We stepped through a portal and entered the forest, using the tree Giulio marked as our landing point. To its left, mired in sloshed mud and slivers of moonlight, was our proof that the forest was far busier than one might have imagined.
A variable fresco of footprints tamped down the softened soil, leaving boot-shaped imprints that crisscrossed over each other innumerable times. Partially filled with a dampness that had been pressed from the ground, the prints trailed off in two directions. Several moved towards the city and, as expected, the rest all led further into the forest, where they eventually faded away in the grass.
I opened my map menu to be sure, but the footprints clearly led into the areas of the forest Giulio had avoided during our last trip through here. However, that blacked-out section of the map was enormous, large enough that we’d need hours to search for signs of a fort. Hours we really shouldn’t be wasting.
It didn’t take long, but it looks like it’s time for our contingency plan.
“Mana, you’re up. Just like we discussed.”
“Okay!”
Without need to be asked twice, Mana slung her bow over her shoulder and fell to her knees before the mass of prints. She plunged a pair of fingers into the mud and scooped up a small mound before bringing it to her nose. All it took was a few small sniffs before her ears perked beneath her hood. Though, she didn’t seem to find whatever it was she was looking for, as she then tossed the mud back and began her search anew.
When she picked up a twig that’d been snapped in half, only to then eye it with all the inquisitiveness of Sherlock Holmes pondering a clue, I decided to just let her do her thing.
It was not solely because I didn’t understand what she was doing that I turned to Yua, I swear. The primary reason why I chose to look away was because the image of Mana on her hands and knees, butt raised up high in the air and as her tail wriggled about, sort of ruined the idea that she was trying her best.
Still… At least I can say I was right to put some shorts on her.
“Yua, I need you to…”
“Keep my ears open and be on the lookout for bad guys, I know.”
“Not just that, actually. Try to keep an eye on the treetops. Elane and I can’t see in the dark, and I’d rather not have to deal with any more birds.”
“Oh, right.”
Unfortunately, the Skullravens were silent hunters that could slip past even the most diligent of cat-kin. This may not be their usual hunting grounds, but I wasn’t about to test our luck against more sneaking up on us.
“Good. Now, Elane, I need you to… Elane?”
“…”
Sensing something odd in the silence, I turned back, only to find Elane with her arms folded under her bosom. Her unwavering gaze was fixed solely on Mana as she worked and it wasn’t hard to see why. The girl’s endlessly swaying backside certainly suggested she was fooling around in the mud.
Yua shrugged, indifferent, and turned her attention to the trees.
“Elane?”
“Huh? Oh!” she gasped, forcing a smile. “Did you need something?”
“Yes. I want you in the rear this time, since…”
“Hoho? You want to do it out here? I mean, I know I should say no, but…”
I put up a hand to stop her.
My fault for not considering my wording, given who I was talking to.
“I mean that I want you to guard our rear. Yua’s going to be on lookout and Mana’s leading, so you and I are going to be guarding both of them.”
“Well, that’s significantly less fun, but you can leave your asses to me.”
Elane gave us a thumbs up and pulled her axe off her back.
“Good. You find anything yet, Mana?”
Her ears flicking to the sound of her own name, Mana jumped back to her feet. She spun on her heel and thrust her palms onto her hips before puffing out her small chest. The sparkle in her eyes left no room to doubt she was smiling triumphantly beneath her mask as she nodded.
“Yup! I can track the trail. It’ll be easy.”
“Good, then let’s get going and…”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Frantically waving her hands, she dashed in front of me before I could move. “Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
Grabbing hold of my coat, Mana turned her chin up at me. Her big blue eyes caught the moonlight and wavered, glittering with hope and trust. At the same time, they looked fragile, ready to burst into tears at any second.
Elane gasped and nearly dropped her axe to cover her mouth, but Yua shook her head and turned her attention back to the trees. Mana, however, paid them no mind.
Seems the little detective wants to show her findings.
Swallowing down the blood that bubbled up in my mouth from the strain of withstanding her cuteness, I took her hands in mine. When her mud-caked fingertips graced my flesh, I hit her with a silent cleaning spell.
