Realizing that Isis had been attacked, Altaïr's heart clenched. He instinctively stepped forward, ready to charge toward the sound.
Nadia quickly grabbed him.
She spoke rapidly. "The fog dulls our senses, so we can't judge the direction or distance of sounds accurately. This may be a trap by the Chameleos to force us to split up.
"Keep shouting so we can communicate. If she isn't badly hurt, we'll have her make her way toward us. If she's in poor condition, we'll all move toward her instead! Regrouping is our top priority!"
Altaïr ground his teeth and forced himself to remain calm. He shouted, "We're over here! Are you all right?!"
A muffled reply soon came from the other side of the dense fog. "I'm... all right! It just yanked away my Item Pouch!
"Hey! You again?!
"You're trying to steal my shield too?! Not... a chance! Let... go! Hah! It... snatched a... bag of Sleep Herb!"
The voice sounded indistinct, as though her head were submerged underwater, but Isis's spirited tone made it clear that she was unhurt.
Some of the tension in Altaïr's chest eased. He continued shouting, "Make your way toward us carefully! Watch out for another ambush!"
"Follow the muzzle flashes!" Nadia added, firing two shots into the tree trunk above them.
The dense fog blocked their vision, but the bright flashes from the shots pierced it well enough to mark their direction.
The fog-shrouded jungle was difficult to navigate. Even with voices and muzzle flashes to guide her, Isis needed several minutes to rejoin the others.
"Are you hurt?" Altaïr asked at once.
"I'm fine." Isis glared irritably at the large patch of slime coating her shield. "That thing never showed itself. It just stuck its tongue out of the fog and ambushed me twice.
"Then it went quiet. Maybe it left.
"Ugh! Is this saliva? Disgusting..."
As she spoke, Isis tore a broad leaf from a nearby shrub and tried to wipe the mucus from her shield.
Kral hurriedly stopped her. He pulled out an empty glass bottle and a scraper, then excitedly and carefully collected a sample of the Chameleos's saliva.
"This isn't the time for that, is it?" Nadia asked helplessly.
"No, no, this is important!" Kral insisted on finishing his work. After putting away the small bottle of saliva, he scraped more mucus from Isis's shield and spread it over a small piece of white paper.
He then lowered the multipurpose goggles resting on his head, switched them to magnification mode, and spent quite some time peering closely at the paper smeared with Chameleos saliva.
"I found tiny fragments of chitin, probably from large insects such as Vespoids or Hornetaurs.
"So it really does eat them, and it must have eaten some recently. Our theory was right!"
"All right."
Nadia sounded resigned, but even she had to admit that Kral's finding was useful.
"The fog is starting to clear," Altaïr suddenly remarked, still standing guard with his weapon ready.
Although everything around them remained a white blur, visibility had noticeably improved since a moment earlier.
The Hunters remained vigilant as the dense fog rapidly dispersed. Within five or six minutes, most of it had vanished, and the silent jungle gradually returned to normal.
After briefly testing her senses, Nadia said, "They're mostly back to normal. That thing must have left for now.
"It may not have gone far, though. It could still be lurking nearby and watching us."
"Even more devious than Boss, meow..." Sajji muttered.
Altaïr tapped Sajji on the head, then looked at Isis. "What did you lose? I thought I heard you say it stole a bag of Sleep Herb too."
Isis nodded. "Yeah. It tried to yank away my shield first, but when that didn't budge, it snatched the bag of Sleep Herb hanging from it instead.
"As for my other items... I only kept unimportant things in my Item Pouch, mostly rations, a few emergency potions, and a couple of Flash Bombs."
"Just as I thought. It went straight for the Item Pouch at your waist, so it clearly knows Hunters well. Most Hunters keep theirs in the same place.
"It even knows to target weapons... We'll have to be careful about that." Altaïr muttered to himself as he handed Isis some of his rations.
With her Talisman's Hunger effect, Isis grew hungry unusually quickly.
Her solution for preventing the Chameleos from stealing her rations again was simple: eat two of them right away...
"What do we do now?" Tala asked Nadia.
The encounter had given her an initial understanding of how dangerous and troublesome an Elder Dragon could be. A bank of dense fog alone had forced three powerful High Rank Hunters into a cautious defense.
Since the Chameleos might still be hiding nearby, Nadia did not dare send Tala and Kral away yet. "Stay with us for now, and keep your wits about you.
"If we get a chance to engage that Chameleos head-on and pin it down, retreat immediately. Understood?"
Tala nodded obediently, though what she had actually meant to ask was how they were supposed to find the Chameleos next...
"Let's examine the place where Isis was ambushed," Altaïr suggested. "That's the last place we know the Chameleos appeared. We may find some clues there."
The idea was sound, so Nadia naturally had no objection.
Isis had a good sense of direction. Relying on her memory of feeling her way through the fog, she quickly led the group back to the site of the ambush.
Without the fog interfering with her senses, Nadia once again demonstrated the astonishing powers of observation behind her epithet, "God's Eye."
One glance was enough for her to notice something and approach a bush.
A few of its leaves bore smears of transparent mucus, clearly left behind when the Chameleos extended its tongue.
Altaïr leaned closer to study the nearly invisible trail, which looked like a few drops of dew among the leaves. He could not imagine how Nadia had spotted it at a glance from twenty meters away.
Using the trail of mucus and the positions of Isis's footprints from the attack, the Hunters quickly deduced the general direction from which the Chameleos had ambushed her.
They searched the surrounding area and soon made another discovery.
They found a torn cloth bag, sticky with saliva, that appeared to have been chewed and spat out. Nearby lay several puddles of saliva mixed with pale blue Sleep Herb powder.
Isis could not help laughing.
The others wore similarly strange expressions as the same scene played out in their minds.
Hidden in the fog, the Chameleos had first used its tongue to steal Isis's Item Pouch. The rations and emergency potions inside were tasty treats to it, and even the Flash Bombs were made from Flashbugs, which in a sense placed them on the Chameleos's menu as well.
Still enjoying its meal, the Chameleos had stolen from her again. This time, it snatched the bag of Sleep Herb hanging from Isis's shield.
Chew, chew, chew, chew... Something's wrong. Ptooey! Ptooey!
Disappointed by the strange taste, the Chameleos had lost its appetite and left...
Altaïr crouched and used the tip of his Carving Knife to lift the tattered bag. "Very little remains. It must have swallowed most of the Sleep Herb powder.
"It spat some back out, but it must still have ingested a considerable dose, enough to put a large Flying Wyvern to sleep.
"Even with an Elder Dragon's greater resistance to toxins, that much should affect it to some extent."
Nadia looked in one direction, where a trail of irregular footprints crossed the ground.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Chameleos are masters of concealment. They can turn invisible and rarely leave traces such as footprints as they move through the jungle.
"This time is different. It left tracks, and they look unsteady."
Isis chimed in with a grin, "Like it's drunk!"