"What the heck was that? Where did they go?" Dana gasped as an entire hundred kilo boar vanished for the second time.
"There is a mental space granted by my powers. That's where Hawk stays when he's not out playing. I can store things in there, like meat, and it doesn't go bad. There is only one small issue that I've found. Only food can go in there. I tried to put my textbooks in, and it wouldn't work. But meat can go in and out no problem." Karl explained.
"What a strange restriction. But it is for your pet, right? So perhaps it's only things that are good for the pet that can go in and out. Why don't you try with a resource that you know he can't use later and see what happens?" Dana suggested.
"That is brilliant. Perhaps the magic of the beast space will help me learn what will be best for Hawk. Trying to find a way to help him advance more quickly is my current topic of study, other than the basic training." Karl explained.
"Glad I could help. But shouldn't someone have shown up by now? It's getting close to lunch, and these practice missions usually only last an hour."
Karl shrugged. "Well, technically, they've got us all day. So, I suppose it's not a big deal if we have lunch here at the nearest house. No, scratch that, I heard from Hawk what is inside, let's just eat out here."
Karl used his sword to cut some sliced pork to grill over a fire, using branches as skewers, while Dana prepared a fire.
"Give me just a second. I know the spell to create a small flame, I just haven't mastered it yet. We don't have to make fire the hard way, or go rummaging through houses looking for a fire starter." She explained.
The village had been ransacked by Goblins, so whatever they found inside the houses was not going to be pleasant. Dana was aware of the stories about Goblin atrocities, but she really was not intending to find out first hand what it looked like up close.
It took three tries before she managed to get sparks to form and the dry branches to light, but after that, the fire started to burn quite well, and the duo waited for the heat to build so that they could begin to roast the meat.
"Do you think that this could be some sort of surprise survival test? Tomorrow is the day off, and we don't have classes for another day and a half, so there wouldn't be any delay to our learning if they had us stay here to hunt for an overnight trip." Karl suggested.
"I hope not. I don't know about you, but I didn't bring any sort of camping equipment." Dana joked.
There was a whole town behind them, but without any sign of survivors, and no visible battleground, being able to search the town itself for supplies was questionable. There was no telling how much was left in town, and how much had been taken with the ones who fled.
"Well, if nobody comes for us by dinner, we will have to go looking for supplies to get through the evening. I don't know if we want to stay in town, as the ruined town will draw more monsters searching for food."
"That is a good idea. We should get settled in as if we were waiting for a conventional pickup after a mission. That seems like the best option, since this class is intended to prepare us for rescues and missions after we graduate." Dana suggested.
The three of them settled in around the fire, waiting out the time until the meat was cooked, and deliberately ignoring the fact that there was a ruined and abandoned village right behind them. They would have to face the fact that numerous people likely lost their lives here in the recent past, but for now, they would focus on their lunch and the possibility that they didn't get all the monsters that were nearby.
But two hours later, after they had finished eating, and Hawk had searched the town twice over, going into every open house to make sure that there were no survivors or other hidden monsters, but there was nothing. In fact, there were very few bodies at all, though there was quite a bit of blood in some of the houses, according to Hawk.
"Should we go back to where we started, in the middle of town? Perhaps there is some sign there that will let us know what we're supposed to be doing. I feel like we should have gotten some message by now, and that maybe we weren't supposed to be sent to an empty town.
I mean, think about it. We're both technically still Common Grade, though I am already at Awakened in peak power. They shouldn't have sent us out into the unknown unsupervised for too long, it would make more sense if we were here to deal with the Iron tusk Boars.
Maybe there was supposed to be someone here to meet us, but they were gone before we arrived because of the Goblin attack."
"So, you think that someone was supposed to let them know that we were finished? That makes some sense, since it is sanctioned by the Academy. Perhaps we could find something that would let us contact them? I mean, even a cell phone would do the job, and there should be a working landline in some of the buildings." Dana suggested.
Karl got to his feet, and sent Hawk back up to scout the town, in case there was anything coming for them, while they walked back to the town square. It was an eerie feeling, now that there was nothing around and moving. No birds, rodents, nothing at all. The town was just completely silent.
But there were lights on, so it hadn't been completely destroyed, just left uninhabited.
Just as when they arrived, the centre of town was empty, but now, Karl wasn't looking for monsters, but signs that someone knew they were coming and might have left behind a message for them.