“I feel like something's wrong,” Lucille rubbed her arms in discomfort while scanning the forest around her, it was an action that barely did anything to help in reducing the goosebumps on her skin, “do you guys feel like something's staring at us or is it just me?”

 

“I'm sure it's nothing,” Zyra waved her concerns off and Lucille met gazes with their tactician, who returned her nervous look with confidence. Zyra nodded in reassurance, “things are going to be fine,”

 

“Are they?” Yhaine asked, her eyes similarly scanning the trees for signs of danger, it was an action that made the heroine feel a whole lot more nervous for some reason, “because I don't feel fine, or safe, or anything- at all.” Yhaine snapped, “right now I feel like someone is watching me and my gut teels me that that someone, or maybe something is very dangerous,”

 

Zyra stopped walking and raised her hands in the air, “girls, stop with the paranoia,” the Florist lightly scolded, “we're going to be fine, okay? Nothing is going to happen to us,”

 

“... if you say so,” Lucille decided to believe her and moved deeper into the forest.

 

Things felt wrong, somehow, and she couldn't pin point as to why.

 

Unlike what her constantly paranoid thoughts were telling her though, nothing came up to attack them during their journey so Lucille was starting to consider that Zyra may have been right. The heroine faced the Florist, “hey Zyra?” She got a hum in response, “uh, how close are we to the Eukaleaf tribe?”

 

“We're near according to the map,” Zyra pointed to a fallen log, “look at the sides of that log, there's mushrooms growing out of it,”

 

“Hm.” Lucille grunted at the uncanny sight, seeing mushrooms take over the hollow center of a fallen log to the point that they jutted out of both holes was… definitely something she should get used to if she wanted to hunt more Eukaleafs in the future.

 

“Okay, that is… disgusting,” the heroine said while directing her eyes away from the mushrooms, “my hair is standing on their ends right now,”

 

“Then don't look at it,” Yhaine dryly suggested and Lucille decided to follow her advice.

 

After walking for a bit more and seeing more signs of fungal growth around the area, they eventually managed to find some of their targets.

 

The party of Eukaleaf scouts were larger than them in numbers, and after counting them up, Lucille thought that they had to fight 4 Eukaleafs each. But that most likely wasn't the best course of action and before her head could tell her that charging at a dozen monsters is a good idea, she turned to Zyra for advice on how to proceed.

 

The Florist kept her silence and occasionally looked up at the trees, Lucille guessed she was searching for more of the leafy prime apes on the canopies but after inspecting them herself, Lucille saw nothing out of the ordinary.

 

They stalked their targets for a short while before Zyra finally spoke up, “we're safe to fight them now,”

 

“It wasn't before?” Yhaine rightfully asked in concern and got a nod in response, their tank stayed silent, not adding a single word because her question had a second part to it, and the question of ‘why wasn't it safe?’ went unsaid.

 

As well as unanswered because Zyra glossed over it, “Lucille, initiate the fight by killing two or three of them while we still have the element of surprise,”

 

The heroine nodded and started weaving her Techniques, Greater Speed was a given and Minor Strength is too, Sharpened Blade and Novice Archer were new, and this was her first time testing them outside of a spar.

 

As Zyra went on to explain to Yhaine what it is they would do after Lucille finished her task, the heroine tuned them out and focused on her targets: There were exactly 12 Eukaleafs in front of her and she needed to take out 3 of them to ensure better chances at success and the monkeys wouldn't exactly make doing that task easy.

 

Lucille deemed that she had 3 major obstacles in doing what she needed to do.

 

One was the scouting party's numbers, which again is a dozen, that would make it easy for them to gang up on her, two was the Eukaleaf's natural ability to shake off poisonous spores from the leaves growing on its body, and then lastly, was the composition and positioning of the Eukaleafs around each other.

 

The first one was just obvious and impossible to mitigate while the second one just needed her to cover her mouth, and she did, the tiny mask that had been added to her clothes got pulled up and it now covered Lucille's neck, nose, and mouth.

 

The last one could be dealt with easily too and all she needed to do is to find the perfect spot to strike.

 

And after inspecting the group for a good while, she found the right flank of the Eukaleafs as an easy target, as not only were the monkeys tightly gathered at the center of their group facing away from that spot, allowing for more time before the monkeys retaliate from her attack, striking their right flank would also allow for an easy escape after she was done.

 

There were 5 monkeys in total within the area that Lucille targeted, three were near the center while two were outside of their group's perimeter, these ones were suspiciously looking around for threats. They were also spread out from each other, making them the perfect target.

