Startled by the turn of events, I quickly jumped back from the approaching mushrooms to assess the situation. I was confused on why and how everything was happening but a few things I could confirm were, one everything around me except for the camp set up by us was changed. Two, there were now mushrooms walking towards me after the eyes spotted me.

It was hard to think with what sounded like hundreds of voices telling me that they see me. Deciding to break vision from the eyes, I began looking around to see if I could find somewhere to do so. Unfortunately I couldn’t because I forgot the area was open plains with nowhere to lose sight.

While I was running out of the options that I have, I then remembered the one and only option I’m comfortable with. I grip the hilt and point my blade towards the groups of mushrooms that were coming after me. The only answer I could see from here is to fight my way through.

I charge towards the mushrooms and swing. My blade carves through the first group of mushrooms and as I lift my blade up, blue mushrooms that were stuck on my sword flew off into the air. While I prepared myself for the next group, the voices in my head began to sound disoriented while they were now saying “You’re making a baD MISTAKE!”.

I ignored what the voices were saying and charged towards the next group. While the blue mushrooms flew around in the air, the repeated phrase changed again “You woke him up!”. I constantly kept on hearing it and jumped back to figure out what they meant.

While I surveyed the area for any changes, I didn’t notice anything until I looked up into the trees. There, on the branches, a towering pitch black body standing on its hind legs. It had one hand holding the tree while the other was limp to its side. The one characteristic that stood out the most was its face, its whole body was pitch black and instead of having facial features it had a large eyeball that had a piercing gaze towards me.

A few seconds after we studied each other, it suddenly let go of the tree and began banging its chest with both hands while it started screeching out an inaudible noise. While doing so, all the eyeballs on the trees were sporadically looking everywhere.

I was covering my ears, trying to figure out what it was doing but it eventually stopped. Once it stopped with the noise it also stopped banging its chest, the only thing it was doing was looking straight at the night sky.

Several seconds passed before it looked back down at me. Suddenly it leapt off the branch and flew at me with it’s hands clenched together and above its head. I raise my blade in time to block the incoming strike. The instant it hit, the unexpected force made me drop down to one knee. When I looked past my sword and it’s hands, all I saw was the large eye with a gaze that felt like it was piercing through me.

The thing then raised its hands to strike again. I only managed to stand up before I had to block again. Expecting how strong the next hit was, I blocked it without dropping down. It then tried again but this time I was able to create distance between us causing its hands to hit the ground. I used the opportunity to charge at it before it could recover.

While I was about to swing, it shot me a piercing gaze that for some reason made me stop for a moment before swinging. It was only a brief pause before I swung but it had enough time to separate its hands on the ground and use them as leverage to throw it’s feet at me. I felt my sword beginning to pierce it’s shoulder at the same time as it’s feet hit my chest.

There was enough force behind the kick that I flew back, skidding across the ground. I stabbed my blade into the ground to pick myself up while grabbing at my chest and coughing. It didn’t want to give me much time to rest as I heard it charging towards me. Upon hearing it I quickly turn to it and ready my blade. As it got closer, it broke ground while leaping towards me with it’s right hand ready to swing. I readied my blade and as I saw him fly towards me, I swung.

As my blade connected with its fist, it then swung its free hand as well. I struggled to raise my right hand to block the sudden attack. I barely got it up in time to stop it from being a direct hit but it caused me to slide backwards away from it due to the force.

I shook my arm around that was slightly numb from the hit before getting ready once more. The thing stared at me with it’s one eye while I did so. Once I was ready again, I was the one to charge first. As I got close, I brought my sword back and swung with as much force as I could.

The thing raised it’s arm to block the strike and when my sword connected with it, it could barely carve its way through. I was surprised that it wasn’t fazed by my strike and that I didn’t see it’s free hand flying towards my face. Bam! From the force behind the fist, my vision shot behind me before I saw the world spinning around as I flew backwards.

I saw it running towards me as I was trying to pick myself up. At the same time as I saw it leap off the ground once again, I also heard the humming of a soft female voice. As I saw it flying towards me, the humming was becoming louder. I was barely able to stand up in time and raise a guard but as the thing was close enough to hit, it suddenly disappeared while everything else around me simultaneously went back to normal as well.

