Chapter 34: Chapter 34

 Sveck stepped out of the small boat and looked at the forest in front of him. He sighed deeply and turned towards the old man who had shipped him here. “Thanks for the ride grandpa.”

The old man tipped his farmer hat in his direction and pushed the boat onto the river with his wooden pole. “Ya old yourself! Just find out what’s happening in that damn forest and be careful lad.”

With that the man turned around and began to ride down the water. Sveck watched for a moment longer before he faced the forest again. 

He licked his canines in annoyance. Why was it that even after he had retired from the adventurers guild he had to do things like this?

He really didn’t want to deal with the Xanai of the barrier forest, especially now that something had pissed them off for the first time in decades and had to do it after the fall of stars for some crazy reason. Falling stars were always a bad omen.

The last time the Xanai had been agitated they had attacked the most outer frontier town and destroyed and killed everything. The only proof of the town's existence was the dungeon that had been formed and now spewed out food for the damn moth’s every two weeks.

Besides him though, there was nobody capable enough to deal with this problem in this small stretch of land that wasn’t part of the local military. Sveck was the only maxed out level 10 person this far out and the baron who owned this land refused to send out his own men. The barrier forest was a breeding ground for dangerous beasts and sometimes the things from the other side that were even worse entered the land of giant trees. Losing a soldier here would be a waste of resources.

Well, there wasn’t much Sveck could do besides proofing his skill as a former silver rank. Getting there had been a true pain, though mainly because you had to learn the old language. A good thing too, or a lot of adventurers would die inside dungeons just because they couldn’t read and understand the riddles they had to solve to escape traps or hints written on the walls.

He began running through the last bits of normal forest towards the hills and giant trees in the distance. The first thing he would check was the area around the dungeon. That something had come out of there that was able to kill a Xanai was possible. The things didn’t need civilization to survive, only to grow at a very fast pace.

Sveck raced through the forest with an agility you wouldn’t expect from someone with such a muscular body. He had built that up during his days as an adventurer and his strength stat only added more to the look.

Sveck passed the first barrier tree and became as vigilant as he could. Despite the forest’s extremely useful effect it wasn’t known for that to most of the people. They only knew the stories about the alien animals that appeared inside or from beyond the forest. That the forest was actually increasing the habitable land of this planet by a lot wasn’t common knowledge.

The planet’s history not being too long and not having been recorded by the first inhabitants might be a possible reason for that. Sveck didn’t care about it too much, he wasn’t one for all the science stuff and couldn’t create crazy stuff like this forest. He would leave that to the smart people who tried to understand how to do the same stuff as the origin herself.

Sveck reached the back of the first hill and looked around the area with his mana sense. The amount of dungeon critters in the area was quite large which meant there had been a dungeon break in the last 3 or so days. Most dungeon monsters didn’t survive longer than that in nature and those that did were the truly scary ones. This dungeon shouldn’t be able to create something like that yet however.

Sveck reduced his pace and entered the hilly region. He didn’t need to worry about being attacked by most things. Animals were generally able to tell if something was dangerous with their instincts, something that most people he knew could not do. Behind secure walls a skill like that wasn't needed.

He continued his scouting mission and the first signs of Xanai activity appeared. Large piles of their feces were here and there and where the rain had already washed away the shit, only bones remained. It was not a nice place to be in and the smell made sure everyone agreed with Sveck in this regard.

Having inherited the good nose of his mother did not help ease his suffering. It was in times like these that Sveck wished he had become a full lizard man like his dad and not a halfbreed somewhere in between lizard and cat-kin. There was nothing he could do about this though, so he endured his nose and soldiered onwards in the direction of the dungeon.

Hopefully the reason for this mission would be there so Sveck could return to his lovely little cottage. If not he would contact the guy of the adventurers guild and ask for further instructions. He didn’t want to go deeper into the barrier forest than necessary.

