111 – The Circulatory System (13)
Very far away. The odds of the roaring creatures coming to them were low, but they couldn’t be relieved. It is common for predators to have extremely keen senses for finding prey. It was not known if the being had special sensing abilities.
Thanks to having tasted fear once, I could no longer feel the same serenity as before. The fear of predators is imprinted deep in the unconscious.
Just in time, Damian came down from reconnaissance.
And all eyes were on him.
He approached the flat rock with leisurely steps.
Seeing his extremely calm expression, Cecile asked.
“Candy… didn’t you hear?”
“I heard.”
“… Are we okay?”
“If he doesn’t come first, he’ll pass unscathed. Now that I know the approximate location, it will save me trouble when I find it later.”
Cecile and other group members put on dumbfounded expressions. He was talking about finding the monster.
“We are looking for you… ?”
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He replied nonchalantly.
“No, I’ll have to visit you after I split up with you guys.”
It sounded like he was dealing with troublesome homework.
“….”
As expected, the way of thinking itself was different. On the contrary, he was thinking of the monster as his prey.
Seeing his unwavering appearance, Cecile relaxed as if she had swallowed a tranquilizer. If the candy had made a fuss, the anxiety would have been aggravated. Fortunately, he did not shake as expected.
In the first place, he was a human who set foot on this land at his own will. Recalling that fact again, this man’s madness approached me reliably in the current situation.
Even Cecil, who had a strong sense of independence, wanted to lean on and depend on Candyi.
She saw Trisha’s face pressed close to her side. Trisha looked at Candyi with a happy face, as if she were her escort.
“Tricia… are you okay?”
Then she was startled and said, managing her expression.
“Ah, sister… I’m still not sure, so I don’t know….”
“… ….”
And I saw Martha and Bertan, who were members of the same group. Their faces showed distrust of candy. If even Cecil, their de facto leader, took an ambiguous stance, the team could have split.
We need to solidify our position.
Cecile, who was determined, approached Damian.
Then he took all the frostwind bombs out of his pocket and held them out in front of him.
“This. I’ll leave everything to you.”
Bertan was startled and tried to dissuade Cecil.
That was Cecil’s most powerful weapon.
“Hey, what are you doing… !”
Cecil turned his head and firmly cut off Bertan’s words.
“Shut up.”
Then he looked at Damian again.
Damian also expressed disapproval.
“Too many.”
“I’m not giving it away. Use as much as you need, and when it’s time to split, give back what’s left.”
“Someone who made something like this would make better use of it.”
“There is a proverb that says, ‘A magician does not know what he or she makes. Just because you made it yourself doesn’t mean you can bring out the full potential of a magic tool. I’m leaving it to you because I think you’ll use it better than I do.”
“….”
It was her choice to discard all halfway things and bet on the best hand.
Leave all the chiefs aside, who would you trust? What’s more, he was with the best elementalist in the first year.
He listened to Cecile’s words and silently packed the Frostwind Bomb.
***
Shion followed the faint smell in the air and moved on. It must have been the smell of a human fire.
Going on for a while, she faced a certain cliff. The smell continued along the wall. As she moved along, she came across a small cave.
The most intense smell of smoke was coming from there. It was easy to deduce that someone had camped in the cave to avoid the previous day’s rain.
Shion entered the cave. There, she saw a bonfire with only ashes and blackened skewers. She rummaged through her teeth with her feet, revealing undead embers. It hadn’t been a day since she had left.
There were traces of people sitting around the campfire. Three people stayed in the cave. I wasn’t sure if it was the man’s sign yet.
Coming out, Shion traced the strange trail she left at the entrance to the cave.
The footprints of a giant wild boar. And there were traces of something sweeping through it.
What came out of the end was the body of a wild boar, with its body split in half.
The cut surface was distorted as if it had been crushed with strong force. It was as if a powerful wave had swept through the area.
She knew a man who used such powerful powers.
The suspicion is now confirmed. A faint smile lingered on Shion’s face.
She said to herself, touching the hilt of her sword.
“Not long left….”
***
Marta said, holding the map and checking the terrain before her eyes several times.
“There is no road.”
Cecile and Bertan stood next to him and checked the map together.
“Are you sure you checked correctly?”
“Yes. I thought there was a Zando in front of me. Look, no.”
Cecile confirmed that Martha was not lying. The surrounding features matched the map, but the roads were cut off where they should have been.
To the left of the road is a tall rock wall. There are cliffs in front and right.
