"Captain. Are we sure that this place?" – asked human looking person with dog ears.
"It is bit….. Creepy?"
"Well, less creepy and more lifeless, I would say." – said the man who resembles werewolf like creature as he led a huge group of people that were wearing armor and carrying weapons.
"From what I know, this place was completely abandoned by the Marok kingdom, since it didn't held any strategic location…. Not only that, but according to their soldiers, we were the ones that burned the so called "Rabbit Town" that was once here."
"But I didn't received any reports of our soldiers doing that…. Be careful."
"We may be dealing with bandits."
"Okay…. But why are we going thought the forest?" – asked human soldier.
"Don't take me wrong, this isn't out in the open where bandits can spot us, but we already encountered some monsters."
"Mostly weak ones, but can we be sure that this will be the case as we go on?"
"Better safe than sorry. If the bandits are really active in the area, it is better for us to take more dangerous path then getting ambushed."
"Bandits also use monster infested areas as their hiding places, for example low ranking hunting grounds. A weak and ordinally place that shouldn't be too difficult to hide in or even suspected."
"Anyway, be quiet and just keep the watch."
"…"
(There are near me.) – thought Thauma who observed the outside world with his core, noticing the group of soldiers in the distance.
(Humans... Wait, not all of them are humans.)
(Some are humans…. With tails?)
(There are also beings that resembles giant wolfs walking on two legs?!)
(I see…. They must be the beastmen and beast-humans.)
(According to Ariava, beastmen are one of the most well known races, as well as complicated races.)
(In the past, all the beastmen were considered as monsters and they were hunted down, but as the time went by, their own civilians and standing in the world changed.)
(Beastmen are usually a hybrid beings that resembles a beast, such as bears, wolves or cats, but also having very visible human like appearance, making them way less beastly and even stand on two legs.)
(Meanwhile, the beasts-humans are a hybrid offspring between a human and beastmen, causing them to look more human like, but also retaining the animalistic like characters.)
(However, from Ariava told me, a lot of people still keep mistaking the beastmen for the humans and the reason is simple.)
(Demi-humans.)
(Demi-humans was once a term that refers to a beings that are bit human like, dwarves, elves and beastmen fallen on this category.)
(But now the term demi-humans refers mostly to monsters alone.)
(Human like monsters.)
(This is the demi-human term.)
(There are multiple beings that fall in this category.)
(Lamia. A woman like creature with a top half of a human, but a bottom half of a snake.)
(Archana. Also, a female humanoid monster that is also a spider.)
(Goblins. A humanoid race of the scavengers and natural bandits, they are known for kidnapping and raping woman.)
(Pig man. A race of pig people that are also savages like goblins that also destroy and kidnap people, but they are mostly also known for being gluttons as they eat all the humans they kill.)
(There are also creatures known as werewolf's that apparently look similar to the wolf beastman, just like that one person I saw back then.)
(However, the werewolf's appearance and behavior are more savage and beastly.)
(According to Araiva, you could easily tell which one of them are monsters by just looking at them, even if they are both wolf and human hybrid like creatures.)
(They are countless different demi-humans out there, even Ariava gave me a book with all sort of demi-humans pictures and descriptions, she said I may like it for my golem research.)
(Anyway, the beastmen are not the monsters.)
(And there is also another important thing.)
(One of the kingdoms, the kingdom of Garmfon was the kingdom where lot of humans, beastmen and beast-humans live.)
(If they are here, does that mean that the war that was going on between two kingdoms is over?)
"…"
(Then why are they here?)
(Are they here to rebuild the Rabbit town?)
(Or are they here to investigate my dungeon... No. They walked past my territory and they are already out of my vision range.)
(Not only that, I've kept my presence quiet.)
(Ariava told me that the main advantage of my golems is the fact that they don't need food or anything while also being completely loyal to me, their creator.)
(She said that keeping them hidden inside the dungeon is a good approach…. But for how this would last?)
(Either way, I should prepare myself for possible having to fight them.)
Thauma did not knew what was happening in outside world or what was going on between the kingdoms.
All it knew was the fact that there was a war between the two kingdoms, thanks to Ariava providing it with informations.
However, Ariava left and there was no longer any updates about the real world…. Expect for a warning from her, a warning she left before she left Thauma.
A warning about the course of war changing soon.
And she was right.
The kingdom of Garmfon ended up finally tipping the scales in their advantage, obtaining victory after victory, while also conquering the territories Marok kingdom.
And right now? The forces of the Garmfon kingdom starred conquering where Thauma dungeon was located.
Undenounced to Thauma, there was recently a massive battle nearby, but nowhere near close enough to forest for the Thauma to notice.
And that said battle ended up with the Garmfon kingdom once again claiming the victory, which led them to now starting taking over their "won" territory.
"Yeb….. Nothing….. This place seemed like it was really burned down and then just left to rot." – said the human soldier as the Garmfon kingdom forces were currently inspecting the ruins of the Rabbit town.
"…Anything?" – asked the beastman captain.
"Nothing sir." – said the human soldier that walked towards the beastmen alongside few beast-humans.
"There were some wild monsters hiding here and there."
"There were no traces of anybody living here, expect for the beasts."
"We also checked around like you've asked us to, but again, we found no traces."
"By the looks of things, after this town was destroyed, they completely abandoned this place and didn't thought about restoring it at all." – said the beast-human soldier.
"Maybe they were scared of the war coming here?"
"…"
(Is that really it?) – thought the beastman.
(I mean, we haven't really had any big fights around this area at all, because of its location.)
(True, they are somewhat close to our boarders, but during the war this location would suck completely, making it of somewhat safe heaven….. Were they just scared of possible having us attack them again? Even thought we were not the ones that burned down that town?)
(We walked through entire forest…. But there was nothing unusual about the monsters there…. Weak monsters and there were no traces of anybody living in that place either….)
"…"
"The most likely scenario were bandits. They were the ones that destroyed the town and used it remains afterwords as their base…. But even if that was the case, they must had ran away as soon as the war started reaching this place, straight up bolting away…. Yea, there is no point in looking around anymore."
"Whenever bandits were here or not, they left this place ages ago."
"So…. What do we do?" – asked the human soldier.
"Well, even if the entire town is in ruins…. It is still quite good location." – replied the beastman.
"We will set up our temporarily base here for now."
"I hope nobody has a problem with that?"