Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening

It was part of the new memo that teams had to to move with a minimum number of five person per team.

The location of the beats they were out to hunt weren't specified, they were only told the area where they were last seen.

With the coordination and hierarchy appearing amongst the beasts, they had started to move more carefully, even managing to avoid the camps monitoring.

Hence, a notice was attached not to take the information given to them at face level.

Fortunately for Ruby and some of the other recuits, this wasn't a major inconvenience. If anything, the camps information had never actually been accurate, with various variables coming into play.

She had long since learnt not to depend on it. Nonetheless, it had own usefulness in its own right, giving them an idea of what they were facing.

'This would explain things though'

Ruby thought, walking through the grassy planes with the other four recuits.

She considered the possibility that most of their mission had gone they way they did—out of plan, because of the change in monster hierarchy.

They had manged to gather forces without even the camp noticed, that foukd explain the reason why most of their missions were different from what their information described.

"We shouldn't have much of a problem with this, right?"

One of the three new faces cane up and said to Ruby who only nodded with a small smile.

For the sake of getting a feel for things first, she had gone with a rather low level mission.

Besides, she couldn't even pick the high value ones if she wanted.

The camp was using them, but they weren't just dunking them into the flame.

Most of the high danger missions weren't open to selection by the recruits. Specific teams had to be picked and sent on those by the camp.

The ones on those missions right now were the top guild and teams in the camp. They were the main force of the recruits in this battle.

Ruby and her teammates on the other hand were left to pick from the lesser missions.

That didn't make what they did any safer. Instead, it was they gambling their lives on matters that could very well be beyond their abilities.

The injury rate on normal missions was already high, but now, the mortality rate was about to reach new peaks.

For this reasons, Ruby had picked one of the relatively safer missions. She wasn't blinded by the rewards like some might have thought.

They were heading towards to a mountain quite far from the camp.

It was tall and rocky mountain, judging from the fact that they could see it from where they stood. A good thing considering that they wouldn't lose their way if anything happened.

"We should reach there by tomorrow morning. For mow watch out for any strays."

Ruby instructed her teammates, caressing the hilt of her blood red weapon. It was rare to see her hold it out I'm the open like that.

The four at her back didn't look too worried by her words. Strays had reduced, having fallen into submission to the stronger monsters and moving with them.

But that wasn't what Ruby worried about. They were stepping into monster territory again and they had no idea if an ambush was waiting in store for them before they reached their destination.

Her eyes kept flashing around, observing any movements in the grass plains, but luckily the other four didn't have any reasons to be alert

Through their journey, they didn't encounter a single beast.

For Ruby, the silence was absence of beasts was very unnerving. It felt like a dead man's land wherever they passed. The foreign feeling wasn't one she welcomed, but she barely showed it, maintaining a neutral expression on her face.

Her teammates though were rather relaxed about how things were going.

'Did I make a mistake?'

She thought, throwing a glance at them while rubbing her hands together to warm herself up.

In the extremely cold night, she had forbidden them from lighting a camp fire and they all agreed easily. From their experience, certain monsters were more active during night time and a fire was like a beacon, attracting them all to their spot.

'They don't seem too serious about this. Or maybe I should have asked them to tag along.'

She quietly observed the four around her who were chatting like this was nothing much.

Maybe because she was the only female there, but she felt out of place and wondered if she she should have invited Kieran and Jake instead.

She had just met these guys randomly. In fact, they had approached her using ... on her team and she had simply accepted.

'Either ways, it's too late to think about that now.'

She looked away from them and hugged her knees, closing her eyes to get some rest. They had planned to take the nights in shifts so it was best to sleep and regain some strength when she saw the chance to.

The night went by pretty quickly this time for Ruby and to her unwanted surprise, they had seen or sensed a single beast through the night.

It sounded like a good thing, but she was concerned nonetheless. Even on good days, they still encountered a few strays.

"It's time, let's head out!"

She called out to the rest, brushing her flowing red hair behind her ears.

Strange enough, the cold still persisted even after the night had passed.

'Another one of the weird weathers here..'

She looked up to the bright sky. The mountain they were heading towards was drawing closer. She estimated that'd reach there at mid-day.

Looking back to see her teammates all packed up, Ruby's green eyes flashed before turning back to lead them on their journey.

A few hours later with absolutely no monster confrontation and Ruby getting progressively alarmed by how things were turning out, they finally reached the foot mountain.

Compared to what they had seen from afar, only its peak was rocky. The rest of it was lush and green, with the path only getting extremely steep at the mid point of its length.

"Do any of you know how to climb? I'm not sure we brought anything along for that."

One of the recruit said, looking up at the steep peak of the mountain.

No wonder they could see it from so far away. It was very very tall.

"We wouldn't need it, the nest is just below the mid point."

Ruby said, placing her hands on the grassy ground with closed eyes.

'Too far!'

A frown marred her face. The nest was beyond her sensory range, but like their path here, she couldn't sense any monsters up the mountain at all.

"Sigh, let's go up. We might be too late."

She said to the ones behind her, the last part coming out as nothing more than a whisper.

With his in mind, she rushed to towards the nest which the others trailing behind her.

In a few minutes, Ruby had arrived at the entrance of a cave which extended into the mountain. The rays of light illuminated just a few feet into the space leaving most of it shrouded in darkness.

Waiting for the others to arrive, she the threw some illumination orbs into the place.

"Let's go in, we can't tell it's empty or not from here. We need to search through manually"

She said when they arrived at the entrance.

That was one feature of nests that made them unpredictable and much more dangerous than might have been estimated.

The objective of this mission was the very reason she was suspicious of the absence of monsters along the way.

This was a scouting and clearing mission. The camp had adopted the strategy of clearing out the beast groups and nests faster than they could get beyond the camps range and into the monster territory to regroup with the main force.

They had met no monsters along the way and she feared they might have been too late.

Her only hope was based on the fact that it took the monsters in a nest a ridiculously long time to move.

"Be on guard the moment we step in."

She said, wielding her blood red kusarigama in her hands while taking the first steps into the cave.

The monsters in the nest were known as Centrachs. They were like a failed science experiment at mixing a spider and centipede together.

Spotting the lower body of a spider and a long upper torso with with jagged spines on both sides like the numerous legs of a centipede.

.....

"Shit, why did they have to be that far away?"

Jake cursed out loud checking through the logs of the recently taken up missions and spotting Ruby's there.

Looking at the time they had left, it would take a whole day to catch up with them if he chased without stopping.

"Why so tense, Jake?"

A voice reached him from the side and Jake almost reached for his weapon seeing the smile on Orion's face.

Saying nothing, he turned away and marched outside the camp, going through without the guards questioning with a special pass.

"There's no time to be falling for that!"

He muttered, bursting in a full sprint towards Ruby's direction.