle.

"If not here, then it means he's dead!" She replied flatly.

"I see, then that's better," Hannah mumbled. But Mina heard it.

'What a callous girl,' Mina thought. Even she wanted to know if where that person now. She wanted to beat him until he crawled like a literal worm.

After 5 minutes, they started to notice something weird.

"Ronny, do you think something is weird?" The commander asked Ronny.

"I did feel something unexpected, Commander. It is unbelievable that there is a scarce number of enemies in this area which supposed to be their settlement," Ronny answered with furrowed brows.

"Yeah," the commander agreed.

Suddenly,

Keee!

Keee!

"Enemies ahead!" Shouted one of the soldiers who was walking at the front.

They saw 10 rat monsters ahead of them.

"""""Eh?!!""""" Everyone was taken aback. They have noticed something on the monsters.

"L-Look, i-is that an artifact?" One of the soldiers questioned.

Everyone gazes on the object pointed by the soldier which was worn by 2 monsters. One of the monsters was wearing a mask of an unknown creature on its head. But because its face was pointed just like what most rats were, it wore the mask like a cap on its head, while the other one was wearing the golden gauntlet.

"R-Right, its an artifact!" One of Hannah's squad member exclaimed.

After seeing the object wore by monsters, Jura dashed towards the monsters without waiting for the commander's orders. Whoever took it first would own it.

If he could get it, being a successor of his noble family would be for certain. If that happened, there was a chance for him to offer an engagement proposal to Hannah's family. In that case, his bright future was set-foot in a plain road.

Jura smiled broadly at the sight of these two rats. Even though there was a total of ten monsters, he unsheathed his sword disregarding their number.

When the monsters saw the incoming human enemy. They stuttered towards him. The one with the mask was a rat Crawler while the one with the gaunlet was a knuckle user rat.

"Tsk! I'll go," Mina clicked her tongue and rapidly followed Jura. She won't let herself be outdone.

Now that she's a Bronze-Grade Assassin, her movement was more nimble than before.

"Fufu, looks like the little Miss in your family is quite capable," Stonehard said to Leo.

Leo just smiled at him. Yesterday his cousin was just an apprentice rank assassin. But now it went up into bronze-grade assassin. Leo didn't know how Mina did that. But he had guessed that she got a rare item which enables any magician to rank up.

After Mina followed Jura, the other soldiers around also begun charging. Only Commander Borg, Ronny, Stonehard, and Leo were left standing behind.

Suddenly the artifact on Commander Borg's hand glowed faintly. He then lifted his hand towards his mouth.

"Commander, this is unusual, we couldn't see any monsters in this place!" Said the voice from the artifact.

""""What?!"""" The four men were surprised by what they heard.

"Are you sure?" The commander asked.

"Well, we did encounter 2 of them, but aside from that, we couldn't see any more monsters!" The voice in the artifact said.

Commander Borg, Ronny, Stonehard, and Leo were puzzled by this development.

"How about the other group? You guys give your report!" The commander said to the artifact.

After a few seconds, different voices came talking from the artifact. All of them were giving reports of the same reason. That they don't see any monsters aside from the few that they encountered. But they just numbered one to two at most. So only their group was able to encounter 10 of monsters.

"Impossible," the commander mumbled.