Kirkcour Woods,
16th Banem 1092.
The dark forest plunged into darkness at night, a few rays of the half-moon's light barely making it through the dense tree branches. An eerie silence pervaded the woods, and it was soon obvious to anyone present that this was a place devoid of life.
Creak!
The sound of a twig breaking was like an ear-bursting alarm within the cold silence. However, the man whose feet had crushed the twig took another step and carelessly crushed another twig beneath his feet. He continually walked through the forest, each footstep releasing large crunching sounds that could surely be heard several dozen meters away. Despite this, the man did not seem to care as he continued his walk. He was either incredibly stupid or he had a plan.
As someone who had maxed out [Silent Feet], it should have been more than easy for Kashi to walk through the forest without making a sound. However, the daeben purposely made as much noise as possible in order to draw out any creatures that might have been hiding. If it was not for the fact that it was far too corny, he might have started shouting and singing.
As it was, Kashi could only walk while searching for signs of the famous centaur village or the Lv. 150 beasts the forums had talked about. He split up with Shadow and Larsial so they could cover more ground, deciding to rendezvous near the forest's entrance in four hours. Because Kashi was not confident about leaving Drixlia by himself, he had Drixlia follow while he searched.
Roughly three of the four hours had passed since Kashi had split up with Shadow and Larsial. Kashi estimated he would need about thirty minutes to return to the rendezvous point. This was because his advance had been slow and careful as he searched for traces of Blights or centaurs. He could ride Drixlia on the way back, which would massively shorten the time.
Kashi had begun considering his return when he suddenly came to a halt. His eyes shone with controlled excitement as he rushed ahead. He came to a stop in front of a dead tree. Its leafless tree branches and withered, grey trunk were quite eye-catching in the green forest. Kashi peeled off a piece of bark from the tree. He let out a sigh as the bark crumbled to dust. He dusted off his palm and looked beyond the tree.
As expected, Kashi saw another dead tree just behind it. The daeben could not be sure if this was the Blight or not, but he knew the characteristics of Blights. A simple test would confirm. Kashi opened his right hand and an arrow appeared in his palm. The daeben had long since moved his weapons into the inner world because he could directly summon them out instead of having to scroll through the game's menu.
The only caveat to this approach was that calling something from his dimension to the real world required the opening of a dimension gate. Naturally, opening a dimension gate cost mana. Luckily, for small, inanimate items such as arrows and bows, the mana cost was small to the point of negligence. With Kashi's MP recovery rate, the mana was almost instantly recovered.
Kashi cut his left palm and dripped his blood onto the soil surrounding the dead tree then waved at Drixlia who obeyed and retreated a couple of feet backward. Yggdrasil's life energy healed the wound without leaving so much as a scar. The daeben did not pay the healing any mind as he attentively watched the blood-soaked soil.
Kashi's brows flinched as a portion of the earth slightly shifted. It was a subtle movement. One which would surely have normally gone unnoticed. Especially in the dead of night. Unfortunately, Kashi had been watching out for precisely this tiny movement, and there was no difference between day and night to the daeben's eyes.
Kashi did not waste a single moment after catching that movement. He instantly screamed, "Move!" as he dashed toward Drixlia.
Drixlia turned into a blur as it sprinted off, almost seemingly leaving the daeben behind.
BOOM!
Kashi raced after Drixlia, looking over his shoulder just in time to see hundreds of blood-red vines as thick as a body builder's arm burst out of the earth and rapidly give chase. Wherever the vines passed, trees would instantly grey and wither, some instantly crumbling to dust. The daeben's gaze narrowed as some creatures rose from the ashes of the fallen trees. Unfortunately, he was moving too fast to confirm what exactly.
Looking at the approaching vines, Kashi's expression turned grave, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. This was what he had been searching for. Now that he had found a Blight, it should not prove too difficult to find the centaur village.
Kashi eventually caught up to Drixlia who was cantering ahead, seemingly without a care for its master. Kashi jumped onto Drixlia's back and grabbed the reins. With a soft tap against the stallion's mid-riff, the stallion's speed instantly tripled and it soon disappeared into the depths of the forest, leaving the blood-red vines writhing in rage.
