Chapter 95: Luxen Forest (2)
Somewhere around the forest surrounding Luxen City.
Wooh!
Beeeaaak!
Thud.
An arrow shot through the air and hit a Bukaroo on the chest, causing the bird to cry out in pain before it drew its last breath and fell to the ground.
"Great shot, Gaze!" a cute female voice squealed.
Gaze, a boy 15 years old of age holding a bow on his hand and a quiver over his shoulders with a Copper I pendant around his neck, went over to the dead bird.
He knelt down and offered a small prayer.
"I thank the gods for this knowledge and experience they bestowed upon me…"
He then extracted the arrow, took out a simple knife from his thigh and sliced off the tail of the bird before turning around and showing it off to his companions a male and female.
"9 pieces more!" he announced with a bright smile on his face.
"Yes, and then we can go back to the guild to get our reward!" the female said.
"Don't worry, Felize, it will be over in no time! We can probably even sneak in another quest!" Gaze replied.
"Sure!" said Felize.
Just like Gaze, Felize was also 15 years old. She held a spiked club and wooden shield on her hands and had a Copper I pendant around her neck.
"Hey, guys, isn't this weird?" another male voice said.
Both Gaze and Felize looked at him.
It was a boy who was also 15 years old and was carrying a spear. And just like the other two, he too had a Copper I Rank pendant around his neck. Although he was the tallest among them, about 5'11, those who knew him would argue that he was quite timid.
"What do you mean, Torr?" asked Gaze.
"This forest is supposed to be abundant with monsters because they're weak and aren't aggressive. But there's hardly any monsters and there's also too many corpses lying around, some a day old, others 2 days old and others more than that."
"So?" Felize interjected.
"It's just weird. I mean, it took us more than 30 minutes just to find a single monster alive. We were even lucky that it was a Bukaroo."
What he said was true.
As a matter of fact, the other 5 tails that they gathered were from Bukaroo corpses.
"It's probably because some people were training here," Gaze answered to end Torr's suspicion.
"But isn't it against the law to overhunt?" Torr said, refusing to let go.
"Listen, Torr. We're adventurers now. Like my father said, one of the most important skills when you're out is to adapt to whatever situation. Whoever caused all this overhunting is none of our concern. Let's just focus on the quest and complete it."
"Gaze is right! And plus, you're too much of a worrywart! Come on, let's search for more Bukaroo tails!" Felize said, backing up Gaze.
"Come on, let's go," Gaze said before turning around and walking.
Felize rushed to Gaze's side, while Torr followed behind.
"If we find another live Bukaroo, let me try shooting it!" said Felize.
"Sure, as long as you don't miss. My father would kill me if he finds out that I lost too many arrows," Gaze answered.
"But isn't it normal to lose an arrow white hunting?"
Gaze let out a sigh.
"Did you forget that I'm just borrowing this from him?"
"Guys!" Torr cried out and pointed.
Both Gaze and Felize stopped and turned to him before turning their heads to where he was pointing.
"I think it's a Bukaroo's corpse."
They all went over to it.
Judging by the corpse, it was sliced in half and it looked like it was at least 5 days old that it already started decomposing and there were worms and insects eating its flesh.
"The tail is missing," said Torr.
"Looks like someone already beat us to it!" said Felize.
"Don't worry, guys, we'll find others."
They continued searching around while Gaze and Felize kept talking.
They passed another corpse.
This time around it was a fox.
And just like the Bukaroo's corpse from earlier, this too was sliced in half and was at the same state.
The continued walking.
They passed 3 more corpses.
Two were decapitated sunflowers and the other was a Treebark whose body shattered into pieces.
All of them were at the same state -- days old, already decomposing, and with worms and insects eating their bodies.
"The Sunkiss' leaves are of no use anymore," Gaze said and turned to Torr. "How about you?"
Torr was inspecting a Treebark's heart.
"Same here. The worms and insects already got to it."
They continued walking around.
"There, look!" Felize suddenly said and pointed.
The two boys looked at where she was pointing and saw 2 more corpses.
One was fox that had its skull crushed, while the other was a Bukaroo that looked like it was stomped to death and the tail was still attached to it.
Gaze immediately rushed towards it.
Judging from the corpses' condition, both was more than 5 days old. As for the Bukaroo's tail, worms and insects already ate about 40% of it.
"It's no use. The tail is too damaged."
Felize and Torr approached to take a look.
"But the quest didn't say that the tail must be kept in good condition, right?" asked Felize.
"Yes, but this is too damaged," said Torr.
Bam.
Felize stomped her foot on the ground.
"How are we supposed to gather quest items if they're all like this?!"
Gaze let out a wry smile and scratched his face.
"Well, we could try going deeper into the forest…"
Torr's shot a look at Gaze and his brows knitted together.
"We promised our families that we won't go deeper into the forest."
"I know, but what choice do we have? And plus, who's gonna know? It's not like we became adventurers to loot corpses. How else are we going to upgrade our skills then if we encounter a stronger opponent?"
"Gaze is right," said Felize. "And I'm sick and tired of this! I want to see some action!"
Whooosh!
Whooosh!
Felize swung her spiked club a few times, her face filled with desire for a fight.
Torr let our sigh.
"Sometime I wonder how did you guys even manage to convince me to become an adventurer…"
"We're childhood friends! We should always stick and do things together!" Gaze said and flashed a bright smile.
"Yeah!" said Felize.
"Well, it would be a waste not to use this spear that my mother gave me," said Torr.
"And I also want to use some Physical Arts!" said Gaze.
They all laughed.
It's only been a few days since they've become adventurers. Although they had some fear in their hearts because of the dangers that they would be exposing themselves to from simply being adventurers, they were also field with excitement and wonder.
The trio then continued searching and heading a little deeper into the forest.
Some time later…
As they continued to head deeper, they still encountered many corpses here and there.
And the deeper the went, the fresher the corpses became.
"Look, this one looks like it died not long ago…" said Felize.
The corpses they encountered were 2 Treebarks.
One was cleanly sliced into two, while the other was also shattered into pieces.
"What do you think?" Felize asked Gaze.
Even Torr looked at him as well.
"Well… Um… I'd say one was cut with something very sharp --"
"No, not that. I'm asking how many people are there."
Out of the 3 of them, Gaze was the one who knew about tracking because his father would sometimes bring him along for hunting trips and teach him a couple of things.
Gaze swept his eyes around the area to search for footprints.
"I think…" he said as his brows slowly started to knit together. "I think it's only one person."
"Are you sure? It's not a group?" asked Torr.
"I'm sure. And it's headed --" he said as his eyes continued tracing the footprints.
He stopped when he saw a beautiful but haggard-looking female with purple hair and red highlights holding a 6ft-long poleaxe. She wore a brown cloak with a gold necklace, indicating that she was a Priest, and had a Copper I pendant around her neck.
She was standing a couple of meters away from them and looking at them with interest.
"Are you the new adventurers who took the Bukaroo quest?"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Immortal_Shades
Immortal_Shades Holy shit! How? Why? Did you know what I just found out today?! I just found out that I can use "Italic" here. I remember writing my first webnovel back in 2018 (or was it 2019?) and there wasn't the "Italic" option so I had to improvise whenever a character has an inner dialogue. Starting from the next chapter I will be using "Itatlic" for the inner dialogue. Thank you.
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