As soon as the mist got cleared, Brook immediately inspected the surrounding area and had a stern expression on his face with some anxiety, anger and confusion welling up in his mind.

"Ouch!" A small groan was let out from the person he grabbed before the mist engulfed them. It was only then Brook realized that his grip on Ryosuke's hand became tightened unconsciously and so he said a small sorry and let him go.

"What happened? Where is everyone!?" Like him, Ryosuke also had an anxious and worried expression as he looked back and front, looking for Lucas and others.

"Did we get teleported somewhere!?" Ryosuke raised questions one after another, making Brook a bit impatient.

"It is not us that got teleported. They are." Brook answered with the eyebrow wrinkled. "It is the Diveorus, a demon of deception which usually break out the hunter's groups by teleporting."

'They shouldn't exist in this forest....' Brook had a frown as his mind was filled with thoughts. Diveorus demons were mist-like shadows, existed on in some deep and dangerous forests where many monsters inhabit. They were low in number and usually stayed near demon's territory. Seeing a Diveorus here only meant that the inhibition of monsters had been deviating and it was not a good sign. But he decided to let this matter off by now as looking for Lucas and others came first now.

'Looking at the time, they should not get too far.' Brook considered whether he should go back to the town and contact the responsible guards to found a search party but the mist only lasted for around 7 seconds which was very fast, meaning that Lucas and others were still in the forest but not in other territories. The only worse scenario was that they got into the deeper part of the forest but it was not really dangerous if they were with Carleton.

'Lucas was next to Carleton so he would have definitely grabbed him but how about the other two?'

Brook got a headache from thinking. He was confident for his fighting and teaching others but when it came to using his brain for other purposes, he was bad at it.

"Hey, can you use fire mana?" Brook looked at Ryosuke who was also paying attention to what he would do next.

"I can. Not really that proficient but yea..."

Brook smiled when he got the answer. "Make a flare towards the sky."

As soon as Brook instructed, Ryosuke whispered.

"O' great Lord Lucian, thou who bless with mana to people,

Bring forth the burning flame, that can emit light upward the sky"

The ring of blazing fire instantly appeared on the palm that Ryosuke put in front and after circling around a bit, it rushed towards the sky forming an exact flare that Brook had wanted.

"Ah.... that chants are really as embarrassing as ever...."

"You don't need to draw a magic circle?"

"Nope." Ryosuke seemed that he was proud to be able to do that. "Now what are we going to do next? Just wait here?" He continued to ask Brook.

"Carleton should be with Lucas and he is able to use the fire magic as his secondary one, so he should be able to respond to that." Brook answered while looking at the sky carefully for any signal. Even though there were leaves covering some lights, Carl should be able to catch a glimpse, seeing the brightness of the flare.

"What about Tus and Eura?"

"If lucky, the other two can get here, too."

"We are going to wait here for 15 minutes. If we don't get any signal back or the other two don't come here, we will search on our own." Brook continued. As going back to the town and founding a search party was going to take longer and would cause a haywire situation, he didn't want to choose that way for now but if he couldn't find them in 4 hours, he definitely had to do that. He couldn't risk not finding them before night time.

15 minutes was up and Brook had a frightening frown on his face, telling Ryosuke to do the flare again as he also prepared himself to find the others by himself. Unfortunately, even after the second flare, there was no response.

Brook and Ryosuke prepared to set off from the place and before they left the place, they felt that something was coming from upward so they immediately avoided the area that they were standing but only to find out that it was not an enemy.

"Tus, can you not slide down gently!? How bad is your wind magic?" The little girl was growling at the boy who was carrying her.

"At least I don't fall down when flying...haha."

"Tus, Eura!" Ryosuke exclaimed in joy as he welcomed the two whose clothes and hair were in a mess because they jumped down passing the trees.

The two also greeted back but they had a frown on each face when they didn't see Lucas. Brook made a brief explanation to them about what happened and what they were going to do next and Tus volunteered that he would go first as he could search through the forest quickly through the sky.

"No." Brook refused Tus' idea. "I have an idea of where they can be."

Since Brook didn't get any reply from Carleton, one thing was sure that Carleton couldn't see his flare. It meant either that they were not in the forest anymore or in a place where they could not see the sky. Judging by the time, the latter was more possible so Brook had one place in mind that he could check first.

"Let's head to the tunnel of Oiria."

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Lucas cursed his fate as he could only see a dark tunnel in his front with the walls made of damp-looking rocks. And there was only a faint glow that was giving him a small light to look at his surroundings, and when Lucas looked around for the source of light, he could see that it was the Viridis flowers which were emitting light.

"Young master Lucas, are you alright?"

