After leaving the Hala outpost, the expedition team arrived at the entryway that Ismile had previously guarded. When they showed their entry pass to the guards, they were let in without any problems.
“Be careful. Another expedition team entered and returned with only some of their members, and the survivors were half-dead. That happened only yesterday… Ah, I hope I didn’t offend anyone,” the guard said, noticing one of their members looking particularly stiff. The guard recognized Lakshasha as one of those who had come back alive.
Boom, as soon as the team went through the entrance, the door closed again. Everyone raised their head and saw the natural landscape concealed by the castle walls. It was a bright jade-colored pasture with greeneries like trees scattered all about. It was surprising that the frightening events they heard from the rumors were taking place in such a beautiful forest, and without a word, the team started their march.
Because they left the outpost base in the afternoon, the sun in the sky soon began to sink. Aware of this, Lakshasha maintained a brisk pace and pushed the team rigorously. Their surroundings soon turned dark. But it wasn’t because the sun had set. Golden sun rays simply failed to penetrate the thick canopy, and the expedition team was now walking through a dense jungle. The trees they saw from time to time were all clustered tightly together, and as they ventured further inwards, the trees grew bigger and taller, blocking most of the sunlight. Furthermore, the grass beneath their feet grew like heavily tangled vines and made their surroundings denser.
“This is basically the entrance of the forest,” Lakshasha stopped the march for a moment to explain. “It’s the farthest outskirts of the Hala Forest. From now on, don’t ever let down your guard.” Lakshasha clenched his teeth and glared ahead. “Consider everything you see from here on out as your enemy no matter what it is.”
Chi-Woo quietly inhaled deeply at the severe warning. It seemed there was a need for him to be a bit nervous—though not too much.
“I’m planning to get off this pasture by taking the path I took before. What do you all think?” Lakshasha sounded anxious. It seemed he wanted to quickly head to the place he had been forced to leave his comrade behind last time to save them. There was no reason to refuse. Even if they met the enemy Lakshaha’s team encountered before, that was preferable. It was an enemy they had to fight and beat to conquer the Hala Forest safer anyway. It was better the earlier they dealt with them before they could eat someone else and become stronger.
Chi-Woo gave his permission, and Lakshasha quietly moved after inhaling a deep breath. They resumed their march at a strikingly slower speed than before. It was because they were taking each step cautiously and carefully. And Lakshasha warily looked around his surroundings with the full intention of not repeating the same mistake as last time. In comparison, Evelyn followed him from the middle of the team with a somewhat relaxed expression and suddenly turned her attention to Hawa.
Hawa’s eyebrows were heavily scrunched up. But rather than struggling from the weight of her heavy load, she looked confused. It was very unusual for Hawa to show her emotion so clearly on her face, so Evelyn knew it wasn’t a matter that could be easily dismissed.
“What is it?” Evelyn asked in a whisper, and Hawa flinched.
“No…it’s nothing.” But even while saying this, Hawa constantly looked left and right. She looked unsure and frazzled; there was clearly a problem, but Evelyn didn’t press. They were truly in expedition territory now—a place where they could lose their lives with just a second of carelessness. It was then they stopped marching. Lakshasha raised his index finger and pressed it against his lips, his movements growing even more cautious with stealth and precision. Then he got down on one knee, lowering his body. The expedition team lightened their footsteps and took the same stance as him, and Lakshasha pointed to one area.
“Look…nobody talk…quietly…” There was nothing there. They only saw the green jungle they had been seeing the entire time. Chi-Woo didn’t get at all what Lakshasha was telling them to look at. He was thinking that no matter how much he focused, he couldn’t see anything when…
‘Bzz—’ A faint sound reached his ears. It grew closer and closer until something appeared.
‘A bee?’ Chi-Woo couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a flying insect that had black stripes on a yellow body. Although its size and thickness were twice of the hornets on Earth, they were nearly identical in appearance. Nevertheless, the bee-like insect flew toward them and circled around and around until it softly landed on a common-looking white flower that could be spotted anywhere. The flower was at the exact spot where Lakshasha had pointed at before.
