Cheat Awakening

"Yeah, we would\'ve known without you telling us in the first place, Boss. We\'re not rookies who need a reminder on every small thing. Just relax."

"Sigh, you said that last time as well, and we literally got killed by Orcs."

We\'re a B Rank Adventurer party called \'The Soaring Wind\'. We\'re not a well-known or powerful adventurer party, just one of the random parties doing various missions to make a living in the Augusta Kingdom.

From the Guild, we received a special mission to confirm whether the rumours about demons starting an invasion in this kingdom are true or not.

If the rumours are true, our objective is to investigate the current situation in the Oose Kingdom, make a detailed report, and send it back. Also, if possible, protect those who can still be rescued.

The Soaring Wind consists of the so-called standard six-member party.

The team consists of a shield role(Tanker), also known as a meat shield by the mainstream because always being in front in every battle, the mortality rate is very high and you can understand what I mean, not a good job, to tell the truth.

Two main attackers, one who uses a sword and shield and the other who wields two poisoness daggers and has good knowledge about poison. Both are considered proficient in combat, and their skills are also quite good.

An Explorer (Seeker), as he likes to call himself, but everyone knows he\'s just a hunter. He has sensing and smelling skills and, with his hunting experience, is very skilled at finding hume or monster traces, making him very valuable for the party.

And finally, a Magic User (Caster). She also has healing skill, which makes up for the lack of a healer position. Other than healing, she can also cast various types of attack spells. To tell the truth, I am very envious about it. After all, who doesn\'t like magic, which is not only very easy to use but also many times more powerful than a sword attack? She is the core member of the party.

Long ago... let\'s see, this party has been active for more than five years. It is still hard to believe that all of us have survived five continuous years without losing anyone. In most adventurer parties, not losing any party members within a year can be considered a miracle in itself.

Huh? What? About me? Well, I\'m the main damage dealer, a real sword master and the leader of this party.

This time around, there were two reasons as to why we accepted such a dangerous, you could also say suicidal mission.

The first reason was the rewards and Guild Points were too amazing to pass up.

This mission would be a long-term commitment as it seemed that demons were involved, but I had never seen a mission offering such a high reward. It is literally throwing money in our faces, if only we could complete this mission and return in one piece, of course.

If we were to complete this mission and earn the Guild Points, our Adventurer Rank would jump from B to A, a direct promotion. Normally, it would take a huge amount of Guild Points to go from Rank B to A.

Also, you must maintain a consistent track record to earn everyone\'s trust. This is not easy; if you get hurt during a mission and have to take a long vacation, you have to restart the entire process, which is why there are not many A Rank Adventurer Parties.

Killing two birds with one stone, that was the reason why we accepted the mission without any hesitation; it was just too attractive.

And another reason was that the mission we received this time involved the invasion of the Oose Kingdom, which happened to be one of our party member\'s hometown—The Seeker (Hunter).

When he heard about his hometown being invaded, he couldn\'t remain silent. After all, no one can ignore his family in a dangerous situation.

If we were to ignore this mission, he might decide to go there all by himself. With his strength, there is a 99% chance that our miraculous achievement of not losing any members for the past five years would come to an end.

Since the rewards were good, we were helping a party member and strengthening our bonds, getting promotions in rank, this kind of rare chance of killing three birds with one stone really hard to ignore.

"Having spent five years together and surviving life and death situations, I wouldn\'t let a friend of mine face something like this alone."

This is what I said during the party meeting, moving everything to tears, and dragging everyone on this mission.

"After this cliff, we should be able to see Mildo Town, where I was born. Believe me, you guys will definitely like it. Pimas, if you\'re interested, I can introduce you to my aunt. She\'s a young widow with a godly face and figure, kind, skilled in all kinds of housework, and her cooking surpasses even that of royal chefs.

Didn\'t you mention recently that you were thinking of finding a good girlfriend for yourself? Why not give my aunt a try?"

After The Seeker spoke, he flashed a smile at Pimas, the dagger user, and quickened his pace toward the edge of the cliff.

"If what you mentioned is true, then why not? Missing out on such a perfect woman would make me the stupidest man alive," Pimas casually replied as he walked alongside everyone.

Then, as we gazed over the cliff, Seeker, who had been cheerful just moments ago, let out a sharp cry before tumbling to the ground.

"Th-this is... how can this possible..."

Sensing that something was amiss, we all rushed towards Seeker, who was kneeling at the cliff\'s edge.

What we beheld was beyond comprehension.

"Wh-what\'s wrong... I\'m certain Mildo Town is just beyond this cliff," Seeker\'s trembling voice escaped him as if he hadn\'t even noticed our presence.

The scene that lay before us was the ruins of what was once Mildo Town, consumed by a raging fire.

"This is truly dire," I muttered unconsciously.