“Okay, go ahead and explain to the class.”
“Hehe… Look at this!”
Bursting into a big, toothy smile, Mana dropped and flew back to the mud. Grabbing something, she jumped back up and held it out for us. There, pinched between her fingers was… nothing?
“What are we looking at here?”
Elane moved closer, squinting, but in the dead of night with only moonlight to see by, whatever she held might as well have been invisible.
“Hehe. It’s a horse’s hair. From its tail, I think. And look at this.”
I squinted, struggling to see any hair at all in the darkness. Before I could, she threw up her other hand and, resting atop her open palm, was the same twig she’d found earlier. Roughly a foot and a half long, it’d been broken in half, though its top half still clung to its bottom by a thread of damp bark.
“See how it’s broken and how its middle is kind of flat? It wasn’t snapped by someone stepping on it, it was run over.”
“You mean, by a horse?”
She shook her head. Still smiling, her tail mimicked the movements of her head.
“Nope! It was a cart! The horse only pulled it!”
Mana stepped aside and puffed up her chest again before pointing to the muddy prints.
“I think a cart ran through here and went that way,” she said, shifting her finger past us in the general direction of the city. “Then someone jumped off the cart and stomped around in the mud to hide the tracks.”
“What makes you think that?” Yua pressed.
“Hehehe,” Mana giggled smugly. She moved her finger again, this time pointing maybe six feet past us. “Because lots of the footprints disappear around there. And the rest don’t look like they’re going anywhere. And…” she paused, seemingly for effect as she held up a finger. “Some of the footprints aren’t even real.”
“What do you mean, real? They’re clearly right there.”
Mana crossed her arms, a smug smirk of indignation tugged at her lips.
“Nope. The mud is really soft, but there are some prints that aren’t very deep. Like someone just pushed one of Big Bro’s boots into it by hand. And… ”
“Or like a female whose footsteps are so soft that I can’t hear them,” Yua gasped, grabbing my arm. “Alex, remember their leader? I couldn’t hear her footsteps.”
“And Nerissa mentioned something about having some friends at the fort. She must have meant Willomina.”
“So that bitch really is hiding way out here?” Elane huffed. “Must be why our little priestess hasn’t heard about your scuffle. The Hemomage must be too scared to show her face so soon after getting caught.”
“Maybe.”
If she flew off in the opposite direction after setting the church on fire, she must have circled around and started back at some point. Meaning, if I had reunited with Yua and had her search, we might have still been able to continue the chase.
“Still, why did she attack Nerissa’s bedroom of all places?”
“Maybe she wasn’t afraid of getting caught by us,” Elane mused. “She’s probably more scared of how the priestess and Giulio might react if she told them it was her.”
“Yea, well, they are murderers, I guess.”
Not that a bandit handing themselves over to an Adventurer would go any different.
“Mana, if the trail runs short, can you still track them by scent…?”
Turning back to the detective, we found Mana standing with her feet spread shoulder-width apart and her shoulders hunched. Her clenched fists shook down at her sides as she pressed her lips into an angry pout so potent, it shone under her mask. She glared at the three of us, but the majority of her ire looked to be aimed at Yua.
“Why did you interrupt? I wasn’t done yet. I didn’t even say the most important part. And it was really important. Really, really important.”
“Um, sorry? What was it you wanted to tell us?”
“Hmph!”
Whipping her head away from her Big Sis, Mana crossed her arms in a pout that seemed like it might go on forever.
At least, it might have, had some more important thought suddenly dawned on her and she made the concerted effort to wipe the pout off her face.
“There’s at least, um, wait… one, two, three… um.”
Her brow dipped into a furrow just before the grand reveal and she brought up her hands to start counting on her fingers. We watched as each digit went up one by one until she stopped and spoke again.
“There’s at least sixteen different prints.”
“Wait, Kitty, do you mean sixteen prints, or sets of prints?”
“Mmn… Sets. You probably can’t see them because you’re humans, but there are some smaller prints hidden inside the larger ones.”