It was only then that Lucas knew that someone let go of the grip on his hand and when he looked back he found that it was Carl who was having a worried expression on his face.

"I am ok, Carl. By the way, do you know where this place is?" Lucas looked at his surroundings. Although Viridis flowers gave light in the dark, it was only a faint glow and he couldn't see that far into the cave. All he could know was that there was a tunnel both in his front and back. And at the same time, he could hear some sound of water dripping from afar.

'I can't even find the sword and now what mess did I get caught up with?' Lucas just wanted to sit down and cry out in anger.

"I think we are in the Oiria tunnel...." Carl answered while inspecting the surroundings, judging that it was the doings of a minor diveorus although he didn't know why a diveorus was in Ereck forest.

Lucas grasped the situation as Carl briefly explained the situation to him and frowned when he said the abnormalities of monsters’ inhibition. It was not the case where the monsters disappeared but the case where some demons came near the human territory.

‘Are they preparing for another attack?’ Lucas couldn’t help but let his thoughts wonder.

“Do you know how to get out of here?”

“Unfortunately, I am not sure. If I enter the tunnel by my own foot, then it is fine because all I need is to retrace the steps to go out but I am not sure right now as we are just teleported here out of nowhere.” Carl looked at Lucas, worried that he might be feeling scared and afraid as the always calm young master seemed to have a distressed look on his pale face.

“Don’t worry young master! By this time, Sir Brook must have known that we were in the tunnel.” Carl gave him a big smile, reassuring Lucas that help would come.

“How?”

“Well, firstly, he will make a signal somehow and try to get my response back but if he still can’t get it, he will know we are in a place where we can’t see the outside world and point out this tunnel because it is the only tunnel that Ereck Forest has.”

“Wow, you sure know the teacher a lot.” Lucas looked at Carl who seemed to have an idea that Brook would 100% be able to find out where they are.

“Of course. He was my teacher before!”

Lucas was surprised by this sudden discovery. ‘Oh, it must be why Brook and Carl acted so familiar with each other.’

“So, are we just going to wait here?” Lucas asked, looking at his surroundings where Viridis lit up faintly.

“I think it is the best idea for now. The tunnel has only one entrance and it only has one way to walk through, which is the path we are standing on. So they should be able to find us by walking straight.” Carl looked at the Viridis flowers and then the walls near them.

“And looking at this scratch, this is a place where hunters take a rest when exploring the tunnel.”

Lucas looked at the wall that Carl had pointed at where 12 tally strikes were roughly sketched on the rocky wall.

“That means that the hunters had come 12 miles into the tunnel. And this is like a checkpoint for them because of the flowers. With this amount of flowers, there should be no monsters in a 1 mile radius.”

“But we don’t know which direction to go out.” Lucas sighed as he sat down on the cold floor of the tunnel. “Why don’t we try our luck and go one side and then come back again if we don’t find more signatures?”

“I think we should try that when it took Sir Brook too long to find us.” Carl nervously said as he didn’t want to take a risk. What if they went in the wrong direction and got to the innermost part of the tunnel where high ranked monsters stayed.

Also with the case of sudden appearance of diveorus, Carl felt anxious thinking about what to do if more monsters, in worst situations, demons, would be inhabiting in this tunnel as Viridis would not be able to stop the demons.

“Don’t think too much. Just like you have said before, teacher will definitely be able to find us.”

With just one glance, Lucas could see that Carl was suffering from high pressure and stress about thinking what to do next. He would not be that worried if he was alone but this situation was different as Lucas was there with him.

“Yes, young master Lucas!”

Lucas smiled at the answer and looked up at the ceiling, thinking that it was a bit chilly to stay here. But to his surprise, Carl also took a place near him, lighting up a fire on his palm making the cold and chilly tunnel become warmer.

“So you have fire mana….”

“Yes, although it is my secondary one, I can use it pretty well.” Carl smiled. “You should take a nap now, young master. When you wake up, Sir Brook should already be meeting with us.”

Lucas just laughed nervously as he got a deja vu. 3 years ago, when the monsters came to Evandall city in search of Ryosuke, Edwin told him to sleep, too. This time Lucas decided to close his eyes for a bit but unexpectedly he was starting to get sleepy as his mind drifted away.

Unfortunately for him, his sleep was destroyed by a sharp scream which made both Carl and Lucas immediately pick up each of their weapons and stayed alert, with their eyes gazing at the dark tunnel where the shout came.

‘What now, this time?’ Lucas couldn’t help but start to think whether he had the worst luck ever or not.

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Fun talk ><

Lucas: Lucian, do you have any plan to bless me with good luck?

Lucian: NO :3

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading this far! I love you all dear readers!!