Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

The man in the front flinched and took a step back upon seeing a group of people sitting in the destroyed area. He looked at them for a moment, then his eyes stopped on the greatsword in the deputy team leader's hands.

"W-Who?"

They were standing far away, but both of them paled after seeing the sharp blade of the greatsword. They started walking back while looking at the crowd with fear.

"Hmm?"

Seeing their reaction, the two men didn't seem to know who they were. They also seemed clueless about what had happened here. However, it looked like they knew about the ruin. 

Looking at their appearance, the two men looked like ordinary people. Of course, they couldn't let their guards down because of the people's appearance, but it didn't seem like they had to use violence just yet.

The unit members exchanged glances with each other for a brief moment.

Then, deputy team leader Bray stood up. She thrust her sword into the ground, leaned against its handle, and opened her mouth.

"What if you guys tell us who you are first?"

"UH? Uh- We are sorry."

The men gulped while looking at her sharp sword and shivered. 

Deputy team leader Bray tilted her head slightly and smiled.

"Oh, no. Don't be scared. We just want to talk."

"...."

"...."

Her soft smile might have looked rather scary to the two men as they paled even more. They looked at each other then looked at the people again. 

The people wich were sitting in the center of the destroyed area had weapons with them. In addition to that, their clothes were torn and tattered as if they had just come out of a fight. 

It was obvious that they had something to do with the plain's devastated state!

They stood there for a moment before one of them hesitantly started to talk.

"D-don't harm us, please. We are only villagers. We came here after seeing some l-lights and hearing weird sounds. Please. We have a family and children. P-please."

"Ah?"

Rai got up at the moment and stood between the deputy team leader and the two men. He hurriedly waved his hands in the air and started talking whit a bright smile on his lips.

"Calm down calm down. Of course, we won't hurt you. Can you just answer our questions?"

"...."

"...."

The two men looked between Rai and the deputy team leader. Then they looked at the others. A man was playing with two daggers and a teenage girl was sitting on the ground next to him. Near her was a handsome young man with torn clothes and next to him was a half-sleep dude. And at the rear of the group a man was standing with folded arms and staring at them.

They exchanged glances before hesitantly nodding their heads.

"W-we will answer. Just don't hurt us."

"Yes. Please."

The two of them didn't have much choice. It was obvious that those people were stronger than them. They even had weapons. It wasn't like they could harm that group of strangers or run away from them. They could only helplessly obey them.

"You can come a little bit closer. We promise we won't hurt you."

Rai smiled once again while saying that. The two men looked at him and shook their heads, not moving an inch.

Team leader Dains then started talking while looking at them. 

"You said you were villagers. Is there a village near here?"

One of the men, that had a beard and curly hair, answered his question.

"Y-yes. There is a village on the other side of that hill. We live-"

He suddenly stopped talking and looked at the team leader with shaky eyes.

"W-why are you asking about the village? You... You are not going to d-do anything to our v-village. Are you?"

"Sigh."

Team leader Dains sighed once before signaling something to Rai with his eyes.

Rai looked at him and slightly nodded his head. He turned towards the two men and talked with a smile.

"Guys, I told you we are not here to hurt anyone. There must be a misunderstanding."

He then took one step forward and slowly approached the two men. Rai walked towards them with an innocent face while taking something out of his pocket.

The two of them flinched and took one step back, but didn't run away and watched Rai approach. Rai stopped a few meters away from them and held what was in his hand in front of the two men. He was holding a badge.

"Look. We are from a hunters guild, Crimson Blade. You've also heard of it, right? We are pretty famous."

"Ah?"

"C-crimson Blade?"

The two men blinked once before looking closely at the badge. It was a badge indicating Rai's position in a guild called Crimson Blade as a support type hunter. 

They looked between Rai and the picture on the badge for a few seconds. 

"Y-you guys are hunters from that guild?"

"Yes. So you've heard of us."

"C-crimson Blade is famous even in small villages..."

"Haha."

Rai chuckled and lowered his hand that was holding the badge.

"We were fighting a huge monster just before you came. It was too strong. That hole in the ground, that monster came out of that hole."

"R-really?"

"Yeah. There, you can also see the monster's body parts."

Rai pointed at the monster's body parts that were slowly turning to dust.

After hearing those explanations, the two men's expressions seemed to relax a little bit.

"I see. So what we heard must have been you guys fighting the monster."

Rai nodded his head, a bright smile still visible on his lips.

"Yeah. That light you saw was probably our mage's magic."

"Oh!"

"I didn't know that... sorry for the misunderstanding."

"It's alright."

Rai put back the badge saying that it was natural to make such a mistake and brought the two men closer. 

'Crimson Blade?'

Crimson Blade is a famous hunters guild in Hainston. It is considered one of the best guilds in the country, if not the best one. The guild wasn't a newfound one and had a long history for itself. It had been around for too long, maybe even more than a hundred years. There was barely someone who didn't know their name.

'How does Rai have their badge?'

Kairen tilted his head while looking at Rai casually showing his badge. The badge also didn't seem to be a fake one. 

Seeing his confused expression, Reyan chuckled and whispered something.

"That guild, Crimson Blade, works under SMF. They are connected to each other by a contract. As one of the conditions of their collaboration, it officially signs a contract and gives the Special Forces members and some other SMF members a badge. These badges are used in situations when the unit doesn't want its identity to be exposed. There are pretty a lot of such organizations working with SMF."

"I didn't know that..."

Kairen was quite surprised. He didn't know there were things like that. 

"Well, it's a secret that only a few people know."

Kairen narrowed his eyes and raised one of his eyebrows.

"How do you know about it then?"

Kairen looked at Reyan with suspicious eyes. This dude seemed to know about any kind of weird things and a lot of information that were supposed to be secrets. 

Reyan looked at him and sighed. He mumbled something about how his poor friend still couldn't remember lots of things under his lips and looked at Kairen with pitying eyes.

'What?'

Reyan didn't care about Kairen's grumpy face and said again in a low voice.

"My family knows almost everything."

"Y-your family..."

Reyan nodded.

"The Heartz family."

"Ah!"

Kairen had heard a little bit about this family from here and there, but he still didn't know much about them. He didn't know who they were and what they did. He just knew that Reyan was from a cool and strong family.

"But, is it okay to talk about those things with us so casually if they are supposed to be secrets?"

"I don't understand why it shouldn't be."

Reyan said that while slightly tilting his head.

'Why? Because they are secrets!'

Kairen opened his mouth to say that, but he stopped talking when he heard the team leader's voice.

"So there is a village around here."

The two men that were now much more closer to the group answered his question.

"Yes. We live in the village that is on the other side of the hill. It is a small village that is home for a small number of people."

"Has there been a lot of monsters here recently? Have you seen or heard any weird things around here?"

The bearded man thought for a moment before answering.

"No. There weren't any in the past few years. This place had been quiet and peaceful for a while."

"What about before that?"

"Some strong monsters do appear here from time to time. But they aren't much."

"Who takes care of the monsters?"

"Some guild hunters. They sometimes come themselves and sometimes we request their help."

Team leader Dains then pointed at the destroyed ruin.

"Do you know anything about that place?"

The two men looked at each other. They seemed hesitant for a moment before the bearded man answered again.

"...We don't know much... It's just a ruin that had been there for a while."

"For how long?"

"....I'm not sure... Maybe 200 years or so..."

"Hmm... So you don't know who does it belong to and why it was built?"

"N-No. How would we know about that?"

Team leader Dains frowned after hearing their answer, making the two villagers flinch slightly.

There was a moment of silence before team leader Dains started talking again with a slight smile and a softened tone.

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