Cecil called her entire team together and discussed a new route.
Rock climbing was impossible. Not only were they not equipped, and the rocks were damp, so they slipped easily.
“I have to follow the low-lying valley.”
Bertang swallowed and said.
“But there… ….”
There is a detour. The problem was that where they were standing was the only route back away from the monster’s sound.
While I was seriously thinking about it, Luna’s wolf spirit returned from reconnaissance with something in its mouth.
It was a large lizard that was bitten in its mouth. Its body was much longer than a grown man’s lying down, and its body was covered with hard, glossy black scales that looked like they were lined with obsidian.
After talking with her spirit, Luna said to Damian.
“They say he was following us from behind. Since when did it stick… I don’t know. And I think there are more groups.”
Everyone set their senses at the word crowd.
“They see us as prey.”
Luna nodded her head.
“They said it was planned.”
Luna and Damian intuited that it was an unusual sign. This is because the appearance of a lizard is exactly like a dragon. I couldn’t erase the connection with the ‘wingless dragon’.
They could have been more intelligent than reptiles, judging from their group behavior and premeditated tailing.
“It may not be a coincidence that the jando collapsed.”
“Me too… think so.”
Guiding prey to their territory.
It was a sheep hunt.
This meant that it was already too late to avoid an eat-and-eat fight.
Damian made a decision without hesitation.
“Let’s move first. At least we have to cross the canyon before sunset.”
In the end, after walking three more hours, I entered a detour. Because it was a long valley dug in a U-shape, it was inevitable to be surrounded if you blocked the front and back.
The width itself was wide enough for ten wagons to pass at the same time, but the high cliffs on both sides made it feel psychologically narrow and stuffy.
Small waterfalls could be seen sparsely on the cliff, but because of the high altitude, half of them became water mist and mixed with the wind before reaching the ground.
Deep in the valley, there was no sunlight. Everywhere my feet touched was slippery with moss, and a small stream of water flowed beside it, which is embarrassing to even call it a stream.
There was no time to admire the natural scenery. It was because of the anxiety of not knowing when something would come out.
It was obvious that everyone was tired from just walking.
Damian led the way, and the rest followed.
Soon after that, Luna’s wolf spirit, who had gone out to scout first, returned.
The three wolves came back, each carrying a lizard. The increase in the number of water lizards caught was not a good sign.
Luna’s eyes widened little by little after talking with the wolf spirit. She went up to Damian and said.
“… The atmosphere isn’t too bad. You will have to prepare for battle.”
“How many?”
She hesitated, pondering her choice of words.
“… Many. A lot.”
Damian took a bottle of potion out of his arms and drank it at once.
“Take care of the kids.”
“Yes. Be careful….”
Since Luna has many spirits at her command, she was better suited to cover a wide area.
Damian planned to fight with his comrades and send his comrades to the rear when the leader of the group appeared and deal with it alone.
He looked at the group of Cecil following for a while. Then he met eyes with Tricia, who was closely attached to Cecil. She, too, watched Damian with an expression that showed her complicated state of mind.
To Damian, Trisha was an existence that caused ambivalence. Even though she wants to be comfortable with people who know her identity, she wants to avoid it because it will bring back memories of Liza that Trisha has buried in her heart.
I wanted to drop it because it only interfered with practice, but sometimes I wanted to keep it by my side to protect it in case of a dangerous situation.
Luna asked as if she had read Damian’s mind.
“Friends care… written?”
Damian shook his head.
“Let’s finish it quickly and shake off the luggage.”
He took the lead again. The rest followed him.
After about ten minutes, Tricia noticed something strange and looked up at the cliff and asked Cecil.
“Sister, on the cliff over there… see?”
“What?”
“Something like a strange hole… There is.”
Tricia pointed to her hand. Perhaps it was because of the shadows on the rugged parts of the cliff, so I could see shadows of ambiguous size that I couldn’t distinguish well.
Cecile took out a telescope and checked it. It really hit the hole. It was so large that it was difficult for a single person to stand on it. It seemed more appropriate to call it an oyster rather than a cave.
And something dark came out of the hole and crawled down the cliff.
“…!”
It was nimble like a cockroach.
Not one. Black things began pouring out of other holes around it.
Soon after, Luna’s wolf spirits began barking furiously as if warning them.
Cecil immediately shouted.
“Candy! They are coming!”
After a while, something more terrifying happened. The roar that terrified the group members began to echo through the valley again.
The epicenter was very close.