The Search for Knowledge - Chapter 13

Feera saw the two of them off as they left town, their backpacks filled with rations and other necessities enough to last a month on their own. The Forest of Giants was a mere half-day's walk from the town, it was built nearby intentionally, it was quite the short trip. They were able to walk with their guard mostly down as well, seeing as only a fool would try to commit highway robbery so close to a city. Not to mention that most people who willingly headed towards the forest were, more than likely, out of the average robber's league.

After they had traversed the open field for a few hours, the Forest of Giants had finally come into view. Kara decided to make conversation to pass the time since there was not a pressing need to keep her defenses up. "So, I've been wondering for a while, why do you have two swords, but never use them?" She said casually. Even in the fight against Jeerae, where he was seemingly quite serious, he never drew his blades.

"There hasn't been a need to." He said matter-of-factly, as if stating the obvious. "If all I need to do is kill, my martial training is enough. We haven't come up against an enemy that required me to use them." While speaking, he looks straight ahead on the road, seeming to search for something on the horizon, distracted.

His words sparked an interest in Kara, however, and she did not seem to notice his distracted state. "Just how good are you with a sword, then, that even facing someone as strong as Jeerae didn't warrant your blade?" The childish light entered her eyes as she spoke, as it seemed to do more and more often lately, since she had left her home with the party.

Rox looked at the young girl, appreciating her genuine curiosity. It seemed rare in people these days, seeing as most were simply trying to further their position in the world. Yet, here was a woman who just wanted to explore her curiosity. He smiled while he answered, which caused her to blush slightly. "Good enough." His voice teasing, which quickly turned Kara's blush into a pout.

"That's not fair! You have to tell me, I'm your employer!" She said, her childishness showing in her mood full-throttle now.

"You hired me as protection, as well as assistance, so that you can learn about seal magic and the Aetherous. You can't make me." He continued teasing, sticking his tongue out at her playfully after he finished speaking.

She flailed her arms cutely in response and let out a high-pitched frustrated sound. After a few moments, "That's fair," she sighed in defeat. Once she had calmed down and thought for a second, she asked a different question. "Rox, why did you apply to join my quest? You're clearly capable of making a name for yourself, why bother joining in a quest that would put you in the shadow of someone considered the 'Aqua family genius'?" Her tone now far more mellow.

Rox looked at her, his teasing grin has morphed into a more serious face, then glanced back at the horizon where the forest was. He was silent for a long time. Long enough that Kara had begun to think she might have crossed some sort of line and decided to let the conversation drop. It was not until they were approaching the forest's edge, that he finally answered her question in a solemn voice. "I decided that it was time to take a risk, that's why I joined you."

She looked at him, confused. The look on the man's face, however, told her that the topic would go no further than that, so she dropped it once again. Now was not the time for idle conversation anyway, they were nearly at their destination, which would be extremely dangerous. Certainly not the sort of place that two people should have their guards down.

Rox's tone became more stern as he began to explain their situation and give instructions. "From here on out, stick close to me and keep any defensive barriers up that you can at all times. If you drop them, even for a moment, the creatures nearby will sense it and swarm the easy prey. If that happens, the ensuing fight will attract stronger monsters. Once that happens, well, let's not let it happen. I'd rather not encounter giants or dragonoids in this place."

When he had finished speaking, Kara simply nodded and put up defensive barriers in water and healing magic. The water barrier would keep her safe by creating torrents of water at impact points of attacks, softening the blows considerably, if not neutralizing them entirely. Her healing barrier would rapidly heal any damage dealt to her, assuming the damage was not instantly fatal. Rox looked at her once she had put up the barriers and nodded, satisfied with her preparation.

Taking the lead as they entered the forest, Rox drew his sword. Kara's eyes went wide when she saw him do this. After making such a big deal about it earlier she had almost let herself start to pout over the teasing again, however, she stopped herself. Now was not the time, especially since a man she had recognized as powerful was clearly taking the situation seriously. She cleared her mind and focused on maintaining her barriers while she followed him.

The forest was covered in a thick layer of fog, it was quite difficult to see even with an eyesight ability, however, it was not so bad that they would lose each other in it as long as they stayed nearby each other. The trees were impossibly tall and Kara remembered reading in a book once that even the shortest trees in this forest were no shorter than three hundred meters high. The trunks of the trees easily had a diameter of roughly fifty meters. Each one was quite monstrous, making vision even more difficult when combined with the fog. If she did not have a mission in this place, and it was not so dangerous, she would want to study it in depth and learn what made it tick. Aside from the trees and fog, however, there was not much foliage. There was a distinct absence of bushes, vines, as well as other common plant-life found in forests. The reason for this was simple; no ordinary plants could survive in this place. Only creatures that could manipulate mana or had a high resistance to it could survive in the forest. The mana density in this location was among the highest in all of the world of Chalice, making magic-poisoning a legitimate danger simply by being in the cursed place. Creatures that could not process mana whatsoever, such as most plants, simply could not exist here. The trees were unique, in that they could only grow in such an environment.

As for the creatures that lived here, they were all highly magical in origin, to begin with. Being in this place only made them stronger in most cases and, in fact, caused more of them to be attracted to the forest. Many of the strongest creatures in the forest grew stronger by devouring other beings that had a high magic capacity, such as the giants. Among the people, it is said that a giant that has lived it's full lifespan in the forest could fight evenly with a dragon, the mortal creature with the largest quantity in the world.

