[center][h2]Kochiya Sanae[/h2][h3]??? — Hunter's Lodge[/h3][/center]
Sanae turned to look at the others present who hadn't yet left for the night and was left only mildly surprised at the fact that a majority of them wanted to go hunt down whatever it was in the forest that was leaving the hunters on edge. When that number promptly doubled when the two who [i]had[/i] been missing when she had woken up when she had chimed in, the green-haired girl was left in a bit of an odd spot. Naturally, dealing with monsters would have been no different from youkai extermination—a job she had become quite familiar with, but not in this sort of context—but Anne [i]did[/i] have a point. But to choose between staying behind or gathering more information about the area...

"Mmm..."

After being lost in her thoughts as she weighed the pros and cons of doing whatever she did, Sanae finally chose to simply choose both options at once. It made sense to her; after all, there were also corpses near the church, which meant that the 'monsters' in question could still appear near there... Which meant that she could accomplish her original goal [i]and[/i] help a bit before coming back. "Two birds with one stone" and all that.

"I'll go tag along for a bit, then," she said, stepping forward. "Or, well, I'll join the group to check the area around that church up and help deal with monsters on the side—assuming there are any, of course. I'll head back to the town once my own investigation's done, though, just so we can split the difference."

At the sudden wave of support for an investigation into the nearby woods, though, the hunter who had first mentioned the presence of something odd therein seemed to look surprised for a moment before giving his friend a bit of a smirk.

"Guess we've got the heroes on my side, huh?" he half-joked before raising a hand towards them. "Right, name's Derek; if you wanted to know where we are right now... Well, this is the humble town of Aventon, slapped right on the frontier of the nation of Riltaea. As you, uh, overheard, I saw an uncannily large shadow in the woods earlier today during a hunt. Seemed too dangerous to continue with something [i]that[/i] big lumbering around, so I came back early."

There was a bit of a pause before Derek scratched the back of his head before glancing briefly towards his companion, then back towards the rest of the group that had assembled.

"I can show you where it was I saw it, at least. If something that big really is around here, then we're going to have a hell of a time getting any food from the forests here."

[hr][center][h3]Aventon — Forest Outskirts[/h3][/center]
Led by Derek into the forest as they were, the group would swiftly make their way westward. For the most part, nothing seemed [i]too[/i] out of the ordinary, but anyone with an eye for nature would feel anything but. Signs of freshly-marked trees, gouged out by something [i]far[/i] larger than should have been ordinary, and large amounts of underbrush that looked to have been crushed underfoot in a single motion...

"Here we are," Derek said out loud as he slowed to a stop and looked around. "This is where I saw whatever that thing was, but..."

The more problematic thing wasn't that whatever had marked this place as its own didn't seem to be the [i]only[/i] one—not with so many branching paths with clear signs of things passing through every which way.

"My instincts are telling me that something's off. The heck could've caused all this, though...?"

[hr][center][h3]Aventon — Hunter's Lodge[/h3][/center]
As the rest of the group left to go and hunt whatever beast was giving that hunter cause for concern, Kendrick—who by the looks of things seemed rather worn-out—entered the lodge. He had given a passing glance to those who were headed out, but his goal at this point in time was not to speak with them.

No, it only made sense that he wanted to talk to the woman who he had entrusted the pair of children to the night before.

"Miss, uh... Sorry, I don't think I ever got your name," he said to Anne as he walked over to her. "...I saw Alvin run off back to his old place last night. I'm guessing you chose to break the news to him?"

The guard had a complicated expression on his face—an indescribable mix of concern, frustration, and understanding all in one—but he chose not to act on any of those emotions and continued speaking his piece instead.

"Either way... I checked in on him last night after my shift ended. He was still there, thankfully enough—sleeping on the floor and soaking wet, but there. But that's more than enough reason to talk to you now."

It was at this point that Kendrick's expression hardened a little, and a frown made itself rather evident on his face.

"Look, I know I'm not the kid's dad. I can't replace what Ywain's done, and I don't even want to think about how to handle the situation with Millie after she wakes up. I also can't thank you enough for bringing them back here safely—a lot of people here lost their friends and loved ones, and every person alive is a blessing on its own. But would it have been too much to ask to try and keep the news from him until... I don't know, today? Even asking me to do it like you had suggested would have been fine; it's not like I haven't had to do that more than enough times already."

[@VitaVitaAR][@Izurich][@DracoLunaris][@Lugubrious][@Drifting Pollen][@EchoWolff]