Another forest, huh. This one brings back unpleasant memories from just the other day.
I started down the gloomy path, but was relieved to see I could probably get through faster than expected.
It wasn't a very big forest, and there were hardly any monsters around.
I was confident I wouldn't get lost—the reason being, this city had some rather peculiar rumors about it, so a fair number of people came to see if they were true.
Therefore, while the path through the forest to the city wasn't paved, the trees and grass had been trimmed to a certain degree, creating a passable road.
Just when I thought I could make it through the forest without incident, I came across something strange, or rather, someone.
Lying face down, this person was stretched out perpendicular to the path, as if deliberately blocking my way.
Were they alive or dead?
"Right..."
Seeing no sign of movement, I assumed they were dead.
Must've collapsed while traveling, or maybe got attacked by a monster or something. That was probably it.
Their body looked unharmed, but flipping them over could reveal their insides had been eaten.
Imagining that left a bad taste, so I decided to simply ignore it and keep going.
Carrying them would be tiring, and once I reached the city I could send someone back for them.
When I got about two meters away from the corpse, I thought I saw its face move.
Looking closely, its mouth seemed to move too.
"Mmm... hungry..." it groaned.
"Is that so," I said, stepping over the body and hurrying onward.
I'll make sure to properly mourn them later.
"Hey! Wait, wait! Hold on!" I heard a voice call out behind me.
I glanced back to see the "corpse" from before sitting up and scuttling towards me like some kind of bug. Oh right, guess it wasn't dead after all.
"Eek!"
Feeling an indescribable sense of dread, I broke into a run.
"No way! Unbelievable!" it yelled, keeping low as it dashed after me. "Hang on, stop!"
Maintaining my pace, I ran even faster, but the freak jumped and grabbed me.
It reminded me of trying to chase away a cockroach, only to somehow end up on the defensive as it rushed my face instead.
"Eek!"
"Gotcha~!" my captor cheerfully announced.
I recalled the cockroach spreading its wings and landing on my face.
"Get off me, you roach!"
I tried shaking it off, but it had a firm grip on my arms and legs. I couldn't throw it off.
It was pretty strong, actually.
"Roach... that's mean. I'm a human girl, you know."
It nuzzled up against my chest, rubbing its scent on me. Who... why...?
I was pretty sure the girls I knew weren't like this. But at least now I understood it was human, so I tried to calm down.
"Phew, just a weird girl."
"Hmm? But isn't it crazy to just ignore someone collapsed on the ground like that?"
"I thought you were dead."
"Didn't we make eye contact?"
"I figured I imagined it."
"I talked, remember? Said I was hungry. And you went 'Is that so,' didn't you?"
"Well, I was taught when I was little not to pick up stuff lying on the ground, so—"
"Isn't that kind of a weak excuse?"
I knew it was, but I really didn't want anything to do with this girl.
She was just weird. Asked what was weird about her, first I'd say her looks, but more than that, she gave me an indescribable vibe.
Speaking of her appearance, she was a little on the short side, coming up to about my chest.
Her light brown hair fell around her shoulders in soft waves.
She wore a t-shirt and hot pants. So far, so good.
But for some reason, she had on an eye mask.
It was a simple black mask, but someone had crudely drawn a pair of eyes on it.
She said something about making eye contact, but honestly I couldn't tell where she was looking. Can she... see out of that thing?
While her mouth was quite expressive, going from angry earlier to a smug grin now, her eyes gave nothing away.
She looked younger than me, but something made me feel like she might be older too.
So basically, I had no idea.
The eye mask was odd enough, but her catching me was even weirder.
I want to explain that she startled me with those creepy movements... but the truth is, I seriously tried to run away when it happened.
Yet somehow, I couldn't dodge her and she caught me easily.
"Come on, stop staring! I'll fall for you if you look at me like that!"
Was I overthinking things? As she pressed a hand to her cheek and twisted her body around coyly, I lost interest.
Whatever, I'll just ignore her and hurry on.
I forcefully peeled the clinging girl off of me and headed for the exit of the forest.
"Ah! Wait for me!"