“Shit. That’s already twice what Lucielle and the guild promised.”
“Are you sure about this?” Yua asked.
“Yup. Some of the prints look almost the same size as Big Bro’s boots, but others are smaller. A lot smaller. Kind of like those pointy boots he makes you wear when he wants to stare at your butt.”
“Pointy boots…? Oh, you mean high-heels? Hoho? I had the feeling that was why you like them so much, Alex. Honestly, your passion for these cheeks is almost overbearing.”
With a grand, blushing smirk adorning her lips, Elane waved her hand coyly at me. Though, doing so while holding a giant battleaxe looked ridiculous enough to make me sigh.
“I wasn’t staring at your ass. I just thought they’d look good on…”
“Hoho, yes you were.”
“Yes you were, Big Bro, I saw you.”
“You kind of were, Alex. I remember you said girls are supposed to wear dresses with those, but you only have her put them on when she’s not wearing any…”
“Ahem…! So, Mana, you think they’re women’s shoes?”
Thankful for having had the chance to borrow Yua’s eyes a time or two, I was at least fairly certain none of the girls, not even the cat-kin, could see how hot my cheeks had gotten in the dark.
I was just as thankful that an oddly excited Mana was quick to give up that point of conversation and get back on track.
“Yup! I’m really sure.”
Just barely managing to put away her smirk for a more serious expression, Elane added, “The bandits who attacked Lucielle’s father were probably part of a raiding party.”
“A raiding party? You mean, like pirates?”
“Not exactly, but yes. Think about it, they have a handful of bandits doing the actual dirty work, more holding the fort and Giulio working in secret to undermine the guards. All while the priestess keeps the people calm with her sermons.”
“So these raiders get their hands dirty while the rest all maintain plausible deniability.”
“And then they all share in the spoils.”
“If you’re right about this, it’s a good thing we figured it out, isn’t it? Why do you look so annoyed?”
Elane’s eyes sharpened at us for a moment before a slow breath cooled her down. She ran a hand through her hair before pulling it into a tight pony tail.
“Sometimes I forget you three don’t have as much experience as I do. This is not good news. It means the numbers at their disposal are impossible to tell.”
“But I said there’s sixteen,” Mana said.
“If I’m right, then that’s just the raiding party. The ones we ran into the other night might have only been one group. We have no way of knowing how many are actually going to be waiting for us.”
“Well, that’s kind of what we’re here to find out.”
“I know. But if the raiding party is based in the fort, that’s likely where they are hiding their loot. If so, then there’s likely more than those original eight in there that don’t leave so they can protect their horde.”
“… And that’s why their leader is there.”
Where else would she hide, but the most secured location in the area?
Well, most secured that she didn’t just try to burn down, anyway.
“It’s not just that,” Elane said, then clicked her tongue. “I thought all this was too strange. Remember, we’re dealing with enough people with the skill and manpower to build a city basically overnight. Not a bunch of bumbling idiots that like to slaughter farmers and steal goats.”
“I did think their numbers sounded too low. Good find, Mana.”
I plopped a hand on Mana’s head and gave her a good pat. She nuzzled against my palm with what I could only assume was a big catty smile. Then she jerked her head and pushed my hand away. Her swishing tail could not hide her happiness, but she pulled on a serious face as she returned to the mud tracks.
One hand to the ground, she studied the markings for a moment before turning back to us.
“Big Bro, we should hurry. Some of these tracks still look fresh.”
“Then we might have missed the raiding party on their way back.”
“Or we missed them on their way out,” Elane said, pointing over her shoulder, to the city. “Not much we can do about that after teleporting past them.”
“What should we do?” Yua asked.
“… Mana, can you tell which way the most recent tracks went?”
“Nope… Mn, I mean no. I only know about them because they were covered.”
“Hmm…”
Tilting my head back to watch what few stars I could see twinkling in the sky through the leaves, I considered our options.
We either head back towards the city, try to head off the raiding party and prevent any further criminal activity, or we press on in search of expanding our knowledge to better understand the situation. Our poor timing didn’t leave us many options.
