Day had broken and Lilly and I walked out into the open space. The girl watched us quietly as we got closer and when she raised a hand that held a staff to the air, I flinched thinking she was going to attack, but all that happened was the item disappearing into thin air.
Lilly, still with that grin on her face, bent slightly so she was face to face with the shorter girl. "Hi! My name is Lillian and that guy over there," She gestured to me, "Is Hero! Who are you?"
I was legitimately terrified at the sugar-sweet voice Lilly put on.
"Alice," The girl answered, her voice no louder than a mumble.
"Alice!" Lilly repeated. "Are you an adventurer?"
Alice nodded and Lilly continued, "You're really strong—"
I paused to check out this girl's information, cutting Lily off.
[Alice Helsomner]
[Mage-Evoker, Level 72]
[Non-Playable]
Damn, I thought at her level and resumed play.
"—You're a mage class, huh?"Alice nodded and turned to leave, but Lilly, in a panic for reasons I didn't know, grabbed her arm hastily. "Hold on, I'm not finished."
Alice didn't turn around, instead staring at the hand holding onto her arm. Then she looked back at Lilly, a blank question on her face.
"Ah," Lilly released her. "Sorry. You see, Hero and I are on a search for a monster, a dangerous creature, but we're both sort of weak," She laughed nervously, "I'm not even an adventurer. I've seen what you can do and wanted to ask if you'd like to join us…?"
Lilly ended her ramble and the girl finally turned around slowly, eyes narrowed. "Dangerous… creature,"
Lilly nodded encouragingly.
Alice didn't speak for a moment, contemplating, then she said, "How much?"
Lilly blinked, then let out a high-pitched nervous laugh. "How much? Oh, it's, you know, for the greater good. Helping rid the world of evil and all," More laughter. So this was the genius plan she'd been cooking up with that annoying grin. I rolled my eyes and folded my arms as I watched it all come to a crash. I should probably have helped because it was also for my benefit but this was too amusing to interrupt.
"No money." Alice said abruptly and turned to continue walking and I burst out with laughter.
"I- Y-" Lilly sputtered and went after Alice, "I don't have any money but think about the good you'd be doing."
Alice didn't answer her and kept walking and Lilly huffed as she followed, determined to persuade. The scene vaguely reminded me so much of something, right at the back of my mind it tugged, but I couldn't place it.
The two of them walked off, Lilly's voice gradually getting fainter and fainter but after a while, it went quiet. When she reappeared again, a dejected expression was on her face. I should've seen it coming when she walked over to me calmly and punched me in the arm, but I didn't and I was left groaning and clutching my bicep in pain.
"That's for laughing, you asshole."
I nodded and accepted it, and we were on our way again, deeper into the forest.
"Sorry your little plan didn't work." I say, referring to her attempt to get Alice on our team.
"Yeah," She replied softly. "Do you think I should have told her there was a reward? 10,000 gold would have done the trick." I would have thought she was joking but she looked up at me with a completely serious look on her face.
"You're serious." I stated and she frowned.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Oh. Wow. It seemed Lilly found it too easy to lie as well as steal.
"Maybe the fact that it'd be a lie and you wouldn't have been able to produce her share of the 'reward' if we were indeed successful?"
"I would have crossed that bridge when I got there. 10,000 gold isn't anything hard to come by."
The vision of the 0 gold written brightly on my profile flashed in my mind and I grimaced, "I would argue on that."
"Whatever. We can do it ourselves."
And so Lilly and I searched till the sun rose high in the sky. We went through a portion of the forest and eventually broke out, checked dark, hidden areas and climbed small hills, getting frustrated with every minute that passed. Soon, we'd exhausted every area on our map.
Sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes and I begged before we stopped beneath the shade of a towering rock to rest.
"We can have lunch now," Lilly said and opened her backpack. "My tummy is burning so bad."
"Alright," I replied. Checking my energy bar revealed that only a small portion had been shaved off so I didn't really need to eat, but refilling wasn't going to do any harm. I collected my own portion of the sandwiches she'd packed and thanked her, and we talked as we ate.
