53: You don’t need words with a real friend, right?

The sound of water splashing echoed through the dark underground passage.

"Craft! Turn right there! After the bend, there’s a staircase—go down it!"

"Got it! Heyo! Black Dragon Express!"

In the underground tunnels beneath Golden Dune—woven like a woven mesh— one horse raced forward.

My Black Dragon Express.

Not that it was a proper sewer yet—still fresh in operation, designed to flood with massive amounts of water, and thanks to a basic filtration system, it barely stank at all.

The Black Dragon Express cut through the current, waist-high and surging, without so much as a flinch.

A normal horse wouldn’t have made it through.

We tore through the three-dimensional maze of underground sewers, full speed.

On the horse: me, Leifan, and Ed.

Good thing Leifan and Ed are small—three of us riding wasn’t a problem.

Without Leifan leading, we couldn’t have cut through this maze of underground tunnels.

But he claims he’s memorized every turn. That’s insane.

“Left after the stairs ahead!”

“Got it!”

“Craft brother… me…”

“Shut up! You’ll bite your tongue!”

“Y-yeah…”

“Don’t worry! Leave everything to me! After we get out, you handle the directions!”

“Yeah!”

The black horse tore through the dark, us racing straight for our destination.

◆

Meanwhile, Raidock and the others were in this mess.

“Wait, wait, wait… No way.”

“What in the world is that?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“…Ngh…”

“The forest of demons is just what it says—demonic.”

Raidock and the others crept deeper into the forest, careful not to be seen, searching for signs of the cocatrice.

They’d taken a long detour, so they hadn’t run into the creature—yet that made them uneasy. Like they’d somehow been avoided on purpose.

In the thick, shadowed woods, they shoved their bodies into the undergrowth, eyes locked on it, nerves taut.

Deep in the forest, where the cocatrices had clearly multiplied, unnatural trees stood in rows.

Trees in a forest? Normal. But these… they reeked of wrongness.

Their branches twisted and coiled, long and black as pitch, each one leaking a thick, oily mist into the air.

Not much area, but the wrongness spread, radiating from the trees.

“Maybe…?”

Bardack, the mage, muttered under his breath.

I heard from my master once—there’s a plant that drives monsters mad. Don’t know the exact details, but maybe… could it be…?

“Wait! Quiet! Don’t move!”

Soral, the ranger, hissed sharply.

We all dropped low, tense.

A few cactris emerged from deep in the woods.

“Don’t want to fight here… if we’re quiet, we’ll slip by.”

“Got it.”

“And keep an eye on that mist—like poison fog—circling those black trees. Everyone drink Craft’s universal tonic.”

“Hmph.”

Raidock and the others held their breath, watching the cactris.

The giant birds wandered the black woods for a while, then began nibbling at the surrounding plants.

Closer look—trees weren’t the only ones blackened. The underbrush, too, was pitch-black.

The cocatrice was devouring that eerie, twisted branch with wild abandon.

"Chewing on it... huh?"

"Looks like it."

"Can't imagine why it'd even want to eat something like that."

"More like it didn't even glance at the other plants."

Bad feeling.

That was the shared thought among them all.

After what felt like an eternity of unbearable tension, the cocatrices began acting strangely. The large birds, which had seemed relatively calm before, suddenly started screaming and thrashing about.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa..."

The excited cocatrices ran around for a while, then abruptly bolted straight ahead.

"That way's toward the town."

"What in the world is going on?"

After double-checking that no monsters lurked nearby, they cautiously stepped into the black woods.

Closer inspection revealed most of the trees had been snapped off mid-trunk.

"What the hell?"

"…Look at this!"

Soral picked up something green lying on the ground.

A thing no bigger than a small shield, glowing with a smooth emerald sheen—Raidock and the others knew it well.

"That's—!"

"A dragon's scale!?!"

"Could it be—?"

Soral and Bardack sprinted to the nearby trunk.

"Look at this groove. Cut by a thick tooth. No doubt about it—dragon tooth marks. That means a dragon was eating this!"

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly. We don’t know how often, but these black trees were probably dragon food!"

"So that’s why the Cocatris have multiplied..."

"Yeah. The dragon’s gone. The area’s safe now. And bonus—free feast of black trees! That’s why they’re going wild."

"And this tree’s making the Cocatris act up. Which means..."

"Stampite’s because of this!"

"Damn it. No proof, but we’re burning it. Move!"

“““Oh!!”””

Raidock and the others gathered dry branches and deadwood from around them, carefully arranging them to prevent spreading flames, then burned down the Black Forest.

They worked all day, then returned to base camp.

No fatigue from the stamina potion, but the mind was worn thin.

Sitting around a fire, Raidock and the others discussed what to do next.

“So, what now?”

“We burned that creepy forest, but is it just one spot?”

“We might need to search the woods thoroughly.”

