The pair of monsters dropped an item level sixty equipment piece each. From the bloated lizard monster he got a pair of pants made of scale-coated leather that had the same primary stats as what he wore now, but with better secondary stats for Hirrus’ purposes, increasing his critical hit chance for his Crushing Blade. The metal helmet from the lobster wasn’t of interest, though. His old pants and the new helmet went to Alric.

Alric had apparently gotten partial credit for killing Kodetlan, which denied Hirrus some of the experience points, but didn’t get anything from Archaeotitan. It had jumped Alric up to level eight, three entire levels, due to how far behind he was relative to Hirrus.

Hirrus himself only got to level eleven from the battle, but he was most of the way through it, near to twelve.

Alric also acquired the Arcana from Kodetlan, but not from Archaeotitan, while Hirrus had obtained the Arcana of both. Kodetlan had given them an ability called Homaridiation, which was the big green blast of ooze. It was a breath attack, using physical attack stats, and created a glowing green area called a “Arcana-Dead Zone.” While in the affected area, Arcana could not be activated - though it wouldn’t dispel active Arcana. The giant lobster had also given them the Penitent Shell Arcana, which was a potent defensive boost to TEN and GLE with a duration equal to its one-minute cooldown. It had a long cast time, though, and specifically said that the cast time was interrupted by any damage. They both would be useful Arcana for Alric - the Arcana-Dead zone would be valuable against Arcana-reliant foes regardless of Alric’s low stats, and the Penitent Shell might make him slightly more durable if he got caught in the crossfire.

The bloated lizard monster had only the two Arcana. Flames of the Apocalypse was the bubbling ring attack, and while it had relatively low damage - the severity of the attack had come from its magic-focused stats - it also would apply a debuff to GLE on enemies affected, increasing the effectiveness of subsequent magic damage Arcana. He made a mental note to include it in his rotation when engaging in such tactics. The big blue beam was accurately called Civilization Buster, and had an extraordinarily long range. Now that the fight was over, Hirrus could see columns of devastation that the attack had blasted into the remains of the burning town. Unfortunately, most of the damage was reliant on the RES stat, which meant its actual damage output would be extremely variable; it might do damage on par with his mid-range Arcana, or it might hit as hard as Andrew’s giant buzzsaw attack. The long cast time would also necessitate one of his cast speed Arcana to make it worth the risk.

“We should get moving,” Hirrus said, once Alric had finished changing into the gear - new and hand-me-down. “This won’t be the last time they dump these setbacks on us.”

“I agree with you in principle,” Alric said with a smirk, “but my dad always said to work smarter, not harder. We need to think critically about what we’ve seen here.”

Hirrus furrowed his brow with a grimace.

It wasn’t hard to determine what Alric meant.

Whoever had left these monsters here in ambush had dropped them off right before Hirrus had arrived. The pair of them going hostile to each other - and still being very healthy - meant that whoever was using monsters to attack him was predicting his direction and speed.

“We need to change something,” Hirrus agreed. “They can tell where we’re going to be with too much accuracy for my comfort. We need to throw them off.”

“Right,” Alric said with a nod. “So we need to get off the road.”

“Hm,” Hirrus said, crossing his arms. “That seems an extreme reaction.”

“Desperate times call for desperate desperateness,” Alric said, raising a clenched fist as if he had just given a dramatic and convincing speech. “But really, what are our options? We go off the road, or what?”

Hirrus had been about to say that they could pick up the pace, to try and outrun whatever was coming next, but he realized he was already setting a harsh pace by Alric’s standards. If going faster wasn’t an option, what was left? The only way to render their location unpredictable without changing their speed was to change their route.

“You’ve made your point,” Hirrus said at last. “So long as you can continue to keep up.”

“I mean, the real alternative is to just walk around the enemies,” Alric suggested. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the powerleveling and the new toys-”

“This isn’t about the monsters,” Hirrus said, starting to lead Alric out of town and heading north, off of the Hari Path. “This is about prescience. I don’t care what they throw at me to slow me down. I will crush whatever bars my way. What matters is that Rumi has someone on his side who knows where I am. If we don’t shake their tracking, he will know when I’m coming.”

