Chapter 276 - Crowned Harpy
After defeating the flock of Harpies, it was time for them to gather up the beast cores. It was an easy task once Lenny had told them the correct spot to extract it on a Harpy. In some ways, it felt like Lenny was better than a library, he had a huge amount of knowledge that seemed so useful in all types of situations.
After gathering all the crystals in their pouches, bags or even space bags. The group was overjoyed, that was when they had heard the sound of a large shriek in the sky.
Jack was the first to spot what it was.
Then the loud shriek was heard once more in the sky and this time it attracted the attention of all the other adventures. As they turned to look above, a Harpy three times the size of a regular one was in the sky.
Its skull was also shaped differently from the others, the structure on the top made it look like it had three small horns imitating that of a crown but that wasn't the only thing they had to worry about, for another flock of around a hundred basic tier Harpies flew behind their King.
"What do we do?" And adventurer turned and asked, looking for their commander Rick.
However, when they turned around to gather advice, Rick had already disappeared.
"Did he abandon us? What a coward!"
As soon as Rick had heard that shriek, he knew straight away what it was. It was the sound of a being too strong for their group. A king tier beast.
This level of beast was meant for a group of B class adventures, even A, not him, he was just a C class adventurer with a bunch of Ds.
Rick decided that the best chance of surviving this, was to leave with his guild members without informing anyone. This way, when the crown harpy had arrived, the other adventures fighting it would delay them just long enough for him to get away.
But while Rick and the other two were busy running through the forest, Rick started to notice something, he had run in a different direction then they had originally come from. This was because the Crowned harpy was coming towards them from where they had entered the base.
Rick's plan was to head in the opposite direction, then circle around to head back to the city. But when he entered the forest and started to circle around, he noticed more destroyed and uprooted trees.
"Did I make a wrong turn, have we circled back to the base again/" Rick thought.
They started to move slowly to check to see how the others were doing. Perhaps with the strength of the Red wing members, they stood a chance but when they finally arrived at the base there was a strange sight.
There was another flock of around a hundred harpies and in the centre stood another Crowned harpy.
"What the, is this another harpy base, the report said there was only one!"
Just then when the three of them were hiding in the forest, they could hear the sound of footsteps behind them. As they turned, they could see a single regular Harpy looking at them.
It dashed forward for an attack but Rick was able to turn in time allowing its claws to hit his large shield on his back.
"I'll deal with this boss." The Underdog member said as he drew his sword.
But before Rick could even say anything, he already had started running off into another direction. The sword slashed the Harpy and killed it in one go. When he turned around, he was surprised to see that Rick and the other member had already left.
What he didn't know that Rick did know, was if you killed a Harpy right next to their base, the others would be able to smell the blood of their own kind. It was most likely what had attracted the Crowned Harpy to come back from the other base.
Rick wanted to tell him not to attack, to just run but it was too late. A few moments later after killing the single Harpy, he was surrounded by Harpies from the base and was torn to shreds never to be seen again, his body parts to be used as food.
****
Back at the Harpy base, the group was disorganised. With no leader, they were wondering what to do. Many of them weren't experienced adventures. They had no clue what tier beast a crowned Harpy was or how strong it was.
Was it something they could take on together? They had just defeated a hundred easily with no injuries, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. This was the train of thought that many of them had.
They drew their weapons and were ready to attack, that's when they heard a familiar voice shout out to them.
"Don't fight them, just run!" Lenny shouted, "We stand no chance."
With Lenny's warning said and done, he immediately started to scram into the forest with Martha and Jack. They had been with Lenny long enough to trust him and know he was serious. Out of all the adventures there, the only one that had listened to Lenny's words was Roy.
He was also closely following right behind the three.
The rest of the group just couldn't believe that a single large Harpy could be such a threat. At least they could try fighting it, and then if it was too strong, they could always retreat.
The group watched the crowned Harpy carefully in the sky ready to engage in combat but as they watched it, it looked like one-second it was up in the sky and the next it had disappeared.
The group tried to frantically look for where it was in the sky but it was nowhere to be seen. Then a large scream was heard.
"AHHHH!"
As the group looked towards the scream they could see that the Harpy had already landed on the floor, in front of it was an adventurer who stood there with no head.