Chapter 4: Camping Out to an Encounter

Chapter 4:
Camping out to an Encounter

 

THE PARTY SET OFF for the Black Forest the next day. The owner of the inn seemed like he had something to say as they headed out, but Loren shut him up with a murderous glare.

Loren didn’t usually care about gossip one way or the other, but he didn’t like standing back and letting baseless nonsense shred his reputation. Maybe the man found it odd that he hadn’t come for those extra towels, but Loren wanted him to understand that a man and woman staying a night in the same room didn’t necessarily mean they were getting up to anything…messy.

“Let’s restock a bit before we go,” Lapis said, oblivious to Loren’s predicament.

They couldn’t take the borrowed donkey with them, so they left it at the guild branch, and they replenished their stock at a general store nearby.

“I get the feeling my debts are piling up…”

They split the bill on the necessary quest expenses, but everything else came from Lapis’s wallet. Anyone watching would have thought she footed the entire bill. Even in the general store, he got cold looks.

“It shouldn’t be too much, this time around.”

They only bought a few food rations, some salve, tinder, and oil. Having Feuille around meant they needed a bit more than they had planned for, but a kid that small didn’t increase their load by much.

“I’ll put Mr. Feuille’s expenses on your tab,” Lapis said.

“Fine, go ahead.”

Maybe she would have split that too if he asked. However, Lapis had no such obligation, and Loren accepted responsibility. She looked a little irritated when he didn’t complain, but she quickly snapped back to her usual expression. Just as swiftly, she packed up the supplies and tallied the costs.

“Umm… I can pay for myself…once I’m back…”

Loren placed a hand on Feuille’s head to cut him off. He ruffled the boy’s hair, a vague smile on his face. His large hand engulfed Feuille’s small head, and a friendly ruffling turned into a tornado. Feuille’s head spun in dizzied circles, and he grabbed onto a nearby shelf to prevent himself from teetering over.

“Quit worrying about that. For now, just focus on getting home. We don’t know the way, so we’re counting on you to see us through.”

“R-right.”

“It’s not like we’re working for nothing. We came to the Black Forest to do a bit of monster hunting. It’d be great if we had the guidance of the ever-knowledgeable elves.”

Loren proudly unveiled his reason for saving Feuille—he’d spent the entire night thinking it up. Loren’s reasons were his own, and he didn’t mind if he was taken as some figure of charitable virtue. Unfortunately, people were often suspicious of any explanation that didn’t end in profit. They simply didn’t believe in that sort of miracle.

The moment Loren brought up the idea of a return favor, people were relieved—that was how the world worked. However, were he to ask for some great compensation, he would leave a bad impression on Feuille’s parents and the other elves of his settlement.

And so, with all of that considered, Loren came up with this idea: he would act as if he banked on getting monster intel from the elves once he was in the settlement. They were undoubtedly the most knowledgeable on the subject, after all. It was just the right amount of greedy without touching anyone’s coin purse.

Even if the information they offered wasn’t worthwhile, Loren hadn’t expected any assistance before rescuing Feuille. If the elves did have some keen insights, that would be a happy bonus.

“You get it now, right?” asked Loren. “So just kick back and let us look after you.”

“Thank you.”

Whether he understood Loren’s full intentions or not, Feuille was grateful. Loren released his head and smiled, only for Lapis to tug at his sleeve.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Don’t you think it would be nice to share a bit of that kindness with me sometimes?”

“I think I’ve been pretty open-minded about your behavior. How do you expect me to be kinder than that?”

In response, Lapis only darted off; Loren wondered if he’d kicked the hornet’s nest.

They finished their preparations here and there before eating lunch in town, and then they were off. The tree line of the Black Forest was around half a day’s walk from the town. It was an enormous forest. Farther in, the trees grew so densely, they blocked off all sunlight, rendering the wood dark as night. Many different races, elves and others, thrived in small settlements within.

“There are all sorts. Goblins and orcs, for one. Then you’ve got villages of fairies, then elves like us.”

Along the way, Feuille desperately tried explaining the ways of the Black Forest, as if he wanted to shove all of the information into Lapis and Loren before they even saw a tree.

“How are elves and fairies different?” Loren asked.

“The small ones with wings are fairies, and the big ones without wings are elves,” Lapis replied. “Rumor has it that they were once one and the same.”

