After I sent Reinar and Jen the sap from the lunar pines, our group started looking for a good place to set up base.
We thought that having a way to get to the Lunar Forest quickly could co in handy soday, but we didn’t want to build a house in a random spot.
Following Yoru’s intuition, he guided us to a place that was right next to a river overlooking the Lunar Mountains in the east and wholly surrounded by tall pine trees.
It actually was a beautiful and discreet spot, which was perfect for our new base.
Before nightfall, we hastily built a ho that was big enough to easily house ten people and was still sowhat hidden, thanks to all of the dense vegetation around us.
Its design was humble, with just one level, where we had all our beds and a table. Of course, we enchanted the inside so that it was always nice and warm.
The Lunar Forest at night was quite eerie, as we could hear sounds coming from all directions from beasts fighting each other. Even Vespera seed more alert than usual.
On the other hand, Yoru expressed that the amount of moon energy he was receiving in the area was increasing his power by a lot.
’Hmm, there are probably other beasts around here that get buffed by the moon and then start fighting each other...’ I thought.
It was a bit hard to get so sleep on our first night since we just kept getting interrupted by the screeches and rumbles of beasts in the area, but eventually, we managed.
The following day, the group decided to split up to look for anything of interest and said we would et again at the base in a few hours.
Since lina and I had our engagent rings that allowed us to teleport to each other, we thought it would be best if we went separately.
It’s not like I didn’t want to go with her, but if anyone else in the group had an ergency, we wouldn’t have a way to get to them instantly.
Yoru and I were going together, Vespera and Nessa grouped up, and lina was accompanying the two battle-maids.
Honestly, walking alone with Yoru through an unknown forest reminded of my first days in this world when I found him.
Yoru was still a puppy, but he always walked with around End Forest, and we eventually explored the entire area around our ho together.
After walking for over an hour, Yoru growled and hastily followed a sll, making run along with him.
When we stopped, we found ourselves in an area that had been completely scorched. It was as if a dragon passed by and burned a line in the forest, leaving nothing but ashes in its trail.
"What the hell happened here? Maybe so beasts were fighting?" I pondered aloud as I stepped on the scorched earth.
Yoru, however, kept growling with the fur on his back perking up, which he only did when he was really mad.
"Could this have been a dragon?" I asked.
["No. This was no dragon..."] Yoru answered telepathically.
My companion could sll the beasts that had passed by our location, and he said that there was no scent of a dragon. However, there was one sll that had him very distressed.
["I’ve slled this before, but I can’t rember from what..."] he continued.
I tried looking for clues around the burnt-down zone, but there was nothing of interest, and after Yoru cald down a bit, we kept moving.
At one point, we found so bushes that had small berries growing from them, which looked exactly like blueberries.
’Huh? So, this is like caffeine in berry form...’ I thought as I gathered them and stowed them away in my void pocket.
I didn’t think I could get any good use from them, but I still thought they were interesting. Still, if I wanted caffeine, I would just drink the coffee we got from Aridonia.
On our walk back to the base, we passed by the scorched area again, and Yoru’s distress returned.
’Maybe we should avoid this side tomorrow...’ I thought.
We were the first ones to return to the base, so I started working on dinner as the rest finished tier exploration.
At nightti, when we were all gathered around the fire eating, I told the group about the burnt-down area that was an hour away from us.
Surprisingly, lina and the maids also found sothing similar, but they attributed it to being the aftermath of a beast fight, which was what I thought at first.
However, when Yoru and I inspected the place with more details, I could tell that the fire wasn’t exchanged between the two beasts. Instead, it was as if one beast had burnt down the place by itself.
The burnt marks on the ground were spread like a cone, so I still suspected that a dragon was in the forest.
Even when Yoru said that he was sure it wasn’t a dragon, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.
Vespera, however, shut down when she explained that there were no dragons living in the Lunar Forest.
Dragons were supposed to be legendary beasts like Vespera, so she knew where most of them resided. However, her knowledge was outdated by a few hundred years, so we couldn’t be entirely sure that what she said was correct.
The following day, we all split up again with the sa groups but in different directions.
I told everyone to be careful since we didn’t know what the fire beast was yet, and once everyone nodded in understanding, we began exploring.
Yoru and I were walking to the west of our base, which was the complete opposite of the previous day.
It took us a few hours to find anything, but what we saw wasn’t what we were expecting.
It was the sa type of scorched area that we had found the previous day, but this part was much larger as if the monster had used his fire nurous tis around the sa spot.
’Okay... Now I’m a bit worried...’ I thought.
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