Chapter 187: Familiar Ground
[RavenHold]
In the forest near the city, once a fortress with long years of history and prosperity, now nothing more than a distant memory of that, something happened.
The silence that hung over the forest, a silence rather unusual for this time of day, was shattered by a sudden pillar of light rising into the sky.
A phenomenon already familiar by now, having occurred before, but this time brief, lasting little more than 5 seconds before vanishing. Still, that was more than enough to throw out two figures before disappearing.
The two figures, tossed through midair, found themselves falling from a height of a few meters, not enough to kill them, but enough to hurt if they landed badly. And that was exactly what happened, at least for one of the two.
THUD!
"Ah, Selena, help me, I think something fell on me, I can’t move it, it’s too heavy—"
Lirien’s whiny voice rang out as the girl, her head still spinning a little from the sudden journey back, tried to focus her vision to see what had landed on her.
It didn’t take her long. In fact, within a few seconds her sight stabilized, the pain in her back faded, and she was finally able to see what had fallen on top of her.
Her gaze landed on Selena’s expressionless face, looking down at her with the stare of someone who’d just watched her get her whole family murdered.
"Heavy?" she said, a single word, more than enough to make Lirien’s complaint from a moment ago die in her throat.
"Ahem, in my defense, I was too disoriented to understand what had happened. I’m sure it was just an impression, you’re not that heavy," the girl said, scrambling for an excuse good enough to placate her friend and avoid any consequences that might follow if she didn’t.
Selena eyed her, unconvinced by her friend’s words, but didn’t push the matter. She got up, then held out a hand to help her friend to her feet.
Once that was done, they both looked around and immediately noticed something familiar, the trees of the forest, normal trees. No more freezing atmosphere, no more that sense of threat lurking around every corner that they’d constantly felt in that place.
They were back.
The realization hit like a wave of relief as their bodies, after several days, finally relaxed for real.
Not the false relaxation of muscles and minds still ready to spring into action at any moment, but a true sense of safety, perhaps because they were no longer in an unknown place, with strange and extreme conditions, with strange creatures, but somewhere far more familiar.
That sense of safety let joy fill both girls’ hearts, and for a while, they said nothing, simply savoring the moment.
But along with the joy came everything else they hadn’t had time to think about until now.
Their team.
They had set out as six, a well-organized group put together by the academy to train humanity’s future talents. Now only two remained. The rest were either dead or missing, with a good chance they were dead too.
They knew it all too well themselves, they had come close to death more than once, surviving until now only thanks to coincidence and help along the way, not because they were strong enough or lucky enough on their own.
They knew this very well, and the weight of that realization settled heavily on both their hearts.
Finally Selena sighed and said,
"We need to contact the academy. We’ve been missing for days now, they’re probably still searching for us." Lirien nodded in agreement.
Barely a week had passed in that place, but it had been more than enough to put both girls through enough hardship to harden their souls.
Lirien used her mana and immediately pulled an item out of her dimensional ring.
It was a thin, rectangular device, covered in strange symbols, with the academy’s crest at its center.
It was an emergency transmitter, given to every student on missions outside the academy grounds.
Usually it was used to contact one’s own team members or instructors accompanying an expedition like this one, but it also served to send emergency communications to the academy in case something went wrong and there were no other options.
Lirien circled the mana around her body into the device, ready to find the exact frequency to reach the academy, when she noticed Selena tense up, her hand moving toward the hilt of her sword, facing the opposite direction.
"Hm? Something wrong?" she asked, noticing her friend’s unusual behavior, but Selena didn’t answer, her attention completely fixed on the cluster of trees ahead.
Even though it was still afternoon, the rays of light filtering through the dense canopy of trees left that section of the forest rather dim, not dark enough to make it impossible to see, but shadowy enough to feel unsettling.
Normally, that would have been comforting.
A welcome refuge from the scorching sun.
But at this moment...
That patch of forest felt far darker than it should have.
"There’s something strange here. I don’t know what... but I don’t like it."
Selena finally said, her senses now far sharper than before picking up a subtle premonition of danger.
Her grip on the sword tightened further as the tension rose.
Silence fell over the place, neither of the two daring to say or do anything, both staring at that spot.
This went on for a few seconds, and finally, seeing that nothing had happened, Lirien seemed to relax and turned to her friend.
"Maybe we’re just getting paranoid, after all-" she said, trying to calm her friend down, thinking their nerves might simply be too frayed from the experiences of the last few days. But she didn’t have time to finish, because in the next instant something leapt down from the treetops above and hurtled toward them at full speed.
"Watch out!"
Selena, already on alert, sensed something coming and didn’t think twice, with a quick movement, she pushed herself aside, pulling a startled Lirien with her, who hadn’t caught the situation in time.
Thud!
With a heavy impact, something crashed into the ground right where the two girls had been standing, kicking up dust that settled over the next few seconds, revealing what had been hiding behind it.
It was a beast, a wolf with dark fur, nearly two meters tall, three times as wide. Ferocious, its eyes lit with an unnatural glow.
Seeing the beast’s ferocious expression, Lirien trembled slightly. She could tell it was strong, stronger than her, strong enough to make her go pale with a single glance.
"i-its a C-rank,"