<I think I’m pretty fairy-like.> Scena flapped her wings in the corner of Loren’s vision. He gazed absentmindedly at the invisible girl as Lapis continued her lecture.

Originally, there had been only spirits, entities that existed as little more than astral bodies. For whatever reason, those spirits decided to take on physical incarnations; the ones that took on humanoid forms were elves, while fairies stuck closer to their original spirit forms.

Both races preferred the natural environment of the forest and detested base metals like iron and copper. They also both tended to be somewhat prideful and were wont to belittle humankind.

Loren thought back to the elven archer he had met before. He hadn’t felt she was either haughty or scornful. Moreover, not only had she come to live in human civilization, she seemed get along quite well with the people she found there. Maybe she was a weird elf.

Having left town around noon, they arrived at the outer edge of the forest just before sunset. Loren thought they would enter right then and there, but Lapis suggested they put it off to the next morning. They would spend the night camped on the outskirts.

It was dark enough in the forest as it was, she reasoned. Moving around at night only increased the danger. She had a point, and both Loren and Feuille were convinced.

“It really is pitch black if you go too far in, but my people don’t live so deep. It’s just a bit dim during the day. We’re definitely better off waiting until the sun is high in the sky.”

“Do you know the way?”

“Probably… I think it’ll be okay.”

The forest looked like nothing but identical trees to Loren and Lapis. There weren’t any paths through it, but maybe the boy could see something they couldn’t. He stared at the forest a bit before nodding confidently.

Looks like it won’t be too difficult getting him home. Loren felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

“Well, whatever happens,” said Lapis, “it will have to wait until tomorrow. Let’s set up camp.”

“Is it all right to camp out right next to the forest?” Loren asked.

Near or far, there was nothing but grass and trees, so he didn’t think it made much of a difference. But if some monster did come trying to eat them, it would likely burst out of the tree line. It was probably safer to distance themselves a bit.

Lapis stared back at the plains for a minute. “If we want to gather firewood and stave off the wind, I believe it would be more convenient to remain near the forest. The wind will grow harsh if we’re too far away.”

They hadn’t brought any firewood with them. Adventurers didn’t bother purchasing and carrying what they could scavenge along the way. And Lapis had a point—the wind sweeping over the plains was bitingly cold, and even their tents couldn’t offer them total shelter from it. Thus, Lapis was of a mind to use the trees as a windbreak and keep near to where they could quickly gather dry wood.

“What do you think, Feuille?” Loren asked.

It was already time to borrow the knowledge of the elves. After staring at the forest a bit and twitching his ears, Feuille turned to him.

“We should be fine here. I don’t sense any dangerous animals nearby.”

“I see, then we’ll go with that.”

Their plan settled, all that remained was to do it. Loren lowered the bag from his back, took out a large tent, and deftly set it up. He dug a hole for a fire at a safe distance and surrounded it with stones he found nearby. Once that was done, he dug a somewhat deeper hole farther away, just into the forest and hidden by the thicket, hanging a lantern on a nearby branch just in case.

While Loren was doing all of this on his own, Lapis and Feuille gathered dry branches and piled them into the fire pit.

“That’s about right for a one-night camp.”

Once the lantern and firepit were lit, their rudimentary camp was complete.

They had kept their bags light, shirking any cooking supplies, so it wasn’t like they could roast anything over the fire. But they could boil water and heat up their dried rations. This was plenty.

“If we’re heading in tomorrow morning, we should tuck in early,” Loren said.

“What about lookout duty?”

“You and me on rotation. Fifty-fifty.”

“Umm, what about…” Feuille started.

“Just sleep. Sleeping well is part of a child’s duties.”

Feuille was determined to help out with the watch shifts, but Loren turned him down. In any case, Loren didn’t think even an elf child would be much good on lookout duty. He would still have to take his shift alongside one of the adults, so it hardly spared them the work. Feuille was better off sleeping until morning. Regardless, Feuille seemed put out to think he wasn’t needed, his expression glum.

“We’ll be depending on your memory tomorrow,” Loren told him. “Get some rest and preserve your stamina until then.”

Loren ruffled the boy’s head again and brought back his smile.

I see. When a child looks gloomy, it seems to make everything around him gloomy, Loren thought.

For some reason, Lapis decided to push her head against his arm.

“What?”

“Mr. Loren, please pet me like that.”

“Consider your age.”