… If you’re spotted, just bring them to me.
Bring them to me? Not kill them on the spot?
For a bandit, Willomina did seem cautious of killing. If she was worried about drawing needless attention through violence, even in a city where people excuse sudden disappearances with lies, then we shouldn’t have to worry. Even if she isn’t there, her orders might still stand.
Maybe… she knows of a way to persuade their victims from calling the guards. A spell to erase their memory, or something.
Then again, if she wanted to avoid attention, why attack Nerissa’s bedroom of all places? Starting a fire anywhere else would have sufficed.
Goddess… If she meant that to be just a distraction, she did a bang-up job. Nothing about this makes sense anymore. It all keeps circling back to that one moment.
With an impatient sneer she aimed at the mud, Elane thumped her axe on her shoulder while Mana tried looking for more clues. Though her attention was still mostly on our surroundings, the occasional glance my way told that Yua was waiting for me to make the final decision.
“… We’ll continue onto the fort as planned.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Mana, lead the way.”
“Okay!”
Hopping back to attention, she whipped her bow off her shoulder, nocked an arrow and practically skipped through the mud. Yua and Elane shared a shrug before heading off after her, trudging through the mess of footprints.
I looked back, towards the city and clenched my fist. If the people lose a few coins tonight, it’ll hurt, but it’s a small price to pay to save their lives in the long run.
The later the hours ticked, the deeper the darkness in the forest grew. Mana showed no signs of slowing down, save for occasionally stopping to observe the forest floor, the trees, bushes, anything that caught her attention. All before silently switching directions and continuing on.
Without a torch and with only the occasional speck of moonlight dripping through the trees to see by, we were at the mercy of the cat-kin to guide us in the dark – Yua had to repeatedly redirect Elane and I each time we changed course.
That, however, was the problem.
As we walked, the dense thicket of leaves above finally gave us a break and enough moonlight fell through for me to read my map menu.
“Mana, are you sure you’re going the right way? By my estimate, the fort should be somewhere east of here.”
Not unlike when Giulio led us, the slim path that we were making on my map had us zig-zagging our way through the trees, instead of passing right through them. Aside from bumping into a few trees or tripping over some bushes, we should have had a straight shot into the blacked-out section of the forest.
“Mm? But we’re following the trail just like you said,” she said, stopping her feet only once she noticed I’d stopped.
“Why would they take such a nonsensical path to their own fort?”
“To throw off anyone pursuing them?” Elane said, sticking the head of her axe into the ground to lean on it.
“Eh? No. Big Bro, haven’t you noticed? Can’t you see the traps?”
“Traps? What are you talking about? Detect Trap only works if I’m close to triggering a trap, which we clearly haven’t done.”
“Yea,” she said, pointing into the trees. “There’s traps all over this part of the forest. Mostly for catching animals, I think, but, well… we’ve been avoiding them by following the path the cart went. Look.”
Shifting her pointer finger from the trees down to the grass, I was surprised to find that I was surprised when I found nothing but a bunch of little green blades swaying in the breeze.
“There’s a trail of bent and squished grass.”
I raised my brow and knelt beside her and took a closer look. And as she said, there was a section of grass about three inches wide that looked like it’d been stamped down multiple times. But the grass and foliage surrounding it was so overgrown, I could say with certainty that I wouldn’t have noticed it until she pointed it out.
Carefully, I moved my eyes along the path where, a few feet from us, a chunk of a tree root about the same width had been broken and pressed flat.
“Something heavy squished it,” Mana continued, eyes sharp. “The trail is hasn’t been broken, so it’s not an animal.”
“Then it’s that cart you were talking about,” Elane added, trying to see the trail herself.
Mana nodded. “I think so, but it doesn’t look right. I think someone’s trying to hide it by raking the grass. But you can still tell where it is because the squished grass is darker. Since it keeps getting squished. They go this way to avoid the traps.”
“And you didn’t say anything about the traps, because…?”
“Um… Because I thought you knew?”
