"Open the gate! The Warriors have returned!" The guards shouted, bringing the attention of the villagers of Vashara.

Once the wooden gates were opened, the guards outside stepped inside with the group of warriors. Their walls were made out of sturdy ice made by continuous use of magic.

"The warriors are back!"

"Look! They have brought back new weapons!"

"You are right...but aren't their numbers less than they left?"

"Yeah...where are the others?"

"Did something happend to them?"

The atmosphere quickly became from a joy's one to one filled with worries.

Though warriors dying in a hunt wasn't impossible, for a total of 7 warriors to die was quite shocking.

The family members who saw their loved ones missing were the first ones to dash forward and question Xesan, who was considered the leader of those warriors.

"Sorry..." Xesan said with a heavy voice as he shook his head to the family members.

Of course, some started crying while others couldn't accept it and asked for details.

"There is no way that my son died!" One of the elderly raised his staff to hit Xesan in frustration, but Maxxren stepped forward and receive the staff to his head instead of Xesan.

With his head starting to bleed, Maxxren bitterly smiles at the elderly.

"I can't apologize enough to you, Old Lue. We also lost our friends. He died bravely fighting to protect the others...Wild Hunt would surely be pleased by such warrior..." Maxxren said, making Xesan grind his teeth to himself as he watched the old man tear up.

'How could I even tell them that we left their bodies to the place where it was cursed by potentially the oldest primordial?'

Though he very much hoped that this happend because of someone else interference such as another tribe and that a primordial god wasn't involved.

His eyes then went towards the weird weapons that the cursed weapons had.

Only was metal extremely rare to the point that they focused on weapons that didn't require much metal such as axes. And with the absence of metal, their blacksmithing methods weren't that advanced.

So to see such weapons with so much metal and quality was something he never had seen before.

The most impressive one was the weapon of that Overseer, which the Shaman called similar to his frozen relic weapons.

'Weapons of unknown origin. Intelligent cursed warriors, and that girl...' Xesan stared at Alka's shoulder, which was covered in something similar to bandages, that has the mark of death.

"Maxxren, sorry but can I leave this to you? I got to talk to the Lady about this..." Xesan said as he grabbed the Overseer's sword and for a split moment, he as if he was being watched.

But that feeling vanished as quickly as it disappeared.

"Yeah, I...will deal with them. Though you own me one Xesan!" Maxxren yelled as the Xesan walked towards the house of the lady up on the mountain.

Their Vashara village, half of which was built on a mountain and built houses while carving a portion of the mountain and building their houses.

They did so, at least their ancestors did, to not only avoid winter storms but also to be closer to the primordial god of the Wild Hunt.

After walking to the top of the mountain, he saw a girl wearing a white wooded mask.

"I see that your travel towards that girl's village didn't go so well. Xesan." The girl with the white mask said.

"Sigh...it hasn't, but before I tell you the details, I want to show you this..." Xesan said as he showed the sword of the Overseer.

From the side, a man with a herding staff came and holded the handle of the long sword and frowned before showing it to the masked girl.

"This is..." The masked girl leaned to take a better look, but before she could say anything, a loud wood-crashing sound appeared out of the blue.

"What is that sound?" Xesan turned around confused to look down at the village.

What he saw though made his eyes widen in shock.

As he saw the gate that holded several blows from ice trolls in the past, has now been broken into pieces.

"The gate!!!"

***

A few moments before the gate has been broken.

Danzel saw from afar how the natives they were following went inside the village.

Which proved to be his own challenge.

As compared to his Draugr and Shiro, Danzel was extremely tall and his armor was with dark platting.

In a place that was full of snow, was not that ideal.

Even if they watched over them from far away, if those natives turned their backs and carefully observe, spotting them wasn't impossible.

The Draugrs managed to reduce such risk by halfway crawling.

When he found them made he was quite confused.

One could consider the sight itself quite funny, but once the Draugrs started apologizing early for what happend to the other Draugrs and not following his direct orders.

