Chapter 29 29: Mysterious Predator

He started to make his way back to the door leading to the lobby, but while on the way, he could hear a commotion going on in that direction…and a voice he wasn't expecting to hear so soon.

"Oh fuck me…"

How could he forget the voice of the first person who tried to kill him just this morning? And he was proven right when he walked to the balcony and saw a noticeably large group on the bottom floor while Mark was standing near the bottom of the steps with his sword in hand. It seemed that Mark was attempting to attack his spider but someone appeared to be preventing him from doing so and surprisingly that person was Henry. Noah didn't know why he would do so, he hasn't been cordial with him the entire time since he met him. What he didn't know was that Henry still very much feared him and after seeing the spider's handiwork, who knows what would happen to him he stood by and did nothing again.

"W-Wait! I'm telling you that's not a good idea! That spider belongs to someone that you shouldn't mess with, I'm trying to help you!" Henry tried to reason with Mark whose eyes were bulging in anger, or was he just that overly emotional? Henry couldn't tell but it appeared to him that Mark was angry.

Behind Mark was no longer the big group from before, if before there were about 40 survivors in their group, they were now down to around 18 , which was partly the reason why Mark was so emotional when he came in to find a giant spider feasting on a human corpse.

He felt that he needed to redeem himself for his lack of leadership and his helplessness when it came to the beasts that literally took out close to half of their group by themselves and it was only two of them! He tried to calm himself down but the scene kept replaying in his head over and over.

…..

"Aaaahhhhh!"

"IT'S BEHIND US NOW! W-SOMEBODY HELP U-"

Screams sounded all around them while Mark and his group frantically ran to their destination. Everything was going so well before this, they had the occasional rats try to nibble at them a few times as they made their way past the dead human and zombie corpses. Even then, people would get hurt but it wasn't enough to stop them and when it came to zombies, Mark and his small party was enough to take on small groups.

Jas also proved her usefulness, because of her racial change into an Elf, her summoner class developed small changes. As a summoner, you are given a chance to contract with one specific element and then a skill that will decide on what type of summon you will contract with.

Originally, she chose the ice element and the skill 'frost bite' which was a controlled area of effect ability that would slow down a large group of enemies. Because of the skill, she contracted with an Ice spirit, but after the race change, her spirit was replaced with a druid spirit instead and her frostbite was replaced with 'nature's entanglement'.

With the help of the surrounding natural environment, she could use less mana to root enemies in place with her Druid, allowing the members of her group to finish off the zombies and mice who were in large groups.

They were making great progress considering the non combatants that made up most of their group. But they didn't realize that not only did their large group make them a bigger target, but the trail of blood also brought upon them two unlikely predators.

Buzz! Buzz!*

"Wh-What's that sound?" Mark directed the question to his sister who usually always has an answer, but when he saw her face, he noted that she too was confused.

"Beth….Beth?? Ahhhhh!" The sound of a woman screaming interrupted the two. Everyone stopped to find out the reason for the woman's cries, but no one liked what they saw. When they made their way to the back of the group, Mark and Jas could see the other people surrounding the area where the scream originated. As they got closer, screams continued to sound off one after the other. They didn't like where this was heading as Jas and Mark hastened their steps.

They came upon a few girls who were most likely the source of the screams, being consoled while they cried. Farther down they found the person called Beth who sadly won't be the last person who would end up this way.

The girl Beth was headless! And when they investigated her neck area, it had a defining characteristic of being cleanly cut off.

"What the hell happened?" Mark asked out loud to no one in particular, but no one answered. He didn't like this feeling, someone dying under his watch and no one knew how they died, he felt incompetent.

He looked around and spotted the girl who was the first to scream.

"Mark?" Jas noticed the irregularity that Mark had been exhibiting ever since this started and tried to get his attention, but he already reached the girl and pulled her on her feet.

"Tell me what happened!" Even though his tone was forceful, it only made her cry more, which only made him impatient. He tugged the girl by her arm and brought her to the headless body.

"Don't you know her? You're gonna stand there and not say anything when your friend was just killed? Do you want everyone else to die just like her? HUH?"

"MARK! That's enough…"

He finally turned to the voice that challenged him with a glare, but seeing the disappointed look of his sister caused his glare to soften before he released the girl's arm.

He felt the need to defend himself for his previous actions, he didn't want her to get the wrong idea, it's for everyone's safety. But when he tried to articulate a response, another scream sounded off.

