Chương 233: (228) 4.7. Maybe They’re Friendly?

Having recently hung out with Erik in the Tree of Ancients, the group decided to head straight from the dungeon toward the final unknown fragment bordering the Sacred Forest this time around. As they approached the border, stepping carefully through the colorful forest filled with hundreds of unique trees, Shia filled them in on what she'd learned from the elves.

"So this last fragment is a bit curious," she explained, lovingly brushing a branch aside to allow everyone to walk past.

"Remember, it's taboo for the elves to leave the Sacred Forest, so the information they gave me is pretty limited. All they were able to tell me was that the temperature was rather normal, the ground has a slightly downward slope, and it's strangely foggy."

"I don't have very high hopes for us finding anyone in this fragment," Alka admitted.

"Not anyone alive, that is. This fragment is adjacent to the former prisoners. Or the Bands, as you guys have started calling them. That means it was adjacent to the Red Dawn as well. No way those marauders didn't run over here and kill everyone they could get their hands on."

"For all we know these people are warriors themselves, or have some sort of castle to hide within," Vin argued, pausing to watch a lemur pluck a tasty looking fruit from one of the trees and dig into it.

"Even knowing how dangerous the Red Dawn was, we can't just count this fragment out without checking on them."

"One bottle of Spur's wine that the fragment's empty!" Scule offered, raising a hand.

"I repeat, one bottle of Spur's wine! Do I have any takers!" Reginald poked his head out of Vin's pocket, thrusting up his tail and squeaking rapidly. Whatever he said, it caused Scule to snort and shake his head.

"Highly doubtful, but it's your bet. Alright, we've got one bottle of Spur's wine that it's empty, and a quarter of a wheel of cheese that the Red Dawn never even found the people living here somehow. Anyone else?"

"Don't you think it's a bit messed up to be potentially betting on the lives of a bunch of strangers we haven't met?" Shia asked, before grinning and showing off her serrated teeth.

"That said, I'll put up a week's worth of dried jerky on the people within the fragment having managed to somehow fight back against the Red Dawn and fend them off."

"A weeks' worth for a human, or a weeks' worth for a petian?" Scule asked, narrowing his eyes.

"A weeks' worth for an elf," Shia countered, earning a whistle from the clearly impressed Rogue.

"Now we're talking! Vin, Alka, either of you want in on this action?"

"I don't really have anything to bet," Alka shrugged, nearly causing a cursing Scule to topple off her shoulders.

"I'll sit this one out."

"I really only keep artifacts on me," Vin admitted sheepishly, only realizing how that sounded after the words left his mouth. Most people wouldn't come across an artifact in their entire life, so the fact that he had five on his person was pretty ridiculous.

"Better odds for me," Scule said, throwing a hungry look toward his opponents.

"I'm looking forward to enjoying my cheese and meat." The betting officially closed, the group grew quiet as they made their way through the rest of the Sacred Forest. Thankfully, the main monster one encountered within the elves' fragment were fangers; hidden monsters that resembled remarkably angry monkeys with, appropriately, massive fangs. Unlike regular monsters, which attacked with reckless abandon whenever they spotted prey, hidden monsters were a bit more cautious.

Fangers, for example, would only ever attack their prey from behind, and wouldn't attack groups of more than three or so people. That meant their team was safe from the annoying monsters. They could have been beset by a Trunkback if they'd been really unlucky, but they managed to make it to the edge of the forest without running into any of the giant, monstrous gorillas capable of throwing a person through a tree.

The Sacred Forest was thick enough with trees and vegetation that they didn't get their first look into the unknown fragment until they'd all but stepped out of the treeline. The moment they did, however, Vin received a notification he'd gotten many times before. Second Ring Fragment Discovered! 1, 000 exp gained. Just as Shia had told them, the new fragment was fairly calm and simple.