The expedition team asked confusedly, ‘Is that insect the—'
The bee fumbled around the flower’s pistil to gather nectar when the flower petals suddenly opened wide and enveloped it. The flower shook from side to side as the bee struggled wildly inside, but the petals didn’t look like they would open up again. Instead, they closed tighter than before as if the flower was intent on not letting its prey go. Then, eventually, the shaking lessened, and the flower petals repeatedly pushed in and out like it was gobbling up their food. Chi-Woo became speechless at the unbelievable scene before him. Yet it wasn’t over then.
‘Blegh.’ The flower made a gulping sound, and one of its stems drew a tiny circle before it suddenly started to shudder—rip! Riiip! Its body split into pieces, and a pair of wings popped out. But that wasn’t all. As it flapped its wings ferociously, its roots were pulled out of the ground, and the ends of its roots curled and sharpened like a bee sting. A purplish color spread through the stems and turned the flower’s white petals into a deep blue. In an instant, the pure white flower had turned into a strange poisonous plant that could fly and had a poisonous sting.
The expedition team was astonished after witnessing a rapid evolution such as this one. They didn’t know what Ismile had really meant by things evolving constantly in the Hala Forest, but they knew now. Soon, the flower shot upwards and rotated its head in the direction where the expedition team was hiding.
Sling! An arrow left a shining trajectory across the air as it penetrated into the center of the flower. With its pistil pierced, the flower fell and slumped onto the ground while making sorrowful ‘Beep— beep—’ noises.
“…You guys must have felt it too after witnessing that.” Lakshasha pulled with his hand and interestingly, the arrow came back to him like a fish on a fishhook. It seemed the thing that had been shining in the air was a thread.
“This is the kind of place Hala Forest is.”
Though it was just one sentence, everyone understood what Lakshasha meant and why he had told them to consider everything they saw as an enemy from here on out. Apoline, who had been hiding behind large plants, quickly distanced herself from the tree in front of her.
“Are there more beings like that the further in we go?” Apoline asked warily, and Lakshasha shook his head. “Not those particularly,” he said while putting the arrow he retrieved back into his quiver. “There are things far worse than the one you just saw. This is just the beginning.”
It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from .com.
The expedition team’s mood grew heavier. Though they were stunned by the evolution of the flower monster that just ate an insect, it was weak enough to die from just one arrow shot. Yet it was clear that not all monsters in the Hala Forest would be on the same level, or else the forest wouldn’t have received the attention it had. They just happened to luckily witness a plant’s first evolution. But what if that flower monster had eaten more and more monsters until it rapidly evolved and even ate a human or members of the Cassiubia League? Would they have been able to deal with it as easily as before? It wasn’t an absurd thought. There were already loads of monsters like that in the inner parts of the forest.
“Throw away any preconceived notions you have about how things would work. This is a place where common logic doesn’t apply. It’s like a completely alien world with different ecological rules and laws that we’ve never encountered before.” Lakshasha got up and let out a long sigh. “I went on for too long. Let’s take care of that flower first and leave this area.”
Hearing this, Yeriel asked curiously, “How would we ‘take care’ of it?”
“We can bury it deep into the ground or burn it up,” Lakshasha said nonchalantly. “After the flower ate a bee and evolved, you can say that it has a piece of new genetic information. Though it’s nothing much yet, there’s no reason for us to leave it for our enemies.”
A corpse was also a good food option that a monster could pick up and consume. If they left the corpse of the flower monster be, they would’ve basically done the hard work for their enemy.
“Though it's troublesome, we should rip its corpse into tiny pieces and bury them as deep as we can. Though burning it would be an easy and fast method, I would like to go through the entrance without catching anyone’s eye.” Lakshasha picked up the flower monster with both hands. He was about to rip it apart when he flinched. He quickly looked to one side and placed his arrow on his bow.
Sling, with a sharp sound, the arrow flew like a streak of light.
“Tch!” Someone clicked their tongue, and a figure dropped down from a tree. All the expedition members stared with their eyes wide open. The figure that came out this time looked just like a mushroom. It was a mushroom monster that was as large as a koala with sharp fingernails and toenails popping out of its body. Moreover, the mushroom monster talked.
“Why don’t you put that down? Not the weapon, but that.” The mushroom monster stepped back and jerked its jaw just like how a human would move. Then it said in a more solemn voice, “Put that food down.”