After talking with them, he realized it wasn't true as the Overseer changed his orders to follow them.

Which made him quite impressed by the Overseer's decision.

Although he lost the fight, he made sure that his mission will be done regardless of their defeat.

Though abandoning 4 fighters could be crucial, after hearing out the details, he nodded in satisfaction.

Which made him half-expectant to see what effect the soul of the Overseer had on the sword he gave him.

Though first, he had to deal with the problem at hand.

He started first by fixing Shiro's clothes which he made.

Copying the phenomenon that he saw once he touched the guardian of those haired buffalos, he let loose bits of dead mana with extreme precision, to make the fur turn almost white.

Though that meant that the durability of the fur will be lessened and that it would last much less, it was strong enough to last quite a long while.

Shiro herself liked the change of color matching her hair.

The main problem though was himself.

In the end, he couldn't come up with a quick solution and simply decide to use [Phantom Phase] the moment the natives turn around to move much further away.

He had to do it a total of 2 times, which was annoying by itself, but at last, their journey wasn't wasted.

As they found the village of those guys.

"Alright, let's go meet those guys." Danzel declared out loud.

"Ehm, Rue? Are we going to simply walk to them?" Shiro asked confused.

"If you allow us, O Creator, we can arrange for them to open the gates." Talon said as he picked his head out of the shadows.

"Rejected." Danzel said as he looked at the gate.

"Though I ain't doubting your ability, it's better for you all to stay hidden in my shadow...in fact, Baron."

"To you command, O Creator." Baron said as he came out of the shadows.

"Transfer to Shiro's shadow and protect her in case I won't be able to."

"Understood." Baron said with a firm and cold voice before entering Shiro's shadow.

"Ehh~?" Shiro of course felt awkward in having an Anabast under her shadow.

"You know is necessary, Shiro. For all we know, that village might have some powerhouse that could challenge me."

"I know..." Shiro said to herself.

Although he preferred Koji and Niyuki, they were too slow to keep up with Danzel.

And those two were left behind to look after the Draugrs.

"But how are we going to contact them?"

Danzel shrugged his shoulders at such a question.

"How else? We are going to knock at their door." He said before starting to walk towards the village with the panicking Shiro trying to keep up with her much shorter legs.

"Isn't that too reckless? Won't they just see us as enemies?" Shiro said in a hurry behind her fox bone mask.

"Whatever we do, they will perceive us as enemies. I am undead after all." Danzel said with a bored tone.

"Although they might accept you, they most probably won't accept an undead like me. Heck, they might even perceive me as an active threat."

"You don't know about that..." Shiro mumbled in almost a whisper, though Danzel was able to hear it.

"No, it's because I know this exact fact, that a show of force is necessary..."

"But Azrael, Vanessa, and the others of the Deathfull Skulls were able to. Maybe those people might too..."

Danzel shook his head.

"Too naive, Shiro. The people that you just mention had already dealt with undead before and knew what they were. They also were strong enough to protect themself. Most people aren't like that..."

It is a fair point.

As the undead truly held hate toward the living.

Although they could control it, befriending an undead was like befriending a wild animal that is motivated to take a bite at you but chooses not to.

"..." Shiro stayed silent at Danzel's words.

"Hey, you two! Who are you?" The guards shouted as Danzel and Shiro became visible to the guards.

"Rue, don't be too harsh on them..." Shiro said as she looked toward him.

"Don't worry, I will just knock on their door. As for the rest that happens-" Danzel said as he slowly drew his sword and his death aura spread to the guards

The guards who were about to shout once more, their faces paled into a white sheet of paper as soon as they saw the two figures walking towards their village.

"W-What the hell is this!?" The guards shouted full of fear.

Danzel own long sword glowed in an ominous dark green light as it was raised.

"-I promising nothing." Danzel said as he shot out 1 [Soul Reaping Wind] towards the gate.

And once it came in contract, the gate exploded with little resistance into pieces.

*Trikkkkkkkghh!