“Mana,” Yua sighed. “You have to remember humans can’t see as well as we can at night.”
“Well, yea, but you didn’t see any of them either.”
“She was watching our surroundings, Kitty. It’s your job to watch for them.”
“I know, but… I made sure you were all safe, and…”
“Mana…!”
“Eep!”
Yua cut in, her voice low enough to be sure we weren’t spotted, but the anger she used to push it through her teeth was enough to make even me shiver. Mana yelped, then jumped to counter with a glare of her own.
With these two stopping us in our tracks to have a staring contest, neither giving so much as an inch, I got the feeling we’d be here for a while if I did nothing, so I stepped in.
“Hold on, Yua. I know how to fix this.”
As she continued glaring, Mana failed to notice my approach. My left hand tucked under her chin and moved her eyes onto me. At the same time, the fingers of my right hand pulled the waistband of her shorts free of her body and slipped inside.
Delving deeper, I tore a small hole in her pantyhose and pressed my fingers between her lower lips.
With a small gasp, she let me in easily, but she squeezed me with all the indignation of a girl that thinks she’s done no wrong.
“Mana, you’re doing a good job leading us, but we are not playing in the forest like you do back home. You need to take this seriously.”
“I know. I am being serious, but…”
“Remember, we’re a party. We do not know what you know. We cannot see what you see. I want you to think like we’re constantly in danger out here. And with all these traps laying around, we are. So, to keep us all out of danger, you can’t just avoid the traps, you have to tell us about them so we don’t run into them if we have to run away. Okay?”
“…”
Mana’s brow turned up, twitching like she was about to cry. Then it pulled into a furrow, eyes darting as if in search of another excuse, until, finally, her big blue eyes flew open in an ear-stiffening realization.
Matching my attention to her people’s ways, Mana met me halfway by grabbing hold of my monster from over my pants. Strangely enough, she was already smiling again.
“I understand. I’ll do better this time. Here, I’ll show you a trap.”
Letting go of me, she pulled my fingers out on her own, Mana dashed over to Elane.
“Kitty, you don’t need to show us, just tell us where they are and we’ll…”
“No no. Big Bro is right, I think. You should see because these types of traps seem to be their favorite.”
Not taking no for an answer, she grabbed a firm fistful of the blonde’s coat and pulled her over to the side and away from the trail. She then grabbed hold of the handle of Elane’s axe and, only managing once Elane helped her, she lifted and moved it.
Peering around the head of steel, she inspected the grass under it, adjusted the axe’s position, took another look, smiled and then took a big step back.
“There. Just let your axe fall and you’ll see the trap.
“Here? I’m not about to be hit by a falling log or something, am I?”
“Nope! The trap is ahead of you. You’re just triggering it. And don’t worry, it’ll be quiet, too.”
“If you say so. Here we go.”
As instructed, Elane let her axe drop. The heavy mass of steel dropped like an anvil, burying half its face in the soil and slicing through something I couldn’t see.
Something clicked, then unseen ropes grinded against tree bark somewhere in the brush. Then there was silence. It lasted only a second, quicker than a footstep, before a wet crack caused the ground in front of Elane to collapse in on itself.
Grass and soil alike fell into a square pit roughly eight by eight foot. The camouflaged sheet of grass that acted as its lid disappeared into the darkness.
After seeing how close she was, Elane took a healthy leap backwards and away from the hole.
Mana, though, smiled proudly and pointed.
“It’s a pitfall trap. Daddy’s are better, but he wouldn’t put them all over the place like… Hrk!”
“Hngh!”
In unison, Mana and Yua both retched and pawed at their noses. They forced their nostrils shut, but it did little to cure the pain that twisted their faces.
Elane and I shared an uncomfortable look, but we both knew… something was down there. We moved closer all the same.
Not three steps away, we were both struck by an utterly impure cocktail of pungent, grotesquely sour rot and a cloying sweetness that combined to assault our noses. It came in waves, dizzying, making each successive step harder and harder to take until we reached the pit’s edge.
It was late and the canopy of trees blocked most of what little moonlight we had to work with. Peering down into the pit offered nothing but a vast darkness that brought little more than stench.
