The trio continues returning to Lindis, with little care about their battle earlier. They managed to take down the Horned Rabbits without any troubles.
Of course, Sen's still disappointed that they've only fought six Horned Rabbits so far. "That was boring... Aren't there supposed to be strong beasts in the Forest of Magic? Where did they all go?"
Arnold, who's in the lead again, replies to Sen while keeping his guard up. "If you really want to fight strong opponents... Surely, you've heard of the rumors, right?"
"...What rumors exactly?" Sen walks up to Arnold's side to make the conversation easier.
"You know, the rumors that has been circulating around in Lindis recently? About the sightings of Silverwolves and White Foxes in the Forest of Magic."
When Sen heard that, he somehow seemed more disappointed instead. "I know about that, Arnold... but nobody has actually seen Silverwolves and White Foxes before. It's also just a story that was made up, to keep children from going into the Forest of Magic. Those rumors can't be trusted."
"Well, actually..." Arnold thinks for a moment before continuing. "I've been digging around in the Library recently, for any books that mention the Silverwolves or White Foxes."
"...Go on."
"I did manage to find some text about that, unexpectedly. Since the information is from the Library, the rumors must have some truth to them."
"...So, what you're saying is, there's a chance that Silverwolves and White Foxes really exist, and they're in this forest..."
Sen and Arnold remains silent for a minute, while Maria simply follows behind, still thinking about her missing mirror.
...
Both Sen and Arnold looked at each other for a moment, as if confirming their thoughts with each other.
"If they really do exist...-"
"-Then, that would also explain the lack of other beasts in this forest."
They nodded to themselves while saying as such. Arnold is worried about the rumors being true, and Sen starts to pay more attention to their surroundings.
(If we do encounter Silverwolves and White Foxes... There's no way we'll escape from them alive...) Arnold thought to himself.
(It would be nice to kill a Silverwolf or a White Fox. It's a shame that they removed the 'list of beasts killed' from the adventurer's card, though.) Sen thought to himself, as he took out his adventurer's card and looked at it.
But, soon after that, he noticed something from around 10 metres behind them.
"...Maria, Arnold, we're being followed. Don't turn around."
""Eh?""
Maria and Arnold continues walking as normal. Still, they are confused as to what Sen is talking about.
"Are you sure? I don't sense anything following us." Arnold asks him to confirm.
"I'll use search magic, just to double check." As Maria says so, she releases waves of her magic around herself, which slowly spreads outwards.
After a few seconds, she shakes her head and replies. "Nope. I don't feel anything following us. It's just you, Sen."
However, Sen still feels that they're being followed. He also realized that the thing following them reacted to the search magic, and it is currently prepared to do something.
Thinking that now's the last chance to catch the thing following them, he turns around and dashes towards it, closing the distance of 10 metres in the blink of an eye. He's so fast that, to Maria and Arnold, they only saw a blur before he disappeared.
Sen prepared to slash with his dagger, while releasing his bloodlust towards his target. But as he approached, it disappeared with a silver blur, and his dagger managed to hit nothing.
"...What?"
Sen is still holding his dagger, and his shocked expression is clearly visible to Maria and Arnold, who caught up to him.
"I can't believe it... How did my search magic not detect anything?"
"So there was something following us, after all. Your intuition is as sharp as ever, Sen."
"...What was that just now?" Sen said, while still being shocked about what happened. "A little girl?"
"Eh? What are you saying?" Maria questions Sen, while thinking that something's wrong with his eyes.
"It was just a blur, and I'm not too sure, but I thought I saw a little girl... She's the one who was following us... And she's much faster than I am..."
"Let's talk as we return to Lindis. We've stayed in this forest for too long." Arnold, seeing that Sen is still confused, suggested to hurry back to Lindis.
Arnold is in the lead again, followed by Maria and (still confused) Sen. After a few minutes, they got out of the forest safely and returned to Lindis quickly. Since Sen remained in a daze the whole time, he didn't mention anything about the little girl who was following them.
The little girl continued to follow them until they got out of the forest. However, Sen (who was still confused) didn't seem to notice her this time. Knowing that she wasn't found out, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Phew... That was close!"