Kaio's POV
'Sometimes I think Max is more at risk of dying from friendly fire than from monsters.'
I thought, watching the scene that reminded me of one of the Looney Tunes fight scenes.
A little explanation: some might consider Mav and Cali's reaction a bit... exaggerated. And I would totally agree... that is, if you were never the type who was forced to do all the homework and/or schoolwork and left the rest to "play around."
Yes, in essence, that was basically it, this knowledge that should have been "more general knowledge" (although, to be fair, leaning towards those who were specialized in the subject of the undead) that was obtained in the "classes" promoted by the temples.
The fact that Max didn't know this simply meant that he either wasn't paying attention in class (even though apparently the "classes" were given by the Temple of the Stone Fists, of which Cali is a part, and she herself seems to have participated in planning the "classes") or that he was blatantly copying everything from his brother (an obvious reason why Mav would be annoyed).
...
Well... it's... humm, understandable?.
"'.....'
[.....]
'Sys?'
[Yes, Kaio.]
'I know I shouldn't be too biased towards the challengers and all that."
[However...]
'...Would it really be favoritism if I used a little of my power to prevent any creature from getting within, I don't know, 500 meters of them?'
[I think that would be a wise decision.]
'Hmm, good that we agree.'
I didn't even need to confirm with Sys to know that our concern was the same, not that the monsters or animals would take advantage of the confusion and accidentally kill Connor's group, but that Mav and Cali would slaughter anyone who interfered in the... tutoring session they were giving Max.
'I don't know whether to be grateful or unhappy that they beat me before. Will they be the same when I meet them again?'
Grumpy's soul wondered, watching the scene alongside his creators.
******************
Connor's POV
In the end, it took almost 5 minutes in this mess for the three of them to calm down (well, Mav and Cali to be fair), and with that over, we continued our exploration.
It didn't take long before we entered a large swamp with several flooded areas and a ground that was an immense quagmire of mud.
Avoiding the flooded areas or the mudflats that seemed more dangerous wasn't that difficult, but the terrain was tricky, and staying firm and upright on it was. It wasn't once or twice that I almost fell, that Max definitely fell, and that on more than one of those occasions he took either Mav or Cali with him (I don't doubt it was payback for the... forced education they put him through before).
Maybe 20 minutes after entering this flooded area, we found a large lake in the swamp, too deep to walk in, and with our weapons and armor we wouldn't be able to continue. But as if foreseeing this, it seemed the ordeal had prepared a path for us to continue. But not very inviting.
It was a wooden walkway, suspended over (apparently) still water, or rather, a series of bridges and half-submerged palisades along the water. A precarious and hardly reliable path, but the only one available. The planks were old and corroded by the humidity, and looked like they would break under our weight, yet they remained standing.
The worst part wasn't the wood the truck was made of, it was the noises it made as we walked; it seemed the environment itself amplified the sound, making our nerves even more frayed.
In this environment that somehow managed to combine silence with sound (mainly from insects), the sound of the planks was like the scratching of fingernails on a blackboard, like some monks in temples did to keep their students quiet.
Occasionally, there were sections where the path had collapsed, and we had to walk through icy water. Fortunately, the water only reached our knees at most (in Anna's case, almost her waist).
However, we had to fight off creatures resembling large lizards with narrow snouts that were experts at ambushes, at least twice. Max almost had his arm ripped off the first time we encountered them; since then, whenever we passed through those areas, I checked with the utmost attention for any slightly different sign.
Personally, what impressed me most about this place so far were these lizards that, even with my [sharp vision (intermediate I)] and [search (intermediate II)], still managed to remain (for the most part) hidden among the logs floating in the water.
The others tried to cheer me up, saying it was normal that I couldn't find them easily, considering it was the first time we'd entered this environment and we had no information about these creatures.
But just as Anna worried about finding a picture of massive money for her family, I worried about being able to anticipate the dangers for my friends.
'~aaaahhhh hhhaaaa~. At least now that we've defeated them, some of the information must have appeared at the entrance. Probably.'
This swamp and flooded area were fortunately (or unfortunately) not the only discoveries; along the way, we occasionally found what appeared to be the traces of partially submerged houses. Besides some strange statues made of both metal and stone, we also found a couple of chests near these statues, open and ready to be taken.
Inside them were some gold coins, just as Anna wanted, but for very obvious reasons she wasn't happy to find them. After all, it's very likely that these coins were offered as tribute to the statues, probably representing gods. But we weren't sure, since the inscriptions on them were too worn even for Cali to understand.
Just for verification, we took 5 coins to be analyzed later, and if no problems were found, each of us would keep one. If they were, Anna guaranteed that each person would receive the equivalent value in discounts on products from her family's stores.
The further we advanced, the more of these submerged houses appeared, and the number of trees with a more "morbid" appearance increased. Not only because they resembled dead trees, but also because skeletal trees, or severed limbs, appeared from time to time.
None of us looked at them for very long, especially when we saw that some of these trees didn't have limbs or skeletons, but entire corpses with varying degrees of putrefaction. Sometimes they were stuck to the trunks, sometimes they hung from branches like morbid corpses.
Like a cruel joke of the Trial, the more we looked towards the branches, the more easily the fog dissipated, revealing other hanging bodies. Some enemies appeared when we reached this part of the trees, but we immediately agreed on one thing: it was best to get away from the trees before fighting any of them.
Fortunately, the area where these trees appeared was small; if we had hurried a little, we could have gotten out of it in about 3 minutes. And the enemies that appeared could have been left behind.