Chapter 21 CHAPTER 21: INTO THE SNOWY WOODS

"Did a little warmth make you think that you could stroll about in a gate like it was your backyard, conversing among yourselves without a care in the world," Davies scolded, his voice taking on a harsher tone than normal, as he stared at them, jolting them out of their conversations and once again reminding them that they were in a perilous situation inside a gate and not on a walk in a snow-themed park.

"You owe me answers, glasses girl… a lot of them," he said to Tisha specifically and continued towards the snow-covered forest in the distance.

"What did you do?" Teresa asked Tisha in a low voice, but Tisha only shook her head and said nothing, turning her blushing face away from Teresa and the others.

'What's wrong with her?' Sakura wondered at Tisha's strange behavior but didn't bother to ask her as she continued following Davies's lead as they continued onward toward the forest.

After another few minutes of walking, they came to the edge of the snowy forest. The trees were very tall, and the leaves were very thick, forming a huge canopy that kept most of the light from coming in, overall, it looked very dark and eerie.

"A-are we supposed to go in there?" stammered Arnim as he looked at the creepy-looking forest, it didn't take much thinking for anybody that saw his face to know that he didn't want to go in there.

"Yes… you're scared?" Davies replied and asked.

"O-Of, course not," the healer tried to sound brave and firm, but his voice and trembling hands were failing him.

'Wimp,' was the only word that crossed Davies's mind as he saw the trembling mess that was Arnim.

[Looks like you got your work cut out for you] Miya mentioned.

'Tch… am I cursed to be surrounded by incompetent idiots or is someone messing with me?' Davies wanted to pull his hair out as he simply couldn't fathom something more stupid than this at the moment.

'Why, as a mega, and a man would you be scared of a little darkness…?' Davies thought as he began to walk in between the trees and entered the dark, snowy forest.

[I think you should have started your restructuring at the recruitment department] Miya stated,

'... For once I agree with you, whoever is heading the recruitment department in Imperium no longer has a job the moment I get out of this gate,' Davies thought with gritted teeth at his subordinates' incompetence. A subordinate he had never met, neither did he even know the name of said subordinate, but nobody who works under the banner of "Davies Lake the Great," should display such incompetence as doing so is considered heresy… at least in Davies's view.

They continued walking into the forest until they reached a clearing where Davies stopped,

"We'll rest here and also make this place our first base we can come to if anything goes wrong when we are trying to complete the mission," Davies stated with a voice full of experience as if he had done this a hundred times.

"You must have quite the amount of experience inside gates like this?" Teresa asked with a slight smile.

"Despite how I sound, this is actually my first time inside a gate," Davies confessed as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Huh!!!!!!!???????" Every single member of the Imperium League B-Squad couldn't believe their ears after hearing what Davies just said.

'That can't be right, he couldn't have this much experience on this kind of thing, nor could he kill monsters the way he did if that was actually true,' Anthony wondered. Unknowingly they had begun to respect Davies unconsciously and respected his skill.

"Then how do you know all this; how could you kill monsters like you did?" Teresa put into words the question going through everyone's mind but Davies's and Miya's.

"It'd actually be extremely naive for you to think that danger only existed inside gates," Davies said with a scary smile,

"The real monsters aren't the ones in the gates,"

"They're the ones outside, walking amongst us…" He completed with a slight chuckle and began to use his ice to make a huge mound of snow to make a good old-fashioned igloo.

[Is this supposed to be your base?] Miya asked with an incredulous tone.

'Of course, isn't she a beauty,' Davies replied as he looked proudly at his work of art.

[It sucks and the person that made it sucks balls] Miya said with a judgmental tone.

'Fuck you,'

Davies turned towards the Imperium B-Squad who were still silent as his words sunk into their heads.

"Don't waste your time thinking too much, get some rest for now… you're going to need it," Davies said to them and began to walk towards two trees that were especially close to each other.

"What do you mean by we'll need it?" Sakura asked as she suddenly had another sense of foreboding from Davies's tone.

"Living beings obviously need rest, don't they?" Davies asked as he used his ice to make an ice hammock that hung from both of the trees.

"That wasn't what you meant?" Sakura did not give up on asking him what he actually meant as her sense of foreboding wasn't going away.

"Tch… Do I really have to explain everything," Davies groaned as he climbed onto his newly made creation and made himself comfortable lying face up,

"Don't you think it's been a little too quiet for a gate where we have to kill at least ten thousand monsters," he said nonchalantly as he closed his eyes.

"Oh, shit,"

It was true, after their first and only battle so far, they hadn't met any other monster even though they had walked such a distance without making the slightest effort to hide themselves or their tracks. The fact that they weren't attacked could mean one of two things.

First, they had some kind of crazy luck and there wasn't a single monster in the vicinity, or,

They were being watched and they'd probably be a surprise attack coming their way soon.

[Why didn't you tell them everything though]

'What's there to tell?' Davies replied nonchalantly.

[You and I both know that only monsters that are A-rank and above have enough intelligence to control monsters into setting up traps and using different tactics which wouldn't make sense since this is a B-rank gate]

'...'

'They're here,' Davies's snow sense had picked up movement.

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I promised to post two chapters today, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make good on that promise, and if I don't, then I'll just post two chapters tomorrow instead.

Don't forget to vote powerstones so we can move up the rankings, guys... I'm counting on you...