Upon closer inspection, the town\'s buildings were scattered in ruins, and it was difficult to believe that such devastation could be solely attributed to a fire.

"Hey, Boss... This has to be the result of a Demon invasion, right?" The meat shield, I mean Tank in our party started asking me.

"Yeah, while I can\'t make a definitive judgment without concrete evidence, the likelihood is rather high. Furthermore, judging by the appearance of it, it seems like no one has survived,"

As I said that, Seeker thrust his fist angrily onto the ground, tears started falling from his eyes.

"Why! Why, why, why, why!!!" While screaming, he continued punching the ground.

His fists were ripped, and blood was scattered everywhere, but he did not stop.

I watched him for a while since stopping him now would be useless, and let him vent his anger, but Tanker thought this was getting out of hand, so he pulled his arms away.

"I know how you feel right now, but you better stop doing that immediately."

I left the crying Seeker to Tanker, and Caster first cast a healing skill on Seeker before starting to discuss our next objective. Stay connected with m-v l|e\'-NovelBin.net

Speaking of Caster, she is the most thoughtful and calm when it comes to making judgments among all of us. If not for her introverted nature and reluctance to socialize with others, I might have lost my position a long time ago.

"What should we do right now?"

"Let\'s see, there is no doubt that the Demon Invasion is the most likely scenario. What I mean is whether we should proceed from here onwards."

"Hmm, that is true. But what about the survivors? What are your thoughts on that?"

"To be honest, I don\'t have much hope that anyone has survived this kind of disaster. Though, it will be worth searching further into this. If there are any survivors, and we didn\'t search for them just because we thought there wouldn\'t be any, then they would truly end up dead."

Either way, the Guild did request us to rescue any remaining survivors, and there is an extra reward if we manage to rescue them. But of course, I\'m not doing this solely for the reward.

"Okay, let\'s hurry up and search the town. Let\'s rescue them even if there\'s only one survivor left."

Making our decisions, I ordered everyone, and Seeker, who had been crying until now, was the first to rush to the site of Mildo Town.

"Ooooi, I didn\'t ask you to go alone, you idiot!"

There might still be some Demons lurking around. Moving alone without power is nothing more than sending demons their toy.

Hastily, we ran and chased after Seeker.

...

"How is it, anyone?"

"There\'s nobody..."

We had been walking around the town searching for people for almost two hours.

When I looked at it from the top of the cliff, I couldn\'t quite make it out as it was too far, but a lot of bodies were scattered throughout the site of Mildo Town.

Elderly men, young women, small children – everyone was dead...

They would\'ve been living happily if not for the invasion of those cursed Demons.

Every corpse seemed to be suffering with a despairing expression.

The ones who suffered the most were the women. They were not directly killed like the men or children. Instead, they were first used as playthings by the demon army until they lost all value or died during intense activities. After all, a normal demon stands at around 2 meters in height, and the elite ones are all 3 to 4 meters tall.

You can understand just how cruelly those women suffered before their death.

Small piles of women can be seen everywhere. These damn beasts didn\'t even spare little girls. However, the number of women is still significantly lower compared to men and children. Seems like they took the rest of the women with them to use as breeding machines.

"This is painful, but... let\'s withdraw for now," I said desperately, calling out to Seeker, who was meticulously searching the town.

Suddenly, Seeker cried out, "I... I can hear someone! Boss, I can hear someone crying!!"

"What? There\'s still a survivor!"

Upon hearing my voice, everyone rushed towards Seeker.

"Over there!" Seeker ran toward the direction of the weeping sound.

Naturally, we followed immediately.

"I can hear the crying from here! Hey! Are you alive? Can you hear me? We\'re coming to save you right now!!!!"

Indeed, from behind a collapsed building, I could hear a small child crying.

We split up and began removing the rubble, knowing that if it collapsed, the child might not survive.

Carefully and swiftly, we proceeded with the removal work.

... Approximately 40 minutes had passed by then."

Finally, we were able to save a girl who appeared to be around 5 years old from the collapsed rubble.

"He is probably the father of this child."

Hugging the girl tightly until his last breath, a man who had taken his final breath after we had saved the girl was also discovered within the rubble.

We quietly offered a silent prayer for the father who had desperately protected his child from the debris.

"Papa! Papaaaaa!" The girl, her face smudged with soot, screamed at her already cold father.

"I won\'t forgive, I\'ll never forgive this...."

I\'m not the Seeker, and the people in this town had nothing to do with me, but I will absolutely not allow the Demons to go scot-free after committing such a horrific act.

Tired of crying, we let the girl sleep and left her in the care of a caster. We then made a tomb to bury her father, who had admirably protected his child.

"We don\'t even know his name, but what a courageous man."

"I promise that we\'ll take your daughter to our kingdom safely. So, please be at ease...and rest in peace..."

After offering prayers for the girl\'s father and those who had died in vain in this town, we decided to hurry back to the kingdom.