“It feels like you’re giving Mr. Feuille preferential treatment!”

He would lose nothing by ignoring her, but he didn’t want to risk her bad mood. With little choice in the matter, he took a deep breath and placed a hand on her head. He petted her gently, just enough that she wouldn’t think he was half-assing it.

Her eyelids lowered, closing almost completely. After reveling in the sensation for a long moment, she pulled her head out from under his hand and clenched her fist.

“Now, I can fight another day!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She wasn’t making any sense, but she wasn’t in a bad mood, so maybe he could take the win. However, his expression soon turned from tired to tense.

As he reached for his sword, Lapis’s complacent aura transformed into one of grim anticipation. A beat after that, Feuille’s long ears twitched.

“Huh? This is…”

“I knew we should have made the camp farther from the forest,” Loren complained.

“That’s just hindsight speaking,” Lapis told him.

They spoke casually, but their ears were locked on the sound of footsteps approaching.

“There’s a few of them. Do you know what they might be?”

Loren drew his heavy black blade from his back. Lapis took a stance to protect Feuille as the kid desperately racked his mind for the identity of the creatures stalking toward them.

“These sounds…probably forest wolves.”

“Those things, eh.”

Loren had heard the name before and even fought a few of them. They were wolves that lived in forests and hunted in packs. Additional fun fact—forest wolves were a leading cause of death for copper-rank adventurers who entered the woods for easy quests. Immediately after Feuille revealed their enemy, the wolves shot out of the forest in a cacophony of pants and growls.

Loren swung, managing to sever the one at the lead from snout to tail. On the return swing, he caught the ribcage of a wolf pouncing to bite him, splattering its organs over the ground.

“Oi, the hell is this?”

Loren had taken two out in the blink of an eye, but another had already launched itself at him. Without the time to ready his sword, he kicked it away. In that moment, he took in their situation and got an unhappy shock.

Forest wolves hunted in packs, so Loren had expected a good handful. However, the number of wolves that surrounded their camp profoundly exceeded expectations, even minus the three he’d taken care of.

“Maybe a few packs got together?” Lapis suggested.

Keeping Feuille close, she held out her right palm. A wolf tried to take this prime chance to tear an arm off, but instead found its head facing the wrong direction with a dull crack.

Paying no mind to their fallen comrades, another wolf launched, then another, each ending up with their heads twisted at odd angles, and each slumping lifeless to the ground.

“Eh? Ehhh?!”

Feuille watched, unable to believe the carnage wrought by the pretty priest guarding him. She waved her right hand, staring down at the forest wolves. They didn’t seem eager to retreat.

Lapis cocked her head as she snapped the neck of another. “This is strange. Are pups like this always so determined?”

Each individual wolf wasn’t so dangerous on its own, but they knew the strength of the pack and weren’t cowards. Still, your average wolf was intelligent enough to run upon seeing its fellows so easily slaughtered. The wolves coming at them were sliced through and broken one after the next, yet they showed no sign of backing down.

“What’s with them?”

“Who knows? Maybe they really want to put us on the menu?”

Lapis’s right hand stabbed at the jaw of a forest wolf lunging at her throat. She smacked it to the ground and crushed its head underfoot; Feuille’s face twitched.

“I don’t want a child to see this, but what else can we do?”

“Get him into the tent!”

The sword Loren swung with only one hand turned several wolves into lumps of flesh in midair. His left hand had a grasp on another’s windpipe. It thrashed to escape his grip, but it was quickly crushed, bone and all. Its limbs went limp as the life left its body.

“Won’t we be even more worried if he’s out of sight?”

“That’s… I get where you’re coming from,” Loren conceded. He dropped the corpse at his feet to grip his sword with both hands. “Ugh, I’d be happier if they were at least edible. What am I supposed to do with all of this?”

At some point, Lapis had given him a lecture about forest wolf meat being inedible to humans. Each time he swung his sword in a wide arc, even more bodies piled up, so much useless garbage.

“We might need to move camp anyways.”

With so many bodies, the thick smell of blood filled the air. The ones Loren’s blade tore through gave off the stench of viscera as well. Even if they managed to drive the wolves away, this was no place to sleep.

“Moving again? Do we have to?” Lapis sounded reluctant.

“Complain all you want, do you want to camp here?”