“No need to do what it tells us to do. I will take care of this one,” Lakshasha said in a small voice and notched the arrow again.
But then he stopped when he heard the mushroom monster say, “This territory belongs to the queen I serve.”
“Queen?”
“Yes! Everything that grows and lives here is under the queen’s jurisdiction,” the mushroom monster said proudly as if it was honored to serve the queen. Lakshasha’s eyes narrowed.
“Tell us,” Lakshasha said with his arrow still aimed at the mushroom monster, “Who is this queen that you speak of?”
“Ha!” The moment that the mushroom laughed, Lakshasha pulled the bowstring and let go.
“You couldn’t hit me last time either!” the mushroom monster said mockingly and evaded the arrow. But then he exclaimed when the arrow circled back in a U-turn after a slight shake of Lakshasha’s hand.
“Uh, uh—!” The mushroom monster hastily backed away, and the arrow stopped right before the sharp tip touched its forehead.
“I won't miss next time.” Lakshasha retrieved his arrow again and growled, “Who is the queen?”
“Uh…” The mushroom monster blinked hard and glanced at the expedition team. It seemed to realize that the people on the expedition team weren’t ordinary folks and let out a nervous chuckle.
“Hey, calm down you all.”
“I told you to speak.”
“Why are you so impatient?”
“I will definitely kill you if you don’t speak before I finish counting down from three. Three.” Lakshasha seemed unwilling to stand around to leisurely talk, and he placed his arrow on his bow again.
“Huh? Ah, wait?”
“Two.”
“Okay, fine. We will let you have the food so let’s first—”
“One.”
“Ah, fuck!” In the end, the mushroom monster took off its cap and slammed it on the ground angrily. Pop! Mushroom spores gushed out like a puff of smoke. Lakshasha hurriedly backed away seeing the dark fog spreading outwards and let go of his string, shooting at the mushroom monster that was frantically running away.
“Shit! Shit!” Though it evaded the arrow once, the mushroom monster sounded frantic, expecting the arrow to come around again. But soon, another shadow emerged, and there was a piercing sound of the wind. Sling! The moment the mushroom monster realized something else was happening, it split into two from head to bottom. Never did it realize what had happened even as it took its last breath.
“Good! As expected!” Lakshasha said, impressed with Ru Amuh’s skills. But then he licked his lips and said, “But it’s regrettable that we couldn’t get any information about the queen.”
Chi-Woo nodded. They missed a chance to gain information about one of the king candidates. It could’ve been useful in their fight to clear the Hala Forest of enemies.
“It can’t be helped. But captain, I think it would be a good idea to escape this area now,” Lakshasha quickly said.
“Sorry? But what about taking care of the corpses?”
“We have to leave them. That mushroom head is the first one of its kind that I saw too. I don’t know what will happen.”
When Chi-Woo saw the mushroom’s smoke scatter across their surroundings and being carried further by the air, he realized there was merit to Lakshasha’s words. The expedition team abandoned the two corpses and quickly left the area. They tried to go as far away from the location as they could, but their speed became strangely slow—no, something was slowing them down, clinging to their feet and dragging them to the ground.
“What is this now?” Apoline screamed from behind. They weren’t imagining it. Clumps of weeds were rising and wrapping around their ankles. Moreover, trees and branches were also extending outward and blocking their paths. Vines crept in and flew from everywhere. Though taken aback, the expedition team responded calmly. They burned and sliced through the plants, doing their best to clear their way, but they were at a standstill. There was nothing much they could do facing such absurd numbers while they were surrounded by a thick jungle.
“Ah, damn it!” Lakshasha burst out in anger while stomping on the weeds shooting upward. Chi-Woo also looked around him and let out a big sigh.
“…It can’t be helped.” He raised his head, and his eyes shone. “We have to fight.”
Soon afterward, three different sounds rang through the forest from three directions: the sound of something sliding across the ground. Sliiid…! Thump! A sound as heavy and hard as a boulder. Sha! Shaaa! And the sound of bugs mindlessly crawling through the grass.
Then, finally, there was a small exclamation. “…Ah!” Hawa’s eyes opened wide upon hearing the last sound.