Mark and Jas's previous bad feeling became worse while they made their way to the next person just to find a male also missing a head from his body. At this point, fear sunk in to everyone who knew what was going on.

"Noooo! I don't want this!" A student yelled before taking off in a random direction. And Just like a domino effect, one by one, others started to branch away from the group. Jas could understand everyone's feelings, but now wasn't the time to make decisions based off of them.

"Wait! If we don't stick together then it would make it easier for whatever is doing this! You'll be safer if you stay together with us." But no one listened to her, only the people who felt safer being in a group stayed while the ten or so others never turned back.

In the end, everyone decided to form a circle to confront whatever it was that was attacking them.

Buzzz Buzzz*

The buzzing sound of wings appeared again, but it sounded in the distance. They could hear the screams and yells of some of the students who ran off earlier. No one was sure if they saw the attacker or maybe they cried out because the buzzing noise approached them. One by one, each person they heard in the distance sounded no more.

"Mark, we can't go on like this…Whatever it is, it's moving too fast for us to contend with. How many people do we have to lose before we can even see what we're dealing with?" Even for Jas, the tone of her voice held a hint of fear.

"And what do you think we should do? Be cowards and make a run for it? We should stand our ground here. If people die then at least it won't be in vain if we are able to kill that beast. Dying while running away is worse than dying while fighting. And once we spot what's causing all of this, I alone will be enough to deal with it so don't worry."

As he talked, Jas could make out the prideful smile appearing on his face. She just couldn't get herself to agree with this 'new' brother of hers, but he was still her little brother that she loved. It would be more detrimental to start a fight now than to just follow along with him. She would just have to make a plan to make up for his rash decisions.

All of them waited in silence, the silence is what made the situation more horrifying and even the smallest sound would startle the people in the group.

"Jasmine, Jasmine, Jasmine!" The sudden squeals caused everyone in the surroundings to jump. The only person who wasn't affected was Jas herself, well she was affected, but she wasn't afraid. She sighed with a heavy heart. She already knew who the voice belonged to, but she didn't want to acknowledge her right now. The girl had her quirks and it made her appear very eccentric. Even with what happened a few years ago, the girl's peculiar behavior hasn't changed. Jas should know since she was her only friend because of this reason.

"Alietta, we don't have time for this right now, can it wait?" Even though the tone of her voice suggested that Ailetta was being troublesome, it didn't dishearten her at all.

"But! I think I can help figure out what's out there!"

The annoying feeling she was giving everyone immediately subsided when they heard her. Everyone's ears perked up to listen to what she had to say, hopefully the suggestion wouldn't be as weird as her personality.

Mark in particular wasn't amused. He looked disdainfully towards the girl who was usually always around his older sister during school.

She couldn't be described as a beauty and the majority of the people who saw her would consider her a plain Jane. Standing at around 5ft 5in, she had shoulder length long auburn hair with long bangs that often covered her face. She wore square shaped glasses which she only had one pair of which could easily be noticed since you could see the tape on the bridge of it holding them together. Her face was adorned with freckles that cover her cheeks and she had a button sized nose with small thin lips. The most eye grabbing feature about her would be her green eyes that often shone with curiosity.

He never could understand why his sister put up with her so much, even now, he could tell that his sister was interested in her idea when she didn't show the slightest interest in his.

"Well? Are you going to say it or not? Quit wasting our time." He couldn't help but quip back to her. Jas didn't plan on commenting on his attitude, he was always quite rude to Ailetta for some reason, but even when he was, Ailetta would always appear oblivious to his remarks.

"We just need to have someone act as bait! And it doesn't have to b-"

"I know you didn't have a good idea! If you want someone to be bait then are you gonna be the one to volunteer? I'd like to see that." Mark interrupted her, this time he earned a pout from Ailetta. She could always ignore him before when she was just talking to Jasmine and he would then proceed to ignore her back, but she didn't like to be interrupted when she's talking to her friend.

"Coughs* Jasmine, did you forget I was a summoner too?"

Ignoring Mark once again, she asked Jasmine a question that, to the listeners, didn't give them any answers. Everyone was becoming restless and Mark wanted to rebuke her again, but Jasmine realized what Ailetta was getting at before she exclaimed, drawing everyone's attention.

"That's right! The bait doesn't have to be alive, we can make our own zombies."