"Set up camp here, for now. Tomorrow, we'll gather supplies and begin repairing the ship" Sirus shouted. The many sailors, all clearly veterans in exploration and sailing, cheered and quickly got to work.

Seeing his men getting to work, Sirus nodded and walked back to the Ravens, who were currently observing the forest with cautious eyes.

Seeing Sirus coming, they tore off their eyes from the forest and waited for him to arrive.

"So? How's it looking?" Sirus asked, getting straight to the point. The oldest member of the Ravens was the one to answer, his old eyes holding a rare trace of fear.

"Not good. Sara's ability is going off the charts, we've never seen something like this before. There's something in that forest, and if we encounter it, it's basically guaranteed death." He said. Sirus' eyes widened and he looked towards Sara.

She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment before speaking, "It's... as he said. I can feel that it's close, but I'm not sure where it is. Compared to that octopus, it's... so much stronger. I can't tell by how many times exactly, but it's at least ten thousand times stronger." Her brows furrowed for a second and she looked towards the forest once more.

"Mm. We'll camp here for the night and get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll head out and try to solve this issue" Sirus said, trying to soothe the nervous woman.

As the sun set, the sailors all got into their makeshift tents and quickly fell asleep, oblivious to the danger that threatened to annihilate them.

~~~~~

Looking at the weird, small monsters that walked on two legs, the catkin couldn't help but feel somewhat excited.

It could tell with just a glance that, despite smelling weird and being extremely weak, these monsters were incredibly intelligent and advanced. Looking at the weird 'ship', as the System called it, the catkin couldn't help but admire its masterful handwork.

Wood perfectly joined together, with strange drawings that oozed power strengthening it. Of course, she could easily pop those defenses as easily as popping a bubble, but it was still new and impressive to her.

Furthermore, they even built homes! The more she observed them, the more her curiosity grew. They somewhat looked like her, although they lacked tails and their ears were weird. Furthermore, their hands looked somewhat pathetic. Just how did they defend themselves?

As most of them slept, two would remain awake and check their surroundings. One was the strange monster that could somehow slightly feel her presence, even just barely, which greatly surprised her, since her sixth sense told her that that monster was likely the weakest of the 6 leading monsters.

The 6 monsters interested her, but all the others didn't. They simply felt like ants, so weak she could crush them just by breathing too hard on them.

As the night continued on and the two interesting monsters kept awake, she fought a small war in her mind.

Should she continue hiding in the dark and observing, or should she go out and check them out? Would she kill them, or try and see what they were? Their big wooden floater seemed quite interesting as well. Where did they come from?

She had so many questions, and the System refused to answer them. Frustrated, her curiosity eventually won over her bloodlust and she approached their camp from within the darkness.

Although she had lost the black color of her hair, she could still hide from the eyes easily, especially in the night. Silent as a ghost, her body was completely devoid of sound as she moved so fast she might as well be teleporting.

Landing on top of the strange vehicle, she felt a strange resistance trying to block her. Not wanting to alert the strange creatures, she forced her way through with care and made sure not to leave behind any traces of herself.

She spent the rest of the night exploring the strange thing. She saw strange metal barrels with runes on them, and a whole ton of interesting and new things that she couldn't help but feel excited about.

As the sun rose, she heard some noise down from the ship. Thanks to her superb hearing, she could make out every single thing that was happening, but she still wanted to see.

Peeking from the top of the ship, she saw the strange creatures scurrying about, some communicating with each other. It took her a bit, but she soon understood that they were actually talking with each other, in a rather complex language too.

It wasn't the same language she spoke with the System, and she couldn't understand it, but she could make out some tidbits here and there.

Her interest and curiosity had broken through the roof at this point. She had lived such a boring life for so long, and she now felt as though something interesting was finally happening.

As she looked on, she suddenly felt the strange sensation of something trying to sense her. Her body instantly vanished as she hid further in the ship, determining that the strange monster with long hair was trying to sense her.

Frustrated, she debated for a bit before finally deciding to, quote, "Fuck it, let's steamroll!"

Throwing all caution to the wind, she first ran away from the ship and into the forest before rushing over to her home. Once inside, she grabbed a couple of her best wooden carvings and then rushed back over to where the creatures were.

They seemed to be getting ready to enter the forest if her intuition was correct. She trailed them for a while, fiddling with her handwork as she tried to approach them, but shrunk away every time for some reason unknown to her.

'Why can't I approach them? I fought monsters hundreds of meters tall, why can't I come out and approach some ants??' She yelled in her own mind, angry at her own apparent strange actions.

Nonetheless, she couldn't defeat the barrier that day. After trailing them for a whole day and trying to understand what they were talking about, to no success, they eventually returned to their houses.

The catkin followed until the edge of the forest, where she observed from a hidden spot in the middle of the foliage. The many weak monsters scurrying about destroying trees and taking the wood back to their amazing wood construct somewhat annoyed her, since this was her forest after all.

However, she overlooked them. After all, who cares about some trees. She had plenty of those back at her house anyway.

Still a little miffed at not having taken any chance in coming and trying to, if not communicate, at least show herself to them, the catkin boarded the ship once more during the night and studied the many interesting little gadgets inside.

Although the runes smelled bad and looked even worse, she was still quite interested in them. After around 4 hours observing them and poking around them, she tried to stick her hand in one of the runes on a metal barrel.

A loud 'BOOM' gave her a half-heart attack from the surprise. Her body jumped back and her muscles tensed. Her body flickered, and the next instant the cannon split into thousands of pieces.

Realizing her mistake and still having her heart beating a thousand times faster than normal due to the fright, she fled from the ship into the forest, ignoring the shields that tried to stop her. She easily broke through them and fled into the forest, and back to her house.

As she laid in her soft bed made from the feathers of a particularly soft King, she suddenly realized that she might have forgotten her wood craftwork back with that loud cannon.

