Mark looked at his system window, still trying to figure out what it meant to say. In the most basic terms - it was giving him a way to communicate with the divine beasts.
If that was what this was actually about, then he knew that things would change significantly. He just did not know if it was for the better or worse.
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Permission required: Establish communication between divine beast and the system (temporary)
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He quickly enabled the permission and his screen transformed into a blank screen with an arrow at the top. He opened it and found strange markings with understandable words in correspondence and instantly knew that it would not be an easy task.
The snake hissed something at him and a series of lines seemed to appear on his screen, their form and pattern making no sense to him.
It was not any language he knew, nor morse code or braille.
No, it resembled the sequence of dotes given to him in the arrow and he knew what he had to do. That did not mean he had to like it at all.
"Alan, did your screen change too?" he asked the other and received a shaking 'no' as an answer. So it was not a shared feature but can the other still see it at all? He needed to make sure.
He called the teen over with the shake of his hand. The other hesitated but hesitantly made his way forward, Kuro right at his trails.
"What can you see on my screen?" Mark asked once the other was close enough to see his screen comfortably.
The teen took his time looking at his screen, his face twisted in concentration before those eyes rose up to meet his own.
"It's a blank screen for me. Are you sure there is something there?" the teen asked but by this point, there was a weariness in his voice. He had likely realised that there was a difference between both their systems and the features available to both of them were different.
Some were exclusive and others could be shared between the established party.
This was likely the first one and Mark groaned just thinking about the load of work he had to do now.
He would have to decipher the whole code himself and even the ones that came after this. Not to mention, they still needed the checkpoint which was likely on top of the tall tree from where the divine snake had fallen from.
Alan would have to be the one to get the checkpoint while Mark dealt with this bigger problem down here.
"Alan, how good are you at climbing?" Mark asked the teen who took a few seconds to ponder before answering.
"I'm not too fast but I can climb decently well. Is the checkpoint up in the tree?" the teen asked, already catching up on the fact. Mark felt glad that he had such an intelligent partner in the teen.
"Do you need climbing tools? I have a knife, rope and hooks on me" by it he meant that he had enough funds to buy that equipment from the shop. Since they were in the beginner's pack, they were cheap enough to buy.
"They would help a lot" Mark hurriedly took the first bundle and passed it onto the teen. He saw Alan unpack the whole thing and suddenly tense in the middle of it, his eyes darting to being Mark.
Mark himself took a discrete look and saw the snake flail about in impatience. The fact that it had waited this long was already a miracle in itself.
Kuro did not look happy too, her angry growls seeming to serve as a useless warning to the other beast who was all too happy to ignore her.
"Go, hurry up and secure the checkpoint while I deal with this natural abomination here. Kuro, follow him up" the teen nodded and finally left and the kitten followed the lead unhappily. Mark saw the snake from the corner of his eyes, trying to move about and failing.
Somehow his expression seemed to convey him being offended at being called an abomination but there was no real heat behind it which Mark took as a good sign.
He once again looked at the words at the screen and then at the divine beast in front of him and then back at the screen with a groan.
"I'm sorry, give me a few minutes to translate since the system doesn't want to" the beast seemed to understand his words as he finally calmed down a little, his eyes not leaving Mark's body. The gaze felt predatory but Mark ignored it and took a look through the guide.
There were too many words in it and Mark saw no real connection between any of the symbols. He had to do this the old fashion way and it took a few precious minutes to reach the right symbol.
And he felt his blood pressure rise as soon as he saw the corresponding - 'hello' on the screen. Was this the system's idea of a joke? It was not funny.
"Did you really make me spend five minutes looking through this shit just for a freaking hello?" Mark almost shouted, even forgetting that the one he was shouting at was a divine beast who looked far too amused.
Another plethora of hisses left his mouth but this time it took far too much time than before and once again it was nothing useful.
"It's not my fault I need a guide to understand you. Do you think humans naturally understand animals?" he called back and the snake had a thoughtful look on his face. It was more the feeling Mark got that helped him decipher the faces the other was making but he chose to ignore that fact for now.
The snake tried to move a little about but it was obvious that the skin on his back prevented too much movement and caused a lot of discomfort to the other. Seeing this, all Mark could do was sigh.
Then he remembered that this was a mission and he needed to see it through and he finally had a chance to start it."Do you need any help?" Kaito asked the snake, his tone was as friendly and harmless as possible. He needed the other to not see them as a danger at all because the monster could kill him right at this moment if he chose to.
They were dealing with a potential time bomb here.
"Hiss~" The snake finally seemed to come about, his sound even more prominent and Mark watched as his screen filled with words that would take a lot of time to look through. He sighed and finally got to work but took a look at Alan and Kuro who almost seemed to be at the top now.
Then he looked through the system and almost chided himself at the obvious request. The snake's 'I'm shedding right now. Don't think you humans can help me in this regard' words were something that Mark disagreed with.
"I'm a vet, an animal doctor. Do you have any idea how many snakes I have helped shed in the local zoo? I'm almost an expert on this topic" the snake gave him an almost amused look before shrugging at him.
Obviously, the other was not taking him seriously at all and it irked him.
"Anyway, won't warm water be more comfortable for you? It seemed to help the snakes I helped shed" his words finally seemed to interest the snake as those reptilian eyes came to rest on him.
Then his system beeped and he opened it to look at the new darkness that seemed to be receding and the actual land they were in came into view.
Mark felt his heart almost come up in his throat as he looked down at the map in a mixture of horror and wonder.
They were at the emerald forest - the resting place of a divine deity and a location for a weekly boss fight in the game. No wonder the snake had been here, but it begged the question of just what Rika was thinking coming here.
There was nothing really impressive here except the divine beast and juvenile crystal ores that grew deep inside the caves. It could only be the crystals that the other was interested in.
One look at the map confirmed his hypothesis of her location, near the caves.
The hissing sound brought him back and he realised that he had work to do before he could leave this place.
"Right, think we can get warm water here?" Mark asked and the snake took a few seconds before slowly nodding his head and pointed into a direction with his tail and hissed once again. The small pond was not too far away and was a decent enough size to fit the snake inside.
Mark looked at the message and finally breathed out a sigh of relief. Things were finally looking up once again. The divine beast would allow him to help after all.
By the time Kuro and Alan came down, Mark had already started to help the snake soak in warm water, gentle hands rubbing the skin to get it to separate without any pain. It would be a long process after all.