My Roleplay System
Chapter 97: Moonbright City

Chapter 97: Chapter 97: Moonbright City

As the group appeared on the teleportation platform, Lake and the rest took a moment to readjust their senses.

"Welcome to Moonbright City. Please step off the platform as other travelers are waiting to be transferred over."

Listening to the gentle voice of the receptionist, everyone soon walked off the platform.

Behind him, Lake could see that as soon as they left, another group had arrived through the platform.

The receptionist repeated her words as the group walked off as another brilliant light flashed and another group appeared.

"I say, Moonbright City is quite busy today. The teleportation portals are not usually used that often." Landur spoke as he watched the brilliant flashing light.

"It’s natural. A few days from now is the city’s Moon Bright Festival. All these people are probably coming here to rent a hotel early." Hana had an envious expression on her face as she spoke.

"The Moon Bright Festival?" Landur and Jayce both looked over curiously.

Lake was also curious when he heard it and listened closely. He had only done a little bit of research on the city itself as he knew they weren’t going to be staying here long.

Hana looked up with a slightly smug expression.

"The Moon Bright Festival is one of the biggest events on the continent. On the day of the festival, brilliant Moonlight shines down onto the city turning it into a silver wonderland. Various activities and stalls are set up throughout the city creating an almost amusement park like experience."

As she reached this point, her eyes had turned slightly dreamy, "It is also known for its wonderful atmosphere for couples. The silver light is extremely beautiful and makes for the perfect backdrop to a lot of romantic activities. Most couples usually come here either to experience their honeymoon or straight up propose."

As Landur and Jayce heard this, they were slightly amazed before they suddenly felt gloom.

"Sigh, it’s a shame we won’t be able to experience the festive activities. We’ll have to return to the academy as soon as we finish the mission."

"Urrghh, yet another opportunity for fun wasted because of school."

Lake nodded slightly to their words, looking like he agreed to whatever it is they were saying, but in reality, his mind was on another matter.

"You said moonlight cascades down onto the land turning it into a silver wonderland. Do you know the cause for this phenomenon?"

Hana was slightly stunned by Lake’s question. Although she knew a lot about the city because of the festival, she didn’t know anything about the cause of the moonlight as she was never interested in it.

Luckily, Gwen came to her rescue.

"It’s a natural mana phenomenon that formed over Moonbright City around thirty years ago. The mana seems to act as a lens that amplifies the moonlight which creates the silver light effect."

Lake was enlightened when he heard it as he nodded his head. He was slightly interested in the phenomenon and wanted to research it a little bit more later.

"I don’t get it. If the festival is so big, how come I’m only now hearing about it?" Jayce asked.

"It’s because the Moon Bright Festival only happens once every three years so not many people know about it." Hana answered with a thoughtful expression, "Also, Moonbright City has only gotten popular in recent years. It was only a few years ago that they started doing large scale advertisements after making enough money from the previous festivals, planning to make this one the biggest one yet. By the time the advertisement came out, all of us would have been in our first year at the academy."

Hearing this, Jayce nodded defeatedly. The academy had truly taken away too much of his youth, but in return, it granted him a far higher level of strength compared to his peers so he guessed it was an even trade off.

Lake didn’t say anything. Although he was interested in the natural mana phenomenon, he had more important things to worry about right now.

"Alright, let’s do one last gear check before we head out." Gwen spoke, bringing the group back to focus.

After everyone made sure their gear was in order, they headed out and took a bus to the edge of the city.

This time, Lake was given a proper weapon by the academy since hunting monsters was an extremely dangerous task. Although they may treat their students like slaves on a usual day, the instructors and the academy had always valued the students and sending someone out to die wasn’t something they were going to do.

His previous training gauntlets were replaced by a much sharper and stronger set, allowing him to more easily rip into his enemies’ flesh.

He was also given a set of protective armor that was strong enough to block a few blows from a Rank Two monster.

Finally, he used some of his points to purchase an enhanced compound bow. It had an empowering mana rune on it and was made out of a mix of metal and Rank Two monster bones and tendons. Although the bow required a strength index of around 8~10 to draw, the power it could unleash was enough to kill most of the weaker Rank Two monsters in one shot and heavily injure some of the stronger ones.

Once the group arrived at the edge of the city, they got off the bus and started walking into the wilderness on foot.

The first group of monsters they decided to tackle were the group of Rank One Ambush Fangs as they were the closest to the city and also the weaker of the two groups.