Confused on what just happened, I quickly looked behind me to where the source of the humming was coming from. Once I looked behind, my eyes met with a blonde haired girl that had braids going from both sides to behind her with the rest of her long hair. She had a pair of crystal clear eyes and a gentle expression as she was humming. The girl was wearing a long deep green dress that had white flowers running up it. One side of the dress that was shorter than the other and to my guess was to make it easier to move. She had one feature that was surprising and that was the long ears that protrude from her hair.

Something inside me was telling me that she was not an enemy so I relaxed myself as I recovered from the fight that was happening. “Who are you?” I asked her and at the same time she stopped humming.

She was still looking at me with a gentle expression as she began to speak “I’m happy I made it in time, I knew I needed to follow you when our eyes met.”.

“What do you mean by that? Who are you?” I was very confused on what was going on and gripped my hilt tightly even though it felt like she wasn’t an enemy.

“Oh, my apologies. My name is Elina, I used to live in the forest behind you.” She said while looking past my shoulder and her expression turned to a bittersweet one. She quickly returned to a soft expression as she looked back at me “I don’t know why one of the guardians is all the way out here at the border of the forest or why it attacked you but you must be careful.”.

“Well, I came here to kill it so I’ll take your advice but what was that earlier, the thing that you made disappear?” I voiced out to her.

“Oh, the guardian? They usually roam around farther into the forest, near the second part of it. When they find intruders or trespassers, they have a special ability that causes everything in it’s area to come into it’s delusional world.” She answered me. Before I could ask anything she continued “But you must be careful, they are a natural enemy to non magic users since they sap your strength and speed for their own use.”.

Once she told me that, I remembered that I should have used my magic then but because I was hiding it from Ilise, it slipped my mind. Before I continued thinking about my counterattack, it crossed my mind on why she's giving me advice if that forest is her home. “Why are you helping me? Aren’t those guardians of your home?” I questioned her.

She had a pained expression on her face as she looked towards the forest once more “It’s… no longer my home, they banished me.”. There was a short pause before she continued “I wouldn’t help you if I felt evil inside of you but I feel something pure about you that I just don’t know what it could be.”.

A lot of what she told me was confusing but there was some stuff that she said which will help me fight the guardian. While we talked, I noticed the sun was beginning to rise up along the horizon.

“Well it was fun meeting you but your friend is about to wake up. If any humans see me, they might freak out.” She told me while her eyes went towards the tent off in the distance. “I’m certain we will meet again, red one.” As she spoke the words, a gust of wind picked up a bunch of grass and flowers before covering over her body. The grass and flowers then flew off while hiding the girl.

I stared at the direction it flew off while I was processing the encounter that just happened. Not much time passed before I heard a voice shouting from behind me “Good morning Crim! Why are you all the way over there?”. I turned to see Ilise walking towards me. As she got closer she asked me “Are you ready to find the monster today? The faster we find it, the faster we can go back!”. “Oh unless you want to eat fir-” She stopped speaking when she was close enough to see the few small wounds I got from the guardian. “Wait how did you get hurt?” She asked, surprised.

“I ran into it while you were asleep.” I told her, since I had no reason to hide it.

“Oh is it close by then?!?” Ilise says while she quickly scours the area.

I shook my head to her “No, for now it went off somewhere else.”.

“Then we must not let it get away! Which way did it go?” She then asked.

“The last I saw it, it was over in that direction.” I pointed to where I originally first saw it on the tree. If what Elina said was true then maybe the actual body would be close to where I originally saw it.

“Off we go then, quick quick!” Ilise said while turning towards the direction I was pointing.

“Wait be careful, that thing is strong.” I said while running past her and taking the lead.

“I’ll be fine since my… the Branch Master told me to trust your fighting capabilities.” I heard her say from behind me. “Oh since we’re passing by the carriage let’s grab some food and eat while we look for it.” She said as she ran past me, towards the carriage.

When I caught up to her, she handed me a piece of dried meat and bread. With a satisfied look on her face, she turned towards the direction we were walking before and continued on.

.

.

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We were walking for a while when I suddenly felt something pass through me like what happened before. “What was that!? Why is the forest changing?!?” I heard Ilise worriedly say. As the whole world changed around me, I readied myself as I have a better idea on how to kill it.