Hearing her question, he couldn't help but glance at the top of her head. He suspected that the Feng siblings were interested in Zahira's flowers. Initially, he wasn't sure why—at least until he noticed they planned to cripple her rather than simply kill her outright like any other monster. At that moment, he remembered a popular children's tale called The Nymph and the Hunter.
It was one of the first fairy tales his mother had told him, which was why he didn't recall all the details. But the beginning was still clear in his memories.
A king tasked the most skilled hunter in his kingdom with bringing back the magical flowers of a Nymph to create a healing potion for his ailing youngest daughter. The hunter was ordered to capture the Nymph alive and bring her back to the castle because if she died, her flowers would perish as well, becoming useless. The hunter succeeded in capturing the Nymph, but during their journey back, he fell in love with her. Overcome by his feelings, he freed the Nymph, abandoning the king's mission to pursue his dream of spending the rest of his life with her.
'What was the ending of that story?' Tristan searched the old and forgotten corners of his mind. For some reason, he was curious about how it concluded.
'If I'm not mistaken, I think the Nymph killed the hunter after they slept together. She dismembered his body and spread the parts across the soil. From that land, now enriched with the hunter's blood, many monsters were born. They inherited the hunter's skills and, led by their mother, attacked the kingdom, killing the king, his daughter, and the entire population.'
A tragic ending, much like most fairy tales he remembered. Those stories weren't as childish as the ones he'd heard in his first life, but they served a similar purpose.
He raised his head and looked at her. "I'm not sure. Maybe they were just the kind of humans who don't like other species," he finally told her.
"What do you mean? Humans can dislike other beings just because of their species?"
He nodded. "And it's not just humans. I've heard elves are even worse."
"You should be careful if you meet other intelligent beings from now on. Few are kind… like me."
She picked up Buk in her arms and examined him.
"Those damned ingrates! How dare they hurt my Buk?" Her tail hit the ground with frustration. "I would've skinned them alive if they were still breathing!"
"Did they suffer? Please tell me they suffered before dying." There was a fiery glint in her eyes.
"They did," he replied.
"Good." She fell silent for a while, her expression thoughtful. Then, she asked him, "There's something I don't understand. You said they poisoned us, but they drank from that cup too. Why didn't anything happen to them?"
"I was wondering the same thing."
"Could they have dumped the drink out of their cups without us noticing?"
Tristan shook his head. "Impossible. I'm certain they drank it."
He considered the possibility that the poison was already in the cups and not in the drink but quickly dismissed the idea. 'They poured different amounts of drink for me and for her. That only makes sense if the liquid was poisoned.'
"Maybe they underwent some sort of training that made them immune to poisons—or at least to that kind," Tristan suggested to Zahira.
He found this possibility quite likely since, in his opinion, they weren't ordinary bandits. 'I analyzed their expressions the whole time but could only confirm their intentions at the last second. His act of playing dead had been a mere gamble based on instincts and intuition.'
'That's not normal. Those people must've received professional training to achieve that level of emotional concealment. I wonder where they came from.' He pushed the unnecessary thoughts aside. 'I have other priorities now. It's not like I'll come across anything related to them again.' He didn't take Lieyan's vow of revenge seriously at all.
"I see. Hey, wait—you drank more than I did. Why did you recover before me?"
He shrugged. "Because I'm also a cultivator of Light. My body neutralized the poison's effects faster." Of course, that was a lie. He had destroyed the liquid with Darkness magic inside his mouth. He would never lower his guard around strangers.
After talking, Zahira needed a few more hours of rest before she could travel again.
***
With the arrival of a new dawn, they set off once more toward the Mushroom Village. The journey lasted a few hours, and by the afternoon, Zahira led Tristan to the trunk of a tree that must have been enormous when whole.
There was an opening at the base of the trunk, large enough for four people to walk through side by side.
"Here it is. This is one of the entrances to the Mushroom Village."
She entered the trunk, and Tristan followed behind her.
Inside the hollow, there were no stairs to descend. They had to jump several meters down to enter the tunnels.
After landing, Tristan looked around. There were numerous tunnels branching in all directions.
Zahira grabbed a torch, and Tristan lit it for her with a flint from his backpack.
"Did the Mushrooms make these tunnels?"
"Yes. They built them to move more quickly while hunting and gathering resources from the forest," she explained.
Tristan noticed holes of various sizes on the ground. Based on their pattern, he assumed they were footprints, though they had an unconventional shape.
"Which way should we go?"
"Follow me." Zahira pointed toward a tunnel, and Tristan followed her.
"Are you sure this place is safe?" he asked again. "We're not going to have any issues with the Fungelites for being here, are we?"
"Of course not. Don't worry. Besides, if anything goes wrong, I can handle them. It's not like they're as strong as the Marked."
"Marked?" He'd never heard that term before.
"What? You've never seen one before?" Her expression of surprise shifted to understanding. "Well, that makes sense. I guess you wouldn't have survived if you'd gotten near one of them."
"The Marked are—" Her words were cut off by a loud sound, something massive crashing to the ground behind them.
The glow of Zahira's torch was overshadowed by a blinding light that banished all shadows in the tunnel. A searing heat spread through the area.
There was no mistaking it. Tristan recognized that figure. When he turned, he saw the fire serpent that Haotian and Lieyan had been battling earlier. Its body was almost as large as the tunnel, its red scales glowing with an incandescent sheen. The creature appeared more vigorous than before.
The moment it spotted them, the beast opened its mouth, and a fireball emerged. The flaming sphere, almost the size of a human, hurtled toward Tristan and Zahira.
They leapt with all the strength they could muster, but caught off guard, they couldn't circulate much essence. The sphere struck the wall behind them. Luckily, they managed to move away from the center of the explosion, but the shockwave knocked them to the ground.
Not wasting the opportunity, the serpent lunged at Zahira with its mouth open for a deadly strike.
As the explosion subsided and Zahira noticed the beast's approach, she tried to retreat. However, her speed was nothing compared to that of the creature. Realizing she couldn't evade, she resolved to attack, hurling her spines at the serpent. The creature closed its eyes and endured the attack. Some spines embedded deeply in its face, but they didn't slow its momentum.
Empowered by Fire essence, the serpent leapt fiercely, reaching its prey.
Tristan saw the serpent's enormous fangs, almost as large as swords, sink into Zahira's abdomen and chest.