Nina rushed forward, her luggage stolen by a Goblin.
The deeper they strayed from the path, the denser the forest became, with thick, twisted tree roots covering the ground, making it incredibly unstable.
In the rear, Pauline and Piyo stumbled and fell, their feet caught.
“Hey, are you okay?”
While this was happening, Nina continued to move further ahead.
“There’s no other way. Philiana, could you carry these two on your back? I’ll clear the path by cutting the grass ahead.”
“Yes, I understand. Please don’t fall off, you two.”
I took out my dagger and proceeded to cut the grass, just like Nina. Sharin, who was beside me, also helped.
Even so, the overgrown grass, so dense that it obscured the ground, and the unstable footing made it difficult for the tall Philiana to advance. She nearly lost her balance several times.
My arms, too, grew weary from swinging my sword against the relentlessly clinging, tough grass.
I called out to Nina at one point, but there was no reply.
After walking for a while, we emerged into a slightly open area. However, being blocked by trees, the sunlight couldn’t reach, making it eerily cold and dim.
I approached Nina.
“Hey, wait up. What’s the rush? It’ll be a disaster if you get hurt.”
“I told you already, don’t we have time? Or do you want to die a miserable death in the wilderness?”
I understood what she was saying, but perhaps due to walking in unfamiliar territory, Philiana seemed to be quite exhausted.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, I’ve been inside the town so my body has become soft.”
Philiana replied with a smile to Sharin’s cheerful words. However, combined with the fatigue from carrying the luggage, her steps were heavy.
Suddenly, in the center of the open space, I spotted the corpses of two animals. Their bodies resembled bipedal dinosaurs; one was covered in short fur, and the other, a size larger, was covered in scales.
“The one with the single eye is a One-Eyed Garulga, and the one with hands like a hatchet is a Death Hatchet.”
As Philiana explained, the fur-covered one had a large single eye in the middle of its face, and the larger one had no hands, but rather blade-like appendages.
“It seems they took each other out.”
We skirted around the two corpses and proceeded back into the forest.
