There was a whole world for them to discover. Kirie had been right about that. Unfortunately, there was always the linear progression that needed dealing with. Alphonse could only hope that the necessary, mundane tasks were sprinkled with a bit of excitement and mystery along the way.
The travel time to reach the capital city was about five days on foot. Dense forest covered half the distance, while the remainder cut through a series of hills and squat plateaus. To the north of these landmarks sat a small village hugging the line of mountains simply known as The Barrier which divided two nations: the Central Kingdom of Tevilandis, which they currently inhabited, and the Northern Kingdom of Xersceld.
The village was a relatively short detour when traveling northeast, but it wasted almost an entire day when backtracking around the rough terrain, as it was cradled by the mountains. Alphonse didn't want to waste any time reaching the capital, so this course was mostly undesirable.
The second option was a recently established outpost for adventurers that became available when the area turned into a popular hunting ground. Monsters in this area were of the typical types: ogres, trolls, goblins and other small bipedal creatures of extensive variety. The quadrupeds in the area were already scarce due to the extensive slaughter from the more sentient beasts. Furthermore, regular citizens of Tevilandis hunted these parts with the aid of adventurers as escorts.
Alphonse's plan was to head straight for the capital with as little interruptions as possible. He suggested to Kirie and Asa that they immediately seek out the Adventurers' Guild Union when they arrived. The organization held authority over both native and outworlder guilds. If they wanted to register as a guild, then they would have to deal with the paperwork and potential legal matters. Both formidable foes.
'Politics suck,' Alphonse thought.
He stopped to analyze his surroundings as a brief breeze maneuvered around him insistently. A thick canopy obscured the sun almost entirely, resulting in a shadowy, damp forest floor. The harmonizing sound of insects traveled through the trees, and small animals scurried through the foliage as the trio made their way along the natural path tread by many an adventurer.
It seemed the area was safe for the most part, judging by the abundance of activity. Alphonse still kept a watchful eye on the dense foliage with the aid of his improved perception. He no longer had access to active skills since he sacrificed his mana pool, but at least the passive perks of the accompanying stat still remained.
Kirie intruded on the mellifluous sounds of nature as she let out a loud yawn. "Ugh, I need a bed."
She stretched her neck casually and raised her hands to the sky. Her mouth opened wide in an unbecoming manner as she didn't bother to stifle the boredom.
"You've done nothing but complain since we left," Alphonse said. "If I didn't know Rinka better, I'd say you were spoiled."
Kirie waved at him dismissively and let out an irritated breath. "Never break a catgirl's routine unless you want her seriously pissed."
"Don't encourage me," Alphonse said. He regarded the other catgirl who walked a short distance ahead. "Hey, Asa, tell your sister to toughen up."
He felt Kirie's eyes staring daggers into him at the comment.
Asa stopped walking as the only acknowledgment that she'd heard him. Alphonse faltered when he saw her downcast eyes and the distressed frown on her face when she turned slightly towards him. She hugged her staff close to her body and fidgeted.
"Hey, what's wrong?" He hastened his steps to stand in front of her. The catgirl half-turned from him so that the hood of her healers robe concealed most of her features.
Alphonse frowned at this and wondered if she was still coping with their new situation. He didn't blame her. They'd only left Rinka and the Submerged Oasis behind about a day earlier. She was now considered an adventurer with plenty of high expectations as the party's main healer. Alphonse at least had an idea about interacting with the people of Hovestile and taking on quests. Asa knew next to nothing about it, save for the bits she read in the many books collected over the years.
"I-I miss my bed," Asa finally said. She averted her gaze fully and wrung her hands along the staff.
Alphonse stared at her dumbstruck and realized his assumptions were far off the mark. He rested a hand over his face. "Seriously? You're supposed to be the mature one. Friggin spoiled catgirls."
He never imagined that the tenacious Kirie and indomitable Asa would be so susceptible to a bit of routine discomfort. Sure, he didn't like sleeping on the hard ground either with nothing but a thin blanket and dying campfire for warmth. He hated the stiff feeling of his joints and the tightness of muscle after waking up from a restless sleep. The air always felt heavy for a while after he roused himself, and he was racked with dry coughs, as if the morning dew latched to his throat. But he suppressed all of his complaints for the sake of not appearing spineless in front of the catgirls.
'Maybe it's their cat traits?' Alphonse thought. Cats did seem like grumpy animals. He did imagine that a cat exposed to human comforts might become addicted to them. Perhaps the same was true in this situation.
"Never break a catgirl's routine..." Alphonse recited with a bit of amusement.
His shoulders slumped when he observed the two sisters clasping hands and facing away from him. They slowly glanced over their shoulders to see if he was watching them and quickly turned away when they saw his lack of sympathy.
'Looks like it's time for a new routine,' Alphonse thought. He took a mental note and decided this was a weakness he could exploit in future disagreements.
He took the lead as they started complaining to each other about more meaningless topics. His focus, on the other hand, diverted to more important details. At the forefront of these concerns was how he would manage to interact with other people once he arrived at the capital. Honestly, he preferred as little involvement as possible for the first few weeks until he adapted to his new look. Wearing a dark rogue-like outfit with a scarf constantly obscuring his features didn't necessarily make him incognito in the middle of a wide city street.
Two demihumans and an outworlder forming a guild wasn't necessarily a common occurrence. He planned to have some accessories made for Kirie and Asa to cover up their ears a bit, but anything too flashy would just draw even more attention. For some, the accessories would be obvious. It wasn't entirely necessary, but every precaution helped buy some time to integrate with society.
Not that he really had much experience with society in the first place -- not even on Earth.
Alphonse's ruminations were put on hold when he noticed a set of deep imprints in the sodden earth near the side of the path. He stared at them for a full five seconds before moving to approach them.
