I certainly didn't like the idea of going back to that forest, but my partners seemed rather calm. The blond man, who was a veterinarian, suddenly spoke.
"I can help you find that monster. I found a cat, two days ago, with the same sickness. I don't know who it belongs to, but I could give it to you. You can use it as bait for the monster."
I opened my mouth to thank the man, but Hboy spoke, somewhat frustrated.
"What do you mean, 'I don't know who it belongs to, but I could give it to you'? Are you simply going to sacrifice a cat? What if it won't lead us to the truth? Don't you care a single bit about it?"
"Just shut up. Can you think? This is probably our only chance, or do you prefer searching with no leads?" I told Hboy, annoyed.
He looked at me with an intense intent to harm me, and in a fraction of a second, he swung his fist. Luckily, Juta stopped him in time, which made Hboy settle down.
"I'm... very sorry!" he said as he bowed to me.
"Hey, no need to bow, come on, it's alright."
I didn't know what to say. He had never told me that he cared about animals so much. Then I realized. They weren't accepting me; they were using me to climb the ranks, since they needed a three-man team. I looked at that round face of his and was barely able to keep a straight face out of anger.
"Let's just go," I told them.
Hboy took the lead, and I followed. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Juta. It felt like his green eye was staring right through my soul as he asked, "Are you alright?"
I nodded and shook his hand off.
We agreed to set up camp somewhere near the forest so we could observe the cat. We spent the evening around the campfire, eating some meat we bought and cooked. I had already calmed down enough to be able to hold a conversation with them.
"So, what should we do?" I asked, mostly to kill time.
In my opinion, we just had to wait until the cat would enter the forest, follow her, then kill whatever monster was waiting for us. I doubted it would be any stronger than the sand abomination I encountered during my first visit to that forsaken place. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little nervous knowing that such things could just show up on us out of nowhere.
"For now, we wait. We need someone to watch over the cat while we sleep, and we take turns," answered Hboy, almost casually.
I raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever been inside the forest?"
"No. I heard it is pretty dangerous."
No wonder he was calm. However, I didn't bother to tell him anything else.
I offered myself to be the first one to watch over the cat. I wasn't tired, and I was planning to wake one of them in case I got tired, regardless of how much time they slept. I didn't feel like I should have cared about them. I quickly changed my mind, as it was really possible that they didn't see me as a tool to help them climb the ranks just because they didn't tell me about themselves. In fact, I hadn't told them much about myself either.
The moon was bright, the sky filled with stars, just like in a fairy tale. The only thing that was ruining that perfect atmosphere was the constant and distant sounds that were coming from the forest. Must have been monsters.
I spent a few hours just listening to those sounds and staring at the sky, getting ready to switch with someone. Before I could do so, I noticed that the cat was acting weird. She was slowly going towards the forest. I quickly woke my partners up.
"It's going in," I hissed.
"It looks like it goes there, but not by her own free will," noted Hboy.
And he was right. It seemed like the cat was making futile efforts to stop.
"Let's go, before we lose her!" I said, following the cat, that was already in the forest.
We spent maybe ten minutes tailing the cat. I found it really strange that it didn't even care that we were there. At some point, we started occasionally seeing blood on the ground, and we started to hear all sorts of sounds, which came, obviously, from the monsters.
I started to sweat. Fear enveloped me as I was praying not to encounter any atrocity and make it back home in one piece.
Suddenly, the cat stopped. The dirt beneath her turned violet, and a purple spear pierced the cat. I couldn't do anything but stare. The heavy breaths of my scared partners could be heard from behind me, but I didn't dare to look away from the cat.
That violet spear seemed to slowly drain the life out of the cat as it was turning gray and shrinking. Shortly after, the spear disappeared, and the ground turned back to normal.
None of us made any move. I was trying to think. Was our opponent underground? Was it in the trees? Were the spears themselves the monster? We didn't have enough information to make a plan.
It seemed that the monster's weapons were those spears that were basically a guaranteed kill if they hit. At least we had time to react since we could spot the attack thanks to the ground turning violet in the spot where the spear would appear.
The next moment, I heard Juta: "Damn, it has found us."
I looked at the ground. Three violet areas right below each of us. I dodged, then made sure the others did as well.
"We have to look for the body," I said.
The others nodded. This time, however, the spears sucked up the life from a few trees and the grass surrounding them, to the point they turned to dust. Thanks to that, we were finally able to see what we were dealing with.
A stone creature was floating slightly above us. It had four purple and thin wings. Half of its chest was cracked, and it had a big blue star instead of a face. I needed all my willpower to suppress my fear.
"Alright, let's make a plan," I said, trying to stay calm.
But no one was listening. Juta and Hboy rushed towards the monster. A reckless move for someone who aspired to do more than just saving cats.
I watched as Hboy jumped, and Juta, using air magic, sent his friend flying at a high speed towards the monster. I was able to see Hboy's fist turning to fire. As he punched the monster, he created a huge explosion that set lots of trees on fire.
To my surprise, the flying thing was unaffected. I gritted my teeth. Those bastards were really ignoring me and trying to take down the monster on their own.
I started to debate whether to let them fight alone or not, but I didn't find any good reason for me to abandon them. It was for my own good.
I was shook off from my thoughts as the monster started to fire purple spears left and right, making movement extremely difficult. I saw my partners getting ready for another attack.
They tried the same thing again, except this time I used outer mana to create a strong and sharp stone knife and used air magic to throw it at the monster. My knife and Juta and Hboy's combo attack hit each other.
It looked like Juta was pretty good at controlling air magic, as his wind easily changed the direction of my knife,then shot a fire beam at the creature, while the knife was flying at a crazy speed.
This time, our attack barely hit the monster, but it managed to leave a deep cut. I smirked. Hboy and Juta were completely ignoring me, but it didn't really matter.
My happiness quickly disappeared as the monster let out a loud, high-pitched scream, as if it was requesting backup. A lot of humanoid stone figures, with the same star instead of a face, started to emerge from the ground.
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse—