[55.4] Welcome to the Macabre Forest!

On the inside of the barrier, I dodged trees and ducked under branches. The foliage was so dense I had barely taken a few steps until I was completely exhausted. I leaned against a tree and took a deep breath, "Why is this so difficult? Even the air is heavy on my lungs."

I heard a twig snap in the distance and immediately became alert. I peered through the darkness but didn't see anything. However, I felt something off.

I spoke nervously, "Um… I'm looking for an owl… A snowy owl? He goes by the name Caldwell?"

The sudden silence made me gulp in fear.

There were no birds singing.

No breeze.

It was absolute silence aside from my racing heart.

I continued, "H-He's an interesting man. Very uptight and a little unhinged. He's my friend and I really need to speak to him urgently… Has anyone seen him?"

"Friend, huh?"

I jumped and spun around, but couldn't locate the source of the voice.

I looked around anxiously, ready to defend myself, "T-That's right."

"You're a demon sympathizer?"

"I prefer being called a realist."

"HAHA! You're interesting. Where did you come from?"

"I-I'm from the Capital."

"The Capital?! Oh! I heard the fish is really amazing there! They import all sorts of things at the port… I've always wanted to visit."

I interrupted, "I'm sorry, but where are you? I can't see you."

"Hm? Oh! I'm up here!"

I raised my head and froze upon making eye contact with the speaker.

A large black panther lay on a low-hanging branch, staring down at me with menacing green and yellow eyes. The panther suddenly launched towards me and I scrambled to grab my wand to defend myself.

*POOF*

The panther changed to a demon form and hung upside down from the branch, his eyes just inches away from mine. He didn't look very old and had the youth of someone a bit younger than I was.

He grinned toothily, "We don't get many humans here. Especially outsiders like you. How'd you get in?"

I stared at his two black horns that were in perfect shape, "I-I just walked in."

"Eh? You walked through the barrier?"

I nodded slowly.

He let go of the branch and did a twirl midair, landing perfectly on his feet. He swept back his long black hair as he grinned at me, "That's impossible. You must have done something."

I raised an eyebrow, "Can't humans enter?"

His panther tail swished back and forth, "Not unless you're invited by a demon who lives here and I didn't see any demon let you in."

"I didn't know. I just walked in."

The panther walked around me, getting too close to me for comfort. I leaned back away from him, but he still didn't catch on to my discomfort. His tail rubbed along my body as he paced, "The only human that could walk in without being invited was the Great Fairy."

"Eh? But a fairy isn't a human."

He laughed playfully, "I don't know about that."

I felt my anxiety get the best of me and snapped, "Listen! I'm looking for Caldwell, is he here or not?!"

The panther blinked his inky eyes slowly, "Caldwell? Yeah. He just came home."

Eh? Home?

The panther didn't give me time to process his words and grabbed my wrist. He was suddenly dragging me through the forest, hopping through bushes and under branches while I was smacked in the face by said bushes and branches. I shouted out in frustration, "Oi! Stop!"

His steps came to a stop and he turned to me in confusion, "Didn't you come here to visit Caldwell?"

I pulled off the tree branches from my hair and spat out leaves, "I did! But that doesn't mean I want a face full of branches!!"

"Oh." He looked me up and down, "Then why were you trying to eat the branches?"

My eyebrow twitched, "..."

Are all demons frustrating?!

I took a deep breath, "It's because you were dragging me through bushes."

"But I don't have any issues."

"..."

I'm regretting this journey.

He thought for a bit before transforming back into a panther. He looked at me with sparkles in his inky eyes, "Hop on!"

I stared at him with a stiff expression, "..."

Isn't that…

Wouldn't that be weird?

His inky eyes blinked at me slowly, "Are you coming or not?"

"Uhh…"

He snorted and suddenly bit me to throw me on his back. I didn't have time to even blink before he was sprinting at a high speed, "Hold on!"

I screamed and grabbed his fur as if my life depended on it. Before I could even get used to the bumpy ride, he suddenly climbed up a tree and started jumping from branch to branch. Although it was faster on the branches than in the dense foliage below, it was far more terrifying. The wind whipped my eyes I wanted to cry.

I WANT MY ICE CHUNK!

He suddenly slowed down and hopped to the ground below, "We are here!"

I slid off his back, landing on the ground still frozen in the form I had been in. My heart still hadn't calmed down when I stared ahead at the upside-down city. I rolled back on my stomach and let out a surprised gasp.

The architecture of the village wasn't like anything I had ever seen before. There were certain homes dedicated to specific animals. Birdhouses seemingly floated in the air, small holes were in trees with demon squirrels crawling out, and there were even holes in the ground for demons who lived under the earth. In addition to that, there were even human-like buildings made into a side of a canyon and although they were made into the rocks, they resembled much of the highrises in my other world. There were gondolas traveling to places fueled by magic so that humans could visit these structures that otherwise they wouldn't be able to.

I mumbled in a dream-like state, "This is insane."

The panther changed back into his demon form and scratched his ears, "Welcome to the Macabre City!"