"Do you think it comes out only during a certain time of the day?" I asked, after a moment of deep thought.
"Possibly. What time did you encounter it?"
"Hmm," I mumbled mid-chew, "I don't know the exact time, but it was like mid-day? Like right now."
"I saw mine in the evening. I get bored a lot from just sitting at home all day and decided to start taking night strolls around the edge of town. Just to, you know, get away from everyone and everything."
"So the time was different, but we both saw it around the same area." I said. "Do you think we should go back? Maybe we were way too early."
Lilly nodded, "You're right. Evening, afternoon, that leaves out morning. We have a late riser on our hands," She joked dryly. "Well, if we don't find it, we can always move forward out of here."
And so we finished lunch and started on our way back. We walked for quite some time as we'd gone a long distance away but when we neared the forest once more, I pulled out my sword and held onto it with both hands. I felt a bit silly, like a child with a plaything, but I got over myself quickly.
"Chances of success right now, thirty percent." I said quietly. Lilly shoved me and I didn't say anything else.
We walked slowly now, sweat dripping down our foreheads from fear and eyes squinted for any signs of movement, a task made even harder by the little light we got that filtered through the tightly canopied leaves. A few rustles here and then had us pausing occasionally but our caution would get dispelled when a squirrel-looking creature would jump out from a nearby bush.
Something occurred to me all of a sudden. "Isn't it strange how we're in a forest but haven't encountered any monsters?"
"Woodpine is a relatively peaceful area," Lilly started to explain in a low voice, "And that's including this forest. There are lands more populated with monsters of different kinds but Woodpine only ever gets alerts of appearances of maybe a shadow sphinx or a direwolf pack every few months. It's usually after one or two people have been killed, though, but once discovered, requests are made by the council offering rewards for whoever can slay it. If it's too strong, a very rare case, then registered S-rank adventurers and above are called to do the job."
"I see," Making a mental guess on what an S-rank adventurer probably meant. Still, something didn't make any sense. "Then the monster from this morning, the one that Alice slayed, what was it doing here?"
"Hell, if I know," Lilly replied with a shrug. "That's definitely out of the norm as you can see. It's just small, slightly vicious creatures all around." She paused then added. "Except that demon. That shouldn't be here either. It didn't even seem like most monsters, very strange."
"How is that strange? I assume new species of creatures are discovered all the time."
"Not like this one," Lilly shook her head. "I felt… When I was near it, it felt so… evil. Which I know makes no sense because monsters don't generally have auras, but when they do, it's slight and always in the form of a magic skill, like bloodlust, a skill that's instinctual to the direwolves I mentioned earlier."
I easily recalled the air feeling so thick and heavy around me when I encountered the demon, so much I sensed it before I saw it. Lilly had described the feeling just right. Evil.
We were quiet again, my beginner's crash course in Aetherian creatures settling in easily, but again, just as we'd discussed it, I felt a heaviness in the air. I froze.
Lilly beside me turned to look up at me, ruby eyes wide. Now that we were faced with it, was she really going to go through with everything? My question was answered when she held a finger to her lips and signaled that we keep moving.
We didn't know where it was yet and that put us at a disadvantage. If any of us knew how to use magic to cast some kind of spell that could cloak us, it would have be fucking amazing, but we didn't, and now the sandwiches I had rolled around in my tummy like the fitful dead in their graves, threatening to come back up my throat.
We kept moving until a hand slapped across my abdomen suddenly, causing me to nearly let out a yell. I calmed down when I noticed it was Lilly stopping me. She pointed to her right and when my gaze followed, there it was.
Okay. Okay.
Now all we had to do was get close enough to it without it noticing us so we could use the documentation machine, but that was impossible because just as we could feel it, it had definitely felt our presence once we got closer.
My short, two-day life in this game world flashed before my eyes as it turned toward us slowly, two sinister purple hazes pinning themselves on us from the depths of a smoky, flickering form.