The sound of creatures growling and stomping onto the ground soon began to vanish as the crawlers outside of the energy barrier finally began to give up on their pursuit of the black knight and her traveling partner.

"Seems like they got bored..." she commented while observing them leave one by one with her arms crossed.

Lian Garen had set up an outside office to continue his study over the research left behind by the dragons that had come to investigate the mystery of the forest.

He was sitting in front of a table surrounded by documents, files, and monitors that resembled computer screens floating in midair.

"They are beasts, child. Their only desire is to survive. If they see they can't find food by coming after us, they will just start seeking it elsewhere" he commented while keeping his eyes glued to his papers.

The girl wondered if she should try to help with his study, but since she couldn't read anything that was written in the dragon language, all the work ended up falling on Lian's back.

"How do these things even survive out there? What do they eat?" she wondered while still noticing the number of crawlers outside shrinking.

"According to these documents, they either capture any prey that dares to enter their territory, rely on the fruits that reside on the top of these trees, or simply eat each other..."

"Eat each other!?"

Lian raised his head surprised at her sudden tone, "Of course... Food is food. If it can help you survive what does it matter where it comes from?"

"S- Still! Isn't that creepy?? They are eating one of their own!"

"Stop being so dramatic, dragons eat their own kin as well..."

"What!?" she gasped, dropping her composed stance, "Seriously??"

Lian rolled his eyes and returned to his reading, "How long do you plan on getting surprised by every little thing around you. Besides... It's not like you have anything to worry about."

"Just because it doesn't affect me doesn't mean I can't be disturbed about it..."

"Suit yourself..."

The girl took another look at some of the crawlers that stayed behind and, much like Lian had said, they soon started to fight each other in order to see who would eat who.

She didn't felt like waiting for the outcome and decided to see how Lian was doing with his homework.

"So, any luck? Any idea on what's causing these guys to turn into zombie spiders?"

"Not much... The report from the team that was sent here seems very unfinished. It appears that they were simply taking their time observing the area when some of the members started to transform out of nowhere."

"Damn... I hate when that happens..."

The red dragon in the shape of a human put his papers down and glared at the girl after hearing her sarcastic remark, "You think it's funny if my kin gets reduced to such a pathetic state because of the infection of this forest?"

"What can I say?" she shrugged, "I don't like dragons. Don't really care about what happens to them. I wonder why that is..."

"Your insolence truly knows no limits."

"Whatever... There has to be some sort of clue in one of these papers, right? Maybe some sort of pattern on what triggered their infection? Any symptoms? Perhaps they all started to change after touching the trees or maybe breathing too much of this air? Or may- Why are you looking at me like that?"

The girl had to pause her speech from the unnerving way Lian Garen kept staring at her, acting as if she was speaking in a completely different language.

"Oh... Apologies... It's just that you were being uncharacteristically helpful. I wasn't expecting that."

"Hey, I'll have you know that I was the top student in my class, okay?" she claimed while crossing her arms.

"You were? A savage brute such as yourself?"

"Who you calling a savage bru-" she chocked in the middle of her complaint, "Wait a minute... I remember my school!! I remember myself studying!! I finally remembered something!!"

The knight began to fistbump the air after feeling like she finally had obtained her first victory in a very long time. For many days and nights, she wondered just who she was and where she came from, but now, after such a long time, she finally started to get an answer.

"That's right! That's right, that's right, that's right!! I studied math with Miss Decebell! She was just the worst!! My gym teacher always shouted at me for coming last in his race track, and I had to sit next to this one kid who always forgot his pen and kept bugging me to lend mine!

I remember my awful school life!!"

Unlike the girl, Lian did not seem that impressed with her small bit of discovery, "I still have trouble believing you were someone fit to even step into a school... But regardless, you did make some good suggestions. Even though we don't have a clear answer as to what caused the change, I can simply analyze what they all had in common before turning into a crawler and track it back to what might be causing it."

The knight was so emersed with joy from her achievement that she completely failed to hear a single thing Lian said. Instead, she tried to take advantage of her situation and try to recall more memories from her past. The faces of her parents, the address of her home, or even just her own name.

Anything that could make her feel like she was still a human being.

"Let's see..." Lian began to read his notes one by one at great speed, "We already know that the infection starts with small white spots appearing over the skin... And there are a couple of reports of some members of the research team first showing signs of the infection after making certain trips to a particular area of the forest."

He raised his head and realized that the girl was still not paying attention to him, just standing still and pressing her index fingers against her helmet with her knees bent.

Lian cleared his throat in the loudest way possible in order to make her focus on what he was about to say, making her flinch and pause her attempt.

"Sorry, please go on..."

He rolled his eyes again and began his reading.

"It's been twenty-one days ever since our team arrived in this forest. Each of us continues to hold this disturbing feeling that someone is keeping watch on our actions from somewhere inside this sea of trees, even though such a thing should be impossible due to the crawler race being confirmed to have been exterminated as a result of the last faction game...

Some of our agents have started showing signs of stress, high-level of anxiety, hunger, aggressiveness, and most curious of all, the resurgence of some kind of unknown contamination in the form of a white spot on their skin."

Lain proceeded to pause before continuing.

"Day twenty-three, the infection began to spread over every corner of their bodies. We tried to remove the tissue in order to study what was causing it but the subjects showed extreme aversion to getting approached. One of them even resorted to bitting its caretakers while their sample was being removed. All of these signs appear to resemble the common traits of the crawler disease.