Minutes later, Kashi and Drixlia came to a stop at a small campsite. Larsial and Shadow had their hands on their daggers, only relaxing their grips when Kashi and Drixlia fully came into view.
Kashi hopped down and patted Drixlia on his side, a pleased smile on his face. He was more than impressed with the stallion's performance. Despite this being Drixlia's first time in this environment, it had easily maneuvered through the thistles and loose branches. Some of it was thanks to Kashi's guidance, allowing it to avoid the more dangerous paths. Still, Kashi could not make it decide where to plant its feet, especially while running. But to the daeben's pleasant surprise, Drixlia displayed its intelligence as it carefully placed its feet only in safe spots, avoiding trip hazards like low branches and high roots.
Kashi had suspected Drixlia was studying him while they were searching the forest. Clearly, it had learned quite easily. Drixlia's intelligence strengthened Kashi's resolve to quickly upgrade its bloodline. It was not easy to find a mount as intelligent as the stallion. It was even harder to find one with which he could bond as well as he had with Drixlia.
Kashi took out a red fruit and gave it to Drixlia. The stallion ate the fruit, then harrumphed, blowing air on Kashi's hair before leaving to join the other horses. Kashi chuckled, then patted down his hair as he walked over to Shadow and Larsial. "Find anything?"
"Yes," Shadow reported. "I found traces of Blights roughly eighteen kilometers South-East. I did not think it was wise to advance on my own so I returned."
Kashi looked at Larsial. "You?"
Larsial smiled. "I did find traces of Blights, but mine was much closer. I was almost ambushed by a group of Needle Blights fifteen kilometers south of here."
Shadow's brows rose. "Needle Blights? What are those?"
Larsial looked at Kashi. "May I explain?"
"Go ahead," said Kashi as he took a seat on a large root.
"Thanks," Larsial said, then turned to Shadow. "How much do you know about Blights?"
"Not much," Shadow admitted.
"Okay, I'll treat it like you've never heard of Blights." Larsial proceeded to explain the various characteristics of Blights.
In essence, Blights were a crystallization of an ancient curse, manifested in the form of intelligent, tree-like creatures. Blights, which often looked like humanoid trees were vastly different from Treants. Blights originated from evil sources and often spread quickly through forested regions. They proliferated by contaminating any kind of plant life, which would either perish or spawn new Blights.
There were three major classes of Blights: Needle, Twig, and Vine Blights.
Needle Blights were the most human-like of the Blight family and stood at anywhere between 180 – 270 centimeters (6 – 9 ft). Within the darkness of forests, it was quite easy for explorers to mistake them for another human. Needle Blights had spikes growing in clumps on their bodies. They could shoot out these needles to skewer any target. Needle Blights were quite annoying as they had the added ability to contact other Blights in the vicinity through pollens which were carried by the wind to any pollens nearby. Hence, they were also nicknamed, 'Alarm Blights.'
Twig Blights were much smaller than Needle Blights, standing at just over 120 cm (4 ft). They were formed from numerous dry branches twisted together to assume a humanoid appearance. Twig Blights usually existed in large groups that took root when there was no prey in their immediate vicinity. Twig Blights were especially vicious because when they took root in the earth, it was very difficult to differentiate them from normal shrubbery. Fortunately, because of how dry the branches that made them were, they were quite susceptible to fire.
Finally, Vine Blights were the kind of blight Kashi had encountered. Just as he saw, their normal form was a mass of slithering vines. They often hid underground, or just below shrubbery, waiting for unsuspecting prey. Their preferred mode of attack was to entangle and poison their prey, before launching a full attack. This kind of blights could also switch to a humanoid form by having a cluster of vines wrapped around each other. However, this form was very rarely seen. It only adopted this form to communicate with other intelligent species as this was the only form of blights capable of speech.
"There's something else," Kashi remarked after Larsial finished her explanation. "Blights rarely occur naturally in nature. There's a high chance that there's a mastermind behind all of this. If we do not find him, the Blight will most likely never truly end."
Larsial frowned. "Such a person must be unbelievably powerful to have something as dangerous as the Blight under his control."