 

Lucille went in and immediately, flooded the suit she had worn over her ethereal skin with as much Light as she possibly could and the technique responded by boosting her physical body's speed to extreme heights and it only took her 3 seconds to move away from her team and reach her targets.

 

The first Eukaleaf was struck down and before the rest could react, Lucille made her way to the second one but unlike the first time where she still had the element of surprise, allowing for a quick and easy kill, this one had already noticed her and the monster fought back by swinging one of its long arms towards her.

 

Lucille ducked low, weaving from the blow, she closed the distance and raised her dagger, she then plunged it at the neck of the leafy monkey.

 

“LUCILLE! GET AWAY!” Heeding their tactician's words, Lucille jumped back just as the Eukaleafs started shaking their body, causing the air around them to become dusty.

 

She quickly went back to her team and lowered Greater Speed's output, “sorry, I could only take out two,”

 

She didn't mention that she would have been fine from the dust because looking back at the massive cloud surrounding the scouting party made her stomach reel. She wasn't even sure if her mask would be able to block all of that.

 

Zyra nodded and then proceeeded to throw the molotov cocktail she was holding towards the monkeys, setting them as well as the dust around them ablaze- an explosion erupted from igniting the spores and Lucille watched in fascination as the leaves that the Eukaleafs were so proud of started burning them alive.

 

“Prepare to fight,” Zyra said, “those things are gonna hunt us down now that we've burnt them,”

 

“Won't they die before they get here?” Yhaine stared at the small horde of Eukaleafs heading their way.

 

“Yes, but it's better to be safe than sorry,” Zyra shook her head, “Lucille, pull up your mask and start intercepting them, I'll also try to whip them from here,” she explained the plan, “and Yhaine-”

 

“Protect you?” Yhaine guessed.

 

“That.” Zyra nodded.

 

Lucille ran away from them and a moment later, her speeding form crashed against the group of burning monkeys.

 

She started swinging her dagger, slaughtering the Eukaleafs by the digits before running away when one of their burning forms turned to her for retaliation, occasionally, a green whip would cracked out and strike the head of one of the monkeys, killing them in an instant.

 

Now that they were burning to death, the fight had been quick and Lucille soon stood over the corpse of several Eukaleafs as Zyra and Yhaine neared her.

 

“They can't even be recognized now,” Lucille poked one of the charred corpses with her boot. “Well, I guess they still can..?” Lucille murmured as her eyes went over the long arms, thick shoulders, and short legs of the dead monsters, “eh,”

 

“Let's get moving, come on,” Zyra pushed, “we're now near the tribe if we see their scouts,”

 

“I guess?” Lucille said, “but wasn't it suspicious that the scouts had 12 Eukaleafs? I thought the standard tribe only sends out 4 at best?”

 

“It… is worrying, yeah,” Zyra nodded, “but I'm sure that this specific group is going to go and start a mushroom party somewhere,” she added in confidence and Lucille thought it made sense, and before she could consider any other option, Zyra's words broke into her thoughts, “now come on, we need to go,”

 

The more their hunt continued, the more their group found worrying signs of it being more than what was written on paper.

 

Lucille looked away from the group of trees that had been infected by mushrooms, this was the 4th mushroom party they have found and the heroine was starting to think that the Eukaleaf tribe they were heading towards is bigger than they initially thought. A whole lot bigger.

 

“So we just passed several places where Eukaleafs can naturally grow out of,” Yhaine voiced out the concerning thoughts Lucille has been stewing with, “and are we just gonna ignore the part where we found those while we're still somewhat far away from their tribe?”

 

“... I'm sure things are fine-”

 

“No, no they're not Zyra,” Yhaine stopped walking and the two girls glared at each other, Yhaine crossed her arms, “I'm not gonna sit here, pretending that everything is okay when you're clearly running away from something-"

 

Both Lucille and Zyra looked away, Lucille had known- considered that their tactician was running away from something other than a Eukaleaf and was just using their venture deeper into the forest as a cover up of that fear.

 

“- and that it's obvious that this Eukaleaf tribe we're heading towards is obviously bigger than it fucking IS-” Yhaine's shout was cut short by the sound of wood scraping against each other.

 

The sound was odd, like a chair being scraped against a floor, or the sound of a faulty lever being pulled, the tapping of wood echoed out and the three girls stood in place, eyes wandering around in search for the source, which continued on, its creator unseen, only heard.

