The trio was riding carefully through the forest, the only audible sound being the sound of their horses' hooves hitting the mud. They were riding all day, Joana leading the way and checking where they were every few minutes. After a while, as the sun was setting, a small house came into view through the fog. Joana rode up to the house to inspect it, directing everyone else to stay put. She got off her horse and got a little closer to the house. Just then, a hoard of trolls came out, jumping onto Joana. Joana quickly dealt with a few of them with her staff, backing away. Let's tune in…
"Joana! Are you okay?!" In unison, Carlos and Hanna both said as they rushed to Joana's aid. Raine and Tina followed suit and all of them got off of their horses and took out their weapons. Raine materialized her sword and then she quickly covered her nose, noticing a terrible smell coming from the trolls. Also, they looked really weird, with thin bodies and glowing green eyes. "Geez, these guys stink!" Raine said, refocusing on the trolls. They formed a circle around the group and rushed at the group at once. Some of the trolls were archers and some had sticks that they used to attack. Raine was fine with the trolls, though their movements were the weirdest. They were less sporadic than usual. Also, the archers were precise, through Lucy took care of them pretty easily. After a few minutes, the trolls were defeated. The group looked at each other, then at the corpses of the trolls, and then at the house.
"I think we should still inspect it, but we need to be very careful," Joana said, starting to walk towards the house. Raine covered her nose, the pungent smell becoming worse and worse as they got closer to the house. "Raine, are you alright?" Tina said, putting a hand on Raine's shoulder. "Y-Yeah… I should be. Do you guys not smell that terrible smell from inside the house?" Raine asked, looking at Tina. "What smell? Do you guys smell anything weird?" Tina asked the group. They all said no and to make sure to be careful. "That's weird… Well, let's see what's inside." Raine said, shifting her focus back onto the house. It was now right in front of the group, so Joana kicked the door open and saw a bunch of mushrooms. The smell must have been trapped in the house from the front door, because when they opened it, Raine was assaulted by the extremely strong scent that she'd been smelling. It was so strong that she had to throw up. She finished up and looked down to notice that she'd turned back into her demon form. "Wait- what??? I still have plenty of mana, how did I turn back?" Raine asked.
She then noticed that her mana was being sucked up by something. It was slow but definitely noticeable. Raine rushed into the house, trying her best not to throw up again. She found that there were a bunch of mushrooms emitting the smell and that they were siphoning her magic. Raine heard a noise inside and realized that her party members weren't acting the same. They had blank looks on their faces as they walked into the house. Raine watched as Joana reached for a mushroom and put it up to her mouth. Before she could eat it, Raine rushed over and smacked the mushroom out of her hand. That interference snapped Joana out of her daze and she looked at Raine, confused. "Help me stop them from eating these strange mushrooms!" Raine said, rushing over to Hanna who was about to take a bite out of a mushroom. Joana nodded, getting the mushrooms out of their hands and dragging them outside.
"... Let's just camp outside. It's dangerous to go inside there." Joana said, shutting the door of the house. Everyone seemed to not remember what they were doing while they were in their daze, so they were reasonably confused. Nonetheless, they set up their camp outside and slept for the night. Everyone except Raine, that is. Raine put her tent the farthest away from the mushrooms, but there was still a slight smell. She focused on gathering energy and she used a mana absorption technique called
In the morning, the group put down their tents and went on their way, using their horses once again. Raine was in her cloak and the group was on their way to the town of Otalra. During their journey, they would encounter more and more of those strange, weird-smelling mushrooms and infected monsters. Raine was getting stressed out since she didn't know if her teammates would become affected by the mushrooms again. She also knew that the weird monsters had some sort of correlation to the mushrooms, so one night, she decided to look into it. It was a dark night, as Raine heard the footsteps of creatures of the night roaming. She took a deep breath and went out into the night. She walked through the woods looking for a monster to kill and was met by Hanna, who had a cut on her hand. Raine rushed over to help her. "Hanna, are you ok?!" Raine asked, going up to Hanna. "I-I don't know. I think I might be sick…" Hanna said, looking very scared. "Hanna, give me your arm. I'll help you." Raine said, grabbing Hanna's arm. She quickly took out some gauze she had on her just in case and she wrapped Hanna's hand up with it.
She saw that in Hanna's other hand was her blade, and it had blood on it. It had her blood on it, to be exact. "What happened?" Raine asked. "I was about to do something bad, I know it. I was… I think I was going that way." Hanna said, pointing in a direction. "That way? Well, do you want to check it out? I'll protect you if anything goes wrong." Raine said, helping Hanna up. "Yeah, I think that'd be best. Whatever it is, I was being called to it. I don't know how, but I was." Hanna said, looking in the direction she pointed in. "I actually have something to tell you. I've been smelling something really weird that's coming from these mushrooms. Also, they drain my mana and they seem to be messing with your brain." Raine said, getting even more worried. As they got closer to the location, Raine not only felt like throwing up, but she felt an immense feeling of danger.
She paused, unsure what that feeling was from. Hanna looked at Raine, confused. "Are you alright, Raine? I thought we were going to investigate the place that I was drawn to? It'd be helpful in order to find a way to combat it." Hanna asked. Raine materialized her sword and got close to Hanna, the sense of danger grows. Her fear growing. "Something is really strange about this place. Let's go back to the tent." Raine said, grabbing Hanna's arm. "Yeah, let's do that…" Hanna said, fainting and falling onto Raine. Raine saw something rushing at them at that moment, so she used her sword to cut it. She looked on the ground to see a wriggling vine. Raine just put Hanna on her back and ran away. Raine didn't know if the mushrooms affected Hanna or not, so she put Hanna with her in their tent to monitor her. Raine still needed to train, so she stayed up all night again to gather mana and she also did some exercises like push-ups and sit-ups. Raine decided that this would be a perfect time to see how the mushrooms have affected Hanna's soul. She focused, looking at Hanna's soul, and it looked fine.
Raine decided to still give Hanna a health potion since they were all issued one by Joana before the trip. The rest of the night was just silence and Raine training. The next morning, the group put down their tents, and Hanna, thankfully, woke up. They all continued riding to Otalra and the stench of the mushrooms thickened. It was humid, foggy, wet, and it smelled disgusting to Raine, but the others actually seemed pretty optimistic. They were all ready to help defeat monsters in Otalra, even Joana. The group had to be ready since the small town of Otalra was coming into view through the fog.