The party’s brains—Bardack the mage and Raidock the leader—weighed it down.

“Either way, we should head back to town. The Cocatris movements are worrying.”

“Yeah. With how they’ve been acting, Stampite could start at any moment.”

“And we found useful Cocatris habits. Craft’ll know how to use them.”

"Yeah. Been fighting Cocatris nonstop lately, so I noticed—didn’t think they’d have a weakness like that."

"Not a clear one, but we could work it into a wipeout plan."

"True."

For days now, Raidock and the others had been locked in battle with Cocatris. They’d stumbled on a small habit of the creatures’ by accident.

Useless in the woods, but if they could exploit it—maybe total annihilation wouldn’t be so hard.

"Wait—!"

Soral suddenly yelps, small and sharp. She only makes that sound when something’s wrong.

Everyone snaps up, weapons drawn, scanning the dark.

"What?!"

"Something’s coming—over there!"

The sound hits right after her finger points.

Doga ga! Doga ga! Doga ga!

"This sound…?"

"Raidock!"

The heavy, thunderous beat that wasn’t horse hooves barreled into their base camp—no mistake, it was Craft and the others.

◆

“Craft!?”

It was Raidock, of course, who had his sword drawn.

Thanks to Ed, they’d made it straight to their location without wandering since leaving the underground.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding—there’d been a chance they weren’t even here.

“Thank god. You’re here!”

“Looks like things are messy. Tell me what happened.”

“Yeah. Just wait a sec.”

I placed a hand on Ed’s head, still wobbling from the violent motion of the Black Dragon.

“Good job, Ed. Thanks to you, we found Raidock’s group right away. Rest now.”

“Uh… yeah.”

Before I could even process that Ed was here, Soral had already noticed his state and stepped in to help. I let her take care of him.

Sitting around the fire, Raidock spoke right away.

"Stampite, huh?"

"Spot on. Real bad."

"The meds for petrification are still a week or two off, right? But the town’s okay?"

"Handled."

"Damn, Craft."

"There's a lot to say about that, but forget it for now. I've got a favor to ask. I brought a guild request, but you're free to say no."

I handed over the named request letter I’d received from the adventurer guildmaster.

All of Raidock’s group just snorted in amusement.

"Guess we’ve known each other long enough, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Raidock’s expression turned serious.

But then came the next line—and I couldn’t help but grin.

"Then stop wasting time with small talk. Just lay out the plan."

Raidock smirked. I felt my hands shake.

After that, while hashing out the plan with Raidock, I quickly go over what’s happened so far.

Ed and the others... came all the way here? Not hiding anything, but damn, I didn’t think they’d know about this base camp.

Sorry. I underestimated it. If a kid’s got the strength of an adventurer, this kind of thing was inevitable.

I’d have jumped straight into adventuring, too, if I’d gotten my hands on that kind of power as a kid. Wouldn’t’ve listened to some priest yapping about responsibility.

Yeah. Then we’ve got responsibility too. Got carried away and pushed ourselves too hard.

That’s because I asked for it.

Even so, I should’ve taught them more about things besides power. Adventurers are responsible for themselves, but those kids… they’re just kids.

A adventurer’d figure out for themselves what’s right and wrong.

But Ed and the others are just kids. They’ve got power, sure, but not enough knowledge, experience, or judgment. Only we could make up for that.

"Yeah. I think I finally get why Kyle’s always stressing how important education is."

Kyle’s made it mandatory to attend the morning school here in town.

It’s an upgraded version of the Sunday schools run by churches and such.

There was some pushback, sure, about taking valuable child labor away, but he pushed out so many compensatory policies in quick succession that school had started to become part of daily life in Goldendown.

"Teaching kids is a tough job, huh."

"Yeah."

"Hey, hey, what’s with the serious faces? The preparations for Leifan are done already!"

"Sorry to keep you waiting!"

Leifan pulled the armor out of his spatial storage—same one he’d been wearing all along.

"Alright! Let's go! Craft, you good?!"

"Yeah. Leave it to me! The habits we noticed about those cockatrices should come in handy too."

"Missed the festival a bit, but I’ll make sure you taste the good parts."

"Hah. I’ll leave that job to you guys."

Raidock and Leifan led the way, and a little behind them, the Black Dragon, carrying me and Ed, followed.

Everyone had already taken the petrification antidote.

"Ed, just stay calm and let me handle things. I’ll protect you, no matter what."

"Y-yeah, okay."

"Once the fight starts, keep your mouth shut. Bite down hard on your molars."

"Got it."

"Seems like you’re getting back your strength. Good! Let’s go!"

We charged across the field, painted red by the sunset, aiming to strike the cockatrice horde from the side.

I messed up Ed and Kyle last time. Fixed it.

And still stuck in this hell where the real environment isn’t even set up yet...(´Д｀)