Rox, on the flip side, was on edge. He knew the outer rim of the forest was the safest place, but even then, he did not like being in this place. Let alone the fact that he had to keep Kara safe while getting to the sealing site, near the center of the forest, where the most dangerous creatures lay in wait for prey. He walked with his sword at the ready, prepared to cut down anything that bared its fangs.

It did not take long before something jumped out, attempting to make them into a meal. A manticore leaped from behind one of the trees, with a human-like battle-cry. It reached its highly venomous tail towards Kara. However, before it could reach her, Rox intercepted the tip with his blade. He positioned himself between the girl and the monster to protect her, he threw his sword arm towards the ground to shift the tail he had blocked into the dirt. After doing so, he immediately kicked towards the the manticore's face. A loud crunch was heard as he made solid contact, breaking the human-like nose, which caused it to cry out loudly in pain. Rox flinched, knowing that the cry would attract more trouble. He had to finish this quickly, even if it put them at risk, otherwise they would be killed by the mob that was surely on its way.

He readied himself again as the creature came at him with rage in its eyes, it did not seem to think about food any longer, only about killing what had harmed it. It lashed out with its tail and front claws. Rox narrowly avoided each strike, sometimes deflecting attacks with his blade, while waiting for a chance to end things. That opportunity finally came when the monster tripped over one of the large tree roots during an attack. Rox immediately dashed forward and cleaved the beast as hard as he could. The creature's head rolled, and it was slain.

Kara could only stare in both horror and surprise. Not only had a manticore showed up, rare even among the mythical creatures due to being a chimera, but it had been dispatched with ease. Now that it was still, she had a chance to see what had attacked her. It had a very human-like face with a lion's mane around it. The body was also like that of a lion, however, the tail seemed like a large scorpion's rather than a lion's. It was a well-known fact that there was no future aside from death to those who were stung by this creature, it was considered a low-mythril level monster. Rox just continued to surprise her, killing such a thing with ease, even though it seemed not to notice him and go immediately for Kara.

Rox swung his sword quickly, with a flick of his wrist, and splattered the leftover blood on the ground. He then produced a cloth from his cloak and wiped the blade clean of the remaining blood, then lowered it a bit, ready to strike upwards at anything else that came out. Without warning, he grabbed Kara around her waist with his free hand and began to run after lifting her up like a sack of potatoes.

(Chapter image: https://i.imgur.com/G6bxl1X.png )

She was caught off-guard by it and was quickly embarrassed by being held by him. Kara was about to start flailing to make him let her down, however, he spoke to her in a hushed tone before she did. "Sorry, please put up with it for now, I'll explain after I put you down."

Deciding to trust him, she allowed him to carry her. Secretly enjoying it, even if the position was not exactly what she had imagined. Suddenly, however, her face flushed. She realized that she had just been thinking of Rox as something other than just a bodyguard, she had been thinking of him as a man. When did this start? Why did it happen? No, that was easy to answer. He was constantly surprising her, showing her new things. Most importantly though, he was a source of strength, the likes of which she had never seen before. Plus, he was more confident than her own father, which was saying a lot. She cleared her mind, adamantly refusing to let something like this happen.

Before Kara had realized it, she was being put down. She buried her disappointment and looked at him for direction. He put a finger to his lips, signaling that they should be silent, then began to walk in a direction he seemed to know already. The girl followed, however, was unsure of how far they were into the forest now. While she was thinking about her feelings, that she definitely did not have, she had not realized how fast he was moving and was unsure exactly how far they had gone from the manticore's remains. What she did know, however, was that the mana in the air was tangibly thicker.

- - - -

Rox thanked his lucky stars that Kara had not made a fuss about him carrying her away from the corpse. If they had not escaped immediately, other things would have shown up to prey on them due to the smell of blood in the air. In fact, he was certain multiple creatures had flocked to that area after they left and were, more than likely, fighting over the fresh kill at this very moment. He had run as quickly as he could without causing harm to Kara's weaker body from that place, getting them substantially closer to their destination. However, he was not able to be careful in choosing their path as he had originally wanted, because of the escape. It was certain that hiding would have been pointless though, since Kara was using defensive magic on herself, they would have sniffed out the magic in use. At the very least, they had not run into anything dangerous. He hoped it would stay that way.

He led the way, sword still in hand, while keeping himself at the ready for anything else that might jump out. On top of their surroundings, he also kept an eye on the ground. Land-based monsters were among the most dangerous things in the area and they left tracks, he would spot the tracks as he was able to see how fresh they were. They had been lucky in that he had spotted the manticore's tracks earlier and was ready for it, however, they might not be so lucky next time.

It was at that moment that he heard a loud boom in the distance, then another. He strained his ears to try and understand what it was he was hearing, but once he knew, he wished he were wrong. What was worse was that it was in the direction they needed to go. Mentally, he sighed. Ever since he had met this girl his luck had made a turn for the worse. Everything he did always seems to lead him to fights that he would normally want to avoid. Resigning himself to his fate, he started towards the booming.

Kara stopped him by grabbing his wrist, she had heard the sound too. She gave him a look that seemed to say, 'why the hell are we going towards the dangerous sound'? To which he could only give her a defeated look and whisper, "It's at the place we're going to."

Her eyes widened and, for the first time, Rox was sure he could see that the girl was truly afraid. Yes, it was an accurate feeling to have. What she was hearing was a fight, after all. A fight between two powerful forest creatures. Rox was not entirely certain as to what exactly was fighting, however he knew that one of them was very large. He hoped it was not a giant, but with the way their luck seemed to be going, it probably was. He gripped his sword tightly and led the way towards what he now assumed to be the namesake of the hellish place that they had come to.