The Transmigrated Professor

Chapter 25: Illusions or Puppets

"This has been eating at me for a while, so can I ask you a question?" Evva spoke up as we made our way to a nearby river. The Map pinpointed Max to be along its banks, so I decided to move in that direction.

"What is it?"

"Why do you keep staring off at space?" She asked casually.

I froze up, like a criminal caught red-handed. Since I was usually alone or with Deus, I completely forgot how weird it would look to normal people when I checked out my Map.

But I quickly pulled myself together, before Evva could notice something.

"I was just trying to sense the monsters surrounding us." I lied to her with a straight face.

"Oh! You don't need to be so on guard. Marksmen have very high Perception Stats, and I can assure you there is not a single monster within a kilometre radius of us. They must have run away due to the smell of blood from the Boss monster." she remarked.

"We still need to be careful. The Beastman who ran away might be near." I warned her off. I was telling her the truth since the Map showed that Max wasn't too far away from us. He seems to be cleaning himself off at a nearby river.

"Hey, Evva, since your Perception must be sharper than mine, can you check if there is a river or something similar nearby?" I innocently directed her to Max's location.

"Ah, a river! That makes sense. After having such a brutal fight, a clean source of water should be the first thing he would try to find." she closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. "I can hear the sound of water flowing in that direction." She pointed roughly in that direction.

"Let's go and check if he is there." I could hear a hint of caution in her voice now. Now that we were going to a clear destination, instead of wandering aimlessly, she had her senses on high alert.

The two of us increased our pace as we headed toward the river. After about fifteen minutes of running, we finally reached the banks. The river was quite wide, spanning several kilometres, lined with dangerously steep boulders.

"Now where do we go? Upstream or downstream?" Eva asked.

I pointed a finger up at the sky. "Of course, we head downstream."

"How does the sky indicate that the Beastman is downstream?"

"Look at the birds. Don't they look like they are flying away from something?" I pointed out to a flock of birds that were heading away from the river. "The animals here are quite sensitive to Auras, of humans and monsters alike. They would definitely try to avoid encounters with Awakened Beings, so that's why you just need to find the direction where it seems like birds are flying away from."

"Wow! Where did you learn that from?" she asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Documentaries." I answered as I began to head down.

When I had just entered this world, I had read about many monster behaviours as well as watched documentaries on how animals behave around Awakened Beings. Even if I didn't already know his location, I would have still headed downstream. It was quite surprising, how much you can understand about an area by monitoring the behaviour of nearby animal life.

As we were beginning to head down, suddenly goose bumps erupted on my neck. Sensing the intense bloodlust, Evva quickly grabbed my shoulders, and we both plunged into the river beside us.

The two of us were violently dragged away by the freezing currents, but not before I saw black rose petals floating in the air, at the spot where Evva and I had been standing moments earlier.