Extra's Perfect Ending-Chapter 241: Fear

After treading through the thick snow with Theia on his back, Leon managed to make it to the town center. Even after so many years, this building hadn’t changed one bit. It was just as he remembered from five years ago when he left the village.

Along the way, Leon also managed to dodge the twisted animals that roamed the village. They were incredibly dumb—dumb enough to avoid completely if they didn’t see you. Egul had observed this when they first encountered the group of deer. And Leon believed it wholeheartedly.

Finally, after walking for what seemed like forever, he arrived. The building was a simple, circular structure located in the heart of the village. It’s where they often held village meetings and hosted important guests from other tribes. Now, it had been repurposed into the tribe’s shelter.

Around it, the village had already set up defenses, two people for each direction and three guarding the entrance to the shelter. Upon seeing Leon, carrying a girl, they quickly approached him.

"Are both of you hurt?"

"No, we’re fine. She’s just a bit exhausted."

Leon answered with a smile. Their clothes already suggested that Leon and Theia weren’t from any tribe, and the empire people were not particularly welcome here. Luckily, the guard at the entrance wasn’t too elitist.

"Get in."

Leon bowed to show his gratitude and quickly moved Theia inside. They got a few curious looks after entering, but Leon couldn’t care less—they were safe here, at least.

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At the village gate, where the beasts were at their most numerous, Egul had been holding the tide for far too long. Even though he could kill the deer or wolves that flooded in within one second, their overwhelming numbers made it nearly impossible to keep up.

Additionally, the wolves had been especially difficult to deal with. They could dodge Egul once before going down, which only increased the time it took him to clear out the area.

"When will this end!!"

He could keep going for a long time, but his village could not. It wasn’t difficult for someone of his 5th Circle strength to demolish these deer, but for people below that, he seriously doubted they could handle it. The enhanced strength of these creatures made them hard to deal with.

He just needed to grit his teeth and power through, hoping his village could hold out against the threat.

However, just as he was about to kill another deer, something caught his attention. In the distance, the deer began to pile up, jumping on top of one another to form a towering amalgamation of deer. At that moment, Egul realized that this situation was about to get much worse.

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Finally, after waiting for some time, the bridge was repaired. Reeva watched as the last nail was hammered into place. After some testing, it was deemed sturdy enough to cross over.

However, there were several problems on the other side. First, there was the horde of deer waiting for them to lower the bridge. The creatures were smart enough to recognize that the fire was dangerous, but Reeva doubted they would be patient enough to wait for him to cross.

They would be immediately rushed by the horde on the other side. Casualties wouldn’t be significant, but the bridge would likely be destroyed in the process due to the sheer weight of the deer.

Earlier, they had discussed a plan.

"Your Holiness, what do you plan to do?" Max asked while Quin was also in the room. Reeva looked out the window and noticed that the number of deer had plateaued. Both high priests had their own ideas for how to proceed, but they were waiting to hear Reeva’s solution.

"A normal breakthrough wouldn’t work, right?"

Reeva asked, just to be sure. He was referring to simply using Quin’s power to carve a path while the others followed behind.

"That would work if we only had ourselves to worry about. The knights and civilians behind us wouldn’t stand a chance with numbers like these," Quin answered. The knights and civilians would be slaughtered without any way to fight back—not because they were weak, but because the sheer number of enemies was overwhelming. Even Quin himself wasn’t sure he could break through the encirclement alone.

"Do you have any ideas?" Reeva asked, his voice thoughtful. He had a plan in mind, but he wanted another opinion first. Max, who typically handled these situations, spoke up.

"Maybe we could use bait to lure the deer out. Have one person break through and draw the deer away, then the second squad could slip through the other way. From my observation, the deer aren’t very intelligent—it took them a while to figure out that the fire wasn’t something friendly."

Reeva thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.

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"I can see it working and not working at the same time. With Quin away, we’d lose our best combatant here, and there’s no guarantee the deer would follow the bait."

Reeva voiced his opinion. It was still in the planning phase, and everything was up for consideration. Max paused to think again, then looked outside.

"Maybe we could use the fire. We light up our torches and make a run for it. The deer should part for us, and if we’re lucky, we won’t have to engage with any of them."

The mention of fire immediately caught Reeva’s attention. This plan seemed more promising than the bait option. It overlaps with his own idea.

"I like that," Reeva said. "However, we’d need to test whether the deer are actually afraid of fire first. We can’t just run and hope it works."

"Naturally," Max replied.

It wasn’t the most clever plan, but they simply didn’t have many options. The horde was too large, and there was no way to outsmart such a mass of creatures. The only choice was to charge right through them.

Max couldn’t shake the feeling that this was some kind of test from the gods—a test to escort the apostle out of this threatening situation. He would gladly take on this quest.