Short, dew-covered grass stretched across the land, billowing gently in the misty breeze and leading up to the occasional large bush covered in berries. There were a number of small birds with extremely nimble talons plucking berries from the bushes and, strangely enough, feeding each other rather than themselves, for whatever reason. The birds sitting in the bush closest to them took off the moment they stepped into the fragment, cawing angrily at them as they soared up into the sky.

There was an almost ever-present mist all throughout the land that obscured their vision a good bit, making it impossible to see more than about a hundred feet away.

"Have to say, even after everything we've seen, something about seeing birds feed one another like that freaks me out," Scule said, slowly pulling his blowgun out of the extradimensional bag he wore as a cape in preparation. As if sensing his intent, the birds turned and shot off into the mist, vanishing from sight.

"All birds freak you out," Alka snorted, striding forward without concern.

"No monsters as far as I can see, which admittedly, isn't much. Though the ground is slanted down a little bit." Sure enough, the ground was in fact sloped down just enough to be noticeable. Out of curiosity, Vin used Summon Stone to conjure up a perfect sphere, before placing it down in the grass. Ever so slowly, the sphere began rolling down the slope, before starting to pick up speed. After only a handful of seconds, the sphere was gone, swallowed by the mist that seemed to cover the entire fragment.

"Not a big fan of how our vision is obstructed," Alka grunted, clearly annoyed her glowing balls of energy she used for eyes couldn't see through the mist like they could darkness.

"A monster could come running straight at us and we wouldn't know until the last few seconds."

"That should be more than enough warning at our current level," Shia said, patting Alka on the back reassuringly.

"On the plus side, this mist means it's more likely that the people in this fragment managed to survive against the Red Dawn. Can't exactly raid and kill what you can't find." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"This is going to make deciding who wins the bet difficult," Scule frowned, squinting into the fog.

"I mean, how can we decide if it's truly empty if we can't see a damn thing?"

"I suppose I can just try shooting out pulses of Sense Life," Vin offered, unable to come up with any better ideas.

"Shia, I don't know if you're willing to burn your week-long cooldown on your divine boon, but maybe you could search for the people with it?"

"It has to be something I think I need," she reminded him, shaking her head.

"I could use it to find the dungeon, seeing as I pretty much always need to speak with my master, but that's about it. I think for now, we just wander around a bit and see what we run into."

"Works for me," Alka shrugged, unsheathing her sword and starting forward in the direction Vin's stone had rolled. The team showed their experience by quickly shifting over into serious mode; weapons at the ready and spells on the tips of their tongues as they ventured deeper into the fragment. While they had fun adventuring with one another and loved chatting during their downtime, by now, they were all well aware of when they had to focus.

Like Alka had said, there was no telling when a monster might jump out at them, and none of them wanted to be the one to distract everyone and be the reason someone got hurt. Their cautious approach ended up being the right call, as after only twenty or so minutes of walking, Vin spotted something.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing up into the sky. High above their heads, on the very edge of how far they could see into the mist, floated what looked like a cross between a hot air balloon and a stunted jellyfish. It had to be at least five feet wide, with stubby little tentacles protruding from underneath its body that allowed it to propel itself through the mist. Vin briefly wondered if it was a regular animal or a monster, before the System gave him the answer. New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.

"It's a monster," he confirmed, watching the floating blob slowly descend toward them.

"Though it reminds me of a jellyfish."

"What the hell is a 'jellyfish?'" Scule asked, loading one of his darts into his blowgun and lining up the shot.

"Does that mean I shouldn't shoot it down?"

"It's a creature from my world that lives in water," Vin explained, watching it continue drifting toward them.

"Some of them are poisonous, but they're not nearly that big."

"Poisonous you say?" Scule repeated, suddenly looking far more interested in the large monster.

"You should have started with that!" Before anyone could stop him, not that they would have anyway, Scule brought his blowgun to his lips and fired at the descending blob. His dart pierced into the side of the monster, before stopping completely. Vin had half expected the floating monster to pop from the attack, but it seemed largely unfazed.

"Huh… Well, guess I'm useless here," Scule said, tucking away his blowgun.

