"Ah, what pain." I wake up scratching my head, feeling a great pain in my brain. 'What happened yesterday?' Gradually, the memories of what happened yesterday resurface in my mind.
"That gash is then... it sucked almost all of us in. What magic was that? Wait! Gilberta, what happened to him?" I get up from the ground, I lift my head to try to figure out where I am. "It's definitely a trail...but I don't recognize the landscape around it, but it's definitely not the forest where I was before."
The Katia is taking to the sky, so it must be dawn. I will try to follow this path to understand where it leads.
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It has been what I think is an hour since I began to walk, and so far I have met no one, only a few lonely saplings here and there in these plains.
'Mh? A forest... maybe it's...' I quicken my pace, to get closer to that forest, hoping it was the one I imagined.
I reach the beginning of the path which begins to enter the wood. "Okay, let's see if I'm lucky." I enter the forest.
For the moment everything seems calm, I think that in the meantime I can also think about what happened yesterday.
'It's amazing that I was able to use the Astra, I was starting to lose hope and thought I was completely helpless. But it's still strange… why has it only now manifested itself? It usually starts to emerge from seven to ten years old, I'm a bit late.' But the important thing is that he managed to develop that power.
"What will have happened to the others? I hope they are well, after all they were my family, even if we are not related by blood." I've been walking for a few minutes but this wood doesn't seem familiar to me, indeed from the outside it seemed bigger unlike what it was towards the city of the Marquis.
"AHHHHH!" Suddenly I hear a scream, coming from the forest. 'Damn, the direction of that scream is in the forest, who is clumsy enough to leave the path?' I don't have to follow the sound of that voice, basically I'm looking for traces of my loved ones... but I can't ignore something like that.
'I can't do it, for two good reasons: one is because the voice is female and two because I want to experience my powers, after all who screams like that if it's not life threatening?' Following my instinct and not reason, I enter the forest.
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Among the trees were figures, facing each other. Three creatures surrounded a girl.
The creatures looked like a cross between a tiger and a crocodile. the color of her fur was white, with black stripes, on the neck and on the head, she has thick hair mixed between red and yellow. The upper part of her muzzle is blue, with reptilian eyes, the snout is elongated with sharp, protruding fangs. While his legs and her tail were very similar to those of a crocodile. Their size was twice that of a tiger.
While on the other side there was a girl slightly shorter than 1.70 cm. She had short blonde hair and round pink eyes, a face that looked more adorable than beautiful. A size C bust, a curvy waist, a small round butt and thighs, not too thin and not too plump either.
Right now she is her around the corner, pushed by these Noterozo.
"I'm done…I shouldn't have come here alone." He collapses to the ground losing all hope, she had brought a wooden staff with her, with a teal orb wedged between the branches of this staff at the top. But she had escaped from his hands in the previous attack of these beasts, in fact they had managed to tear a shred of cloth from the girl's pink clothes. "At least I hope my end is not painful." The girl thought she was already doomed by now.
When the noterozo in the center of the trio was about to pounce on the girl, a figure appears in front of the latter, stopping the beast.
'Mh? Why is nothing happening?' the girl wonders in her mind why she was still alive, taking courage she opens one eye noticing what had happened.
A boy stood between her and the beast, with the boy's outstretched arm surrounded by a light of mixed colors, which appears to form a blade, the latter piercing the beast's skull, ending her life.
"But easy enough to be my first encounter with noterozo." The boy expresses an opinion on killing the beast, then turns to the girl. "Hey you, are you okay?" He asks with worried eyes, but gets no answer, as the girl was still confused about what happened.
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"She seems a little shocked, it's okay for now, I'll think about it after I fix these damn things." I turn my gaze to the two remaining noterozos. 'If I'm not mistaken I'm a Tigrelos, a noterozo who can normally go up to 15th rank...well now I'm in 5th, but I feel motivated.' Immediately I start towards the Tigrelos on my right.
I try to plunge the blade, but the beast avoids the thrust and tries to give me a blow with its tail, but I too respond with a dodge, and taking advantage of the approach of its tail, I cut it off with the blade. The tigrelos lets out a roar of pain, which is a mixture of the cries of the tiger and the crocodile.
The second noterozo attacks from behind me, trying to take me off guard, but he can't and I avoid this attack too, I move to his side and cut off his muzzle, creating a fountain of green blood. The last Tigrelos, left alone, flees into the forest in fear.
'I'll let you go this time, but be careful you don't cross my path again.' I make my blade disappear, once I've verified that my surroundings are safe. I go towards the girl, who is still slumped on the ground.
"Um, sorry? Are you okay? Can't get up, do you need a hand?" I offer my help, hoping for a response from the girl.
"Ah? ah yes yes, thank you so much. Sorry I'm still a little shocked by events, I thought I was dying but I'm still intact, thanks for the thought." The girl gets up with her strength. "Let me introduce myself, I'm Jusy, my class is a Priestess and I'm currently an adventurer in a guild." The girl, who introduces herself as Jusy, reveals her class to me.
"My pleasure, Jusy, my name is Darion, and my class is… well, he's a warrior. At the moment I have no job." I lie about my class, after all I still have to figure out what it is. 'A priestess ehh, very rare and I'm usually under the wing of the church, however she's in a guild, from what I can tell her rank is 10th.'