Chapter 141 Wood Elementals 1

After failing to get any additional information out of Margaret, Jay and Anya went outside, standing in the midst of the crowd with other adventurers.

Stepping into the crowd, Jay felt a strange coldness on his neck – turning around, he saw Sullivan glaring at him through the window.

Was this a warning to protect Anya? Perhaps not to use necromancy? Jay couldn’t be sure.

Jay awkwardly gave a thumbs up, but Sullivan turned and went away from the window without giving any clues.

Jay and Anya both stood out from other adventurers – Jay being level nine with Anya being the guild master’s daughter; thankfully they did not stand out as much as previously – other adventurers were level eight now, and it seemed that Jay’s progress had stagnated, and less people looked at him like an idol now.

Little did they know that Jay was actually level ten, and was only 3,000 exp away from hitting level 11.

Still, it was enough for no one to approach them out of reverence.

The crowd finally hushed down as a muscular, athletic man with familiar blue bux-beetle pauldrons exited the association – It was Michael, the guard captain.

“Hn-ahm.” he cleared his throat before he began a small speech.

“Adventurers, a threat approaches from the west. We will need your help…an enclave of wood elementals approaches.”.

The crowd slowly broke out with chatter for a moment.

“What the hell is a wood elemental?”

“Can’t the higher ups deal with it?”

“Yeah, can’t they just cast one spell and wipe them all out?”

Michael hushed the crowd and continued.

“We need you to defend the farmland to the north-west. The rest of the guards will deal with the brunt of the attacks from the south-west, where the forest meets the village,” Michael continued before letting any of them talk.

“We expect them to be from anywhere between level one to sixty, but mostly in the south-west. You should only encounter ones from level one to twenty.”

The crowd began to talk again,

“Level twenty, what the fuck? We’re going to be slaughtered!” many looked around with fear.

Michael spoke up before things got out of hand,

“Rest assured, we will send some level twenty-five and higher guards with you. They will focus on the higher level elementals while you will need to stop the smaller ones. There are many of them, which is why we need your help.”

“I don’t want to see a single one of them getting into the village.” he gazed at them as if it were a threat.

“Move out!” he yelled.

Slowly, the adventurers began to March as they followed some guards to the western fields.

The adventurers were all quiet as they marched, a mix of fear and adrenaline coursing through them.

While there were nearly 150 of them, many were still low level. Most of them were level 6 or 7; they wouldn’t pose much of a threat to some level 20 wood elementals.

This wasn’t the full force of the Losla adventurers either – some were still completely oblivious as they were slaying monsters in dungeons.

The crowd was much quieter than usual too – gone were the ones who showed off their weapons and skills to other adventurers, gone were the braggers and the boastful. No one wanted to be put somewhere that was beyond their capability.

Unlike most of the young adventurers, Jay and Anya didn’t show any fear, both having serious, focused expressions instead.

“What is this? What’s going on?” a bow-wielding adventurer noticed Anya and asked quietly.

“I’m not sure. Apparently it’s happened before, but it must be rare since I’ve never heard of it.”

“O-oh, okay. Thanks.” The bow-wielder glanced at Jay for a moment before mixing back into the rest of the crowd.

As Jay and Anya walked silently, Jay realised that this wouldn’t be so simple for him.

Based on the looks he was getting from other adventurers, he was expected to be one of the best at killing the mobs – they would finally see the skills which got him to level nine so quickly. Every move of his would be keenly scrutinised; not good for someone with a monster class.

Obviously he was not going to perform well without his minions around him, and he couldn’t just summon them in the event of an emergency.

A tension started building in his chest as they walked closer and closer to the west side of Losla.

Suddenly he had an idea. With a relaxed smile on his face, he casually turned to Anya.

“Want to party up? I’ll tank and you can focus on dealing damage?” He made it sound as natural as saying ‘good morning’ to someone; at the same time, he said it so that anyone nearby could hear.

“Sure” Anya smiled.

As she said that, a glimmer of excitement seemed to disappear from the adventurers’ eyes around him.

“We’re not going to see his skills and abilities? Dammit…” one frowned to themselves.

“Ah, I guess we’ll just be clearing some mobs today.” another thought as they pursed their lips.

As they were walking, a guard came up to Jay – it was Paul, though he didn’t say anything as he gestured to Jay and Anya to walk along the side of the group.

“Hey mate, good to see the butchery is up and running again” he smiled.

“Heh, yeah, I got a new guy working there. Are the sausages alright?”

“They’re still good,” he nodded before whispering quietly, “anyway, I’ve been given instructions to protect you and Anya.” he said while raising a brow. It was like he was almost asking a question.

“Huh, perhaps that’s why Sullivan was looking oddly at me.” Jay wondered.

Jay simply shrugged, not giving anything away.

Paul was confused because it was clear that Jay and Anya were the strongest adventurers here – not including the ones from last year who had lazily loitered around Losla.

“Hm, Sullivan probably has his reasons – but I’m trying to keep my sword skills secret from other adventurers so maybe that’s why.”

“Oh,” Paul nodded knowingly with a sly smile “I understand mate, no worries.” he winked.

Paul just assumed that Jay had some unique swordsman class and didn’t want to be harassed by party recruiters or forced to enlist in the military.

The group of adventurers finally arrived west of Losla; it was mostly farmland here, with mist-sheep grazing quietly.

Thankfully, planting season hadn’t started and the crop fields were barren, no significant loss to the farmers would happen today.

They walked along a path by the fields. Every now and then, some adventurers would split off from the group and go into a field under the instruction of both soldiers and farmers.

They entered each field in groups of ten along with a guard in case there were some higher level wood elementals they couldn’t handle.

Finally it was Jay and Anya’s turn; they went into a grassy field along with eight other adventurers, a guard, and Paul.

Fortunately not many seemed to notice that Jay and Any had two guards following them, being too focused on the coming battle.