"Somebody else wanna try?"" Stone Shot!" Vin said, firing off a standard spell without any excess mana dumped into it. Similar to Scule's dart, his sharpened rock projectile hit the side of the monster and proceeded to get stuck. The force was enough to knock it a few feet backwards, but the rock simply floated within the monster, not seeming to have done any actual damage.

"Where's Myers and her exploding crossbow when you need her?" Vin muttered, raising an eyebrow at Shia.

"Thoughts?"

"Might be best to treat this thing like a slime, despite the fact that it can fly," she said, looking curiously at it.

"At least it's moving pretty slow. We can probably just ignore the thing entirely and keep moving, to be honest."

"Uh… guys?" Everyone turned to look at Scule, whose pale face was turned the opposite direction. Following his gaze, Vin's breath hitched as he realized there wasn't just one of the floating monsters descending toward them from up above. A good dozen had just floated out of the mist at ground level, silently approaching from behind and completely cutting off their retreat.

"Still think we should ignore them?" Scule asked as a few more drifted out of the mist on either side of them, nearly boxing them in.

"Hidden monsters," Alka growled, flicking Scule off her shoulder before rushing toward the first one they'd spotted that was now nearly down at their level. With a powerful leap, she jumped nearly ten feet straight up, slashing at it with her sword. Setting off an explosion that sent her smashing back down into the ground hard enough to form a small crater.

"They explode?" Vin gasped, rushing over to check on Alka. The power of the explosion had been enough to force him back a step from a few dozen feet away, so he wasn't one bit surprised to find her partially embedded in the wet ground. Of course, Alka was all but indestructible at this point, so there wasn't so much as a scratch on her.

"Sure looks like it," she grunted, accepting his help as his arm flared blue and he ripped her out of the earth with a burst of strength.

"... That's going to make fighting them difficult."

"Guys, we need a plan, and fast," Scule said, scurrying up onto Vin's shoulder and pointing all around them.

"They just keep coming!" By now, there had to be nearly forty of the slow-drifting monsters all around them, closing in on them with surprising speed. The monsters seemed to have at least some level of intelligence, as they were thickest directly behind them, back the way they'd come.

"Alright, we're moving forward," Vin decided, getting nods from his friends as he took the lead and began running forward. Four of the floating monsters blocked their path, but he had just the tool for the light-weight creatures." Redirect Gravity!" he cast, adjusting the spell to make it wider and feeling mana begin pouring out of him as the four monsters suddenly jerked upwards as gravity flipped around and dragged them into the sky.

"Come on, let's go!" Even as he cleared a path, more and more of the monsters began drifting out of the mist on either side of them, and he heard Scule curse as they sprinted under the monsters he'd caught in his now-canceled spell and started trying to lose their attackers.

"How are there so many of them?!" Scule shouted, holding onto Vin's hair as they ran.

"This is ridiculous!"

"It's definitely unusual, but not unheard of," Alka said, entirely unfazed by the speed they were running at, seeing as she didn't need to breathe.

"Certain monsters have unique biomes that allow them to spawn far more plentifully. We can only assume the mist does the same for these."

"Oh yeah, is exploding normal for monsters too, huh?"

"Bursthens, sparkers, and meltads, just to name a few I'm aware of from my own world," she countered without hesitation.

"Not to mention the exploding foxes of your own fragment."

"... Nerd!" Scule finally managed after a few moments of thought.

"Guys, could you not right now?" Shia asked, frowning at them from atop Blossom. Once again, Vin was the only one actually growing tired from running as the Druid rode upon her staff in its wooden cat form.

"All we need to do is get around the mass of monsters, and then we can double back and get out of here. We're far faster than they are, so there's no need to freak out or-" Their party was running fast enough that the slim amount of visibility within the mist wasn't nearly enough to spot the ground in front of them. Or the way it simply stopped. Without warning, they all ran directly off the side of some sort of cliff.

The last thing Vin heard as they plummeted through the air was Scule shouting at the top of his lungs directly in his ear.

"Gods damn it, not again!"