13 Beast Forest

Currently, there were two people and a black horse standing at a distance away from the Beast Forest. The horse was clearly showing signs of discomfort as if being too near might cause whatever dangerous creatures that lived inside that forest to feel anxious and will come rushing out towards them at any moment to drive away the cause of annoyance.

Although the black horse's riders felt the same as it was, they seemed to try their best to ignore their gut feelings and just simply continued to prepare themselves to challenge the Beast Forest today.

One of its riders was a young man, while the other was a young woman. Both of them have opted clothing that was suitable and easy to move in when venturing inside a forest.

While the young man had a Packer slung on his back, other than the hooded cloak that she was wearing — just in case if the weather turned bad — the young woman didn't carry anything with her. 'So that you can run easily,' Rasz had joked, but Mia could still hear the concern projected from that one sentence.

"The QuadriTraum has a Guardian." Rasz had told Mia last night.

Mia had jestingly replied, "That's very typical in any treasure hunting, right?" which caused Rasz to give her a look that clearly says, 'You were the one who wanted to know everything, so listen, please'

Mia had shrugged her shoulders at that look but didn't say anything anymore. Her intention had only been to lighten up the mood a bit, she didn't mean for Rasz to feel perturbed by her easy-going behavior.

Rasz then spent the whole night explaining to Mia what she should know about the trip today to the Beast Forest.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much information available about the QuadriTraum's Guardian. Other than the fact that it was a Bestial Type magical being and it seemed to have a habit of smashing or pounding its victims to death with either by using its own strength or by using a heavy weapon, there was nothing else to say. Not even a description of what it was had ever been salvaged from any available records or heard from anyone, much less its victims who were fated to die in the creature's hands the moment they had tried to steal the QuadriTraum.

According to Rasz, the Bestial Type magical beings were very similar to human beings, only that they were animals. Some opinionated that the Bestial beings had come into existence as a result of sorcery experimentations a long time ago whereby the animal genes were mixed with those of humans. Others say that the Bestial beings were a type of animal evolution that had occurred naturally.

Whichever, opinions were correct, these type of magical beings all walked on two feet, have hands with fingers to hold things, and most of them can talk. Those which doesn't speak doesn't mean that they couldn't but chose to keep mute. Rasz said that this might have something to do with them having an animal ancestry. Thus, rather than completely acted like humans, they chose to keep close to their origins.

Furthermore, Bestial beings were stronger and have better physical abilities. Depending on their species, some of them might even be smarter than any humans. Since they have animal genes in them, some of them can be quite ferocious. Especially those who chose to have little contact with society and live in their chosen habitats, these kinds have very little to no sense of humanity in them.

This habitat-living Bestial Type magical beings seemed to be pretty common in [Forst World] since about half of this [World] consisted of dense forests. Even those places with high human population will have at least a small forest just a few kilometers from the kingdom or city they lived in.

Each of these forests will usually have a clan or at least a family of animal residing within them. For large forests, there might even be several of this clans or families. However, no matter how many animals resided within a forest, there would only be one chief or boss — the strongest amongst all of them. These chiefs or bosses will usually take care of the safety and well-being of the residents within their respective forests'. Even if they didn't, just knowing that there was a dangerous beast living within the forest, will make anyone thought twice before entering.

Besides, there were only wild animals living in the forests. All domestic animals have long since been brought by humans to be bred and raised at their farms or homes. Unless someone desired to or wanted to challenge themselves by hunting down these animals, no one would actually be crazy enough to venture into the forests.

Of course, there were travelers or merchants that had taken short-cuts now and then by crossing through the forests, but nothing had happened to these people. It seemed that as long as they didn't disturb the peace within the forests, its residents will simply let them passed through without any harm. This was also the reason why nothing had happened to Mia when she had first <Travel> to the [Forst World] and appeared within the Orb Forest back then.

However, the reasons for Mia and Rasz to venture inside the Beast Forest today was definitely not of pure thoughts. They were there to steal the QuadriTraum guarded by the Bestial being that had been living within that forest for at least 500 years. Ever since this creature decided to make the Beast Forest its home, many wild animals had since been residing within this forest with the Bestial being as their chief. Though it had never cared for any of them and most of the animals were actually scared of this creature, as long as its presence within the forest kept them safe and it had never harmed them, they didn't care either way.

Once, Rasz ensured that Black had settled down at a safe distance, he along with Mia walked towards the Beast Forest. Currently, by his belt, a sword was suspended within its scabbard on his right hip and worn on his right hand was a glove with five small magic stones attached to it. Rasz had introduced these two magical items as the Magic Sword called Eisen Blue, while the glove was called Elemental Glove.

Eisen Blue was a Strength Type Magic Sword, which meant that this sword's blade was forged by mixing a blade material with special elements to make it strong enough that it could go up against powerful magic or the strength of magical beings without breaking. The Eisen Blue's blade was blue in color. The blade was Iron-made which was a Class 3 blade material, second strongest only to the strongest Class 4 Steel-made Strength Type Magic Sword.

The Elemental Glove, on the other hand, was a magical item that could summon magical elements. Each of the colorful stones attached to the glove could summon one element — Blue for Water Element, White for Wind Element, Red for Fire Element, Green for Earth Element and Yellow for Lightning Element. Rasz had told her that though there was no limit to how many magic elements could be summoned at a time, the Elemental Glove has the disadvantage of only able to use the same elements after 15 seconds. Until this interval time was up, only the remaining magic elements can be summoned. 15 seconds might not seem too long at any usual time, but when one was fighting for their lives, every second passed was really valuable, especially if one ended up facing a situation where only one element has any effect against the opponent, then the user of this Elemental Glove have to spend these 15 seconds in defensive mode.

Back when Mia heard of this fatal weakness, she had turned to look at Rasz worriedly and realized that he was looking at her with the very same expression. Smiling tensely at one another, they both prayed hard that they won't have this kind of bad luck when they went up against the Bestial being later.

Just then, the two finally reached the edge of the Beast Forest, where both of them stopped.

Rasz turned towards Mia and reminded her one last time, "Remember, stay close to me no matter what happened."

"Okay." With the nod of Mia's head, Rasz started walking into the Beast Forest, leading the way to their destination deep within the forest.