It had been close to ten hours since Blaire Tracer had left to explore the rainforest, and Michael had been impatiently waiting for her.
But what he didn't expect to see when he heard that she returned was a profusely bleeding Tracker with three yellowish stones in her arms.
The stones were shaped like rugby balls, just yellow and a lot heavier.
"What happened?" He asked the moment he saw her sitting on one of the beds inside the wooden manor.
She was currently being tended to with a simple piece of cloth that was used as a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding on her shoulder. A claw must have pierced her deeply not too long ago.
"I–..." Blaire began, only for Michael to lift his hand, stopping her midway.
"If you think that the injury is too serious, we could burn it. After all, we don't have any potions or healers yet!" Michael proposed. The last few words were clearly directed at Blaire even though he was speaking to Tiara.
"I made a tight bandage with some cloth. If the cloth soaks up all the blood in five minutes, we must stop the bleeding in a different way, burning the wound, if necessary," Tiara nodded while Blaire's face was drained of all its color.
Michael threw a glance at her as if to say 'I told you to be careful!', but he didn't say anything. Instead, he motioned for Blaire to start narrating her report.
She took a moment to calm her wildly beating heart before she began to speak.
"In the first two hours of my exploration, I circled the proximity of the territory to test if the monsters in the rainforest are highly perceptive and notice my presence right away, or if my skills are enough to travel through the rainforest unhindered. After I was certain that it wouldn't be a problem to explore the area a little farther away, I spent some time traveling carefully through the rainforest.
I found a few stronger monsters but overall, Tier-1 Monsters mostly populate this area of the rainforest. Their population is oddly high, but that was the only thing I noticed," Blaire took a few deep breaths and drank some water from her leather flask.
Her breathing was ragged, and a thin coat of sweat was glistening on her forehead, but she continued her report without paying anymore attention to her physical state.
"Roughly four hours ago, I found feathers of a Bilrox near a well-hidden cavern entrance. The entrance was covered in bushes and surrounded by huge trees. However, I could see a few donkey-sized lizards inside the cave. My gut feeling told me not to enter the cave, so I tried to investigate from a safe distance. There were many feathers, hinting that there might be a Bilrox Horde.
I was a little confused as to what an exotic monster such as the Bilrox is doing in the rainforest and began my research. It didn't take much effort to find a Bilrox Horde that had been captured and fenced. They're held captive by some sort of Gorilla-like Humans, or human-like Gorillas, I am not too sure what they are, to be honest."
"Either way, it looks like there is another Lord's territory only a few hours away from ours. They seem very strong and have a numerical advantage. The weakest of them is at the 1st Tier."
Blaire wanted to say more but she seemed too weak right now. She began to shiver, and one didn't have to be an expert to tell that her condition was worsening.
Michael locked eyes with Tiara, who nodded her head after she took a short glance at the blood-soaked cloth. Tiara left the room to prepare to cauterize the deep gash on Blaire's shoulder.
'Distracting her from the wound should be the best, right?' Michael asked himself. He never had to take care of a severely injured patient who was bleeding to death before. However, the biggest problem was not distracting Blaire but tending to her wound. If they had a healing potion or an Artifact with a healing enchantment, they wouldn't have an issue healing Blaire. Unfortunately, they had nothing.
"So, you brought me lizard eggs?" Michael asked while pointing at the three yellow rugby ball-shaped eggs – or what he presumed to be eggs. 'Did she get injured in the lizard cave when she stole them?'
"You have good eyes, my lord. They're eggs, but not the eggs of lizards!" Blaire said pridefully. The corners of her lips curled upward.
"Not lizard's eggs? Then what…" Michael began to ponder while Blaire's smile widened further.
"These are the eggs of a Bilrox!! These Gorilla-like humans attacked me when they noticed that I stole their Bilrox's eggs, but I was faster and slyer than them. I escaped with three Bilrox eggs, though I got a little injured. Isn't that great?!" She chuckled lightly while giving him a thumbs up.
However, Michael didn't feel the slightest bit happy. Blaire had just provoked an unknown Lord to steal just a few Bilrox eggs. Her mission had been to explore the surrounding area, not to make enemies and receive a lethal wound from acting recklessly.
'This dumb idiot!' He shouted in his mind while maintaining a poker face on the outside. Shouting at Blaire right now wouldn't help anyone.
It was already a good thing that Blaire survived, and it wasn't a terrible thing to have Bilrox eggs. Heran, the Lesser Tamer, could hatch and raise the Bilrox, and they could create their own horde eventually. That was a good thing.
Bilrox were a rare kind of bird that had been announced as extinct, only to resurface in some corners of the Origin Expanse every now and then. They had a cute and charming appearance that combined the features of a bird and a mammal. Their feathers were yellow in color but they had special properties which made them quite valuable. They had a distinct appearance with a plump, round bodies and long, slender legs, and wings that were too small to allow them to fly.
Due to their gentle temperament, they were often captured and used as mounts to travel around and breed to harvest as many feathers as possible.
Adding all of this information, Michael understood why Blaire stole the Bilrox eggs. She wanted to help her Lord in the expansion of his territory, and Bilrox were a reliable source of income and means of transport. If he wanted to sell the eggs, Michael could make much more than he did during the last few days combined.
The problem was just that Michael had a bad feeling about the 'Gorilla-like human' Lord. If his guess was correct, the situation in his territory would soon change, for the worse.
'Gorilla-like humans, strong physically, but dense…that could be Gogis,' Michael presumed, and his expression worsened at the thought, 'If it's really Gogis, they will not stop until they find and kill Blaire and take back the eggs where they belong!'
Gogis were one of the most vengeful races Michael had heard about. They were not the smartest and were a bit narrow-minded but their resilience, determination, and stubbornness to finish what they started making up for those flaws.
Unfortunately, that also meant the Gogis would hunt down Blaire, and her Lord, thinking that she had been ordered to steal the Bilrox eggs.
'What a mess…what a mess…'