 

After a while, Lucille spoke up, “I- I think I know what that is,”

 

“I know too,” Zyra said while Yhaine kept her silence, only nodding.

 

They quickly jogged away, the sound of scraping wood resonating out all the while.

 

When the sound died down, Lucille heaved out a sigh in relief, “the gasoline tank that we brought wouldn't have been enough to fight that thing,”

 

“I know,” Zyra said, still not mentioning the monster. Lucille hoped the Florist would because she herself was too afraid to speak the name out loud…

 

“I think- maybe-” Lucille stuttered out, she wanted to say what was on her mind but was cut off by Zyra's glare before she could utter the words.

 

“Don't.” The Florist said.

 

“Okay,” Lucille nodded meekly.

 

“That was a Lichen Crawler just now, wasn't it?” Lucille closed her eyes, expecting one of her friends to scream but no one did.

 

“Yes.” Zyra's calm words entered her ears, and she opened her eyes, “A big one, too, judging by the sound of its movement.”

 

Lucille sighed in fear, “Goddess what is going on with the forest around us-”

 

“We. Are. Fine.” Zyra grit out those words, “we will get out of here alive and the being tailing us wouldn't be able to hunt us down,”

 

Yhaine's eyes widened, “you mean-”

 

Zyra nodded, “it's been up there in the trees for a while now, stalking us like the prey we are, I don't know why it hasn't made a move yet but it will, definitely, we need to be prepared to run away when that time comes,”

 

Lucille shook her head, fear was starting to grip at her heart now that she knows it wasn't just a massive Lichen Crawler or a larger than normal Eukaleaf tribe that were their problems- a Jungle Warrior was hunting them down too.

 

“Now, let's just continue on-” Zyra stopped talking and stared forward, her breath hitched and Lucille followed her gaze to…

 

“A Great Rotter.” Yhaine said the name of the monstrosity once again, but this time, her voice was breathless from fear, “don't- those things- don't come out unless- unless- oh shit- we're not going to a Eukaleaf tribe, are we?”

 

Lucille couldn't reply, she was too focused on the mound of flowery mold, mossy bone, and bloody earth that was the Great Rotter's body.

 

It was idly moving in front of them- the being was big enough to be a house, and its gigantic frame reached half the height of the towering trees, if it wanted, it could charge at them and the towering pieces of wood would shatter into splinters from such a simple act.

 

The fungal entity walked on four great legs ridden with rainbow colored lichen as though it was the shining scales of a sea serpent. The plant-like fungi pulsed with energy with each step, glowing for a split second before dying down, behind it was a tail with the length of over 8 foot, wagging back and forth in a pale imitation of a dog's.

 

A series of spines jutted out of its back, barely visible thanks to the plants growing out of the dirt that made up most of its body. Underneath the spurs were long, thick lines of bone- ribs, large in their forms and wide in their width, the white spires headed down the sides of the Great Rotter's earthen body before coiling inward to the chest cavity, there, a pulsing heart thrummed, it was red, and very much alive with vitality.

 

The heart, which kept the fungus on the corpse sustained with nutrients, beat every few seconds, as though the creature it belonged to was in hibernation- and perhaps it was but looking at the dried up skull of the Toiler Gorilla that the fungal entity has taken over as its host, Lucille doubts that the original animal the heart belonged to is even there.

 

The rotting corpse of a Dire Wall sticking onto its shoulders, maybe- yes, that animal is still alive, but all of the bones across the Great Rotter's body, from the skulls attached to spines dangling below its stomach like the chimes of a door, to the odd white bits buried underneath most of its body- all of those were dead.

 

The Great Rotter stopped walking, and slowly, it turned its body to face Lucille and her team, revealing a disgusting sight; the Toiler Gorilla skull that was its face was opened in a permanently ugly scream, the monster's sharp fangs long gone from the Great Rotter's constant ramming against trees and opponents.

 

But unlike the fangs that the fungal entity had no use of, the eyesockets were still filled with something- two wet orbs that looked alive enough to be mistaken as- as- functioning, and they were- because the Great Rotter needed to see, so it did not eat away at these visual organs, leaving them intact even as the fur fell from the Toiler Gorillas face and colonies of bacteria gnawed away at its skin.

 

Two great eyes stared Lucille down and she knew in the very depths of her heart that she needed to run-

 

She was moving before she knew it- Yhaine's Pledge had already been called and it was uncomfortable from the way Lucille's stomach struck against the plated shoulder of Yhaine's armor as she ran.

 

Behind them, trees splintered and fell, for the Great Rotter started its chase.