Back in Dead Seilez Forest, Count Tusk and I were affected by our first curse, blindness. Fortunately in this case, we were afflicted by the same curse since we entered at the same time. It didn't have pleasant ring to it, but blindness was one of the more preferred curses. Still, I returned to my normal form so I could save energy for the upcoming journey.
My Magic Eyes were good enough to replace my actual eyes while Count Tusk had an exceptional sense of hearing that he could use to grasp his immediate surroundings.
However, with the magic item he wore to resist the curse he didn't become completely blind. I could have entered a similar state if I resisted the curse, but since it had little effect anyways I chose to set aside part of my brain to analyse this curse.
I hoped that since I was familiar with curse magic and maxed out Darkness Magic, I would be able to realize something from it.
"So, how are you holding up?" I asked.
"Well, I've never seen the world in black and white before so it's a rather fresh experience, but don't worry I'm fine."
"I hope so. What direction is the miracle herb?"
"Oh, give me a moment."
Count Tusk searched the bag he brought with him and took out a map on parchment as well as a compass. Since I didn't want to reveal my ring storage I also had a bag, but it was small and light due to the few things I could think to carry.
After glaring at the map for a couple seconds and checking the compass, he returned them to his bag and pointed in a direction slightly to the right of their current path.
"We need to go in this direction."
"Okay. Let's try to maintain a steady speed."
We could no longer ride the ravenous horses, nor did we try to keep the same speed in this danger zone. It would slow our progress but we couldn't afford to rush to our deaths.
I thought that with my Forest's Blessing skill and the Child of the Sacred Beast title, even a cursed forest would be like my own backyard, but neither of those helped with mental and physical exhaustion. Your stamina would go up with your base physical stats, but additions from skills and titles didn't count. Besides, I was already at the limit so I wasn't even sure if I was getting the full effect of my skills and titles anymore.
It would be nice if the curse was the only thing we had to worry about in this forest, but unfortunately the ecosystem was messed up too. For reasons that no scholar was brave enough to find out, the creatures that were born here and immune to the curse, didn't die from old age. Furthermore, even though this caused all types of organisms in here to have continuously growing populations, there didn't seem to be a proper food web that would regulate their numbers.
Simply put, the forest was overpopulated. So much so that a monster wave would start from here every five years or so, and spread radially to attack the surrounding settlements.
"Tch, already."
While I was going over the information about this forest, I noticed a group of bats with four wings. They were minor issues when it came to fighting, but if we didn't kill them off quickly they would spread our location to their brethren.
"Mobats, huh? Should we stop and-"
"Nope. Don't slow down."
Count Tusk was about to suggest that we pause our journey to handle them, but there was no reason to go that far for these things.
I held up my right hand and snapped my fingers while aiming my spell at the centre of the group.
"Vacuum Point."
As if sucked in by a black hole, the bats slammed into each together and were grinded into blue slush like they just went through a blender.
"Was that wind magic?" He asked in astonishment.
"Yes. Keep going."
I didn't feel like explaining one of my techniques so I made it clear with my tone and expression, and thankfully he didn't push it.
Since we rarely saw anything besides trees and monsters I had a hard time telling the time, but there was no reason to check. While we could both, unfortunately, discard the need for sleep, Count Tusk still needed to take a snack while he moved. Even so our feet didn't slow except for when he needed to check out position.
It would be a lie to say we were still in top condition, but it couldn't be helped that we had to make sacrifices to accomplish this task as quickly as we could.
Eventually, we were so close that our destination would be within sight in a couple more minutes. I wanted to feel relieved by that fact, but I knew that despite how dangerous this forest was, it wasn't horrible enough yet.
Then, as if following the instinct of their bloodline, three trolls appeared to block our bridge to mission success. Trolls were fifteen-feet giants that looked like goblins and had ridiculous regenerative capabilities.
The tree trunks they carried like clubs didn't look very intimidating but with their size and power, I knew we couldn't just ignore them although we were so close.
'Still, three at once is odd. I was wondering where those stalkers went? Could this be their work?'
"I'll go first," I suggested.
"But,"
"It's fine. I can conserve my energy better than you after all."
I knew that I had gotten more and more impolite with my speech due to our long private time together, but neither of us pointed that out.
A single one of these trolls could bring havoc to a small demon village, however, that was of no concern to us.
After all, they would die here anyway.
Without so much as an introduction, the troll in the middle swung down its club like it was swatting a cockroach with an overconfident smirk. To face that club, I shaped fire into a sword and released a semi-circular slash that split all three of their weapons into two.
"Ug?!?!"
While the trolls were bewildered, I jumped and stuck my sword into the head of the middle one before landing behind them. It would be nice if that took care of one of them but...
'These ones are real monsters, huh?'
Even with the flaming blade stuck in its forehead, the troll turned around and gave me a hate-filled glare. However, before it could launch an attack, it got hit from behind.
"That was unnecessary, Count Tusk."
"I can't let you have all the fun on this dreary trip."
The minotaur wielded a pair of short, double-bladed axes with a fierce grin. It wasn't the face of a hero fighting to save his daughter, but I kept that thought to myself.
"Fine. Let's make this quick."
I was a little disappointed by the fact that my attack only made the troll's face look funnier, but I wasn't discouraged. As I had tested, my curses had little effect on the native monsters so I couldn't use a curse of decay to take care of it. Nor would I be able to burn it to ash with a white blaze since this forest was of the normal flammable kind. I could easily extinguish normal flames with wind magic, but white blaze was different.
Nevertheless, the solution was clear to me.
I quickly readied another flaming sword and pounced at the troll. This time it countered with its fists, but all I needed was a glance to target it with a spike that suddenly protruded and went through its hand.
"Urk!!!"
Before it could pull back its wounded hand, I stuck my sword around the area of its stomach, but this wasn't the end. I then focused on the sword in my hand and used its tip as a vacuum to suck the heat from the troll's body.
Its knees buckled due to the sudden cold and it quickly lost the energy to move. However, even in this state its resilience was unaffected. Though I kept taking away its heat, it managed to regain just enough to keep itself alive. If it could, it would probably scream from this agony, but I had no mercy to spare. Count Tusk was currently fighting the other two by himself so I didn't want to play with this one for much longer.
I concentrated all of the heat I had stolen to the tip of the sword and then twisted it.
"Release."
Without any sign or warning, the troll silently ignited before being reduced to a pile of ash.
With one down, we easily took care of the other two and walked for a few more minutes before we could see a bump in elevation where there was a lone tree. This tree was a very normal one to me, with a brown trunk and green leaves, but in Lambda and in a forest like this that only made it suspicious. Furthermore,
"Count, can you see the herb-"
In the middle of my question, a blade came down for my head from behind.