The White Haired Demon Slayer (Part-5)

Tracking is impossible in Monster Spawns.

At least that's what the reality was a couple decades ago.

But considering the massive threat posed by the monster spawns to the human world, the Adventurer's Guild, under the revolutionary leadership of my father decided to go actively on the offense against monster spawns, instead of just defending and finding ways to prevent the rise of more.

This brought up a serious need for research and development of active tracking magic in monster spawns. Elite teams of adventurers specializing in only tracking became a must for all monster spawn multi-raids.

These adventurers would dedicate their lives to come up with tracking magic that would somehow work in there. This didn't make tracking in monster spawns any easier, but now it was at least possible.

Adventurers who dedicated their entire lives... And here we have a girl who created a new magic out of thin air to sense human presence in a monster spawn.

Elaina might be a genius, I think.

Elaina enchants a slight breeze of air to look forth for humans. It's a sensory magic instead of a tracking magic, she says. As it just senses if there are humans in someplace or not.

Improvising off a hunting skill she developed to track animals who are seemingly untrackable in their home environments, Elaina trusts her new magic to find humans somewhat accurately. But still, since it's a newly created magic, it has a few flaws of its own, as she herself admits.

First, the magic itself seems to need a great deal of focus to maintain function. Elaina cannot track anything else or use any other kind of magic except a little bit of air manipulation to assist us in battle.

Second is the problem of the enchanted wind running out of mana every 15 minutes. Everytime it happens, Elaina has to recreate the enchanted wind and send it forth once again to continue from where the previous one left off.

Third is the fact that this magic only tells her if there are humans or not. It doesn't give her any information about them. She may find humans, but cannot confirm how many there are or if they are even alive or not.

Since this entire place is like a labyrinth, finding any human is better than just wandering around aimlessly. So even if her tracking magic has this major flaw, it's still the best shot we got.

We will save whoever we find.

At least that's what we wanted to believe. But we were too optimistic. Looking at the scene in front of us, once again we were too late.

As her enchanted wind disappeared, running out of mana, Elaina fell to her knees and a tear finally dropped, breaking her out of her shock.

She blamed her own inability, her own weakness. She once again blamed herself for everything.

But we knew she tried her best. She got us till here, gave us our only chance to save the villagers.

"I'm sorry Liam. I'm so sorry..."

***15 minutes ago***

"Are we close?" I asked.

Elaina nodded. "We are."

The sound of a loud clank made me turn around. Ren had just kicked over a dead goblin's body, exposing its neck. As we had long been seeing, the secondary corruption on these hobgoblins was getting more intense the closer we got to our target.

Luca was right, they are indeed getting stronger. And I have a feeling this isn't gonna get any easier.

We were all trying our best to keep the spirit up, but we all knew what we were walking into.

Elaina crouched down on the ground to start her incantation to create the enchanted wind again. I guess it had already been 15 minutes since the last one.

A whiff of slightly glowing air left out of her hands as she got back up with a sigh. I still can't help myself from being amazed by her amazing ability to do this. Man, she is awesome.

"We should reach there by the next one." She said.

I straightened my chest plate and started leading the way. "Then we should get moving."

And this is where things started to go wrong.

After walking for 5 minutes we started to realise... they were no longer coming at us.

The heavy footsteps and screaming were no longer echoing through the halls. It is impossible that the mountain of bodies we had left back in the previous hallway hadn't already been found by goblins. Yet the bloodthirsty screams that would usually follow after every fight were no longer to be heard.

Everything had turned cold and silent, it was as if a sense of silent doom had set upon the monster spawn.

Even though it seemed like we were all alone, we knew... they were everywhere.

Everyone could feel it. Even Sylvie, who seemingly didn't have an intrinstic battle sense was tense, and held on to the hilt of her rapier tightly.

For some reason... I felt it differently. To me it felt as I was being challenged.

I could feel my heart turning colder. The desire to kill was returning.

But Ren... Ren was different. Not only was he the most relaxed out of us, he was... smiling.

I don't understand. This is the most pressure and viciousness I have ever felt in my life and yet here he is, strolling along like in a park.

His casual demeanor in the face of such pressure somehow made the coldness in my heart fade away too.

It felt as if everything would be alright.

Of course, that feeling didn't last for long.

Walking through the damning silence, we neared our destination soon.

"There. Right through that hallway." Elaina said as she extended her hand, pointing ahead.

Stepping through the mud and stone hallway, we reached.

We reached... once again to witness a scene of horror.

For in front of us lay a pile of humans, alive. Cut all over their body, piled up in a large pool of their own blood. Just lying there, waiting to die.

I had no reaction. I had seen all I needed to see. My rage... My rage had reached a tense point of peak. My face was calm, my sense of self was calm. Dangerously calm. My sanity as a person was holding together my rage by a thread.

One small disturbance... and I would kill anything and everything around me.

'I rescued her, but she saved me.'

Once again I remembered the gentle smile of the girl who passed away in my arms. Once again she saved me from a breaking point of my rage.

Why were we here? We were here to save the villagers from the same fate as hers.

We will save whoever we find.

Atleast that's what we wanted to believe. But we were too optimistic. Looking at the scene in front of us, once again we were too late.

As her enchanted wind disappeared, running out of mana, Elaina fell to her knees and a tear finally dropped, breaking her out of her shock.

She blamed her own inability, her own weakness. She once again blamed herself for everything.

But we knew she tried her best. She got us till here, gave us our only chance to save the villagers.

"I'm sorry Liam. I'm so sorry..."

"It's not your fault."

It's not her fault. The only ones to be blamed for this are the monsters.

And they need to die.

"I... I can still save them. They are alive... I must..." Sylvie muttered with a trembling voice. Her entire body shivered in fear, yet she mustered all her courage as she slowly moved closer.

Luca held her back. "They have already lost too much blood. We can't save them anymore. They are already dead. Besides..."

Luca's voice trailed off as he looked back to the hallway we just came through. His hand slowly crept to one of his knives.

"We are surrounded." Sylvie said as realisation hit her hard.

The footsteps were getting closer. Heavy synchronised steps approaching from all directions. Hundreds of enemies were coming at once from every hallway.

Every hallway, except the one in front of us.

Cornered and outnumbered, we had certainly walked into a trap.

There was no way forth, except forward.

Yet my light magic was being unnaturally turbulent at the thought of going through that one hallway. I could sense a great power awaiting us.

Ren cracked his neck and turned his arms into metal, preparing for battle. "We walked into a trap. There's no way out of this without a fight. Let's see it through like the good adventurers we are."

Indeed. If it's a fight they want, they'll get it.

"Let's move."