'One would probably expect such a high-stake mission to be exhausting, full to the brim with combat, and carry unbearable pressure.
In reality, though, that would be really inefficient.
Because this cursed forest seemed to constantly create new threats. There was no hope of ever making it safe, as long as the curse still existed. It would always have predators in every corner, looking for food and, more importantly, the Blessed elves.
A few experiments showed that cursed beasts would disregard food, mates, or their own safety if they had an opportunity to kill an elf. No other object brought out such aggravated actions from them. The general consensus was, however, that if they ever -God forbid !- experimented with a branch of the Tree, the same result would emerge.
Every creature in this forest tried its best to gather around it, after all.
All that is to say, every damned menace in these woods would beeline straight to their position, attracted by the 'smell' of their blessings, if they stayed in one place for too long during the day.
They couldn't allow themselves to pick unnecessary fights, because it would inevitably spiral into combat with the entire ecosystem !
Which is why they had a whole team member dedicated to precisely this.
Pando suddenly took a sharp left turn, and everyone followed without questions asked.
The squad had been walking at a respectable pace since the morning, and had barely stopped once to discuss the day ahead.
Every step was getting Baoba further and further from his beloved house.
'I should stop complaining, it'll only make this harder.'
The captain was very deep in thought, at the moment.
He was extremely conscious of how little there was to do now !
'I went over every single battle formation twice already, played three chess games, our gear is in perfect condition, I checked my knowledge of the animals in this area... And still got bored for two hours after that. We're all just walking !'
Needless to say, Baoba did not need a board or an opponent to play chess at this point. It was one of his favourite activities, and he very rarely had anything to play on or anyone to play with. This was all quite recent.
'Since it's going to be so long, I might need to teach them.'
"Captain." Pando stopped and turned to him.
"If we go north, we'll encounter a small horde. We can evade them, but that would entail a significant detour. If we engage, the still window will be of about ten minutes."
Baoba was almost shocked. He looked at his scout for a second, not knowing what to say.
'Oh, the privilege of having competent partners ! She actually gave every bit of important information, and even left out what I already know !'
A small, content smile appeared on his face. "For these, ten minutes is plenty. Only one type of monster resides in this area, and it is susceptible to surprise attacks. We'll go through."
"Finally !" Venus almost shouted. "I was actually dying from boredom !" She excitedly took out her imposing sword and swung it a few times.
Capcsium, still silent, took out some of her projectiles and smiled slowly, looking at them with sparkling eyes.
Urtica started doing some stretches, like he was just told to go on a run.
Baoba had been stunned once again.
'They're weird, right ? It's not normal to be that enthusiastic about risking their life.' He thought, growing more and more unsure as he spent time with this group.
He sook his head a few times, and his expression suddenly froze. The leader steeled his heart and resolve in mere moments.
'Sarcasm will not help me here. This is serious.'
His face completely emotionless, he turned towards his crew. "Formation 3. Capcsium, chuck a few grenades to cut their escape. Venus charges in, Urtica goes for kills."
Extending his hand forward, he created two finely sculpted bows and chucked one to Pando.
"We'll take assists."
The previously cheery mood was now stone cold. Eyes were focused, hands were steady. A single word, the only necessary one, was spoken.
"Roger !"
***
Everyone was in position. The monsters were in sight. As predicted this was a small group of five napes. This primate species had a huge upper body and very weak legs. Consequently, they lacked mobility and primarily lunged at their opponents to kill them. A single swipe of their huge clawed arms was enough to kill an unguarded person, and their thick fur and dense muscles provided a good mesure of defense.
Therefore, blunt force and direct confrontation was not the plan here.
At a sign of her captain, Capcsium threw a few glowing deep red wooden balls a bit further than the center of the group. They landed quietly, and as the first nape came to investigate, suddenly exploded into a torrent of flames.
The two beasts further from the group caught fire immediately.
'Two down.'
