Hajba
The wind blew in every direction, rustling the leaves and branches of the trees. The footsteps of animals could be heard throughout the forest. Drops of water splashed onto the damp earth. The sky was cloudy. I thanked my god that it wasn't raining and that there was no fog inside the forest. The cold was frigid enough to make a lower-core mage uncomfortable, which wasn't the case for me, nor for Guapho or Neses.
We were examining some footprints. Guapho was trying to sense the scent, mana, and location of our target.
No matter how strong we were, we still had to remain quiet and hidden enough until we tracked down the mana beast.
"Did you find anything?" Neses asked Guapho in a whisper. He was concentrating on doing something.
I couldn't tell what was going through his head because of the differences in our species and physical abilities.
"Claro que si." He answered in the same tone as Neses. "Pero, yo no sé mucho. Parece que está teniendo una interferência mágica nos meus sentidos."
"How strange," I commented thoughtfully, trying to come up with something. "Your mana perception is the best in the village. The beast must be intelligent enough to hide its magical traces."
"Yo no encuentro nenhuma partícula de mana natural." Guapho spoke in confusion. He turned his head and tried to expand his perception even further, infusing mana into the ground in an attempt to break through the interference. "Todas las partículas de mana se mezclan con el ambiente."
"Save your strength, Guapho," Neses advised him. She picked him up in her arms. "Let's keep following the beast's footprints and evidence. Maybe we'll find something, and if we do, I feel like we'll need you with enough energy to help us."
"Okay," replied the discouraged duck.
Using apprentice-level magic, I infused mana into my body, just as Neses and Guapho did. We began walking, following the footprints and evidence.
With our enhanced eyes, we tried not to let any detail slip by. With our lighter steps due to the reduction in weight, we took care not to make any noise. With our more sensitive sense of smell and hearing, we tried not to miss any scent or sound. We tried to blend our presence and mana into the surroundings, becoming as invisible and undetectable as possible.
We remained silent as much as possible. After all, we had nothing to comment on, and we had to remain invisible. We followed the footprints and evidence for about 500 meters. We found nothing, and to make matters worse, the footprints ended. Leaving us adrift in the forest. Or rather, I would say we were disoriented by the results of our efforts.
Suddenly, the duck moved his head. Perhaps detecting something.
"Did you find something?" I whispered.
"No, not about the mana beast." His serious tone appeared as his terrible, forced accent disappeared. "I think not only has the beast become more intelligent, but I also think I have evidence to say that… someone is helping this beast."
"What?!" Neses exclaimed, quickly realizing her mistake and covering her mouth with one hand. Holding Guapho with the other, she tucked him under her arm.
"Seriously?" I asked thoughtfully. I placed my left hand on my chin and looked upward. "Maybe someone is secretly planning something and hiding their plans in the middle of the forest."
"What if this person"—Neses made quotation marks with her free hand—"didn't even know that there was a village in the middle of the forest?"
"Actually, what if this person is conducting an experiment with mana beasts and planned to test their experiments on the village?" Guapho said bluntly.
"Those are unfounded hypotheses," Neses denied.
"Unfounded, but not impossible," I commented casually. "I've heard through my information networks that a few days ago, another village was attacked by mana beasts. They were weak beasts, but still strong enough to wipe out a village of civilians."
"And how do they know they were lower-level mana beasts and not stronger ones?" Guapho asked, clarifying his doubts. Neses nodded in agreement.
"Simple. The beasts were found dead at the scene by the royal authorities." I made a deliberately dramatic pause. "According to information revealed after several autopsies by the kingdom's royal center for science and magic, the beasts had irregular DNA patterns, with some details distorted in their brains, indicating attempts at forced control."
"Do you think it's the same guy?" Neses asked doubtfully.
"I think it could be. But that would be quite a coincidence, and extremely bad luck."
