Graham moaned as he looked at the pile of bodies.
“Leylacs got them.”
Graham shook his head in pity at the corpses.
“Leylacs? What’s that?” Jinpok asked as the group was curious.
“They are swamp monsters the size of humans. They have green, slimy skin and a distinct smell…”
“Smell?”
“Yes. This foul stench is not only from the rotting corpses. It’s partly due to their lingering odor.”
“Oh, I see. It sure stinks.”
“Yeah. The worst part is that this smell only slightly less.”
Graham proceeded to brief them on what he knew about Leylacs. He was the guide for the party, but he wasn’t doing much aside from giving them some information, so he was glad that he had a chance to do more.
“Let’s go that way.”
After a long talk, Graham took the lead and the rest followed. Their travel path was quite a comfortable one. Graham was a good guide that knew many shortcuts and that allowed them to avoid needless fights with monsters. After moving for a few days, Joonbum realized that Graham had also been guiding them to avoid areas where hunters and mercenaries were fighting against other monsters.
The Khalodian Empire had not yet explored this Great Forest. They made an earlier attempt by sending in drones, but it had failed as the drones were taken out by flying monsters. They had also tried using armed helicopters, but that failed too, as the number of flying monsters were too numerous.
Anyway, out of the many monsters from myths, dragons were one of the most sought after monsters known to reside within the Great Forest.
“Let’s get away from the area. The Leylac smell is almost gone, so other monsters will come for the bodies. Let’s head down here; there seems to be a creek. We can rest there.”
Graham was very good at finding places and spots within the forest. The party soon found a small stream. As they got to the water, Jinpok carefully lowered the man on his back. It was the man that they had patched up. His wounds were healed but he had lost too much blood and was still unconscious.
“The water smells bad. It doesn’t seem to be good to use on wounds. I can smell various monsters and animals. And feces.”
Everyone frowned as Doral said the water was not fit to drink. Joonbum spoke.
“Let’s start a fire and boil it. We’re not wounded, so we’ll clean using the water first, and clean again with boiled water later.”
“Yeah. I need to wash.”
Jinpok began gathering wood for the fire. Soon, a small fire was started and after the water was boiled, they let it cool down before they all began to clean themselves.
“Aaaaargh!”
When the party was about to start eating, the man woke up, seemingly in a panic as he screamed in fear. After a while, he calmed down and became silent and looked at the party.
All of them just looked at him silently as the man finally laid eyes on Graham.
“Oh! You’re finally awake. I really hoped that you would survive.”
End of Chapter