She couldn’t refute that, or Loren didn’t think she could. However, it seemed Lapis had an idea. She grabbed Feuille by the nape, shoved him in the tent, and shut it. Just as Loren was wondering what she was doing, he saw her lift her left hand.

“Hey, you’re not going to…”

“Let it swirl before mine eyes, o crimson flames, ye storm and burst. Firestorm!”

Lapis spun her spell before Loren could get a word in edgewise. In no time at all, a powerful swirl of flame manifested. Not just one either. Four massive maelstroms of fire roared to life around the campsite, dragging wolves into the current of their blaze as the flame rose toward the heavens.

“Tee hee. Did you see that masterful magic? My spells have gone up in range and firepower, now that I don’t have to constantly send mana to my left arm!”

She was so darn proud of herself. Loren silently clenched his fist and knocked it ungently on the crown of her head.

Lapis yelped, holding her head with both hands as she squatted down on the spot. Her control was cut, and the flaming whirlwinds burnt out, leaving not a trace behind.

“You didn’t have to…” she whined.

“Now look here, how were you going to explain if someone saw that?!”

“A mysterious sage came to our rescue at a critical moment!”

“You want another one?” Loren shook his clenched fist.

Lapis turned a bit pale, shaking her head as she wrapped her palm around his knuckles. “Please don’t, you’ll leave a permanent dent.”

“Good grief. Well, that should have sent them running…” A forest wolf interrupted Loren, leaping out of the trees toward his unprotected neck. Loren swung his right arm up and got teeth in it for his trouble.

“Mr. Loren?!”

“Bastard…”

Loren couldn’t believe his eyes. Lapis’s magic had turned most of their pack to ash, and yet the remaining wolves lingered, as if they had waited for the flames to dissipate before taking their chance. This one had jumped at Loren the second he let his guard down.

The forest wolf that was clamped onto him growled as it tried to sink its fangs deeper, but Lapis grabbed its upper and lower jaw between her slender fingers. In the next instant, she had pulled it off Loren as if its bite strength meant nothing. She kept right on pulling until she had torn it in two.

“Are you okay, Mr. Loren?!”

“It’s nothing. But what the hell is up with them?”

These wolves paid no mind to the deaths of their brethren and didn’t shy from the massive flames. It seemed they were dead set on chewing their enemies to bits, totally obstinate. Loren wondered if they had gone mad. Their survival instincts had gone right out the window.

“Do we really look that delicious?” he asked.

“Your meat looks pretty tough, Mr. Loren. I doubt they’d want you for dinner. It would have to be either me or Mr. Feuille.”

Loren didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like he wanted to be delicious, but it was a little demoralizing for her to say he was unappetizing to his face.

“My guts aren’t gonna be as bitter as a demon’s, though.”

“Are you trying to say I’m full of vile blackness?!”

“Which means Feuille is tastiest, by process of elimination.”

“I’m delicious too, aren’t I?! I’m not going to lose to some brat! My skin is young and my flesh is supple, like a perfectly ripe peach!”

Had anyone else been there to hear her shouting, they would have arrived at some strange misunderstandings. Loren paid her no mind, instead counting the remaining wolves.

Their numbers weren’t as impressive now. The ground had been burnt by Lapis’s spell, but they stood there even as the heat scorched their paw pads. They were no closer to giving up.

“Looks like we have to kill every last one of them…”

Loren had never heard of an animal that kept fighting until its every ally was dead. It was, however, growing increasingly easy to imagine this pack of forest wolves would come for them until the last of them was put down. A chill ran down Loren’s spine.

This was not natural, not by any means.

“Don’t let it get to you, or they’ll take you by surprise again,” Lapis warned him, her voice colder than before. “Though I won’t stop you, if you want to be their meal.”

“This is no joke.”

Burnt and broiled by the hot ground, one of the wolves ran out of strength and fell before it could pounce. The others could clearly see the danger that felled it, but that didn’t stop them from taking the very same path.

Loren gripped his sword, already sick of the smell of burnt hair, skin, and flesh. But he couldn’t help feeling an iota of hesitation.

“We can think about the cause later,” Lapis told him. “For now, we have to cut through.”

“I know. I get that, but…”

Two forest wolves came at him. With a flash of his sword, he tore through their bodies like paper. One died immediately from its injuries, but the other wasn’t so lucky. Its innards spilled from the gaping hole in its belly, but still it dragged its failing body to Loren’s leg and snapped at Loren’s ankle. It didn’t stop until Loren crushed its skull.

