Just like on the first day, the Forest of Thorns was a difficult terrain to traverse.
Rosella and I were now leading the way together, while Kyle, our healer, was just behind us.
Anton and Sun, his bodyguard, were bringing up the rear and were completely serious.
To someone watching from the outside, we looked like a completely normal group. Sometimes we talked about which way to go, tried to figure out where we were, took breaks to hydrate, and so on.
However, we humans have an almost innate ability to sense when something is wrong.
First of all, the pieces hadn't fit together from the start.
The Church of the Golden Halo had assigned a completely inexperienced instructor in the fields of exploration and combat to guide two important young people — the heir to the Beutynes Empire and the indirect heir to the Brotherhood of Fire Guild.
The information I wanted most in the world was the identity of the person who had made that decision.
On top of that, the worst and most suspicious part was the death of Hawklight, our instructor. The horizontal cut across his stomach made by a two-handed sword like the ones wielded by the Hollow Knights should have ripped Hawklight's guts out, but it didn't.
If it had been a glancing blow, it wouldn't have been enough to kill Hawklight in just a few hours.
All of this led me to believe that Hawklight was killed by a smaller weapon, such as a knife or a dagger.
I hadn't found any monsters in the Sun Temple Dungeon that carried such weapons or anything even remotely similar, which led me to suspect that it hadn't been a monster that had done this to Hawklight.
Anton had been with me the whole time, as had Rosella and Kyle.
Therefore, the only one left for me to suspect was Sun, the woman Anton Wylxes' father had hired to protect him.
The only problem with believing this possibility was not that she had been hired to protect Anton, but that the only weapon she carried was a sword in its sheath.
It was a sword usually hidden beneath her long black cloak, but it was the size of a common sword and logically fit into the same sheath style as the Hollow Knights' swords.
Of course, nothing prevented Sun from hiding a knife in her boot or using some class magic I wasn't familiar with, but that was information I couldn't include in a fair analysis at the moment.
The only thing I was sure of was that if Sun was Hawklight's assassin, nothing would stop her from killing us too, at any moment, for some mysterious reason.
After all, why else would she let us continue toward our goal?
The details surrounding this event were vague, but one thing I was sure of: unless I made a major mistake, both Rosella and I would leave this forest alive and mostly unscathed.
After all, Brandon and Rosella usually only died during large-scale events in The Journey Beyond, events I still needed to prepare for.
In a way, knowing about the future brought me peace.
I stopped glancing at Sun from the corner of my eye and followed the map to Rosella's Roots.
About two hours after leaving the Sun Temple Ruins, we finally reached the part of the Thorns Forest where Angélica's Roots were located.
In the world of Journey to the Beyond, called Aland, Angelicas didn't exist.
They weren't plants known and sold in flower shops like on Earth, but the Angelicas of the Tower of Babel also weren't like the Angelicas I knew.
On Earth, Angelica was the name of a herb from which a flower with six white petals bloomed.
It grew in both vacant lots and the gardens of the world's wealthiest people.
However, the small herb on Earth appeared much larger in the Tower of Babel — literally flowering trees.
Each branch of an Angelica tree produced a white flower and, like Japan's cherry blossoms, created a recognizable carpet of fallen petals beneath it.
So, when we reached the Bosque das Angélicas marked on the map, we recognized it immediately—without even checking the map.
"Wow... it's beautiful." This time, it was I who expressed admiration for the place.
I wasn't the only one who was impressed.
The Forest of Thorns had been stunning, but the Angelica Forest captivated our senses in a different way.
The air itself seemed to exude calm as the Angelica petals floated gently to the ground.
Kyle crouched and picked up a handful of Angelica petals.
Noticing Rosella's gaze, he laughed awkwardly and said,
"My dear grandmother used to say that Angelica tea has powerful healing properties for the soul."
Rosella covered her mouth to suppress a laugh before turning away.
"Hey! My grandma Matild knows a lot about plants! We even have a garden on our rooftop!"
Hearing this, I finally realized how sentimental, intelligent, and stubborn Kyle truly was—raised by a loving grandmother.
"Come on, guys. We're on a mission," Anton said, stepping forward and drawing his sword.
"Let's just pull these roots out and get out of this boring thicket."
Without waiting for our response, Anton plunged his sword into the ground near the base of an Angelica tree.
If there had been any danger in removing Angelica roots, someone would have stopped Anton. But as Kyle had said, Angelica was only known as a healing herb for tea.
Anton pried at the soil with his sword, lifting it slightly. That was enough to reveal part of the many Angelica roots—which grew downward as much as they did upward.
The root appeared yellowish and was easy to cut with a sharp sword like Anton's.
However, as Anton bent down to pick up the root, he realized the yellowish root was actually yellowish teeth.
Startled, he tried to back away, but a human arm shot out from beneath the ground and grabbed him by the collar.
When I saw the hand, my first reaction was to look at Sun. To my surprise, she looked just as shocked as Rosella and Kyle.
Her right hand instinctively went to the sheath on her left hip—but when she reached for it, she grasped nothing.
Sun's shocked eyes watched as the man who had grabbed Anton leapt from the ground, holding both Anton and her sword—a black-bladed weapon, single-edged like a katana but with a different hilt.
The mysterious man was large, with tanned skin, wide eyes, a crooked yellowish grin, and perfect biceps.
There wasn't a single hair on his head, but the thick hair on his forearms more than made up for it.
"Ghahaha! You're so stupid — so incredibly stupid!" the man said in a harsh voice.
"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered to myself, staring at the man. I recognized him, of course.
The infamous Blackpearl was a bounty hunter with high rewards in the three largest nations of the west—the Kingdom of Durtch, the Kingdom of Felsearia, and the Flok Empire.
He was responsible for massacres in all three kingdoms, and official reports claimed he was hiding somewhere on the lower floors of the Tower of Babel.
As most of the laws of the kingdoms did not apply within the Tower of Babel—especially in villages and towns not under the influence of the Church—there was no way to hunt him down.
"To think that this guy would cross my path... Shit, I'm not the protagonist, and yet problems keep coming my way."
Blackpearl placed Sun's sword on Anton's neck and pointed at Sun. "Hey, woman, you're the strongest among all of you here, so you know what that means—listen to me."
Sun swallowed hard and nodded, making Blackpearl's smile grow even wider.
"You're going to take that cute girl over there and hand her over to me," he said, pointing his chin at Rosella. "After that, I'll let the boy go. Your mission is to protect him, isn't it? If you listen to me, you'll have your reward in your hands by the end of the day."
"If you want me to go with you, you'll have to kill me!" Rosella shouted, drawing her sword.
Blackpearl pressed the blade of his sword against Anton's neck. "Fine. It doesn't matter if you're dead or alive. I just need your head."
The way he said that to Rosella and the way his eyes showed no sign of fear sent shivers down my spine. I was facing a real killer, but in truth, this was nothing new to me. It felt almost the same as being in the same room as Hunter Ruse.