Chapter 1: Prologue  

A raid group of fearless hunters walked along the pitch-black dark mountain path in the middle of the night. None of them could see anything up ahead but they continued on with their weapons armed and in hand.

“Found it. 500 meters towards that way… Nothing’s moving though…”

“Good…”

They can’t see anything through the darkness but, they held onto their heavy weapons and moved faster as soon as they heard the sound of the leader’s voice echoing from up ahead.

“We have to move faster. We have to take care of this tonight…”The leader commanded.

“Aren’t we just wasting time?” One of the hunters said with an impatient voice.

“Quiet, Chunghwan.” Another replied.

“Whatever.” He responded in a condescending tone.

The bickering didn’t end until they finally reached their destination. It was an empty and quiet area leaving them to nothing but the sounds of crickets singing through the night as soon as they walked silently. From the looks of it, it seemed that the monster must have already gotten away. Their raid group was made up of incredibly skilled hunters but they were still at risk for a dangerous situation.

“Something’s strange. Why isn’t it moving?” Asked a guy with with husky voice.

Another group member then replied,

“Shhh. Don’t make a sound… The monster must have escaped over that gate, it must have heard us coming. Let’s finish this quick. Jolhu… Miyeong, get into formation D.”

“Got it.” They answered at once.

They then spread across the ground that was covered in dead leaves trying not to make a sound while getting into formation. The path soon begun to grow narrow as they started to see something at the end of the valley path. It was curled up and sleeping, making it look like the shape of a giant boulder. Although they’ve all had lots of experience in hunting, it was nothing like they’ve ever seen before. It was huge and covered with shiny armor.

“Chunghwan!” A member of the group shouted.

“Already on it!” Chungwan said taking the lead with two more of the group’s members running along behind. He wore shiny grey armor and had his sword prepared in a holster on his hips. He quickly ran up ahead…

“Haahahah!!! Well, what do we have here…”

He got a glimpse of its scaly skin and drew his sword. Ready to test his strength against the monster. He then instantly struck it again and again… He soon started to feel tired after a couple of strikes that didn’t even make it flinch. He gave up feeling exhausted.

The others that rushed behind him finally caught up but immediately stopped in their tracks with a hint of confusion on their faces.

“What are you doing?!” One of them yelled from behind him.

“Wait!” Another added.

“What’s this?!” Chungwan said in surprise as he walked towards the scaly creature. It looked like a gigantic armadillo but with eight legs and three tentacles on its head. But there was also one arrow that was sticking out of it.

It was sticking out of its head. Daejeong saw it and reached for it.

“Um…Daejeong, I don’t think that’s a good idea…!”

Chunghwan said trying to warn him but he was too late as Daejeong’s hand was faster than his warning.

Daejeong then pulled the arrow from the monster’s head. It wasn’t and ordinary-looking arrow, It was a short and black. Daejeong looked at the arrow confused by its unique appearance.

“He was right.” He said to himself in a low voice.

The arrowhead had a broken tip. Arrow tips normally had a triangular shaped spade but the one he was looking at was covered with a black material that came from inside of the monster’s body. Its armor was shiny and clean. But, as he took a closer, he saw a little crooked handwriting on the monster’s armor.

“Hey, don’t touch it… If you were going to take it out then you should have done it slowly. What level is this monster anyway?” Chunghwan said.

There weren’t any traces of the arrows’ owner. There seemed to be a warning written on it but it was already too late to consider that as Daejeong had already taken it out and touched it. He then took a deep breath and looked around the area where the monster was slumbering.

“It looks like there’s just this one room…The inside is completely ragged…”

Jolhu said.

He was then called to use his knife to scrape samples from the hole of the monster that the arrow was pulled out of.

Miyeong watched them while feeling terribly anxious.

“Where are we going now?” Daejeong asked.

“It doesn’t matter, we still have today’s monster to deal with…” Answered the group’s leader.

“This wasn’t much of a successful mission.”

Said Daejeong who pulled the arrow out of the monster’s head with his bare hands.

“It’s getting cold. we have about 2 hours left to get back on time…”

“Gosh! I guess we have to hurry and just leave it here.”

“How about the others gathering things this late at night, they’re moving along well, right?” One of the members asked.

“I hope so. Damn.. Let’s just call it a day..” Daejeong said throwing the arrow on the ground venting his anger. But, that turned out to be a big mistake.

Bangg!

Something white, sharp and plastic passed by his head along with a huge gust of wind.

“Argh!”

Chunghwan then scream in pain placing his hands on his head as he sunk to the floor in pain. Luckily he was wearing a helmet so the injury wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But the pain was still nearly unbearable.

His scream alerted the others of the attack. They immediately got into action but stopped as they saw something on top of the monster’s head.

It was like a giant falcon. It had a strange red light coming from out of its entire body and it seemed to have grown almost 10 times bigger after it stood up. It was actually a well known monster that had the ability to create illusions upon its victims. The falcon’s body was clad in armor and there was a sign hanging from its neck that caught the group’s attention.

‘The second warning: Irritate it and deal with the consequences. -Owner, Bheak.’

“Damn it…”

He realized then why it attacked him in the first place making him feel frustrated because of his own carelessness. He looked into the sharp eyes of the giant monster as he slowly took a few timid steps away. He wanted to fight back but by the rumors he had heard, this monster was not something he wanted to mess with. He heard that a raid team attacked it while it was mad and lost most of their fingers as a warning to not bother it again. Or else.

That could have been just a rumor but, there was also good a chance that its owner would track them down and attack them as well if they irritated the monster. There was a saying that an arrow to the foot would make a third tier monster quiet. But they didn’t want to take such a big risk, they would rather have to calmly end the raid.

“Let’s go.”

Daejeong said and they all then went back without a sense of hesitation.

Although he was angry that all of their efforts went to waste, at least they were still alive.

He thought about what people said about the arrow’s owner and erased his prints off of it before leaving it behind…

Or else he could become his next target.

Prologue, The end.