Survive in the parallel world, please!

219 Pick up the scent, please! part After Helena left the clearing, the sun gave way to what seemed to be the longest sunset I’ve experienced so far. We were speechless, time seemed to be frozen still until Risa let out a long sigh.

“Whew, that was something. I assume she was your friend.”

“Things are a lot more complicated than that miss Risa.”

“Things are always complicated Ryu, I’m just grad you’re alive and well.”

I was just about to say the same thing to her, but after taking a glance at her stumps It felt completely out of place.

“She’s crazy, why didn’t she come back with us? what does she think she’s doing playing hero in another country? If she asked us nicely we could have gone together, why did they have to go and force us!?”

“Don’t be like that, Luke, she has her own problems.”

“But she’s an arch bishop, or priestess, or whatever! It should be easy as cake for her to heal Risa, why didn’t she!?”

“Listen, I know you’re mad, but try to get on her shoes. If I was on her situation I may have done the same thing. Why do something when it brings me no benefit? Even more, she could have been in danger, after all it seemed as if you guys wanted to attack her.”

.....

“That’s precisely what I was trying to do, but those enforcers were really strong, there was nothing we could do to defend ourselves even when armed, now we don’t even have our weapons.”

“Yeah, they even took my warhammer.”

“By the way, what happened to Lea?”

“We’ve been in the forest all this time, it was difficult for us and she did her best to help us, but she was only a novice. In the end, those guys caught us by surprise and, of course, they took out the healer first.”

“Did they at least tell you why didn’t they bring her over too?”

“It seems she was excommunicated from the church, they didn’t kill her but didn’t help her either. She must be bleeding out somewhere.”

Luke said with a surprisingly calm voice.

“Then we got to find her before it’s too late.”

Our new group consisted in a dual class warrior archer, a warrior, a thief, a succubus, an amarok and me, an F class adventurer who used to wield a cursed sword with extraordinary powers, but now we’re all unarmed. Risa’s sword is still in the amarok saddle and I guess Bob would be the only one able to wield it properly, but hopefully we won’t need to resort to violence.

I have plenty of skills that would allow me to detect an enemy from afar and as long as Bob doesn’t start yelling weird stuff, we should be able to get to Lea undetected.

Luke led the way as he was used to, of course an archer would have been a better choice to move through the dense vegetation, but we couldn’t afford to let Risa in the front position. After being healed such deep wounds, Bob, Luke and Risa were fatigued.

Whenever someone received any sort of healing, the body consumed whatever energy it has, and it’s necessary to rest a while. In Bob and Luke’s case it wasn’t as bad, even though they had gruesome looking wounds, as heroes they have an incredible endurance. But Risa’s case was different, strong as she was, she spent a long time in the forest with her stumps only partially healed. To say it was a miracle her wounds didn’t became infected wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

“Luke, are you sure you know where you’re going?”

“Shut up Risa, I’m doing my best”

“Wow, calm down dimwit, I’m only saying that because I’m sure we’ve been here before. It seems to me we’re going in circles.”

Now that Risa pointed it out loud, It does seem like we’ve been through here before. I wonder how is it possible that she noticed it, yet none of us did.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s impossible for me to get lost, Lea should be over there somewhere”

Luke sneered, but his confidence was quickly shattered once he looked at the ground and noticed the foot tracks on the ground. His face turned pale and he placed a hand over his eyes trying to hold back his tears, Luke is clearly off his game.

“I have an Idea, do you guys have something that belonged to Lea? anything?”

“We don’t we lost most of our stuff while we were trying to survive in the woods, and the rest when the enforcers caught us.”

Bob shrugged.

“Well then, I guess there’s nothing to lose by trying. Hey Famine, can you smell any other human in this forest?”

Famine turned to see me, but his tail was stiff pointing to the ground.

“I could be wrong, but it seems like a ‘no’ to me”

Risa giggled. How can she keep her positive attitude even without hands, I knew she was a strong woman, but I didn’t know just how strong her mind was. I don’t know If I could ever become like that.

Just as I was about to lose hope, something came out from my clothes. It was a dim light that floated around shyly.

“is that a fairy!?”

Risa yelled in awe.

“Yeah, the goblins gave it to me to find their leader.”

“I’m sorry, the what now!?”

“Yeah, the goblins.”

“Are you for real!? did you side up with them?”

Luke yelled angrily.

“Come on guys, why the sudden mood shift? what’s the matter?”

“Dude, the goblins tried to kill us so many times! They were the ones who caught Lea!”

The silence of the forest was broken by the sudden movement of the bushes nearby and I could feel several presences getting closer.

Less than a minute after we were completely surrounded by green little creatures, one of them held a glass vial with a fairy inside. My own fairy went over there and poked at the jar with its head.

My companions where left flabbergasted, even more so when the goblins knelt in front of me and the one holding the jar spoke in a deep voice.

“Chieftain Ryu, we’re glad you made it. we need your help to find Bardun”