“And then he’ll know you’re coming, and we can’t have that, can we?” Alric said, falling into position beside Hirrus. “Forewarned is forearmed, and we don’t want him to have any arms whatsoever, let alone four of them.”

“I don’t care what arms he has. I’ll remove them all the same,” Hirrus said as they reached the edge of the burning town and started across the clearing towards the forest. “I care about what he does with his legs if he knows when I will arrive.”

Alric had a laugh about that as the town vanished behind them, back beneath the cloud of smoke. Hirrus feared that the man would go back to his singing, and for a moment, he seemed about to, humming the bridge of that song about the bounty hunter. But as soon as they reached the treeline, Alric fell silent.

Hirrus didn’t blame him. Passing from the wide open into the woods was as big a change as moving from the farmland around Inoha to within the city’s walls. In the open plains, they could see for miles around. The gentle roll to the region as the place angled towards the foothills would eventually limit visibility, but it seemed impossible that anything larger than a housecat could sneak up on them, especially with the cold weather reducing the vegetation.

Here, though? The trees weren’t terribly dense, but they were arranged in such a way that their sightlines were greatly reduced. The nearest cover something could be hiding behind was only ever a few feet away at the next tree trunk. It was made all the worse by the uneven terrain from the trees’ roots, demanding attention at their feet as much as their surroundings.

The sound was the worst part, though. The sound of their steps, their armor, and their voices, had seemed like nothing while they were walking through the open. In the stillness of the forest, every click and shuffle was deafening. If they spoke, or sang, or argued, Hirrus suspected that every monster within a mile would have zeroed in on their location, let alone any of Rumi’s more observant minions.

The autumn chill redoubled here, too. The evergreen canopy didn’t block out all the sunlight, but what reached them here was indirect. Hirrus had always felt more comfortable with cold than with heat, and so had no complaints about the change, but Alric seemed to be badly affected by it, going so far as to adjust some of his gear, swapping out thinner leather and well-ventilated plate for anything fur-lined he had on hand. He ended up wearing several pieces from one of Last of the Strong’s officers. Mel had been terse and short-tempered in a fight, but her armor had been excessively lavish, involving a lot of white-brown fur, possibly mink or fox. Hirrus suspected that it had been for aesthetic rather than heat, but it would serve now that Alric needed it.

Hirrus found himself enjoying the walk through the forest. It took him back to a time of his life he could barely remember. He’d grown up near a great forest, though he didn’t recall what it had been called. It had always just been “the woods” to him. That forest had been more welcoming than this one, with more vegetation and sparser trees, but it still tickled at the fuzzy memories. He remembered wanting to be a woodsman when he was young. To spend all his time among the trees.

He stopped thinking about it there, lest he remember what put him on the path that took him away from that place. He would rather think of the end of that period of his life, when he found Julissa, than thinking about the beginning of it.

Despite never becoming a woodsman proper, Hirrus’ comfort in the forest still leant him some insight. He was able to guide them around the spots where mossy tree roots would make their footing treacherous, and keep them moving reliably northwest with simple pathfinding knowledge. He even recognized the signs that told him that they were coming to a clearing, as the mosses on the ground started to be joined by small plants with the serrated spade-shaped leaves that told him they were nettles. And then sword-shaped ferns joined them, covering the ground and making the footing even more precarious, especially if a slip might send them crashing face-first into a thick mess of nettles.

Alric almost slipped and fell, forcing Hirrus to reach out quickly to catch him. Alric’s hand latched onto Hirrus’s forearm right before he would have knocked half of his teeth out on the side of a tree. Even once he was upright, Alric refused to let go, and so Hirrus put forth the extra effort to guide the man while holding onto him. Hopefully the clearing would give them some space to cover ground without having to face such obstacles.

Of course, as the treeline thinned, Hirrus found himself forced to pull Alric back behind one of the last few thick trees before the canopy gave way to the sky.

It seemed the clearing was going to present its own obstacle.