The rest of the night was 'fine' within the normal range. Stalkers are so sensitive to light that even with the wall between us, I could hear them tearing at it in an attempt to get in. Fortunately, their claws weren't long enough, so they didn't succeed.
In the morning, after resting, we got up, ready to continue our journey. We weren't that far from our destination, so it didn't take us long to get there.
"We're here,"
said Bibian, putting his hammer on the ground and taking a small bag out of his pocket.
In front of us lay the entrance to the open dungeon "Vine Forest." As its name suggests, this place is so dense with vines that it is impossible to see.
"Here, put this on your bodies or the insects around here will be all over you."
What he was handing us was insect repellent. Since it was home to various plant-like creatures, magical insects had infested this place as a side effect.
"With this, we're ready. Conan will go ahead until we encounter creatures. Otherwise, if I use my hammer, I'll just end up tangled up."
Her observation made sense. It's hard to find a place without vines, so it's best for me to lead the way and cut the ones in front of me. Along the way, Ysera told us that she had an affinity for Wind magic, up to a maximum of 3rd Circle magic. It's not as impressive as a normal offensive mage, but it's excellent considering that her main role is support.
After a couple of hours of walking, we decided to rest in a slightly clearer spot. Thanks to Bibian's repellent, exploring had been like a walk in the park. However, we did not achieve our goal.
"I never came here to hunt Abrepetalos, but I hoped they wouldn't be so hard to find,"
Bibian complained, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"Those things are very small compared to normal trees, and since they bear such sweet fruit, the creatures protect them to the utmost."
Even the forest seemed to be hiding them. I knew from the beginning that it wouldn't be easy to find them, but this was getting annoying. The temperature in the dungeon was always high, and the humidity was even higher, so even with clothes as thin as mine, I felt like my body was melting.
"We have no way of finding them directly,"
Ysera lamented, leaning against a tree.
We poured cold water on our heads, created by Ysera. Thanks to this, the place stopped feeling so heavy, so after a few minutes of rest, we decided to continue exploring. The day was young, so we would have plenty of time to explore.
At one point, I saw several creatures beginning to gather in the distance.
"I think we found it,"
I alerted the other two, who were behind me. We instantly changed our formation before slowly approaching the spot. Just as I thought, we found a large group of abrepetalos, with several fruits hanging from their thin branches before being devoured by various insects. While some took advantage of the opportunity to feast, the smaller and weaker ones were dragged underground by their vines. This was a kind of exchange, because even after seeing several of them disappear, none of them moved away from the flowers.
"We have to distract the guys surrounding the openpetals. Mainly the king beetles and the suicide dragonflies."
The king beetles were the biggest problem. They were almost as tall as the flower openers and much larger in terms of body size. The dragonflies were easy to kill. They dive toward their target and explode the rear part of their body into acid. As long as we destroy their brains, they have no way to regenerate.
"This is where I make my entrance,"
Bibian declared, taking small marbles out of her bag before throwing it away.
The marbles were small explosives designed to attract attention. Once they hit something, they would cause a small explosion accompanied by a loud bang.
Without further ado, I threw them at a distant tree, attracting the creatures' attention. Just as we thought, they all ran away, leaving the petal openers behind. One thing we had feared was that the petal openers would rush towards the bombs. Luckily, these fears were unfounded, as they remained fixed in place.
Once we saw this, we rushed towards them, but not before receiving Ysera's strengthening magic. In an instant, we appeared in front of the leaf-openers, with Bibian delivering a strong hammer blow to a couple of them.
"Cut them!"
I shouted, pushing them aside.
Following his orders, he threw both axes, making horizontal cuts in their bodies. Before pulling them back and throwing myself at others. Although several had fallen, we couldn't waste Ysera's strengthening magic, because once they got on guard, we would be overwhelmed on all sides.
In the blink of an eye, we were able to cut down and crush a group of 10 petal openers. With that, we had completed the task, so Bibian began to cover us while dragging the bodies away from the others. Since they were 'thin' flowers, they weren't that heavy and were easy to carry.
However, as he dragged the fifth body, several small petals surrounded the three of us equally. This was the main reason for the name 'petal openers'. In less than a second, the petals went from being small to growing into buds the size of my fist, before opening and exploding, throwing out several petals with the hardness of metal. Accompanying this, several roots came out of the ground and held us firmly in place.
"Cover yourselves!"
I shouted, doing the latter to avoid as much damage as possible.
Dozens of leaves began to pierce my body, with my legs being the most injured. With a shout, I got rid of all the petals and protected Ysera from the roots.
"Take them away, Ysera will regenerate the sacks later!"
Bibian shouted, before hitting the corpses of the plants with his mallet and throwing them to the same place where he had gathered them. Following this, he stamped hard on the ground, temporarily getting rid of the vines.
"Let's get out of here!"
Ysera shouted, before I picked her up and ran into the trees.
Once we were far away, we hid the bodies with several vines to conceal them from their compatriots. Meanwhile, we fled far away.
"Do you think they're gone?"
Ysera asked, healing the cuts on our bodies.
"I'm sure they're gone. The petal-openers don't recover the bodies of their companions. The annoying thing is that they'll move away, and if we can't regenerate the bile sacs, we'll have to look for them a second time,"
said Bibian, leaning against a tree as she pulled the petals still embedded in her body.
After a few minutes, we returned to the spot, determined to tear apart the plants we had hunted. We were surprised to see that every single body had disappeared, so we decided to approach the same place where the petal-openers had been before. They hadn't moved from that spot; they were even dragging the lifeless bodies underground, looking to eat them.
"Hey, Bibian, are the petal openers cannibals?"
I asked, unable to believe what we were seeing.
"No... this is something new...!"
Without warning, Bibian lunged at the group of petal openers.
"They're raising a Champion!"
I shouted breathlessly due to the strong jump I had taken.
"A-a champion!?"
I followed Bibian's actions and threw myself towards the creatures, helping her push them aside and enter the center of their gathering. Even Ysera was carrying us, throwing wind blades that cut the roots that tried to stop us.
We quickly reached the center, where we saw it. A green egg lay on top of several soft leaves beneath it. The abepetalos quickly lunged at us, using their own bodies as shields.
"Ysera, cut it!"
I shouted, pushing several of these creatures out of the way to clear the path.
Following my instructions, Ysera threw a large wind blade, which came within inches of cutting this egg. But to our horror, before the blade made contact, the egg burst open with an explosion and a small green-haired woman emerged from it.
The moment she appeared, the entire forest fell silent. The vines that had been swaying from side to side stopped, the flower petals remained still, as did we.
"Go away,"
said the little woman, looking back at me with her green eyes, before subtly moving her hand and causing us all to fall backward, completely unconscious.