"And if it is the same guy, it could be more dangerous," Guapho said. "If he has discovered how to control superior- or elite-level beasts, the village and settlement are in great danger. Maybe we need to evacuate the areas."
"Shit!" I cursed angrily, grinding my teeth hard.
"First, let's see if the hypothesis is actually true," I said, trying to calm Neses's anxiety. "Let's try to find more traces. If we don't find anything, we'll go back, evacuate the civilians, and call the royal guard to investigate."
"Do you plan to face the beasts and the individual if you find him?" she asked, astonished and perhaps somewhat doubtful.
"Of course not. I'm not an idiot," I retorted. "I'll initiate a fight with an ambush, trying to kill as many beasts as possible and hold off the rest while you go for help."
"Are we not enough help?" Guapho joined the conversation.
"That's not what I meant." I shook my head and arms, trying to correct my statement. "I was only thinking about the people. If any beast escaped or there were other locations with more beasts, it would be better to get the people to safety."
"We understand your point, but first we'll try to find more information before taking any action."
The sound of a branch breaking pulled us out of our conversation and directed our attention toward the noise. We ran as fast as we could to reach the source.
When we arrived, there was a mana beast: an Umantoos. An Umantoos is an almost-elite-level mana beast. In this world, if there are levels for cores, magic, and fighting styles, there are also levels for mana beasts. They begin with the following levels: inferior, intermediate, superior, almost-elite, and elite.
"Holy shit!" Guapho exclaimed, clenching his beak so he wouldn't scream.
"Did you find something?" I asked almost immediately.
"Yes. Let's follow this Umantoos. It will lead us to the beasts' lair," he stated confidently. "If we follow it and find its lair, I can use the energy of the lair to search for other similar vibrations and discover whether there are any more."
Leaving the duck aside, Neses and I looked at each other. We all nodded, agreeing to follow the plan to the letter until the end.
We followed the beast for quite some time. We observed its empty habits, its route, and became certain: it was being controlled by some kind of magic.
During its journey, the Umantoos went to a stream and drank a few sips of water. Shortly afterward, it went hunting, but it didn't eat the carcass immediately. Instead, it continued hunting for more food. Rather than the carcasses, it ate fruits, vegetables, and grains that it found along the way.
Then the beast turned around and returned along the path it had come from, as if it did this every day, to the point that it had memorized the route there and back. We followed it the entire way, and ever since we found it, we hadn't heard its characteristic growl even once. We could also notice an infected wound, yet not even a peep of pain.
It really was strange and uncertain. Now, however, the certainty and confirmation were definitive.
We reached the mouth of the lair. The presence of countless almost-elite-level beasts and below was noticeable, in addition to five mana signatures different from those of mana beasts. Human, perhaps.
"I'll begin," Guapho said.
He released a small amount of intermediate-level mana to form a mana aura for analyzing the energy signature of the lair.
He grunted a few times. Using intermediate-level magic, Neses and I formed a barrier around ourselves to reduce our presence even further and cancel out sound, preventing anything from escaping the barrier and alerting the beasts to our presence.
We saw beasts of all types and levels entering and leaving the lair, as if they were incredibly powerful and highly lethal ants.
The beasts followed one another in a line as if they were civilized.
"Whoever this mage is, or whatever magic they're using, it isn't a good sign," I said.
"Duh, of course it isn't, Hajba. We have to go back and evacuate the village and the settlement."
"Guys, I don't think we're going to be able to afford simply turning back," Guapho said after a few minutes.
"Why?" asked the woman holding him in her arms. "Tell us what you found."
"Well, I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"
"Tell us the good news," I said, raising an eyebrow out of curiosity.
"Don't tell us the bad news," Neses said after grunting impatiently.
"If there's no consensus, I'll make my own choice."
"Just… tell us, okay?" the woman sighed.
"Well, the good news is that there aren't any other lairs. The bad news is that, of the five human signatures in the lair, four belong to Ryo and his friends, and the other one might belong to the person behind all of this…