They had taken up residence in a forest where they used the cover of the trees to blend into the environment and mimic the ambient sounds of the forest.

The woods were around fifty miles out but with everyone’s high fitness index, they covered the distances within just an hour.

When they arrived outside the forest, Lake noticed the subtle change in everyone’s mood.

The foolish and joking atmosphere that they usually gave off was now replaced by a much more hardened and cautious feeling.

In an instant, the group of four that Lake had interacted with a few times finally felt like a set of veteran hunters who had gone through numerous battles.

"Lake, take the lead and scout the area ahead. Since you’re the scout, we’ll be following a few steps behind you. Try to stay hidden as much as possible and avoid fighting head on. If you’re spotted, try to lure the monsters towards us instead. Use your wristband to send information instead of coming back to us."

Gwen gave Lake his orders immediately as she looked to the rest of the group.

"Everyone else, we’ll be moving slow and following behind Lake. We’ll track him on our wristband so focus on your surroundings instead of trying to follow behind him. This time we’re up against a group of ambush predators. Vigilance is key if we wish to walk out of this fight uninjured."

Hearing Gwen’s orders, everyone nodded with solemn expressions.

Seeing this, Gwen turned to Lake before nodding her head.

In an instant, Lake’s presence faded from the senses of the four before he quickly disappeared into the tree lines of the dense forest.

Although the group was slightly surprised by Lake’s stealth skills, the hunt had already begun so they refrained from commenting on it as they instead focused on their surroundings.

....

Lake dashed through the branches of the trees, his Parkour Master skill and Master of Stealth skill being used to their full effects.

His sixth sense was also pushed to its limits as Lake paid full attention to his surroundings.

As he moved through the trees, Lake was reminded of his time inside the Garden. He had also moved through the woods like this at the time and was also on the hunt for the creatures inside.

The only difference between then and now was the increase in his combat power and abilities.

Shaking his head, Lake focused on the surroundings as he felt the presence of two large creatures within his sixth sense range.

Stopping, he moved over slowly as he observed the two creatures from a distance.

He was currently looking at a pair of trees next to each other, the sound of crickets played throughout the area. If one were to take a casual glance at the two trees, they wouldn’t notice anything unusual, but on closer inspection, you could barely see the outline of two figures blending almost seamlessly into the surroundings.

They each lay separately on the branches of the two trees, the strands of fate above their heads a clear indicator to their position in Lake’s eyes.

When Lake saw them, he instinctively knew that he could kill them. This wasn’t him being over confident in his abilities or underestimating the two creatures, but with the support of his Assassination Skill, he could always roughly gauge whether he could kill a target in one attack or not.

However, despite his own thoughts, he still used his wristband to send a message to the group, alerting them of the two enemies’ position.

Soon, he received his orders as he took out his bow.

Nocking an arrow, he aimed carefully at one of the two invisible creatures.

Breathing in, he stabilized his aim before silently using his sixth sense to keep track of the movements of his own team a few meters away.

When Lake sensed the signal, he released his grip on the arrow.

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Splat!

Thud!

Two arrows flew at almost the exact same time, nailing the two creatures in the head. However, one of the arrows seemed to contain far too much power, flying straight through the skull of one of the creatures before sticking to the tree trunk behind it.

Once the arrows had passed through the head of the two creatures, their invisibility quickly faded before the two creatures’ bodies dropped limply to the floor.

Their colorful scales that covered their bodies were revealed as their ferocious panther-like heads had blood dripping from the arrows in them.

Realizing that he had used too much strength, Lake silently made a note to himself as he moved up to inspect the corpses of the two monsters after confirming there was no danger in the surroundings.

The rest of the group also moved forward to inspect the two corpses.

Lake was the first to arrive as he grabbed the two strands of fate.

Landur walked up after as he squatted down to inspect the corpses while the rest of the group kept watch on the surroundings.

Taking out some simple tools, he started to dissect the Ambush Fang’s corpse.

Landur had taken a lot of classes in Monster Anatomy which allowed him to know exactly how to dissect the corpses of most creatures.

The reason why he learned this was that a lot of things can be learned out in the field by just dissecting and analyzing the corpse of a creature and that was exactly what he was doing right now.

In a hunt, information is key. The more you know about your prey, the easier you can kill it and leave the hunt uninjured, which is always the ultimate goal of a hunter.

After around half an hour, the two corpses that were slightly smaller than an actual panther, were reduced to a bloody mess of skin and bones with several organs neatly arranged on the side.