There was nothing...
"Are you okay?" I could hear Rio's concerned voice behind me
I turned back towards him and spoke.
"Yeah."
"Why'd you suddenly turn around?"
"Paranoia?"
"Oh..."
There was no need to cause him to worry and Kazu asked me to keep quiet about the possible bear, but I do think it'd be better to let everyone know rather than everyone be surprised if a bear attacks...
A little while later the second beep could be heard. Rio and I switched watch with Taku and Ayaka then went to sleep.
I did let Taku know about the breaking noise I heard but also said it could've just been a rabbit or something.
…
I stretched my arms wide and yawned,
Come to think about it I haven't been doing my morning exercises... Oh well, it's kind've hard to run in a forest.
"Morning Leo."
"Morning." I returned my greetings to Kazu, as always, we were the only two up this early.
"Anything happen?" I asked.
"Not a thing."
He shrugged his shoulders
"Well, I'll be back."
"Hm? Where you going?"
"Picking flowers."
I headed into the forest.
…
I went a little bit away from the camp.
After I finished peeing, I suddenly felt chills.
Looking around I couldn't see anything though. I looked up at a tree branch and thought if I should climb it, but I decided not to.
Heading back to the camp there were more people awake now.
I waved at the group of people who were just waking up and went to sit at the campfire.
Surprisingly Rose came up to me.
"G-Good morning..."
"Morning."
Why was she talking to me? We haven't had any interactions before this I don't think? Though it did seem like her stuttering has gotten better since she and Kazu became friends.
"C-C-Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"O-O-Over here please..."
She led me away from everybody, maybe it was something important.
"I... Hear something scary..."
Huh? Hear something scary? Like someone sleep-talking or something? What did that have to do with me?
"Hm?"
"It's... something big and scary..."
"Can you elaborate?"
I didn't really understand what she meant, she heard something big and scary? I checked her status and the only skill she had was called 'Fireflies' I had no clue what that meant so I thought it was a magic skill or something.
And shouldn't you be telling this to Kazu instead of me? We've never talked to each other before...
"M-My skill..."
"Hm?"
"I have... I can hear noises through them..."
She can hear noises through her fireflies? Isn't that like an ultra-mega-broken espionage skill then? I could barely see these little bugs unless it was nighttime.
"And you heard something big and scary?"
She nodded her head.
"What'd it sound like?"
"I-It was a mysterious language... And when it moved, I could hear a loud stomping noise..."
It spoke? An assassin? A teacher? Or... Is it a demon?
A loud stomping noise too? Definitely not a bear then...
"Why'd you tell me instead of Kazu?"
I decided to ask, though it was an unimportant question I was curious.
She looked a little shocked, her eyes opened wide before returning to normal a few seconds later.
"You seem more used to this... The forest... Surviving... You trust what people say... And you're the calmest out of all of us... and..."
Huh? Did I look like that? And that's why she told me instead of Kazu? That sounded like lousy reasoning...
"...I also heard you..."
Huh? She heard me? What'd she hear me do? Eh, that wasn't important right now... If it spoke, then it was intelligent. It was probably not a teacher, so the two options were probably a assassin or a demon.
"I think we should tell Kazu and Taku."
To be honest, I thought we should tell everyone here, there's no reason to hide this information. Kazu, Taku, and Rose thought otherwise though. I couldn't understand them...
"O-Okay... C-can you?"
Huh? Did she actually tell me first so I would have to be the one to explain this to them? Smart... I would've done the same...
"Sure."
"T-Thank you..."
"Mhm."
We went back towards the campfire and looked for them
I tapped Kazu and Taku on the shoulder and we all went to the side.
…
"So you're saying we're being watched by something intelligent and speaks another language?" Kazu asked,
"That's what I heard." I replied.
Taku put his hand on his chin like he was thinking.
"Are you sure you heard right, Rose?"
She nodded her head.
"Hmm... I don't know!" Kazu rubbed his head, before continuing.
"I believe you Rose, but would Mr. Mispholfo really not know about that? I don't think he'd drop us in here without at least taking care of anything that could kill us."
Reasonable doubt, but sorry, it might be my fault. I wrote this mission after all... But I still couldn't remember anything about a demon or assassin in the first mission...
Rose looked down at the ground,
"I think we should be prepared at least." I spoke
"Yeah... You're probably right, there's always exceptions..."
Taku didn't say anything the entire time and looked lost in thought.
"We should prepare to look for a body of water though first." Kazu said.
I shrugged my shoulders, there's no point in arguing. Though I think we should be way more careful of the possible demon, he was the leader.
We headed back to the campfire and everyone had woken up by now, he assigned more people to the explore group and set them off to look for a possible bathing area.
Rio and I were still assigned to the gathering team so we went to look for more wood.
…
I decided to talk to him about the possible monster.
"Hey Rio."
"Hm?"