“This is creeping me out.”

“Yes, this is not…quite normal.”

Ultimately, the forest wolves didn’t stop until the last one was a corpse. Not a single wolf attempted to flee.

 

The next morning, they cleared up their campsite and finally set foot in the Black Forest. Loren had spent a chunk of the night gathering the remains of the forest wolves and piling them up for Lapis to incinerate.

He cleaned up the scattered blood and guts as best he could, gathering them up into cloths and tossing the bundles into the fire, but the metallic smell of blood and the sour stench of organs continued to linger. No one slept very well that night.

Neither Loren nor Lapis was happy about staying put, but after fighting off the wolves, they had lost the willpower to pick everything up and reassemble it elsewhere. One shared look was enough to communicate that they were both ready to put up with the stench, and so they stayed there for the night.

“Are you all right? Both of you?” Feuille asked, looking understandably worried.

The two adults had kept watch on rotation, but even while it was their turn to sleep, the foul odors had prevented them from resting properly. Not that one sleepless night was enough to slow them down, but the sleep deprivation showed on their faces.

Incidentally, after Lapis had shoved him in the tent, Feuille had crawled into his sleeping bag to anxiously wait out the attack. He had fallen asleep like that and only woke once the sun rose.

“It’s all right,” Loren told him.

“I’d like to borrow a bed once we reach that settlement of yours,” Lapis said sullenly. A sleepless night hadn’t drained her strength any, but it sure had made her grumpy.

Feuille hurried to nod. “Please, take it easy. I’m sure everyone will welcome you.”

“I hope so. Guess I’ll be counting on that.”

Honestly, Loren wanted to turn around and head straight back. The previous night’s attack had been altogether too creepy. He didn’t mind being attacked. Hell, he expected it when they set up camp near any forest animal’s territory. However, those wolves had completely ignored the inborn survival instincts they should have cleaved to. That was proof that something strange was afoot within the forest. Adding that to the disappearance of the elves from town and the missing people who had gone to investigate, the Black Forest was growing more and more ominous.

Loren proceeded with caution.

“How long will it be until we reach your settlement?” Lapis asked, following along behind him.

Feuille looked around, thought a bit, then answered, “We should be there if we walk around a stound.”

“That’s quite far.”

Elves were at ease in the forest. They moved efficiently, in ways humans couldn’t grasp, and their common sense told them which paths were the safest to follow. When dragging a human down those paths, the same didn’t hold true. An elf could easily clear stretches where a human would trip up or stumble through the undergrowth.

“So you shouldn’t take his estimate at face value,” Lapis whispered to Loren.

He didn’t nod back. Instead, he swiftly swept his hand through the air.

Lapis readied herself, not sure what was happening. Right before Feuille’s startled eyes, Loren grabbed something in midair. He held it up to reveal a snake he had caught by the neck. It coiled around his arm, its body reaching from wrist to elbow; it had likely dropped from the trees above in a bid to bite one of their party. However, it was clearly not large enough to eat any of them.

Yet the snake still opened and closed its mouth, doing anything in its power to bite Loren’s hand.

“Lapis, this reeks of trouble. Watch out.”

With that warning, Loren crushed the snake until it went limp and lifeless. He carelessly tossed it into the undergrowth.

As the snake thumped into the bracken, there was frantic movement through the leaves, then violent tearing sounds and intense crunching. Feuille paled.

“What hellscape have we stumbled into?” Lapis asked as they listened to something devour the discarded snake. They picked up the pace, not eager to figure out what exactly the scavenger was.

“I’m surprised you elves can live in this danger zone,” said Loren.

“It’s not usually like that…”

At their feet, a scurrying mouse scooped up an insect and began chowing down on it. The mouse was suddenly stabbed to death by a strange vine striking from overhead, and the vine voraciously sucked out its body fluids. Insects flocked to the mouse’s desiccated corpse, dismantling its dry remains. Then these insects became the meal of another mouse.

More crunching sounds made them look up to see the corpse of some animal impaled on a sharp branch, being feasted upon by a monkey-like beast.

I remember some birds eat like that, Loren thought, at which point a massive bird struck the monkey from behind. The bird grabbed its prize in its talons and took off to greater heights.

“Hey, what sort of place have we wandered into?” Loren wondered aloud. “Is this forest supposed to be so brutal?”