Shadow's gaze narrowed. "It does not matter how powerful he is. We just have to defeat him."
"You make it sound so simple." Larsial chuckled and shook her head.
"It is that simple," Kashi affirmed with a confident grin. "We find the centaurs, find the bad guy, kill the bad guy. Simple as one, two, three."
"Lunatics," Larsial playfully admonished the duo. "I'm traveling with a bunch of lunatics."
"The greatest heroes are often considered lunatics in their time." Kashi chuckled as he got to his feet and walked over with a stick in his hand. "More importantly, look at this." He marked an 'X' on the ground. "This is where we are." He drew a straight line southward then marked an X where he stopped. "That's where I encountered the Blight." He then drew two more lines, leading South-East and South-West, and marked their ends with an X too. "This is where you guys encountered the blights." Kashi drew a line connecting the three Xs. "What do you see?"
"It's a curve?" Shadow muttered. "No, is that an arc?" A glint flashed in his eyes as he looked at Kashi. "You do not think?"
"Yeah," Kashi confirmed Shadow's thoughts. "I think this is just an arc of a larger circle. The blight seems to be expanding equally in all directions. If we go with that assumption," Kashi drew a straight line that just barely touched the created arc. "...walking at a ninety-degree angle to this tangent ought to bring us to the center of the Blight."
"That's smart," Shadow praised with an approving nod. He let out a sigh and shook his head, "I would not have thought of that."
"Stuff like this comes with experience." Kashi shook his head. "Now that you know you can do this, you'll most likely apply it when the need arises in the future."
"Uh..." Larsial muttered, unable to bear the humiliating feeling of not knowing what the two were talking about. She had been staring at the diagram, trying to understand what this tangent thing was but her efforts were completely useless. "What's a tangent?"
"Huh?" Kashi looked at Larsial in shock, but then remembered they were in the game world. The guys probably didn't have those annoying Greek Mathematicians and their endless theories. There was no way they would know of concepts like tangents and Pythagorean theorems. Kashi figured the only reason they even knew about the concept of degrees (direction) was that it was an ancient concept in the real world, dating as far back as 6000 years ago.
Realizing where the issue lay, Kashi lazy dumped the task onto Shadow. "Want to explain?"
Shadow was initially going to refuse, but then he saw the hidden panic in Larsial's eyes. He could tell she was scared he would instantly refuse. He had to admit it was admirable that such a proud woman would admit she lacked knowledge about something others considered fundamental. With a sigh, he reluctantly agreed and thus began an impromptu math lecture on circles, triangles, and squares.
Kashi interrupted the lesson thirty minutes later. Although he had not participated, he was secretly shocked at how quickly Larsial picked up on the concepts Shadow introduced. If she was introduced to the real world, she would be considered a rare genius. However, Kashi realized this was to be expected. This world had the Intelligence stat. Even though assassins did not much look too much into improving Intelligence, they still invested a little effort because it helped with their mana-related skills.
Kashi could not imagine what those monster mages who had monstrous amounts of points in their Intelligence would be like when the Academy opened. The daeben was now filled with even more optimism toward the Academy.
Kashi shook those thoughts out of his head. He motioned at Shadow and Larsial. "Come on, let's get moving."
Shadow nodded and quickly mounted his horse. He steered his mount out of the campsite and drew abreast Kashi who was on Drixlia. "What is the plan?"
"No more stealth," Kashi stated. "We're making a beeline for the center of this mess."
"I thought you wanted to meet the centaurs first," Larsial questioned, confused.
"I refuse to believe we won't see a single trace of the centaurs on our way," Kashi stated with confidence. "They must have battled the blight for some time. We'll surely see some signs of the battle somewhere and trace it back to the village." Kashi shrugged. "Either that or we first find the source of the blight, investigate it, then continue our search for the centaurs. Either way works, and is faster than blindly searching through the forest for days."
Kashi looked at Larsial, then Shadow. "Any objections?"
"Nope, works for me," Larsial confirmed.
Shadow shook his head.
"Good." Kashi spurred Drixlia into a hard gallop. A devilish grin spread on the daeben's face. "Let's wreck this place..."