As they fled in the opposite direction of the blast radius, Venus shot out from a nearby bush and threw a terrifying punch. Her body was emitting a faint lime green mist and seemed much more imposing than it already was. Still running forwards, she landed an uppercut at the second one, and threw a roundhouse kick at the last.
That last one had had time to react, though. The attack was blocked, but before the counter, an arrow loged itself in the ape's shoulder.
Urtica and Capcsium were close behind. The former had took off his black gloves, and his silver shortsword was glowing purple as he ran impressively fast towards his still dazed target.
The blade plunged deep the creature's side, and it instantly started convulsing.
Meanwhile, Capcsium, with a devilish grin, took out two wax balls and threw them in her nape's direction. The projectiles melted midair and even started to have the regular kind of red glow. As the now completely liquid wax reached the nape's eyes, it screeched and instinctively tried to wipe it off.
At this point, Urtica had enough time to come and touch the ape's back, paralysing it in seconds.
Venus was still fighting her opponent, with great success. She dodged a swipe, hit a gut punch, knee, and jaw direct, but the beast just shook off the mighty blows.
Seemingly disappointed, she took out her dagger and cut its throat.
The two flaming napes were long dead, too.
In his tree, Baoba was looking impressed.
'Wow, I litterally couldn't even do anything..'
That one arrow was shot by Pando, a few trees away. She'd had a better angle to take it, it wasn't that he had been caught by speed !
Baoba looked at the ten arrows he had produced and couldn't help but feel a little silly.
'I know this was the exact plan, but when do plans ever go right ?"
The pressure had long died down.
He jumped down from his tree and hurried to manifest a jet of water to quell the dangerous flames.
'This was 30 seconds, tops.. I had anticipated worse, and was well prepared to have it harder than I thought..'
Suddenly, the dream from last night popped into his head.
He raised his concentration a bit, and examined the corpses.
'Dead, dead, definitely dead, just finished his seizure, convulsions dying down... No threats there.'
Pando was looking perfectly serene and undistracted.
'What else could there be ?'
And then it hit him.
Nothing.
It was over.
It went about as well, if not better, than their first encounter, and now, no threats remained.
Still unconvinced, he approched Venus and smacked her on the head.
"Next time, use your weapons from the beginning, you big oaf ! It went well in the end, but you have to finish them as fast as possible if you don't want us to die."
She lowered her head. "Yes... I just wanted to see if I could take one bare handed."
And she actually could. Undeniably, If these two had been alone, she would have come out on top. This freakish girl was actually stronger than a gorilla.
"I'll admit that was impressive, but still. If you wanna test your limits, do it in your free time."
He now adressd the whole group.
"I'll harvest some of their stuff, to be safe, then we're off. You get two minutes of rest."
"Do we really need to, though ?" Capcsium picked up a few rocks and threw them in her pouch. "This was even easier than the first one, we can just get going."
Venus had already cleaned her dagger, and as she put it away, she agreed, "Yeah, that way we'll at least be bored walking."
As Baoba was collecting a few teeth, he got a little annoyed.
"See that ? You somehow found a way to occupy yourselves. Now keep that up for 90 more seconds and you'll survive."
With that, he ripped out a long claw from his corpse and instantly discarded it. Then, he made it appear again to check if that counted.
Urtica had already put his gloves back on. He was currently examining the body of one of the napes he had killed.
He added pensively : "It's fine, you can never be too cautious..."
The two girls sat down and reluctantly accepted the order.
The rest of the break passed just like that, in silence.
'Damn right you can't. That's the whole reson we're not going to fight the Lord right away !'
There was no doubt, their target was the strongest in these woods. The lack of information, however, was a bit more worrying. For all they knew, it could be a dragon, a tree, or even an ant colony. To have a sliver of a chance against Him, they would have to be relatively static for a while, to study what kind of monster it is.
Doing this that far away from Medio and the mother Tree was going to be quite perilous, to say the least. So they needed to take all the precautions they could get.
Baoba got up, and broke the silence.
"Let's go."