A new monkey replaced the one that had been taken by the bird, and this one swooped down on Loren from above. Loren whacked it away without looking. He dented its face with its fist, and it crashed into trees as it flew a good distance. Once it hit the ground, who knew what started going to town on its flesh. Its shrill shrieks and the rustling cause Feuille to jerk.

“What was that?”

“A forest ape, I think. But this is strange. They’re omnivorous, but they usually live on fruit. They rarely attack other animals like that…”

“I don’t really get it. I guess some days, you just want to have meat.”

Loren knew that was nonsense even as he said it. But if he didn’t make light of the situation, there was no way they could press on.

“Lapis, have you figured anything out? Any leads?” he asked, hoping to rely on the power of a priest to the god of knowledge.

Lapis made a bewildered face, staring in the direction he’d sent the forest ape flying.

Is she seeing something we can’t? he wondered.

However, she shook her head and muttered, “I thought they were under the influence of something malevolent, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They’re acting too aimlessly for someone to be controlling them.”

She’d barely gotten her last word out before something coiled around Feuille’s torso.

He didn’t have time to scream before his body was wrapped tight and yanked upward. Loren immediately grabbed the kid with his left hand, using his right hand to tear through the bindings—and something cried out in the trees.

That something was a massive frog over three feet tall, hanging upside down from the branches. It had tried to catch Feuille with its tongue.

Sure, it was a damn big frog, but it wasn’t large enough to gulp down an entire ten-year-old. Loren delivered a kick to rock the tree, then stomped on the frog where it fell.

“This is a mess.”

Insects immediately flocked to the dead frog. It was taken apart before Loren’s very eyes, and his stomach churned as he watched it practically melt away. Removing the bits of tongue still clinging to a stupefied Feuille, Loren patted him on the back.

“Fweh?!” Feuille sputtered.

“They’ll just keep on coming if we stand around. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’ll be trouble if we don’t get to your settlement fast.”

“G-got it.”

The realization was a bit delayed, but Feuille finally noticed he had almost been eaten. His body quivered, but he understood something else would be after him if he loitered. He nodded and walked farther into the trees.

“Mr. Loren, I feel it’s dangerous to press on like this without any preparations,” Lapis said, her tone urgent. They trudged through the undergrowth, following where Feuille led them. “If the bugs start attacking us, my blessings and your sword won’t be enough to fend them off in these numbers.”

No matter how masterfully Loren wielded his sword, there was little he could do if he was attacked by a swarm of bugs. As things stood, they’d been blessedly sting-free, but it wouldn’t be strange if the insects recognized them as food at any point in the next few moments.

“Then what are you suggesting?” he asked.

“Please borrow Ms. Scena’s strength.”

At this, Scena popped up. <Me?>

Of course, neither Lapis nor Feuille could see her, but Lapis went on regardless.

“I think we should deploy a faint energy drain and use it as a shield. That should be enough to take out the smaller bugs and animals without much life force, and it will simultaneously repulse the larger ones.”

“The bugs aren’t gonna turn zombie on us, are they?”

“You’ll need to ask Ms. Scena to be careful. I don’t know if she can do it or not.”

He asked Scena if she could do what Lapis was proposing. The girl thought a bit, then thumped her chest.

<I’ll try. Leave it to me, Mister.>

The moment Scena accepted the task, the foliage in front of them turned from green to brown. Caught by unlucky coincidence, bugs began dropping like, well, like flies. The small animals that crept up to eat these insects keeled over and went still.

<Thin, gentle, and vast. That’s how I’m deploying my power.>

“We could market this as a bug repellent for the summertime.”

As the undergrowth cleared and it became easier to see what lay beneath, they found the ground blanketed in insects and small animals. Any animals over a certain size would flee, at last fearful of their own death as all the surrounding life force was sucked away. The larger trees, which presumably had more strength than all the bugs and little plants, were not visibly changed.

“It’s gotten quite a bit easier to walk.”

With the plants withering away, there was nothing blocking their feet. The trees were still a hindrance, but they weren’t so closely packed that it was difficult to squeeze between them. The party was suddenly moving at a much faster clip.

“Huh? Eh? What’s going on?” Feuille remarked at this sudden change to the forest. He turned to Loren and Lapis, hoping they could explain why the plants were all shrinking and dyeing away for no reason, but it wasn’t like they could be upfront about it.