It is unclear how we managed to obtain the infection without coming in contact with any crawler, but we decided to leave them inside of a cell in order to prevent further spreading of the illness.

Day twenty-four, as we feared, the caretaker ended up presenting white marks on her body as well, leading us to believe that this infection is indeed the same one for which the crawler race is known for.

We attempted to interrogate the infected member in order to obtain some answers, but none of them seemed to be able to form clear thoughts, and simply kept commenting on how hungry and thirsty they were. Our group did our best to feed them to help them clear their heads, but nothing appeared to satisfy their desire for more food. We eventually had no choice but to dispose of them before they brought us down as well."

"Oh my God!"

"Please don't interrupt me, child, I'm trying to focus."

"Sorry... But, seriously, my God..."

"Day thirty-five, we are still managing to survive despite losing most of our rations and our member to the infection, but it is unclear for how long we will last.

Half of our team is gone after either turning into a crawler or being attacked by a member that was turned into a crawler. We decided to try our best to avoid any risks by keeping as much distance from each other as possible. Thus, each remaining member was ordered to investigate a specific corner of the forest, with one single member being sent back to the empire to request for more supplies."

A couple more pages were flipped.

"Day forty-four, I found one of our members lying on the ground after having his neck completely shredded. It remains unclear if the cause was some outside existence that is concealing itself in here with us, or one of our own that attacked it after receiving the infection...

...

Day fifty, two more bodies were found. Both were in the middle of turning into crawlers and seemed to have started attacking each other...

Day fifty-three, still no sign of our rescue team. The empire probably abandoned us in fear of further spreading the infection into our land...

Day fifty-six, I'm finally out of water and food. My attempts at finding anything to eat have all gone in vain as I can't seem to find the necessary strength to reach for the fruits on the end of these trees. Attempts at transforming into my second form al- Wait, what?? Attempts at transforming into my second form also seem to have been blocked??" Lian nearly gasped while trying to finish that last sentence.

He hurried to stand from his table and raised his arm in order to turn it into a red claw, and just as he feared, his transformation was not happening.

"Impossible... Even I have fallen prey to the trickery of this area??"

"Oh no, what a tragedy..." the girl spoke in a monotone voice, "Anyway, what else do the notes say?"

Lian tried to remain calm. He knew the moment he lost control was the moment he would start making mistakes, and he refused to make mistakes with so much on the line, "Let me see...

Day sixty-two, I don't know how it happened but white marks started to appear on my bo-"

"Argh!! stop! Stop! You need to go back and see how we got here!! Go back a few days!!" the girl suddenly shouted, acting as if someone was reading the last page of a romance novel and spoiling the ending.

"Ah... R- Right... Ahem. Day fifty-nine, the hunger is starting to get to my head. My body might start failing me in no time should I find myself unable to ingest anything as soon as possible."

"For crying out loud, do all dragons have to use every word on the dictionary anytime they speak? Just say 'I'm hungry!!'"

Lian simply ignored her, "Day sixty, I finally managed to get my hands on a couple of supplements. After days of traveling with an empty stomach, I managed to arrive at a special garden which seems to be the only place able to produce fruits from the soil..." the dragon paused its reading, "A garden...?"

"Fruits on the soil?" the girl added.

"My strength rapidly started to return, as did the rest of my senses. My head no longer hurts, my vision cleared up, and my ability to sense the world around me with my enhanced dragon senses seemed to have returned to normal. More than that, It seems to have vastly improved!

The answer clearly lies in this fascinating purple fruit with red leaves. I decided to finally leave the forest before losing myself again and taking some samples back to the empire for further study."

Lian and the girl both went into silence. The report happened two days before the author confessed to having acquired the crawler symptoms.

"Day sixty-one, my strength continues to remain normal, but my hunger appears to have returned. I ended up delaying my return to the empire as I had to make use of all the fruits in my possession and was forced to go back for more. I shall make my journey tomorrow.

Day sixty-two, I don't know how it happened but white marks started to appear on my body. My attempts to stay away from anything that might cause the transformation to happen ended up bringing me nowhere. What's worse, my hunger keeps rising with each passing moment.

Day sixty-three, I still haven't returned and my hunger remains my only ally who refuses to abandon me during my darkest of times. In the hopes that the rescue team does manage to come for us, I shall put all my strength into finishing this diary so that the next..."

The black knight waited for a few seconds for Lian to continue, but he just remained staring at the notes in silence, "Lily? Lily, what's wrong?"

The dragon opened the notes and showed her a massive mark of blood covering the remaining pages.

"There is nothing else..." he commented.

"What...? What does this mean?"

Lian stared at the notes, and after that, at the tower from which he picked the documents and papers to form his research.

"What's wrong?"

He began to hold his chin and finally looked at the girl again, "The writer was killed..."

"W- What...?"

"He said he was in some sort of garden... But I found these notes inside that tower... And the last pages are covered in blood..."

"Uuhh..."

"They kept talking about feeling like they were being watched by someone... By something... And that something was following him all this time, ended his life, and took the notes from him back to this place..."

An uncomfortable feeling began to take over the mood. The girl looked back worried that the two of them were being spayed on and saw one of the crawlers giving up from trying to enter the safe zone and diving into the soil.

"But... Your barrier! Shouldn't it..."

"It should, yes... Only a dragon can pass through the barrier. Which means... There was a traitor on that investigation team!"