Syla chased after the orc sounds, weaving through the rough terrains and various vegetations that could be poisonous, as she was running and getting closer to the orcs, she could feel her boots slowly stepping on a more wet surface than the previous dry soil.
Grakh!?
Swing!
Syla saw the orc, there was 4 of them grouping together while looking down on search of food when suddenly one of them noticed something before their head was separated from their body.
The other orcs instantly went on alert and they raised their head and weapons to try defending themselves, however it was a futile struggle as Syla stabbed one of the remaining orcs in its neck before moving on to the next one.
GEAKH!
GRAKHH!!?
GRUHH!!
One by one the orc's body piled up on the moist dirt and the last orc eventually resorted to just swinging its axe blindly at his surrounding, Syla obviously knew when to attack, taking the advantage of the orc's blind spot, Syla waited until its back was facing her, she then killed the last orc pretty easily and stood still among the bloody corpses.
"Phew.. My cloak is tainted.." She said before looking at her ruffled blouse inside her cloak.
Thankfully her outfits didn't get stained, but her cloak would need to be washed when she got back to Beakwood.
"Well, that's that.. Now i need to take two of their nose— Wait, maybe i should just take more, just incase if there's a bonus if i killed more than i was supposed to." Syla said as she cuts the orc's noses from its head.
Just like what she did before, Syla washed the orc noses with water magic until it was all cleaned from the dirt and blood, after storing the loot to her satchel, Syla's work was now over, if she wanted to, she could just go back to the guild and claim her reward.
'That'd be boring if i just immediately went backing, the other reason why i took this orc quest was to investigate whether if there's really an orc dungeon or not.' Syla thought with a cheeky smile.
"—Ah right, the receptionists also seemed to detest my presence in the guild, even back then– Many of them gave me a side eye. I thought they would be tolerant to all species, but i guess some of them are not.."
Knowing that her appearance had already been found out, Syla thought that the guild will probably gave her some minor inconveniences if she were to go back, but Syla didn't want to assume something that hasn't happened yet, so she just put it in the back of her mind as the worst scenario that could happen.
Syla then continued her travel, deeper into the forest with each step as her boots was walking on mud.
Shlick!
Shlick!
"What is this area.. It's like a swamp except there's no puddles or vine branches that you'd usually see in these kind of places." Syla said while observing her surroundings.
She occassionally hold onto one of the tree around her and looked into the distance, but there was only more muddy soil and footprints.
Syla looked at one of the footprints that was imprinted on the soil below her, she noticed that it looked similar to a cat's paw, except it was significantly bigger than a cat. The footprints spans across a straight line, Syla was curious as to where this footprints would lead her to and what kind of creatures does the footprints belong to, however she instead caught something more interesting than the mysterious footprints.
"Hm?" Syla moved her eyes to her left and saw a small group of 3 flowers growing on the muddy soil.
The flowers was dyed in green, its soft petals glowed in their charming color and illuminated the otherwise dark surroundings, Syla was mesmerized, she had never seen such flowers before, a flower that glows was fairly common in this world, especially ones that were used for potions, flowers or plants that emitted lights and particles usually meant that they are imbued with mana and thus had magical properties such as healing, strengthening, and rarely, even cursing.
What Syla saw was a flower with 10 leaves that's curved upwards with its center having a cone shape.
"Woah.." She stopped her walk and stood infront of the small flower field, amazed by their beauty. "What kind of flower is this.."
Syla then crouched, trying to take a closer look at the few flowers while also curious to touch it. Her hands slowly moving as her finger almost get into contact with the flower.
As soon as she was close enough within the flowers proximity, Syla suddenly felt drowsy out of nowhere, it's as if she hadn't slept for over a day and now she just laid down on a soft bed.
"H- huh.. W- ahG wis haplening.. Huh¿" Syla struggled to keep her eyes open, and before her mind was forcibly shut off, Syla accidentally plucked one of the flower from the ground
Pluck!
With a gentle pull, Syla plucked the flower in the field and held it within her palm, and moments after the flower was cut out from the soil, the glowing light that was being emitted by the flower gradually dimmed, and after the light had dimmed into just a vague luminescence, Syla jolted out from her sleep, her conciousness was back, but not for long since after she was woken up from her sleep, Syla felt the same drowsiness crashing over her mind like an ocean wave.
"H- HUH!? S- shit.. It's the flowers—"
'I need to pluck all of them before i lost my conciousness again—
Pluck!
Pluck!
Syla then plucked the remainings flowers and held it just in time before her conciousness faded again, but because she had separated the flowers from the soil, the flowers soon dimmed again, just like the one that she plucked before. Syla then regained her conciousness and sighed in relief, she no longer felt sleepy, and with the flowers now within her palm, Syla thought about storing it in her satchel.
'This is definitely something precious.. I should sell it later, who knows how much this will get me..' She thought.
But when she looked at her satchel, Syla realized that her satchel was almost at its limit, it had already stored so many things, with most of them being her gold coins and her lunch box.
"Damnit.. i guess i have to buy a new bag.. Perhaps those little bags that can be worn like a seatbelt around my waist— It'd be great if i have some sort of an inventory magic, but from what i know, there's no such magic that can manipulate space.. Atleast not yet, Mr. Hensen told me that there's only 6 elements of magic—
"Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Dark.. He didn't tell me about space magic.. But that's because he also doesn't know all about magic, if i want to know about these things, i'll have to meet with those who are the best in it, like an Archmage.. And to do that, i'll have to go to the cities, Aerdawn for example." Syla said to herself.
She held the three flowers in her hand and looked to the front, she continued her walk within the damp area for a few more minutes, stumbling upon some slimes, some bigger than the others.
.
.
Step!
Step!
"The soil is getting drier now.. I've been walking for about 5 minutes and it seems like i've passed the edge of that swamp-like area." Syla said.
She was now undoubtely deep within the forest, though not the deepest part of it, it was still considered a dangerous layer of the forest. All of the running that she did to chase after the orcs was the reason why Syla managed to travel so far in less than an hour.
"Huh?" Syla suddenly felt something getting closer to her.
Grrr..
Realizing that something dangerous might attack, Syla quickly pulled her sword and held it tight, she then focused her senses and was able to detect where the enemies was coming from right before it ambushes her.
ROAR!
A bear the sized of a car appeared from the thick bushes, its brown fur was covered with mud and its jaw was wide open, ready to bite Syla while ripping her into shreds with its claws.
"So big!" Syla was initially startled by the bear size and she dodged a little bit late than what she intended, thankfully she still didn't suffer any injuries from the sudden ambush.
RAAGGHHMM!
The bear groaned in frustration when it saw its prey escaping from its sight and dodged the attack. Syla who had her sword ready within her grip then prepared for an attack, she jumped onto one of the tree branches above thag could support her weight and saw the bear looking up, it was about to charge into the tree so that Syla could fall right into its mouth.
But Syla was obviously way smarter than the bear, she waited until the bear ran towards the tree, intending to destroy it.
Boom!
The bear hit the tree and soon, a loud bang was heard, the tree which has a thick trunk immediately shattered into pieces and it began to fall down. As Syla saw the tree falling right before her eyes, she used the moment to jump down and disappeared from the bear's sight while its head was still facing the tree.
And with her strength and agility, Syla vigorously swung her sword at the bear's leg until it was cut off from its body.
The bear roared and turned its head towards Syla, enraged.
"Come on, you can do better." Syla said with a smile.