Lapis looked away, while Loren let out a troubled laugh.

“It’s a secret. Adventurers always keep an ace up their sleeve. Remember that.”

Though Loren hoped no other adventurer had an ace like his. Feuille looked doubtful, but they urged him onward.

 

Feuille had explained that it would take a stound to reach the settlement on foot, but it looked like he had been measuring in elvish terms after all. It took nearly twice that time for them to see anything remotely resembling civilization.

It was by no means an easy journey. Every few steps, they came across one animal fighting another and the loser being devoured. They encountered the same kind of gory scene over and over. Poor Feuille, who had started out a bit pale, was white as a sheet by the end of it. Loren and Lapis were both thoroughly sick of the pattern.

“An incessant stream of attacks from animals and whatnot,” Loren muttered. “Who knows what would have happened if we didn’t have Scena?”

If Scena hadn’t cast energy drain, they would have tussled with far more would-be predators. If the bugs set their sights on blood, neither Loren nor Lapis had any countermeasures. Perhaps they would been forced to retreat then and there.

With poor enough luck, they might have run out of strength more or less instantly.

<I still have plenty left in me. Leave it to me, Mister.>

Loren offered the girl his sincerest gratitude.

Soon, beyond a thicket, there was a fairly wide gap in the trees. It was surrounded by a fence that stood about human height. Beyond that, Loren could make out a few buildings made of rounded logs. The trees clustered thick around the buildings dimmed the entire area, but the sky was clear over the opening in the canopy, and it showered the clearing in vibrant sunlight.

“So that’s your settlement?” Loren asked Feuille.

“That’s right! This is…”

“I see. Glad you—”

Loren cut himself off. Feuille sounded cheerful enough, and the boy looked up at Loren as he stopped and peered through the shadow of the trees.

Loren didn’t have time to pay Feuille any mind. He stared at the settlement, and Lapis came to stand beside him and stare as well.

“How is it?” he whispered to her.

“That question is so vague, I am unable to identify the answer,” she replied, nonchalant. He sent her a grim look. Upon noticing that, she shrugged and added, “What are you asking about?”

“The settlement. How does it look to you?”

“Too quiet, and not a soul in sight.”

Hearing this, Feuille peered at the settlement he had once called home. There were usually adults in armor at the entrance built into the fence. On a normal day, there would be more adults patrolling the perimeter, as well as elves of all ages going about their day behind it.

But now there wasn’t a soul in sight. Perhaps something had happened to the settlement. Feuille grew anxious and felt the urge to rush in as fast as he could. However, Loren and Lapis continued to observe, and they didn’t seem to want to get any closer.

“Umm…” said Feuille.

“I know what you want to say,” said Loren. “Trust me, I do.”

How long are we going to hide? When are we going in? That was surely what the kid wanted to ask. Loren scratched his head. He didn’t want to go at all.

Feuille picked up on Loren’s hesitation, and his big eyes grew bigger.

“Something’s clearly up, right?” said Loren. “The sun’s high in the sky, but I don’t see anyone about. Something happened—it’s practically screaming as much.”

“My thoughts exac—Mr. Loren! Up!” Lapis warned him.

Loren immediately reacted, starting to swing the sword he’d kept drawn, but the instant he could clearly see his assailant, he let go of the blade with his left hand and used it to cover his face. His attacker coiled its long limbs around him and bit hard into his exposed hand.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Loren muttered.

It had attacked him soundlessly from above—he hadn’t even realized it was there until Lapis had warned him. Once he got a better look at it, he could tell it was a male elf with disheveled hair. The elf’s canines were bared, and he was still young enough to be called a boy.

The elf boy panted harshly, growling like a beast as he ground his teeth with all his strength, attempting to tear away the flesh of Loren’s arm. But the teeth of a child, no matter how harshly applied, could only leave deep marks in Loren’s skin. It was impossible for him to really get at the meat, as it were.

His teeth nevertheless pierced Loren’s skin and drew blood.

“Do elves eat people?” Loren asked.

He couldn’t smack the elf away or crush him like he had the forest wolves—not in front of Feuille. For the time being, Loren stabbed his sword into the ground and attempted to peel the elf boy off his body. However, while Loren should have possessed the absolute advantage in physical might, the boy was surprisingly powerful. Try as he might, Loren couldn’t tear him away, and they got stuck in an awful tussle, with each side unable to claim victory.

