Agent Eleven went through the path and wooded area, back to the field.
The agent arrived in the field full of fruits, flowers, and herbs and looked around the area once more.
"(Looks like some of the plants changed. Many of the glowing plants are gone, especially those glowing fruits. And some of these fruits were missing during the night. Looks like I have to capitalize on the time of day.)"
The agent takes a mental note of some of the new fruits and continues moving toward the dense forest.
He looked around the foggy forest more closely, hoping to see some more useful flora. As he scanned the area, he noted the properties of the trees, "(These trees look very similar to the ones in my world. This bark… it looks familiar.)"
The agent brandished his knife and went to the tree. He began to cut the tree's thin bark and peeled it back but hesitated, "(What the… why is the inner bark blue?)"
The agent examined the strange blue wood and stabbed into it. He saw it had some blue, dusty fiber on the blade when he removed it. Hesitantly, he took off a glove and touched the dust with his finger. He touched the dust to his tongue, "(This tastes like cinnamon! But… It's sweet! Not bad. Based on the trend I've been seeing, everything here has some use or another and may be rarer than I think. I should take some just to be sure.)"
He began to hack at the inner bark which curled and rolled up as if it were a scroll. The agent collected three sizable pieces of the wood and placed them on the ground. He retrieved his briefcase and put the rolls of blue cinnamon into a ziplock bag. The agent soon heard a noise that made him hurriedly put the ziplock in the briefcase and he turned around.
Agent Eleven looked toward the rustling bushes and drew his pistol. Waiting for the creature to reveal itself, the bushes went quiet.
"(Come on out…)" the agent thinks to himself right before he hears noises in a bush on his left flank. He turns, only to see a rabbit like beast already mid jump. It came so fast, the agent began to percieve a flashed vision of an arrow that made him instinctively use his briefcase to guard his face.
CHING!
It sounded as if a sword had collided with his briefcase. He quickly lowered it to look at the creature and it was a dog sized rabbit with a serrated, dagger-length blade protruding from its forehead. The rabbit jumped toward a tree and used it to springboard toward the agent again. It was dodged with ease without the help of his briefcase. This time, the agent used his knife to parry the rabbit's blade mid air. This caused it to spin and hit a nearby tree.
"(I haven't had rabbit in a while. I wonder if they're as good as the ones from my world. Looks like it has a lot of meat as well.)" The agent found himself almost salivating.
He shook his head to focus on the beast who had regained its footing. After being countered in such a disrespectful fashion, the beast must have been frustrated as it used its metallic, bladed horn to fling dirt from the ground towards the agent.
The rabbit dug into the ground with its claws preparing to jump. The agent could see every subtle movement the rabbit made in preparation for its next attack.
As the rabbit beast's feet left the ground, the agent could see a projection of its trajectory. The agent lunged toward the rabbit beast, getting underneath it mid-air and slicing its stomach open.
The creature hit the ground squeaking and screeching when the agent threw the knife at it, piercing its head.
"(Rabbit dispatched. Time to eat.)" The agent thought to himself as he approached the fallen creature. But to his surprise, it began glowing and disintegrating.
"(Damn… I wanted to try that. Oh well, I'll settle for a Beast Stone. That makes three.)" The agent thought to himself in defeat. He picked up the stone and put it into his pouch with the bear's stone in disappointment.
The agent reset his briefcase and embarked on his trek deeper into the forest.
A tree with a brightly colored vine caught the agent's eye. He went to investigate it, tapping his invisible spectacles for a zoom function.
"(Hmm… it has some bristly hairs. I don't like that.)" The agent zooms in more, "(They're barbed. Obviously meant to be an irritating or poisonous defense mechanism. This could be deadly if magic is involved.)"
That's when the agent got an idea. He began to sever the vine at two different parts and saw its rhizomes were keeping it attached to the tree. He pried the section of vine off with his knife and it fell to the ground. The agent prepared another ziplock bag from his briefcase and skewered the flora with the knife to not make contact. He pinched the bag to the blade of his knife, sliding the plant off his blade into the bag and sealed it.
"(If this plant acts like the one I'm thinking of, it could be a useful tool.)"
The agent secured the ziplock bag and continued his survey of the forest.
The agent made it back to the crossroads he used to get away from the beetle's dungeon.
"(Straight ahead is that dungeon I first arrived in. This time it's either left or right… I'll try left this time.)"
The agent went down the path into the bends and twists of the forest. When he began to see insects on the trees.
"(This part of the forest has a lot of bugs. Why didn't I notice them before? Were they really not in the previous part of the forest?)" The agent thought to himself when he heard a chittering noise slowly approaching him from above.
The agent looked up to see a spider descending upon him. When the spider was spotted, it attempted to drop from its dragline to attack Agent Eleven.
However, it was futile as the agent saw a flash of a large man with a greatsword attempting the same thing and sidestepped the creature. The agent swung his knife at the right moment to slash the spider beast across its face as it turned to confront him.
The creature screeched, reeled back and attempted climbing a nearby tree while the agent said calmly, "You're not getting away."
He powered up his knife and threw it into the creature's skull-shaped abdomen, going all the way through and piercing the tree behind it.
The creature screeched once more and continued its retreat toward its web. Agent Eleven hurriedly bent down to touch the sides of his shoes which elevated him another inch from the ground, "I said 'you're not getting away!'"
He ran toward the tree and attempted running up it, revealing spikes under his feet. He grabbed his knife on the way up the tree, powered it down and stabbed it into the creature's abdomen once more and ripped it down to its anus.
This caused the spider to screech once more and fall from the tree, with the agent's rough pulling motion almost tearing it from the tree himself.
The spider fell on its back, swinging its legs in desperation trying to regain its footing, but the agent saw this as the perfect opportunity. He jumped from the tree aiming to land on the spider. With a small turn mid-air, he was able to position one foot to land on its cephalothorax, under where its eyes would be. He aimed his other foot lower on its body where he guessed more of its vital organs may be.
The agent lands with a spurt of green blood shooting upwards onto his body. The creature let out a final squeal with its legs moving frantically. The agent saw how sharp it's claws were, so he began cutting its legs off, spurting even more blood.
The spider slowed its struggling until it eventually stopped altogether with only subtle twitches.
"Spider dispatched. I never stomped a spider like that before… Satisfying." The agent says, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
The agent steps out of the creature's carcass. And stares at it for a moment, "Don't tell me I have to-"
The spider began disintegrating and the agent sighed with relief, "Thank you! A Beast Stone. I wasn't in the mood to be digging around in spider guts. That makes four."
Agent Eleven went through his watch settings and pressed a button that made his black skin tight suit let out a violent vibration. All the blood was flung from the suit and it was spotless once more. Satisfied with the cleaning, he looked up at the spider beast's web and saw a few cocoons, "Looks like this thing's been hunting."
The agent tries not to linger on the thoughts of spiders eating things alive, and continues down the left path.
When the agent reached a part of the forest path that began to fade into grass, he assumed he was reaching another area like the field area. He looked at all the stray bushes, thickets, and copses and thought to himself, "(This place looks a little different from the field. The plants aren't half as vibrant… but this place has its own enjoyable aesthetic.)"