Just as promised, the young adult arrived 40 minutes after she had made her call and stood before a black land Rover, a person already in the driver's seat.

The man smiled at her and waved her over, she climbed and sat next to him, securing her belt and hearing it click into the lock.

"Morning." She greeted, he nodded at her and drove off.

The road, while paved, was covered in fallen leaves and twigs and the man next to her clicked his tongue, "That's gonna take a while to clean."

"Hmm." She agreed wordlessly and watched the road and the trees surrounding them on both sides slide by, they drove neither slow nor fast, keeping watch over new cracks or large blockages.

"So, I heard about a new beast rumor in your forest, what's that about?"

He asked, throwing a quick glance at her before his eyes returned to the road, the leaves green and lush as they rustled in the soft breeze.

"I'll check it out next Tuesday." She told him, her eyes focused on the surrounding trees, watching for anything that looked to grow too far into the road or had high risks of falling or collapsing onto the road.

"Not sooner?" Her companion scowled, "Hell if it's the roaches again."

"It's Mike's sector and he told me the date, it's pretty far up the mountain too, let's not forget we have delivery week, we'll be on our feet all week." She returned.

He nodded along and sped up a bit.

"Hold up, that tree looks like it got hit by lightning, let's check it out." She waved to a tree next to her and Keith slowed the car to a stop.

"Which one?"

They both stepped out of the car as Hara walked back down the road a bit and pointed to one of the larger trees that grew next to the road.

"Yeah, that thing looks grilled, and look at those roots, that would have needed to be taken care of sooner rather than later."

Keith was the main forester of the forest and he looked a bit upset that such a thing hadn't been retold to him.

The tree was big and the roots were uncomfortably close to the road, it wouldn't take too long before they grew into the road and destroyed part of the road as it grew.

"Maybe they missed it, we're all overworked."

She joked as she walked back to the car, "No shit." He huffed.

Business rivals they may be, they were still friendly to each other.

The Sry forest had two main foresters and twelve rangers because it nearly doubled in size compared to the Emerald forest, which only had one forester and four rangers, it was still a giant forest, but it was small in comparison to the other two.

The land was rewarded to a hero of war centuries ago and was then passed down to his descendants, the Chief being the last living member of his bloodline.

It was unusually large, but accepted by the officials of their land to belong to the village, although that may just be because the old king had gifted the land to the Chief's ancestor and had made sure that it couldn't be taken away, even centuries later.

It would be a nightmare for the state to try and reclaim the land, as the hero's descendants had documented everything and as the times changed, had kept "announcing" their ownership.

The bureaucratic nightmare of such a large piece of land belonging to an individual being passed down to be "someone else's problem" and had at this point turned into something that would likely never belong to the state.

This was how such a giant piece of land, encompassing three large forests and a piece of the ocean could belong to a village, better yet, the Chief.

It wasn't for a lack of trying, but the witt of his ancestors had been passed down and the village elder hadn't been tricked into signing the land over, they tried and they failed.

Usually running away with their tails tucked between their legs after either a tongue lashing or being outwitted by the usually mild-tempered elder.

Every year or so, they would get someone trying to take the land, and it was always a show that the villagers enjoyed watching.

There may or may not be a few spoiled tomatoes and eggs involved when these people run for the hills.

Never let it be said that village people don't hold grudges.

It had been a surprise once Hara had found out that the Chief was pretty much the lawmaker in this piece of land, but she had just shrugged it off.

They had taken her in when she needed it the most, shown her endless kindness and warmth, so she didn't care who the land belonged to and what they could technically make her do, knowing the old man, it would never be something nefarious.

Some would say that they had a blade hanging over their head as the Chief could ban them or kick them out at any moment, but anyone who knew the old man would laugh such a notion off.

"I'll need to talk to Stephen about this." Her partner grumbled, once again breaking her out of her thoughts as they drove off again.

"Alright, enough of that, anything new about the beasts on your side?"

She asked inspecting the surroundings again.

"Can't you wait until the monthly meet?" He joked.

She stared him in the eyes and said, "No, I can not."

He chortled and turned his head to her, his eyes glued to the road.

"Well, we've got something all right- we've got stinkbugs with stinkier smells and grasshoppers that can jump as high as the trees, nearly scared one of my rangers to death when they fell on his face, oh! They also herd now, so that there were about 30 of those things just dropping out of the tree."

He laughed at the picture in his head while Hara shook her head, a bit amused but largely used to such interesting developments, and she was sure that after the roaches, nothing could scare her anymore.

"Yikes, sounds like a fun surprise."

"It does, don't it?" He chuckled as they drove down the road.

"Well, we've got the rumors about the spiders, as you've heard, there were also glowing rainworms, although those are pretty common everywhere from what I've read."

"Huh, it's spreading faster around here, last month we had two new beast species, and this month eight? And we're talking about ones we've discovered here."

He scowled and stopped near a spot on the road where a bit of mud had come down from the hill going up the side.

"It was bound to hit us anyway, I'm surprised the peace lasted so long, but now it hits us strong and hard and fast, just like the rest of the world."

He inclined her head in his direction as she inspected the trail of mud and stones, wondering if they would just need to call someone to clean the mud that had gotten on the road or if they needed to reshape the incline where the mud had slid down from to avoid further mudslides in the future.

"You're right." Her partner said as he looked up the incline and asked her.

"Think we need to reshape there?"

She looked at it and scowled.

"Yup, definitely, although it'll be enough for today if we just clean the road, we'll just need to be careful if it rains again, issue a warning that there could be possible mudslides in the future, if we're lucky then the delivery week will be going off without a hitch and we can close the road down for prepares after."

She gave her opinion on the matter and saw him nod along as he added, "Yeah, seems like it... God, we're not even halfway through."

He held his forehead and she could relate, road repairs, especially on main roads, were always a headache and a half.

Although she, and likely her companion too, wished that they could do the repairs immediately, the delivery week took precedence as long as there was no imminent danger to the drivers or wares.

Their village got a large number of their daily necessities through these deliveries and local wares were also sold and brought away by the coming trucks.

Any complications that resulted in lost time could make their local wares go bad either before the trucks arrived or during the drive back to the large city, making delivery week important for every single villager as losing time meant losing money.

As such, closing down the roads was a no-go as long as it could be drawn out or avoided.

"Let's see the rest and hope there's nothing even worse down the road." She gave him a hopeful smile as he marked the mudslide area in red on his map.