Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 443: Ranger outpost

"Man, I wish we brought more coffee, we ran out already!"

"Don't you mean, you drank it all?"

"It's Sharp's fault for forcing us to stay here way longer than we were supposed to."

Two unhappy rangers conversed by the fire beneath the east watchtower. It was the last ranger outpost and it marked the end of the territory 'controlled' by humans, meaning that beyond that post it was no man's land.

That explained why they ran out of coffee and also why they were in such bitter mood, because they've been cut from civilization far longer than they should have and it was all due to the person that just walked in on them while they complained.

"Whose fault it is? No one is stopping you if you want to go back, but we can't go back until our mission is accomplished." A pale woman with a black eyepatch on her left eye lifted her brow. Like most heavenly rank hunters, she was exceptionally beautiful, but she kept that well hidden behind a rough appearance and she looked more intimidating than attractive.

"Don't mind him, he's just talking out of his ass."

"I'll let it slide for tonight, but you guys need to be more vigilant. Someone's coming and you guys didn't sound the alarm." Prompted by her words, the two rangers directed their gazes to the west, their hopes placed in that they were about to be relieved from their post, but that wasn't the case.

"I can't see anything."

"That's because you're looking on the wrong direction, dumbass." She grabbed his face and turned it the other way. Where there was supposed to be nothing but barrenlands, two travellers came in sight.

"Mind if we join you at the fire, it's been a long journey." Uriel said in the friendliest tone he could muster, which wasn't that convincing.

"You don't happen to have any coffee on you, do you?" The same ranger than complained about the lack of coffee asked before Sharp could utter a word.

"Shut up, you idiot! Don't you think it's a little suspicious this guys show up in the middle of the night without us noticing? They're obviously doppelgangers." The other ranger said, readily pointing his gun at the newcomers.

"Calm down and let them explain themselves first. The fact that they came at night isn't that surprising considering that they must have started their trip on daytime and got caught by night at the devil's swamp. Won't you run away from that place too if you were on their shoes?" Sharp explained, though Uriel didn't miss the true meaning of her words.

Even if a regular hunter would run at full speed, they wouldn't be able to cross the swamp in a single day. Even if she sounded friendlier than the other ranger, she was actually testing if their story was solid, though she had no means to know that they did cross it in a single day with the help of Uriel's jaguar.

"We actually spent a couple days in that cursed swamp and barely made it out since we're only evolved." Uriel lied through his teeth. Athough he was a heavenly rank and the wild girl was a holy rank hunter, both of them were able to conceal their identities which made other people incapable of telling any different.

"That makes sense, catch this," The woman threw a silver coin towards Uriel, who caught it mid air and touched his companion with it which seemed to surprise the woman. "So you do know about those things."

"Yeah, they're attempting to infiltrate the city to the east too. I'm actually a ranger sent here to inform of this situation." Uriel made up the first thing that came to mind and proceeded to show his rookie ranger badge.

"Whew! You had us scared for a minute there! Come joine us by the fire." The highest ranking ranger present said, though her relief didn't show in her face and Uriel could tell she still distrusted them.

"Thanks, I did bring coffee too by the way." Uriel said as he took a big can of instant coffee from his backpack, which lit up the faces of all the rangers.

"Oh man, this is the good stuff! Where did you get it? I'm Horace by the way." The fact that he gave his actual name was a sign that he was among the many rangers that didn't possess a strong trait and was forced to join the rangers since they relied mainly on weapons.

"It's a long story, but to make it short, my whole unit died after rescuing this girl."

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"She's a quiet one, isn't she?"

"All I can tell you about her is that she doesn't speak a word of english and that she used to live in the lost city."

"It can't be! 'That' lost city!?" One of the rangers spat his coffee in shock.

"You need to tell us everything if you want us to believe your story." Sharp said in a deep voice and directed her one eye directy into Uriel, but he remained unfazed by her attempt to intimidate him.

"I wish I could, but orders are orders. My mission is to speak to ranger Charlie and only to her." Uriel continued kneading his story, mixing lies with whatever could make it more believable. Mentioning Charlie seemed to be the right decisions, since it had an immediate effect on Sharp.

"That incompetent attempt of a ranger!? Ever since she came back from her vacation she's had people at her feet and the only explanation is that she found the right guy to suck off." Sharp finished with a scoff.

"What? Don't you know she's the daughter of the chief of the rangers?" Uriel asked, pretending to be surprised.

"Well, well, it seems you do know her." Sharp finally seemed to lower her guard and Uriel couldn't help but follow with a reply.

"I do, but in many ways I wish I didn't." This ended up bein the confirmation she needed to finally believe Uriel's story. He sounded so honest and had the exact reaction only someone who truly knew Charlie could have.

"I was a rookie along with Charlie once and she was so incompetent she ended up as a professor. You know what they say, those who can't do are the ones who teach." Sharp laughed some more, though that comment annoyed Uriel. As a student, he had nothing but respect for those who took the task to preserve knowledge for future generations, but he kept his ideas to himself and changed the topic.

"So, what's the deal? Why are you guys here?"

"It's complicated, we were supposed to be relieved from this outpost, but the next team didn't show up. The same happened the next week and the one after that."

"I see, so you're trapped in here." Uriel nodded.

"It's not like that, our chief died in action and she's too much of a coward to lead us back to city." Horace let out.

"Like it or not I'm the one in charge now. If you have any issues with that, you're free to go whenever you like."

"Tsk! You know we can't do that... not without your help."

"See? If you're weak, your opinion doesn't count."

The two rangers continued their argument for a while, which helped Uriel gather some information. Sharp was the strongest one in their group after their leader died,, which is why she took control, but since they were down one man and no reinforcements came, she decided it was too dangerous to head back to the city.

In regular circumstances, going back to the city would have been an easy task for veteran rangers like them.

Strong rangers were more than capable of handing the threats of the wilderness, while the weaker ones knew how to keep away from dangerous foes. The problem was the strange circumstances in which their leader died.

His death was caused by the ever increasing number of cryptids migrating west from the wetlands, he stayed back to distract the cryptids and they didn't actually know what happened to him. All they knew is that no hunter could possibly survive a stampede like that.

Uriel took a moment to put himself in her shoes and realized that considering the information she had, staying was actually the best option. If cryptids were migrating naturally, all they needed to do was wait until they went past them and then a couple more weeks until the hunters and the army thinned their numbers.

The problem was that the reason why so many cryptids headed west was because they were scared of something even worse than them, something so terrifying it brought nightmares to monsters.

Uriel knew this, in fact, each minute they spent in the campfire shortened the distance between them and the titan heading west, but he also couldn't pass on the oppportunity to gather information about the state of things in his megacity. After meeting them, though, he couldn't fathom leaving them behind and decided to break their argument in the only way he thought would work.

"Miss Sharp, I formally request assistance from your team. Without your help, I'm afraid I won't be able to get to Miss Charlie."