Magus: Rise of the Darkness Empress

It was a very normal day for the inhabitants of the Souran village. As winter was already at their doors, they were not able to farm anymore.

So the men of the village were spending most of their times preparing to hunt beasts in the forest while the women were creating various handcrafted items from wood to earn some extra cash during this terrible season.

As all of them were busy with whatever task they were doing, suddenly they heard the growl of an angry beast.

At first, none of them were worried as hearing the roaring of beasts was quite common in this area because the forest was located just outside the village. And the lord’s family also kept a few beasts inside their castle for one reason or another.

That was why no one was worried at first. But when the roars of the beasts started to increase in both ferocity and volume, they suddenly started to get scared.

”The roar of the beasts are getting louder and louder, will we be fine ?”

”What kind of terrific beast can inflicte this much ferocity even when it is so far away ?”

In this situation, several men came out of their house while holding whatever weapon that they had. The ladies of the village were also worriedly looking outside from the windows.

After a few very tense minutes when no one knew about what to do, a man in a somewhat dishevelled attire was seen coming toward the village. He also had a bloodstained sword in his hand.

This man was a very familiar face to the villagers. That was because he was the only person from the lord’s castle with whom the villagers had a good relationship with. He was none other than the butler of the lord’s castle, Robin.

The other people of the castle including the lord and his family had a very bad reputation in the outside world.

The reason for this reputation was their arrogant and cruel behaviour. The only exception to this was the little mistress of the castle.

First of all, the little mistress was just too cute and beautiful so people naturally had a soft spot for her.

Secondly, she had not interacted with the villagers much, so they had not build up any negetive image of hers for the time being.

But the main reason why the villagers did not hate the little mistress was because they had seen what kind of terrible treatment she had suffered everyday.

When she was thrown out in the snow while being naked and wet, many villagers had noticed it.

This incident had actually made the reputation of the baron to become even worse. No one liked to see a cute little girl getting tortured like this except for some freaks.

But still, as Robin had been interacting with the villagers for a long time and he had never acted haughtily with them, his reputation was still very good. So after seeing him, the villagers were able to calm down a little.

But this calm did not last for even a moment. That was because as soon as butler Robin saw the villagers, he gave them a very bad news.

”Lord Patrick Souran had died in the hands of the beast.”

This was a news that the villagers had a hard time believing. Even though he was not a good person in the people’s heart, his strength as an official knight was still the pillar of hope for the villagers.

Regular beasts were nothing before an official knight. This was a very common knowledge in this world that even little children knew about. So only a monster beast was able to match a knight in strength.

Monster beasts were mutation of regular beasts who had also managed to tap into their life force just like the knights.

But unlike knights, they could only instinctively used this life force to nourish their bodies a little and nothing more. So most monster beasts were also weaker than a real knight.

So the only situation where an official knight could die against monster beast was if the attacking monster beast was a special evolution and was super strong or if the amount of monster beasts that had attacked was way too high.

No matter which one of the two options was true, it was a very bad news for the villagers. That was why most of them were trying to believe that Butler Robin was just joking with them.

But with all the roars of the beasts still ringing in their ears, they all started to realise that butler Robin had no reason to lie to them.

Actually lying about the death of a noble could even get him killed. He was actually being kind by risking his life to inform the villagers about this unfortunate news.

As soon as the villagers realised this, fear immediately gripped their hearts.

If those powerful beasts now attacked the village, they would have no chance of staying alive.

But just as the villagers were about to sink into the depths of despair, suddenly butler Robin gave them a lifeline and hope.

He told them -

”Even though baron Souran is already dead, there is another wondering knight who is currently fighting the powerful monster beast. And that knight is even stronger the lord baron himself.”

This new information again made the villagers hopeful. Seeing this butler Robin told them why he was here.

He wanted some of the villagers to come with him to support this wondering knight with arrows from long distance.

Even though the villagers were powerless to defeat this monster beast, they could at least play the role of a diversion with the arrows.

This could distract the beast, which in turn, could give the knight a chance to land a killing blow on the monster beast.

Normally no one would be happy to suddenly go to a battlefield where a superhuman individual had already died.

But if the wandering knight was also defeated by this monster beast, then all their hope would be lost. So a majority of the villagers followed Robin to see if somehow they could be of any assistance.

As for running away, no one even though of that idea. Firstly, they were in the middle of nowhere with a scary forest surrounding them. The village at least had a spiky fence to block the beasts.

If the left the village perimeter, there was very high possibility that they would become beast food very soon afterwards.

So struggling against a beast alongside a proper knight gave them a higher chance of survival than just running away. That was why most of the villagers followed behind Robin without any questions or hesitation.