Elemental Cats

Toz was worried that he was still being watched, and since he didn't know if more people at the guild were involved, like the two thugs who had attacked him, he decided to proceed as usual and head directly for the forest without stopping by the guild in the morning.

If people hadn't tried to kill him in the forest yet, or if they had tried but couldn't find him, there wasn't much of a reason to suspect he would be in more danger now than before. Except maybe because those two thugs failed to kill him.

In any case, if someone desperately wanted to kill him just because he entered the forest, that was almost more of a reason to enter it. Finding out what was going on and putting a stop to those nefarious plans just because the ones who planned it wanted him dead seemed like a good idea to Toz. The group would also get a lot of money since the request reward for investigating Tumbling Thunder Forest continued rising.

When Toz and the cats entered the forest, they didn't just look for valuable materials since they kept their eyes open for traces of any human meddling. But with how intensely the beasts fought and how they kept disrupting the ground and environment in the forest, it wasn't easy to tell if there had been someone else in the forest aside from the explorers looking for money.

Although the group managed to get a lot of materials, they didn't find a single sign of anyone actively interfering with the beasts and the forest. But they hadn't gone that deep into the forest either, just enough to harvest enough materials that were worth more than what the group could find at the edge of the forest.

But if they wanted to get more money, and at a faster pace, the four of them would have to go deeper to harvest materials with even greater value.

But since they had already collected enough to fill most of Toz's pockets, they returned for the day.

Back at the guild, Toz handed over the spatial rings, and everything as per usual and, in return got one step closer to his goal of eight thousand gold.

When Rick saw the piece of paper tucked into one of the rings as he sorted through everything, he didn't even react as it disappeared without anyone else seeing it.

Like Toz had expected. Rick was probably not just another guild employee and would respond accordingly if Toz slipped in a paperclip that was very likely to be a secret message.

And although the message was secret, it didn't contain any suspicious conspiracies or secrets, merely what Toz had experienced and the conclusions he had drawn from what he found out from the bearded thug. Although the discovery that someone was intentionally sowing trouble for Sleepless Brights was pretty disturbing, it couldn't be ascertained if that was true purely based on the interrogation of a pretty foolish thug.

The next day, in the pouch of money Toz got back from Rick, a piece of paper was added into the mix of gold coins. Since Toz only opened the bag after he got back into the room at the inn and, with the help of Lucy, made sure there was no one listening in or spying on them.

The contents of the message were more of a formality thanking Toz for his message. That the guild would secretly investigate the situation, but that they might spook eventual perpetrators if they acted too openly, so the guild wouldn't be able to take a lot of action until they had something concrete to work with.

But, in exchange for letting Toz act alone in a potentially dangerous situation, there would be a significant reward if Toz discovered something that could give the guild something to bite onto.

The message ended with a wish for Toz to stay safe and was signed with a smiley face from Rick.

The next time the group entered the forest they didn't just pass by the marking for the fight level danger zone where they could harvest the more valuable materials. They continued even deeper inside. Toz and the cats had resolved themselves to figure things out as quickly as possible so they could get their grimoire and then get the hell out of Sleepless Brights.

If even Rick was hesitating to make a move despite his apparent strength, there had to be a pretty good reason for it.

Toz even put forth the suggestion of leaving the city directly and looking for grimoires somewhere else. But the group's curiosity had been piqued, and they had already invested a lot of effort in training and working to gather as enough money as it was.

Giving up just because it could be more dangerous than they had initially expected would leave a sour taste in all of their mouths.

Within the fifth level danger zone there wasn't even a hint of daylight piercing through the treetops, and any light in the forest was either from the magic of some wild or spirit beast, or from fluorescent plants and beasts of various kinds.

Despite being eye-catching those plants and beasts were seldom things to be provoked. Aside from the few exceptions that the group could easily harvest materials from, they steered clear of most light sources in the forest.

Since they were mostly aiming to go deeper into the forest and investigate, they didn't spend as much effort on reaping materials from all over the place and they quickly got to a place that seemed mostly untouched. It wasn't just that place either, after a certain point a larger part of the forest was practically untouched from all the fighting that the beasts in the forest had been doing.

But it was for a pretty understandable reason since the air in that area got a lot heavier and pressed down on Toz's lungs. But he didn't back down or turn back. While the air pressed down on them and the atmosphere was heavy, and it seemed like it was because danger lurked deep inside, the group didn't feel anything dangerous directly targeting them.