An hour or so later he reached the entrance to the dungeon, a wide staircase into the ground, but his luck wasn’t with him, at least not fully. There was a spot with Xanai silk on the stairs and the stuff was worth a lot so without further ado Sveck began to harvest as much of it as possible. His bag of holding that he had gotten as loot in a dungeon like this should have enough space for a bit of silk still.

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The next two hours he then spent scouting the whole of the hilly region, but didn’t have any success here either, so he searched himself a quiet spot and sat down to concentrate on the damn communication spell he had to cast.

You had to learn this spell before advancing to the copper rank and Sveck had failed the exam three times, because spells were a true menace. He just had a really hard time connecting the formations and runes to a perfect picture in his head and preferred punching a lot more than thinking.

A few minutes after Sveck had reported his findings the guy answered and a neatly scribbled message written in orange appeared before him. “Stay in the area for the next three days and observe the Xanai during their active times. The guildmaster wants a report every night to satisfy the local lord and if nothing changes or happens in this time, you are free to return home. Be vigilant.”

Sveck sighed. It was not what he had wanted, but at least he didn’t have to go and search actively. As long as the Xanai didn’t spot him this should go by smoothly and he could just view it as some kind of nature trip.

He spent some time on preparing his camp before he cooked himself some tea with a small enchanted pot. Sveck was used to sleeping in random places and as long as he had his enchanted tent with him everything was fine. The thing had a noise dampening and camouflage enchantment and had been a good partner over his years, especially that one time he took a chick from behind in the middle of a marketplace. These had been good times.

Sveck took his cup and made himself comfortable. The only thing he had to do now was wait and he would be home in no time again. He stared at the canopies of the barrier trees and sank into the depth that was his memory. 40 years was quite a long time.

It took until the sun began to set for him to get out of his reminiscing mood. Dusk was the dawn of the Xanai and Sveck had to eat something before that. During the night he would have to stay still in case a moth was near and couldn't eat because of that. 

Getting surprised by a moth you hadn't seen was pretty much the worst that could happen to you, especially because only the old ones hunted in silence. The young and inexperienced moths were the ones that screamed the whole time, thinking that nothing could harm them. They were also the reason for most of the Xanai rages in history and the one that had destroyed the frontier city.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Sveck took some jerky out of his bag of holding and began to chew uncermonically on it. Compared to the tea he just had, this was a disappointing dinner, but he didn't have anything enchanted to preserve food for longer. Such devices were a lot more expensive than regular bags of holding or his heating pot.

With the hard meat still in his mouth he packed away his tea set and entered his tent. There he laid out a blanket and made himself as comfortable as possible while still looking out of the tent. In a normal forest Sveck would sleep inside of a sleeping back, but here he would neither sleep during the night, nor limit his movement capability out of his free will during this time, in case something decided to eat him.

Having prepared himself he settled down and watched and listened to the activities of the barrier forest. With the sun having disappeared almost fully behind the horizon the young Xanai started to spread out through the forest and made sure everyone knew they were angry. Most of their cries came from deeper inside the forest, which meant that Sveck's location was only sparsely visited by them.

He observed it all very carefully during the night. Knowing that the one who caused this was somewhere further inside of the forest and with that farther away from any civilization was already a big relief for Sveck. He could have seen himself being delegated to defend some mostly unknown frontier village otherwise.

Time passed by agonizingly slowly for him, but he knew how to keep himself focused, something you learned when your life depended on it. That every minute nothing happened was a good minute for him might have been a help too.

When the sun began to climb back up from being just behind the horizon Sveck was sure that nothing would happen anymore. The Xanai would go back to their nest any minute now so he closed his tent, activating the noise dampening enchantment and relaxed. He closed his eyes. The report could wait until he had slept.

Sveck was just about to drift into his dreams when a collective screech of outrage went through the forest. Instantly fully awake he sat up and opened the slit of his tent. The sun was halfway up over the horizon already and everything got slowly illuminated properly again. The screeching continued, but became more and more distant in the next minute.

Sveck fell backwards on his back and groaned. Couldn't whatever had just killed another of the young ones waited until the next night?

Sveck looked up at the tent fabric in trepidation. He would stay here a while wouldn't he?

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