Anna turned to me with a mischievous smile. "Going after the princess, are you? A bit predictable, don't you think?" She said, insinuating that I wanted to seduce Princess Isabel.
"Why do you have to twist things? Besides, maybe she doesn't like guys; maybe she prefers women, so in that scenario, you would be the one doing the seducing," I stated, knowing that Anna would have no problems seducing Princess Isabel.
As Anna and I started talking about seducing Princess Isabel, Lloyd's face started turning bright red with embarrassment at the topic.
"What's the matter, Lloyd? You don't like what we might have planned for Isabel?" I chuckled with amusement as Lloyd's face became even brighter red.
"Yeah, we might need your help, too, Lloyd. We need to know her likes and dislikes so we don't say the wrong thing at the start," Anna teased him as well until he decided enough was enough.
"While I am grateful to you two for saving me, I will not tolerate inappropriate behavior towards Princess Isabel. If you are to continue to speak about her, then you must do so with respect," he announced, his face still bright red.
Anna and I burst out laughing, thankful that the conversation had removed some of the tension in the air.
It had already been two days since they started walking, and everyone besides Arild was stressed.
They were stressed about what might happen and what hadn't happened yet. Nothing had happened yet in the past two days, like the calm before the storm.
Michael was especially stressed. According to Arild, the number of challenges you completed was very important because it affected what happened at the forest's heart.
It was like winning enough tickets at the arcade to get the big prize on the top shelf; if you didn't win many tickets, the best you could get was maybe an eraser.
So far, there have been no signs of challenges, but they don't even know what those signs look like since the challenges could've been anything.
That silence continued for two more days as Michael and Anna continued to learn languages from Lloyd.
Their minds were utterly occupied with learning so many different languages simultaneously that they all realized something until Arild spoke out.
They were going in a loop; Arild pointed forward at a tree Anna had marked, already alerting them that they were walking in circles.
Michael went on to test the loop to see if they were actually in one, while Lloyd and Anna got excited by how such a thing could've worked.
It took Michael a full day of running to complete the loop all the way back to them. He sat down on the ground against a tree, trying to catch his breath, until Lloyd and Anna attacked him with questions about the loop.
They asked him how long it had been since he had set off running and if he had seen any changes or similarities along the route they had been walking.
After reporting that it took him a day to run the whole thing, he didn't notice anything different. Anna gave him two hours to rest before standing him up and telling him to go the other way, back the way they had come.
Michael groaned at the new command but did it anyway because he believed that Anna and Lloyd would most likely be the ones to get them all out of this loop.
It took twice as long for Michael to return this time, and he was extremely exhausted.
Once again, they began their barrage of questions. Michael reported that going back, he saw that there was no loop and could keep running back to camp if he kept going.
Lloyd and Anna quickly deduced that the loop was most likely a defense mechanism for the forest to keep people out of the inner layers.
It likely worked by redirecting the people who reached a certain point back to a specific point.
Anna got Michael up and running again and had him carefully measure the distance he traveled before returning to where they were.
He returned and passed out on the ground before telling them the distance was fifty miles.
Lloyd was incredibly amazed when he heard that. He had never heard of a human running fifty miles in a day.
Michael was amazed at himself because the longest he had run before was about thirty miles during a night marathon.
After Anna heard the distance, she started looking in different directions before walking in one direction to test something.
She returned after about twenty minutes and discovered that they were resetting to this point. She didn't realize it because they were taking different routes to the border before looping back here.
"So, how do we get out of this? I'm already starving to death over here," I said to Anna as I prepared a meal.
She looked towards Arild for answers. "Each section of the forest has a special barrier; this is but one of them," he announced like a tour guide who didn't care for his job.
"And why didn't you tell us about these barriers before?" I asked him, upset that he had withheld information from us.
"Because I do not know the way through them, my companions and I lived on the outer ring because we are stuck there. Our parents and elders warned us not to pass this point, saying we would never be able to return. We ignored them, thinking they were trying to scare us into behaving so we wouldn't wander off."
He spoke with a straight face, but his eyes betrayed him, revealing his deep regret for disobeying his elders.
"So, how do you travel through the barriers?" I asked him,
He started squirming as he revealed a further detail that he withheld from us.
"It is believed that you need the mark to travel the barriers freely, so I attacked you hoping to acquire one?"
He said while staring at the ground, avoiding my eyes. "Why did you attack us?" I asked with gritted teeth and grabbed him by his collar, angry that he had kept such vital information from us.
"The blood of wraiths is what makes the mark work; we wanted your blood thinking you were wraiths so we could give ourselves marks so we could go back home," he muttered as I held him by his neck now.
"So you knew the way through the forest was the wraith's blood this whole time! What was all the point of wasting our time trying to pass the barrier then!"
I felt angrier than ever before and lifted him against a tree. He was struggling to breathe as he said, "I thought your mark would be enough; I thought a true mark would be enough for all of us to pass the barrier," he said as he gasped for breath.
Anna came over and pushed me away from him, letting him down. She started helping him catch his breath as he continued explaining.
"A true mark allows you to enter the forest's heart, but the pseudo marks will enable you to travel the forest freely.
I believed that your mark would be enough for all of us to pass, but now I believe we each need one," he said while rubbing his neck, which now had a red handprint.
Seeing the handprint, I was confused by my actions. While I've gotten angry before, that was normal. I've never grabbed someone by the throat like that.
I was becoming scared of what I now might be capable of.
As I sat down and started contemplating my actions, Lloyd approached Arild. He asked, "What are these pseudo marks you're talking about?"
Arild was hesitant to answer until he saw me again looking at him, angry that he would withhold information.
"The marking ritual was originally done by the night hunters. They give you a more 'detailed' mark that allows you into the forest's heart.
The people here made pseudo marks so we could freely travel the forest. But the only way to get one was by killing a wraith and using its blood to mark yourself.
You can leave the forest quickly without the mark but can't enter it without it. That's why only warriors from other tribes venture to the outer ring where the night hunters are, to get a pseudo mark to attack other tribes or venture out into the world."
After he said that, I started thinking about why they gave me this in the first place. It couldn't have been as simple as killing a wraith, then you're worthy; no, it had to be more than that.
"So how do they decide who's worthy?" I asked Arild, still angry with him.
"I… they believe that they choose based on character, what type of character that is, I do not know," he said.
"So now I guess we head back and use one of the wraiths' bodies. I killed plenty of them, so there should be more than enough," I said as I turned around and began walking back to our camp until Arild spoke up.
"We can't use those bodies. They're too old. For the pseudo mark to work, you have to use fresh blood," he explained, earning a sigh from me.
"Alright then, where do they sleep?" I asked, not wanting to fight them head-on again.
"It is said that they sleep underground because of their aversion to sunlight; I have searched for the entrance to those caves with my companions for many years and have yet to find them," he stated, believing we couldn't find them.
"Well, you didn't have the smartest man alive with you, didn't they, Lloyd?" I said as I gave Lloyd a pat on the back that nearly made him fall down. He was way too weak.
"I never claimed to be the smartest man alive; I said I was the smartest man you'll meet," he said as he corrected me.
"Okay then, smartest man I'll meet, how do we find those caves?" I asked him and set him to work.