Realities of the First Adventure (2)

We decided to head back after collecting enough of the Frost Thorn plants. We dumped the material into the inventory of course. Since the corpse of the wolf looked like it was worth something, we decided to bring back the pair we killed. Stuffed it into the inventory of course.

We went quite deep into the forest, so the walk was fairly long one. We'll get back to the kingdom by 12 pm based on my predictions. Huh, what a quick trip.

We were seriously underprepared. We didn't even bring things like a random sack to disguise our Inventory function, water-- which was fortunately made up for by going for a quick trip to the apartment, and other materials to deal with the aftermath after a..

-- A whisper of death chirped in my ear.

An explosion followed by some crazy lightshow resounded as the ground shook. I turned around, gazing into the depths of the deep blue forest.

"Noel, did you feel that?"

"Yeah."

"W-what?"

"Is there something there?"

"An infected guardian trent?" Liliath furrowed her brows.

The stats of the thing, including what Liliath was seeing appeared in a UI. It was a level 126 Guardian Trent, average stats around 400 to 500. The health gauge was at 9 percent for some reason.. and it was headed this way.

"Okay, AGI set to 0.00001, let's go!"

"R-run right?"

"Yeah, let's go, let's go."

"I'll teleport, everyone stay still," Liliath said.

Ain't no way we're taking that risk. Safety is priority, I have no idea what kind of creature that was but I don't think it's something we can face without incurring a few injuries.

Festering Trent Guardian.

I operated my UI and compared its position to ours one more time. There are actually grids on the map and the current scale was that each grid represented 100 meters. The Treant passed a grid every 4 seconds, wait what?!

The magic formation for teleportation suddenly shattered.

"Noel!" Liliath suddenly stopped and pointed her hands to the back.

A thick mana barrier surrounded us and a huge thud could be heard. Liliath let out a grunt.

Prune, Nine and I staggered backwards.

I thought a Trent would look like a tree with a face but.. this one was like some molten bark with wiggling roots. Weird slimy mucus covered its body with dangling sacs.. and in front the centre, worm-like creatures crawled it's way out of the Trent.

Demonic Helminths.

Parasitic worms.

Hundreds of them, all wiggling about. Shrilling.. pleading..

Pleading.

It was begging for help. These worms were demons.. just like me.

I'm a demon; they're a demon.

The stats of the worm exceeded 100 individually. Time seemed to slow down as my instincts screamed at me. I felt a chill down my spine.

Just then, five blade marks appeared on the worm infested Guardian Trent, and from those intersections, the bark burst from within. A large amount of pus-like fluid spilt and spilled onto the ground. A dull pain hit my heart.. I stood there frozen.

This feeling..

This feeling of watching my kins die in front of me..

What the hell is this feeling-- it's disgusting.

"Are you alright?"

She asked.

Wearing an unimaginable cosplay-like clothes, a low breastplate adorned with intricate motifs, a loose red skirt like some joke material and laces that crossed along her clothes.. she even held a sword that was made from condensed mana. Her hair was swirly, pastel pink, a colour that I've never seen before...

Her eyes had that same golden glow as Bleu.

"Yes, thank you for your assistance," Liliath said after letting out a sigh of relief.

"Fortunately nothing happened. You must be an excellent mage to be able to defend against its battering ram." her voice was mellow, but pressuring.

"I am honored?" Liliath replied, hesitant.

"Y-yeah.. uh.." Nine said.

"What happened here?"

And comes along another guy with black hair, wearing light adventurer clothes. He gazed at the now dead parasitic demons, eyes sharp as a sword. It's the first time I've ever thought that such a phrase was fitting.

More so, the reason why my instincts were yelling at me wasn't because of the Trent, nor was it the demonic worms..

It was because of these two.

"You let the demon escape and almost killed these adventurers," the pink haired woman said.

The guy with black hair was about to say something--

But his words obviously got choked in his throat when he met Liliath's gaze. Tears seemed to gloss his eyes over, an expression of dread washed over his face.

Like.. what? Another flag?

"Have we met before?" Liliath asked in a skeptical voice.

He remained silent..

"Jiwon-san, watch where you're looking at," the pink haired girl warned.

"Sorry," he walked up to the worm and with his crude sword, pulled out a large red magic core, after that, "Moirae, let's go," he turned around and walked off.

Moirea, instead of saying a cliche, 'what's his problem' line, stared as his figure disappeared into the forest. She then turned to us.

"Excuse me, are you staying in Erudite? Could you tell me which inn you four are staying at?" she asked.

"About that.. huh? No. Why?"

"For your safety," She said with a pressuring gaze.

"We rented a small palace to stay in one of the florists.. n-not an inn," Prune said.

"Is that so? Then will you be staying here for the next month? Or will you be going to some other kingdom? I suggest you stay away from Trinity Kingdom, there's a coup d'etat about to be staged there. And a civil war between Phyls Kingdom and the duchy of Baroque is going to break out in a months' time. Keep that in mind."

"Understood."

"Good," Moirae said so, bowed and left to where Park Jiwon went, "Liliath, whatever awaits in your future, stay safe, and be careful," she forewarned.

The warning bells of danger softened the further she was away from us. The place returned to a desolate calm.

Park Jiwon.

One of the heroes.

And Moirae? Who is she anyways? Must be some significant female lead.

And they didn't even clean up the rest of the Trent corpse...

"Let's go," Liliath said promptly, as if urging.

"Liliath, do you know him?"

"No."

"Then why did you ask if you knew him?"

"Because I felt like it?" Liliath tilted her head at me cutely.

Haha, I see what you did there. I guess dropping a random hint or flag to make his adventurer more suspenseful is all part of his story.

"Nine?" Prune called out in a concerned voice.

"Hm?" I turned to look at him.

He stood there stiff like a statue, his gaze glued to the UI.

"Nine?"

"What's wrong?"

"Noel. Just a quick question--"

For a second there I thought Nine found an overpowered skill but..

"--why does this world have a Regressor?"