Dungeon Raider System
Chapter 727 - 727: Not prey Part 1

Nika was less than satisfied with the explanation she received from Uriel and she also suspected something strange was going on with him. He was overly aggressive to her while being extra nice to Elara. It bothered her, but more than that it left her puzzled and she only became more dazed when Luna simply nodded and retreated to her room like nothing happened.

It would have been one thing if she at least said something before parting, but she did not such thing and limited herself to meekly disappear from the scene.

"Something's not right here, I'm telling you." Nika said to Bella who had yet to recover from her encounter with the cryptid.

"Tell that to someone who cares. They're feeding us, housing us and they're even training Uriel. I don't see anything wrong with whatever clothes they decided to put on. If Sage says we should go back to the city, then that's the end of it."

"No, I refuse to do something like that. He's always been... not evil but a bit mean to me. It's sort of our thing, but this goes beyond that. He threatened me with violence!"

"Can you blame him? From what you said it seems you walked in on him while he was having the time of his life." Bella shrugged dismissively.

"The time of his life? He was getting whipped!"

"What can I say? That sort of thing does sound nice to someone who rarely experiences anything with the sense of touch."

"You're useless... you can go back for all I care but I'm not leaving this place until I find out what's going on." Nika declared as she left the house and walked in to the nearest group of people she found, though when she approached them they immediately disbanded and went their own way.

The same thing repeated over and over, leaving Nika with no choice but to use her trait and melt with the shadows from an unseen corner and try to eavesdrop on the passerby.

It took a while, but since she had nothing else to do she just waited until two hunters passed by.

"It happened again and this time Elara isn't even pretending to be addressing the matter, she's just playing with her toy boy." One of the hunters said. Nika couldn't see him, but judging by his deep voice she assumed it had to be someone with a big frame.

"Don't say something like that out loud, who knows who might be listening!" The other replied.

"I could care less about that, he was my friend!" The first hunter growled.

"He was my friend too, you know. But she did bring a doctor."

"It's her daughter and in case you didn't notice, she's just a kid. Just because she says she's a doctor doesn't mean she's any good at her job."

'How dare they!?' Nika inwardly cursed and decided to follow them by blinking from one shadow to the next. Keeping track of the hunters location was difficult since their lantern was dim and it took her a couple tries, but she eventually merged with one of their shadows.

Unfortunately to her, they were about to head into the woods which meant she was taken outside the city and into the forest. Being so far from any light source other than the one of the hunters made it impossible for her to blink back to town without revealing her presence.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Zac?" One of them asked.

"It's not like we have much of a choice." Zac replied pointing at his necklace.

"Guess, you're right." The other man shrugged and they continued walking further inside the forest until they seemingly heard the crack of a branch at a distance and slowed down for a stealthy approach.

In the middle of a clearing three deer roamed around, grassing harmlessly completely unaware of the predators watching them from the distance.

The light cast by the moonlight was barely enough to spot the innocent creatures, but the hunters seemed to be able to see them nonetheless and the reason for that soon became obvious when one of them turned into a hulking creature with brown fur and powerful limbs.

Watching this transformation shook Nika to the core as it implied there were more werewolves in town and it also opened up the possibility that all townsmen could be hybrids. Things were already bad enough, but they took a turn for the worse when Zac also transformed into a werewolf and stopped the first and gestured him to wait.

Zac's fur was of a lustrous black and his bulging muscles gave him a menacing appearance, though it wasn't the size of his claws or fangs what frightened Nika who remained on the shadows, but the fact that out of the three deer two stood up and started walking on their hind legs.

They moved like humans, though instead of balancing their weight with their arms they used their antlers instead making it seem as though they headbutted the air with each step. The strange creatures sniffed the air, showing a glimpse of their fangs hiding behind a seemingly harmless maw.

The two werewolves then retreated and went back to town, chatting on their way how annoying it was that cryptids mimicked animals like it wasn't the single most terrifying thing a person could have ever seen in their entire lives.

Nika could barely contain her emotions anymore and she rushed into Elara's home the minute she felt safe to do so, then she used her trait to creep out of Uriel's shadow. Just like the night before, he had passed out due to the exhaustion caused by his training with Luna's mother, but that didn't prevent him from waking up the minute Nika appeared from his shadow.

"I warned you that the next time you did this I'd kick you out." His eyes glimmered the second he opened them, but when he noticed Nika's flustered face he softened his expression.

"We need to leave." Nika said as her teeth clattered.