~~~~~~~~

A loud boom resounded from the ship, waking up the entire camp. Silus shot up from his meditating position and looked towards the ship. The Ravens too all shot up.

The next instant, a screeching sound came, yet again from the ships. They saw the shields roaring up at full force, and yet, the instant they got up they were shattered by a horrifyingly fast blur that shot towards the forest.

It had all happened so fast they didn't have time to react, but now, they did. Sara yelled to try and get her voice above the shouting sailors. "It's that monster! It had the same aura!"

"Fuck!" Sirus said and raced back towards the ship. The Ravens looked at each other, trying to decide whether to follow Sirus or chase the blur. After a couple of seconds, their fear of the monster, and also the fear of remaining stranded on this god-forsaken island won out, and they chased after Sirus.

As Sirus inspected the ship, he found several things misplaced. They also found a cannon that had thoroughly been shredded.

As the oldest Raven inspected the damage on the cannon, Sirus spoke to the others, worry evident on his face. "That cannon was made by an alloy unique to the Karloman house. It's far tougher than steel, even comparable to low-grade diamonds. Whatever did... that... is surely no simple beast." As he spoke, the Ravens too got more and more worried.

As Sirus and the younger Ravens discussed, the oldest Raven yelled out. "Guys, look at what I found!"

Opening both his hands, he revealed two masterfully carved wood carvings. One depicted a monkey on top of a stone, and the other was a weird jellyfish-like creature with almost slime-like wings.

Seeing them, the Raven mage's eyes widened and he snatched them from the old man's hands and examined them. After a moment, he closed his hands around both carvings and mumbled a spell. Light flowed out from his hands and after a dozen or so seconds, the carvings seemed to come to life.

They popped out of the mage's hands, who let out a small feminine yelp from the surprise. The monkey carving began dancing on top of its stone, and the jellyfish seemed to float around aimlessly.

The next moment, the jellyfish suddenly exploded, while the monkey fell from the stone, it's head brutally ripped into. What then remained on both carvings was a small, almost funny carving of a girl with cat ears and tail. However, the brutal smile that the carvings both held shattered any illusion of it being a normal girl.

The next instant, light flew out from both carvings and they returned to exactly what they were before, a monkey and a jellyfish.

The Ravens and Sirus watched on with wide eyes. They all then looked at the Raven mage, who was currently on the floor, rubbing his pained behind.

Seeing the stares, the mage looked away in a fluster.

Despite the funny scene, the situation was serious. The group looked at each other, trying to find some way for them to fix this situation, and possibly even return home in one piece.