“Good grief. What do you think you’re doing to Mr. Loren?” Unable to remain a bystander, Lapis reached out. She grabbed the boy’s tattered clothes by the collar and pulled. She yanked hard in hopes of removing him, but the clothes ripped, and the boy’s grasp on Loren remained strong.

Staring sullenly at the frayed cloth, Lapis lunged and grabbed the elf boy by the neck, forcefully tearing him away. To prevent the boy from biting Loren a second time—or going after her—she used her hold on his neck to chuck him straight at the settlement. The boy flew with a considerable amount of momentum, drawing a parabola into the air. Even after he had landed, he rolled a while, tumbling with all Lapis’s fury driving his trajectory.

“How is your wound, Mr. Loren?” Lapis asked.

“Not serious, but…”

His skin had been pressed down in the shape of the boy’s teeth, and a few points were oozing blood. It wasn’t much of a wound, but tackling and gnawing on strangers didn’t seem like a typical pastime for elven children. It was as uncanny as the rest of what was happening in the forest.

What if something terrible entered Loren’s body through this open wound and the boy’s spit? He feared he would lose himself as the boy had. But soon, the bleeding stopped and the teeth marks slowly faded.

<Leave it to me. I’ll manage!>

“How reliable…”

“Do you feel anything changing?” asked Lapis.

She looked concerned, and Loren took a silent moment to feel out his body. He shook his head. Perhaps the change, if there was one, wasn’t immediate. He couldn’t be relieved just yet. However, Scena declared that it would be all right, and he decided to trust her.

“I’m fine. The problem is over there.”

The boy’s tumble had only been stopped by his collision with the settlement fence. Loren didn’t usually have a lot of mercy to spare for people who bit him, but he didn’t feel like cutting an elven child down in front of Feuille, who still hadn’t grasped the reality of the situation.

As Loren drew his sword from the ground and walked toward the settlement he’d been hoping to avoid, he made his way to the fence with the faint hope that Lapis’s throw had knocked some sense into the kid.

He looked down at the elf boy, who convulsed in the dirt.

“Be careful, Mr. Loren.”

“He’s not getting up soon, not after that throw.”

In his experience, a human would have needed a lot of time to recover from a landing like that. Elves were slimmer and more delicate than humans, with lower physical defenses. Lapis might well have injured the elf child so badly that he wouldn’t be getting up again.

“Hey, you feeling any saner?” Loren asked, but all he got back were low, garbled groans. He was beginning to suspect that it was hopeless when the moans suddenly jumped in volume.

He readied himself and stepped back, only for the groans to gradually shift into screams. The boy’s body writhed on the ground, twitching and convulsing as the elf tore at his own chest.

“What’s going on?” Loren asked.

“Could he be diseased?” Lapis observed from behind Loren.

Feuille cried out and tried to approach the writhing boy, but Loren grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back before he could get close.

“Sarion!” Feuille called, desperation in his voice. “It’s me! Feuille! Don’t you remember me?!”

There was a flash of rationality in the writhing boy’s eyes.

Just maybe, Loren thought.

But then the boy named Sarion let out a muddled scream the likes of which they hadn’t heard before. He coughed up a great gout of blood.

On closer inspection, the clothes he wore were, in places, soaked with blood, which was gradually dying them red.

“Is he injured?”

Lapis pointed at a portion of the boy’s bloody clothes. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

Loren focused on that spot until he noticed something squirming under the cloth. Each time it moved, the boy’s screams grew louder and more intense. Disturbed at the unfamiliar sight, Loren backed up, dragging Feuille with him.

“Sarion! Get a grip, Sarion!”

Sarion reached out as Feuille cried his name. Did he know Feuille was well out of arm’s reach? Desperate, Sarion groped for help before suddenly falling still. Like a marionette whose strings had been severed, his hand fell to the ground, and he was silent.

“What made him like this?”

Loren left a dazed Feuille with Lapis and approached the corpse. The boy himself was dead, but the small lump was still wriggling and shifting under his clothing. Revolted as he was, Loren needed to see what it was lest they face the same fate. Loren steeled his resolve and flipped up the cloth.

“Whoa?!” He was unable to stifle the cry.

A small humanoid figure with wings on its back was digging into the boy’s skin with nails and teeth, tearing into his flesh.