The Last Primal

Chapter 605 - 605 - The First Group Returns

As the sun gradually traversed its usual arc and was in its final descent before it ducked under the horizon, leaving behind only those lush, colorful rays painting the darkening sky, the first teams have finally returned to the lonely camp where Captain Don was left alone with their only captive the strange wolf-spider variant abomination.

Still, despite their linguistic barrier, his great efforts did yield some modicum of success. With the allure of the juicy steak, Captain Don did manage to get a bit of information out from the creature, albeit mostly with some nods and shakes. 

He learned that their tribe, which was somewhere underground had several hundred creatures similar to him residing. Though he could not figure out a question to understand the nature of their violence and aggression, he did understand that they were nowhere as feral as they had initially thought. 

It's just, it seemed that either their nature as outsiders to this world or because they were human… or perhaps just because they seemed some easy prey to hunt in this gods' forsaken realm where they were greeted with nothing but scorched desert so far.

"Captain! How did your day go?" As the first group returned, Crysta rushed ahead greeting Captain Don with an uncanny enthusiasm in her tone. Her rugged figure, the disheveled mess of hair, and dust-stained face instantly alarmed the experienced captain, he took a step to the side, agilely dodging the incoming maiden's hug.

"What happened to you, Crysta?" He asked though he turned to look at the sighing, wry-looking purple-haired girl, Sara who was leading the rest of the team. Like Crysta, the rest of the crew looked spent, weary. Their clothes, armor were stained with an excessive amount of dirt and grime, coated with a layer of darkened blood that was clearly not their own.

Even Sara, who looked the most presentable of the group looked quite exhausted. Captain Don was growing more and more confused, bewildered by their sight. 

He frowned, rephrasing his question, aimed at the leader of their little company.

"What happened? You were assigned to scout towards the south. Since this strange creature came from that direction yesterday, I was hoping you would find some clues about the location of their settlement. Did you guys have… any luck?" He asked, a bit hesitant at the end as he looked over them once again with a deep frown.

"Well… It's a long story, Captain." Sara sighed, shaking his head with a displeased frown as she glanced over to Crysta who meanwhile walked behind the Captain, and did her best to hide away from those terrifying eyes.

Sara sighed once again, giving up on that mischievous adventurer in the end, and returned her gaze on the captain. "Can we sit down while I report? I… no, we are all quite tired after a full day of running and rescue…"

Perplexed by her words, Captain Don could only nod at her suggestion and lead them towards the flickering bonfire. Going inside their storage tent, he quickly came back with a large flask of water and a couple of wooden mugs. 

While the party sat down around the fire and sighed with visible relief, Captain Don handed each of them a mug full of refreshment. Once each of them took a sip and sighed once again, only then did he ask again.

"So, what happened to you all? Why are you all in such a… state?" He asked with a worried expression. Recalling the way Sara referred to Crysta, he frowned, shifting his gaze he squinted his eyes as he scrutinized the shivering, trembling sight of the girl, and added. "What did she do this time? Did anybody get hurt?"

"No… Though we faced some challenges, in the end, we all walked away fine." Sara sighed, revealing the first honest smile since they got back to camp. "In the end, we did find something that potentially could earn our team some points… But we will need the rest of the team for that tomorrow. Anyway… let me explain…"

She then began to recount the events of their little expedition.

She told the Captain how they spent their first half of the day, several hours searching under the scorching heat, braving the endless sea of hot golden sand in search for something, anything. 

As she glanced over to Crysta, Sara revealed how they found absolutely nothing even after all that arduous effort and were growing ready to give up and instead, return to camp to report their failure.

When the agreed time came, everyone returned to the agreed spot. Everyone except for one petite, little troublemaker. Crysta was nowhere to be found, and even after waiting for a while longer, there was absolutely no sight of her to be seen or heard of. Growing increasingly worried, they decided to go and look for her. The group then went out again, now focused on the direction Crysta was supposed to be exploring.

Eventually, the team stumbled upon her trace, which then they all followed only to stumble upon the remains of what seemed to be the base of some ancient building. The sight was mostly ruined, leaving only sparse rocks of an unknown, sturdy-looking dark-blue, almost black material.

The ruins were huge, looking to be some sort of the remains of an ancient temple, or something similar, a place of worship. At least that's what they came to agree upon after finding an almost completely intact altar. 

Still, despite what they have found, what they have found more shocking was that this was clearly unearthed, excavated recently. Yet the grounds, the ruins were way more than what Crysta, -knowing her set of skills-, would be capable of doing on her own. Yet, following her traces, it was clear she came to this place before vanishing.

From her footsteps, she seemed to have stumbled upon something, that probably ultimately caused all of… this to appear, before after some pause she made her way all the way to the altar right before vanishing from sight.

Sara then looked over to the still silent girl at her side and sighed as she noticed her lack of will to step up and explain her recount of the story. She was looking at the ground, not daring to look at her or the Captain's direction at all.

Noticing her guilty acting, Captain Don, only grew more and more worried. Whilst keeping his worried gaze on the petite girl, he asked.

"What happened after then? Where did Crysta go and did she explain what happened eventually?" 

"Well…" Sara flashed a wry smile, following the Captain's gaze, she too looked at the guilty party as she slowly began to explain.

"Eventually… we found…"

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