Chapter 144 144 Prospective Company



While Diana was sleeping with Clara, Zach her so called husband was accompanying another woman in bed. Of course the woman was none other than Luna who had yet to regain her consciousness after her battle with the panther more than two months ago. Zach couldn't help but worry about her no matter where he was or whatever time of the day it was. He worried that someone would harm her in his absence which was why he never let her out of his sight. Even when he had to sleep, he slept beside her so he could keep her from any kind of harm.

Just when his eyelids grew heavy and he felt sleep overtaking his consciousness with its blurry countenance, a system alarm pulled him out of his sleep with a jolt like an electric bolt had struck his body directly from the sky.

Zach pulled up the mini map at the right bottom corner of his vision and expanded it to locate the source of the danger projected by the system to him. He knew that the system only warned him about the life threatening dangers so there was no way that the person or the thing coming after him this time could have any good intentions.

The map showed a red dot that was gradually increasing in size. Zach knew that it meant that the threat was getting closer and closer to him with each passing second. From the movement of the entity, Zach could determine how fast the enemy was moving towards him. It was faster than the top speed of his trucks and faster than any mage he had seen until that moment. It was almost equivalent to the movement speed of the Black Panther after it had begun to chase after him.

Before he could rush out of the bed, he heard sounds of intense gunfire and explosions in the near vicinity. He deduced that it must be the soldiers guarding the camp at some distance. Judging from the amount of bullets being fired, the hostile intent couldn't be human because a human didn't need this many bullets to be disposed off. After all the soldiers he had brought with him were all elites and had been trained well. They could shoot down anything that moved within a radius of a hundred meters without any difficulty. Moreover, there was no need to use grenades to eliminate a human threat.

Zach stepped out of the tent fully prepared to face the threat heading his way. As soon as he did, he noticed several trails of flares in the sky from time to time. These were signals of the guards to each other about how far the hostile entity had invaded past their guard.

Judging from the flares, Zach guessed that it would be a few minutes before he would be able to see the enemy in front of him. Zach didn't take the initiative to go out. Rather, he waited for the enemy to come to him.

Clara had already mounted her warhorse by the time Zach came out. Zach was slightly surprised to see her all ready despite not having the alarm system like him. He believed that she must have extraordinary sensory abilities for such a thing to be possible. 

Clara moved her horse towards him when she saw him coming out of the tent. She needed to tell him something before it got too busy.

"I am sorry that you got caught up in my matters. I wanted to tell you that the thing out there has nothing to do with your people. They are only getting hurt because it is coming for me. You and your people have helped us twice and I don't want to be ungrateful to you. Therefore, I will leave and lead it away from here. I don't want to cause you and your people any more trouble than I already have."

Clara looked sad and actually morose when she decided to leave the place in order to not let these people pay the price of her selfish behavior. She had taken a liking to Zach's story as well and wanted to listen to the rest of it if she got the chance. It turned out that she had to leave like this.

Zach felt like he was in the plot of some game or a movie where the female lead expresses her intention to lead the threat away only for the main lead to take on the threat head on for her sake.

As expected the system believed in such clichéd tropes and decided to issue a quest at this instance to help Clara.

[A sudden quest 'Unstoppable' has been generated. You can access the details of the quest in the quests tab.]

Zach hurriedly opened the tab to view the details. He wanted to figure out some clues as to what it was that he was about to face. It was always good to have some knowledge about the upcoming battle so that the participants could be more prepared.

[Quest Description: A new enemy has appeared and it seems to be hostile towards Clara. Find and eliminate the threat as fast as possible to earn the goodwill of the girl hiding the mysterious energy within her.]

[Quest Clear Conditions: Eliminate the threat to Clara's life.]

[Quest Failure Penalty: The mysterious energy would no longer be accessible after Clara's death.]

[Would you like to accept the quest?]

ραпdα -n૦νe| , c૦m [Y/N]

Zach unhesitatingly said, 'Yes' in response and accepted the quest without hesitation.

Clara had been trying to convey her gratitude and her apologies to Zach but he seemed out of sorts as he kept staring into space. She thought that Zach had finally reached his limits and was afraid of this new threat.

Just when she was about to spur her horse forward and leave lest she implicate Zach and the others, Zach rushed in front of her horse to keep her from going away. Instead of backing down in fear, Zach's facial expressions and oozing confidence suggested that he was unwilling to let her take on the danger alone.

"I can help you solve whatever danger you are facing at the moment. I will take care of that thing if you decide to accept some of my conditions. I am sure that even you don't think that you can handle such an enemy on your own."

Clara was somewhat surprised that Zach was talking to her in such a tone. Previously she had felt that Zach had gotten cold feet after hearing about the strength of the enemy this time. It turned out that she had underestimated him. He was clearly quite confident and apparently wanted to get some benefits for himself through this situation.

"What kind of conditions?" Clara was doubtful of his ability even though she had seen his witty battle with the mantises before. But she felt that the only reason he had been able to kill the mantises was because of strategy and luck and not because of overwhelming advantage in terms of force and physical prowess. Therefore, it was hard for her to trust his words. Still there wasn't anything wrong with trying to figure out the details of the cooperation before making her decision.

"If I and my people escort you and your people to your home safely, I want your family to provide me with enough resources to help me establish myself in this new place. Since this is our first time in this territory, we are quite lacking in terms of references and personal connections that could help us ease out most of the troublesome matters. I want the Windsor family to be the bridge between my people and those we would have future dealings with. Of course I don't want to take advantage of the Windsor family. Therefore, the cooperation will only last until I get a foothold in this place for myself."

At first Clara wanted to refuse his offer since she couldn't believe that Zach was truly capable of pulling off what he was offering to do in exchange for the Windsor family's connections. But when she remembered how crazy but effective his battle strategy in the day was like, she decided to put in her trust in him. She believed that she didn't have anything to lose from this arrangement. She could always escape on her own if Zach failed to hold back the enemy.

Therefore, Clara looked intently at Zach and said, "I don't mind those conditions as long as you can deliver your end of the bargain. But keep in mind that my words only hold true IF you manage to take down the enemy knocking at our doors right now."

Zach nodded in understanding and got up on his own horse before motioning Clara to follow after him as he sped off into the direction of the flares. Currently several soldiers were engaged in a battle with the invader under the leadership of Diana.

It seemed like Diana had been the first one to be informed of the danger. Maybe she was still awake when the enemy attacked them out of nowhere. Only that could explain why she had been so fast to reach the battleground and why Clara appeared to be all ready to depart when Zach was alerted by the system regarding the hostile intent.

It was still dark out without the moon in the sky to light up the surroundings which was why the soldiers were relying on the light from the flares to put up the fight against the enemy beast.

The beast this time appeared to be some kind of gigantic mutation of a rhinoceros. It was extremely stocky and sturdier and compared to a normal one.