Chapter 4

Yuran waited and thought of all the prospective money disappearing every second. She was losing precious time to gather herbs. Already in her head, she was referring to them as babies, just like Raine.

Think of all the jewbis… think of all the jewbis…

She rubbed her fingers together imagining a jewbi coin was in her grasp and started to calm down. 

"Oliver?" She stared at him, perplexed. How was he awake so soon? 

"Ah, hello Yuran. Here's a map leading to the herb patches in the first layer and a list of the herbs Raine wants you to get," he greeted her politely. 

Yuran stiffly grabbed the papers. "…Thanks."

Looking ahead, the Wicked Woods seemed to shrink away at her divinity. Her face darkened as she was reminded of the cost, and unease settled in her stomach.

As she walked away, she hadn't noticed that Oliver's face had darkened too; his foreboding glare piercing through the dark clouds beginning to form.

***

Meanwhile, Raine awoke from her slumber and blinked, attempting to dispel her drowsiness. 

"Ah, did I fall asleep…?" 

Am I forgetting something? Eh, must not have been important.

"…"

"Yuran! I forgot! Shit," she cursed.

It wasn't like her to fall asleep in the middle of work. That was Oliver's thing. And why hadn't Tarynn, her lab partner, woken her up?

"Ah, you're awake." 

Startled, she looked up. 

"Don't worry," Oliver reassured with docile eyes. "I delivered the list and the map to Yuran while you were asleep."

His benign demeanor betrayed no ill intent. 

"Oh, alright… thanks. In the future, get Tarynn to do it. You might mix up some of my notes," Raine blinked. 

"…Of course," Oliver nodded sweetly. 

Meanwhile, far from Raine's snug workspace in the alchemy lab, in the hospice, the screams of a nurse echoed throughout the hallways at the sight of Tarynn's unconscious body bleeding out.

He was holding the map of the Wicked Wood's first layer and a list of herbs currently low on supply. 

***

Yuran's eyebrows furrowed at the map. She wondered how much further she had to walk to reach the herb patch. 

As she stepped past the gates, the sky around her darkened rapidly. The sun faded away and when she looked up all there was to see was a dark, starless, night. Clouds whispered with the wind and floating fog enveloped the scene in a translucent mist. 

Weeee, squeaked a voice in Yuran's head. 

The notorious Wicked Woods possessed a sense of eerie elegance. Trees curved and bent over like the street lamps in the marketplace, their droopy leaves dancing in melancholy. The sight of wilted ferns, vines, and bushes had an unexplainable accent, not quite shriveled or withered yet formidable essences of death cloaked around them. 

Once a beautiful forest, alive with bright skies hugging puffy clouds that welcomed golden rays and dazzling sparks. Raw blume in its purest form, clean and light in contrast to the dark, tainted blume that lay here now. It was heavy and shadowed over the entire forest, blocking the sun and light from the sky.

Hah… Yuran sighed. Where's my money source? I miss not making money.

The dark blume posed a threat to all living things that entered. The deeper into the forest, the stronger it was. That was why the forest was divided into three layers, with someone skilled and experienced like Oliver venturing into the thin part of layer two at best. 

Dark blume festered. It corrupted all living things with blume, including humans, ordinary animals, and even mythical creatures. Being blessed with divinity, Yuran could resist corruption. But her immunity wasn't perfect—if she went deep enough into the center of the Wicked Woods and stayed there long enough, the dark blume would tug at her sanity, drag her down through her most painful memories, and arouse her suppressed emotions. After that, she'd either die if she was lucky or have her body disintegrated and her spirit trapped in the core. 

Yuran picked her nose. I'm bored, she thought. 

Cores were clumps of dark blume before they exploded and spread. She would be confined forever to the core of the Wicked Woods, in the depths of the third layer. 

The herbs of the forest were intact; herbs did not contain blume like other living things. Even humans, although most unable to control the blume, had it as part of their primal energy. Plants classified as herbs generated ambiance. If the blume was a fire, radiating heat, then ambience was alcohol. It further ignited the fire when it was weak. 

Why am I still walking? I wonder how much money I would've made by now if I was still in the Hospice, Yuran mused. I might've been lucky and scammed another thug…

Yuran hadn't been walking for long, she just had a horrible focus. Her steps became automated in one direction as boredom surfaced and her blank eyes looked down at her feet. She walked straight into a tree with a sharp whack on her head, and her glasses tumbled to the ground. 

"Ow, shit," she grumbled, rubbing her forehead as she bent down to find her glasses.

She felt fuzzy moss and pebbles, but couldn't find her glasses. The frames were too thin to appear in the dark, against the green blur. Her hands shifted around until she felt a cold, solid object. It was black but looked like a long rope, so it couldn't have been her glasses. 

Suddenly the object moved and a glowing light appeared, and Yuran could see clearer.

"Huh…?" 

Yuran stared at the humanoid monster before her, wearing her glasses and holding an illuminating snowdrop. She had touched his tail. 

~