The Raveners,as the system called them, were still distant, but getting closer with every flap of those long, scarred wings.
I kept my breathing low and steady, watching from the shadow of the ruin's overhang. I saw them properly as they got closer and their true size became clear.
Each of the four beasts was about the size of a small car.
But more appaling was what I saw when I looked at the face of the birds.
'Damn...how do you have turquoise fur, a slender face, and a regal beak and manage to look so...ugly?'
The birds had all the good features, but somehow managed to look hideous and terrifying. They looked so bad that even the Goblin duke managed to appear kind of handsome in comparison.
'That goblin duke, its nose really was a bane to its looks, but...the creature's body was pretty nice...those triceps and that juicy, lean six pack of abs...'
'....'
I instinctively stopped that train of thought as soon as it appeared and focused on the coming threat.
I then noticed their striking blue eyes weren't eyes at all. They were just differently colored patches of fur. Infact the abominations had no ears or even noses too. Not anywhere on their bodies, at least.
No eyes. No nose. No ears.
Where those features should have been, there was nothing but dirtied turquoise fur over the skull.
'How did natural selection even produce such creatures?'
Well, a lot of impossible things had happened so far,so Earth's reasoning was clearly not applicable to this world.
I had no idea how they navigated. I had no idea how they hunted. I only knew that they were somehow doing both.
Was it thanks to mana or some other force? Could I even counter whatever allowed them to do these seemingly impossible tasks.
I felt a familiar emotion creeping up on me.The fear of the unknown.
The lead one — the Level 9, the most ferocious of the flock — dipped its head in my direction.
The entire flock shifted. Not gradually but all at once. Their ugly faces turned toward me with an awful, unanimous precision. The lead Ravener let out a sound — not a screech, not a cry — something lower and more deliberate, almost like recognition. They began to descend.
Luster was still unconscious behind me. The small fire crackled quietly.I made a decision.
Fear and panic did not bode well when you had to develop a strategy.
I stopped being afraid. It was difficult,
But I had been in enough desperate situations in the last few days to understand the difference between fear and readiness, and I forced myself — deliberately, mechanically — to cross that line. I exhaled. I gripped the dagger. I let the fear go and replaced it with something colder and more useful:
the simple, focused intention to kill whatever came at me.
Then the flock suddenly lost focus. They continued in their chosen direction, but they didn't seem to be moving towards me.
They flew right past me, almost mockingly.
They simply continued along their merry way.
The camp, the fire, the unconscious boy, me — all of it apparently invisible to them now.
It was preposterous. The starved birds had weaker prey right in front of them, but for some reason chose to ignore it?
I almost felt hurt.
All that determination for nothing, well, maybe something. Perhaps my dagger had scared them off.
I watched them disappear beyond the ridge and didn't move for a long moment. Then I looked down at the dagger in my hand and let out a hoarse breath.
I was lucky.
For the first time in a long damned time had I had such a thought.
Luster stirred a few moments later.
He sat up fast, eyes wide, before he was even fully awake. He was drenched in sweat and was panting heavily. His head swung left, then right.
When he finally landed on me, some of the panic drained out of his face — not all of it, but enough.
"What— where..where are we?" He swallowed.
"Are we safe?"
"For now," I said, "We are currently in a ruin which offers us some protection. There are no threats inside."
I said objectively,my voice must have seemed a bit rough thanks to the exhaustion.
He nodded quickly. His knuckles were pale. He looked really unwell.
I then realised that the pupil looked no more than ten,was effectively kidnapped from his lifelong home, and was dragged and then carried by said kidnapper,who was responsible for his life now. It must have been rough.
"How are you doing?" I asked,mustering a slightly more pleasant tone.
He blinked. Seemed surprised by the question. "I'm fine."
'Why is he shocked? Does he think I am really a kidnapper of sorts? I am a man of great principals !'
I turned back towards the ridge where the birds were flying away and found myself thinking about the old man again.
About how he, despite his seemingly endless wisdom as an Oracle,had thought sending two people — one of them a literal child — into this stretch of wilderness was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Why?
There were others in the village,much more experienced than me. Why did he just not send them with us? That would have helped immensely. Even if the village was short-staffed, he could have arranged at least one man.
But he had sent me alone with a small child. Gave me no explanation beyond what was necessary.
Well,I'm sure it was something related to the "conditions".
Then what the hell were these "conditions" he seemed so obsessed about?
Luster then glanced where I was looking and spotted the birds flying away in the distance. He pinched his eyes and suddenly flinched back from the sight of the disturbing creatures and their appearance.
Sweat had begun to pour down his face, and his pupils dilated.
Well, the old man had described him as "wimp", so this reaction was to be expected.
Not that a less wimpy person would have managed to keep their calm in such circumstances.
I had just begun to explain the fact that the birds were no longer a threat-
It was then that I heard it — a sharp, hoarse screech cutting through the silence of the monotonous landscape.
One of the Raveners had turned back, likely making me look like an idiot for trying to explain that they had become harmless a moment earlier.
I could see it circling overhead, losing altitude with unsettling speed.
This time, it was heading straight for Luster.
As the dusk light landed on the oncoming bird, its form did look terrifying.
The boy had gone rigid the moment the sight of the bird reached him. His breathing had become shallow and audible, his face had become pale. The tremor I had noticed in his voice earlier had spread to the rest of him.
He was terrified. Completely, openly terrified.
Well, it was not his fault; the bird did look very ugly.
Just then, the diving bird seemed to become even more virulent. And I noticed the birds that had flown forward suddenly began to hesitate.They had now sensed them too.
I cleared my head.A realization began to dawn on me.
I moved without thinking, stepping between him and the descending shape, and in the same motion, I grabbed Luster by the collar and snapped,
"Stop. Whatever you are feeling right now — stop."
He blinked at me,but continued to keep most of his focus on the oncoming bird.
It was what I had realised.
"The fear," I said, quieter but no less firm. "Shut it down. Right now."
The Ravener was close enough now that I could feel the displaced air from its wings.
Then — just as it had done with me before — it faltered. Its trajectory shifted, ever so slightly.
The ugly as hell bird lost its conviction.
I kept my eyes on it and kept my own mind flat and cold and empty of everything that wasn't calculation.It veered off.
I exhaled slowly and turned back to Luster, who was staring at the sky with his mouth slightly open.
"They don't hunt by sight," I said, more to myself than to him, though I made sure he could hear it.
"They don't hunt by smell or sound either. They sense something else."
I paused, watching the distant shape of the bird rejoin its flock.
"Fear. Panic. Negative emotions — whatever name you want to give it. That is what draws them...I think"
Luster was quiet for a long moment.
"So if I am scared…"he started.
"Then you are finished." I finished.
Now that I think back to it, I wasn't the best motivator,was I?
Looking back at it now, maybe I should've talked to him nicer or explained more about the birds earlier. I wasn't the most eloquent man back then.
The boy looked no less terrified,showing that my words had no effect.
Then why had the bird flown away? Was my theory wrong? Were they really just disabled, confused birds?
An odious noise filled my ears and head. I looked back at the lone bird that had flown away. It was screaming a horrid howl with its head pointed vertically towards the endless clouds.
It had not retreated...
It was inviting its friends for a feast.