Asa spotted them as well. Her demeanor changed as if from the flick of a switch. She rested a hand on the damp ground and ran it over the uneven portions. "Tracks. Two humans, at least. The other prints don't obscure them." Her brow furrowed as she noted some details. "Deirgu would be my guess."
Alphonse and Kirie settled next to her and examined the disturbed earth. The scattered tracks were narrow and extended around double the length of a regular human foot. Some of them left three tiny punctures from curved nails. The unmistakable shape of footwear indicated the human prints. More depressions extended from the human tracks, but those that overlapped indicated that the weight of the footfalls wasn't as heavy as a human's.
Deirgu were short, rodent-like bipedal creatures. Their threat level was minimal individually, but packs of them could overwhelm an unsuspecting party in a matter of seconds. They weren't the brightest creatures, but sometimes numbers and sharp weapons were the only needs for victory.
Alphonse examined the surrounding forest. He picked up an unnatural shape with straight edges within the foliage. He approached it cautiously and made sure to circumvent some of the clear breaks where monsters had passed through. He slid around a tree with his shortsword at the ready. He lowered it when he observed an empty wagon with a stilted wheel on the nearest side. The monsters hadn't been without some basic sense, but they should have considered covering the wagon's tracks. Asa and Kirie joined him and instantly noticed the splatter of blood on the rumble seat.
The lack of bodies concerned him most.
Alphonse ventured further and found another natural path on the opposite side. At first, judging by the lack of human prints, it seemed the deirgu carried the humans after a successful ambush. There were signs of a brief struggle, and he backtracked a ways before the ambush position. The hoof tracks of a horse vanished somewhere along the way, as if plucked out of existence. The ground was hardly disturbed where the wagon's wheels veered off. He concluded that there had been no guard detail assigned.
'Why was an unguarded wagon traveling in an area crawling with monsters?' Alphonse thought.
Furthermore, it was headed east. The nearest village was in the same direction, so it didn't likely originate from there. There were no settlements near the western border that was defended by the Tevilandis military when the monsters pushed forward, emboldened by fresh numbers.
After a few more minutes of walking, the deirgu tracks stopped following the path and entered the thick vegetation deeper in the forest.
"Looks like they escaped and tried to make a break for it," Kirie said. She pointed at another set of human tracks slightly larger than the ones they saw earlier. "This human might've played decoy."
Alphonse attempted to activate an 'enhanced perception' this time to glean more evidence. Simply focusing with 'perception' tapped into the stat's passive potential and sharpened sight, but 'enhanced perception' was an active skill with a cooldown that revealed recently flattened grass, broken branches and other disturbances by highlighting them in smudges of yellow.
Alphonse froze and suppressed a gasp as flashes of static filled his vision when he initiated the enhancement. A dizzy spell fell over him as veins of red sat outside his peripheral vision. The cracks enlarged and emit an angry pulse that turned everything into a blur. A painful throbbing intensified near the back of his eyes as he tried to force the pain away by blinking rapidly. The crimson hue over his vision faded after a few seconds and a final flash of static brought his sight back to normal.
'Shit!' Alphonse thought. He held a hand over his eyes as he regained his bearings. 'No mana...right.'
Kirie looked up when he took a sharp intake of breath. "You alright?"
Alphonse nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Just something in my eye." He didn't want to bring up his attempt at using mana. She might feel guilty about his previous deal with the Construct Contract, and he didn't want those unnecessary feelings clouding her focus.
She seemed unconvinced, but hesitantly went back to examining the ground.
The catgirls found some of the more notable disruptions until Alphonse motioned further ahead.
"Check there," he said. He needed to rely on his own knowledge from texts he read at the Submerged Oasis while also tapping into his own hunting experience from back on Earth. He was confident that he could at least discern when the ambush occurred, and he did have his sketches of tracks written in his contract for reference if needed.
"There are new ones," Asa said. "Something met the deirgu along the way. Something big. I don't recognize it."
'You can only have so much knowledge being stuck in one place so many years,' Alphonse thought.
He stood beside her and frowned at the oval depression in the dirt. Another matching print sat amidst a crushed bush with branches sticking out of the ground. It was at least a solid five feet away, indicating that the creature's stride was considerably long. He agreed with Asa: something really big came through.
"Give me a sec," Alphonse said. He searched around for a suitable tree and scaled it up to the lowest branch. He narrowed his eyes and examined the tracks leading further north.
He climbed down and regrouped. "I'll lead and scout the area when we get closer."
They formed up. Asa trailed slightly behind Alphonse while Kirie took up the rear.
It didn't take long to find the source. The forest soon opened up to a copse of trees fed with rays of light that broke through gaps in the canopy off to the western side. The area looked bizarre with the condensed vegetation hugging so close and then suddenly spreading out.
Milling about the open area were strange, furry creatures with beady eyes. They wielded crude spears and bows held in clawed hands. Their faces resembled those of a rat with jutting jaws and overlapping teeth. Some had hunched forms, while others stood unnaturally straight, as if a plank had been tied to their backs forcing them upright.
Sitting in the center of the pack were three individuals bound and gagged with vines. Two of them looked older, perhaps around their middle years – a man and woman. A young girl sat between them, whose age probably hadn't quite reached double digits yet. Not merchants by the look of them. A family.
"What the hell were they doing out here?" Kirie hissed.
Alphonse narrowed his eyes at a large gap between two splintered trees across from them. "No clue, but we better act soon if we're going to help. Looks like the big guy wandered off in a hurry."
Asa frowned. "Of course we're helping."
He shrugged. "Kinda figured. Let me scout the other side to make sure it's really gone. If I'm not back in five minutes, wait for my signal."
"Which is...?" Kirie asked.
He pointed at the furthest deirgu standing atop a length of standing stone. "When that thing dies."