Fighting off the urge to vomit, I cast the Fairy’s Light spell and placed a cup over the orb that appeared to focus its light into the hole.
The light didn’t reach the bottom, not at first. It just revealed the damp soil lying in wait at the bottom. I moved it and – a glint of pale white. Bone. Bodies.
I pushed the light on, revealing large swatches of bloodied fabrics and mottled chunks of human flesh. What were once people were now an amalgamation of limbs left askew like a broken puppet. Skin sagged, sliding off in places. In others it clung to bone with what little sinew remained. Here, there was movement.
Maggots, hundreds, thousands of them. Wriggling and feasting on the decay.
I let the light fade and stepped back. The urge to toss up everything I’d eaten this week shot back into my throat, but I forced it back down. Now wasn’t the time.
Elane coughed into her sleeve.
“Gods… They’ve been down there for at least a few weeks. Months, maybe.”
“Think they might be those people that supposedly set off to new adventures?”
“I don’t know. Their info boxes say anything?”
“No,” I returned to the pit and knelt beside it. “The only thing that was written in them was Skeleton.”
To spare the cat girls, who were still writhing and pinching their noses shut, I pulled the trap’s covering back up out of the hole with telekinesis and fixed it back into place. Then, to seal up the stench, I closed it all off with Material creation to make sure nothing seeped through.
This and the breeze seemed to do the trick as Yua and Mana slowly came back to their senses and returned to their feet. With tears in both their eyes, they glared at the hole, offended by its very existence.
Elane, however, let out a long breath before drawing in one that was just as deep.
“You seem to be taking this well,” I said.
“I’ve seen worse in my time.”
“Goddess… No wonder you used to drink so much.”
Without realizing I’d been staggering until I made it to her, I wrapped my arms around Elane’s back and slipped my hands into her pants. I let some small, hidden carnal part of me take over and I grabbed two copious handfuls of her glorious ass.
As I rested my chin on her shoulder, squeezing her all the while, she lightly thumped her knuckles against my head.
“Alex, now’s not the time for…”
“Just give me a minute, would you. Unlike you, I have a perfect memory. I will never be able to forget what we just saw. Literally.”
“Hoho? Liar. You just wanted a handful. But fine. Since you went for my ass instead of my tits, I’ll let you off the hook.”
“I won’t,” Yua said, daring to step closer only once she could breathe through her nose again. “There were bodies down there, right? Did they land on spikes, or something?”
“No,” I said, removing myself from Elane’s charity. “There weren’t any spikes, but…”
“But they might have starved down there,” Elane finished. “It was too deep for a regular person to climb out.”
“That, or this is just where they dump the bodies.”
They’d been down there too long for anyone short of an expert coroner to even suggest how they died.
Giulio’s smiling face flashed before my mind and, for a moment, I hated myself for thinking that anyone who could smile so cheerfully could do something so evil. But the proof was undeniable.
Even if he’s not directly responsible, he’s still with them.
“I’m sorry,” Mana choked, only just barely able to use her nose again. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” I said, petting her head. “If anything, I’m surprised neither of you smelled it before we sprung the trap.”
“I did,” Yua admitted, standing over the hole. “It just wasn’t clear enough. I thought it might have been some animal dung. Or maybe you…”
“Yua, if anything that foul ever comes out of me, just kill me. It’d be a mercy.”
Ain’t no way a bean burrito could cause this sort of damage.
Marking the pit on my map, I left the decision to either burn the bodies or bring them back to the city for a proper burial to future me to make once we were done.
“Come on. Let’s move. No point in lingering here.”
“Yea. If this isn’t proof enough that these bastards need to die, then we might as well go home.”
Thumping her axe on her shoulder, Elane put a hand on Mana’s and smiled down at her.
“Kitty, can you keep going?”
“Yes.”
The reply was immediate and, while she wiped at the tears her tortured nose inspired, there was no hesitation. It only took a second or two to find the trail again before she set off.
She moved faster than before, but was twice as diligent.
