Elemental Cats

Toz and the cats hadn't ventured that deep into the forest, nor had they harvested any truly precious or rare materials, so they didn't get that much money when they sold everything. Compared to the time when they had exclusive access to the bountiful rewards in Tumbling Thunder Forest, there were also a lot of other explorers entering and exiting the forest that brought with them materials each and every time, driving down the market price.

But, the group didn't care that much since their goal wasn't money, but just in case they did manage to get enough to buy something expensive like a grimoire, it would be convenient to know where they were sold. While relaxing after their first trip into Treblor Forest, they walked around the city, this time with a map.

As they walked around town, they came across the inn they had stayed at during the first night. They had expected the same empty establishment. But unlike during their stay, several figures entered the building. Toz wouldn't have thought much of it if it wasn't for the figures being completely covered, with not a single spot of their skin or appearance showing.

They wore ordinary traveling clothes, durable, but their hands were wrapped in bandages, and their heads were covered in dark hoods and cloths hanging over their faces.

But since they merely looked strange, Toz and the cats didn't think much further about it.

The map they had bought was of pretty low quality and not big enough to fit the names of all the shops in the city, so they were forced to look around a lot in order to try and find some place that looked like it sold grimoires. But they didn't find anything during their first attempt, and they didn't want to waste time finding something they couldn't even currently purchase. Instead, they left for Treblor Forest again.

This time they decided to go deeper into the forest at the beginning of their trip instead of drifting wherever they felt like going. Stronger beasts and more interesting things were bound to be found deeper inside the forest, where not as many explorers ventured after all.

Their theory that stronger beasts hid deeper into the forest was proven right by a monkey type spirit beast with two pairs of thin membranous wings that attacked them.

The monkey traveled through the forest at an incredible speed but without making a single noise as it combined its swinging through the trees with the flutter of its wings.

Right before arriving at the group to launch its attack, the monkey stripped the bark of the last tree it touched, wrapping it around its arms and fists.

The monkey aimed at Toz who was the biggest target, and more specifically at the head. The monkey's tactic was usually to build up momentum before launching a single strike that was enough to either kill or incapacitate its target in one strike.

Unfortunately, it was bound to fail since Toz had noticed the monkey's arrival and read the trajectory of its fist. While the monkey was fast, probably faster than Toz at its fastest since it was a fifth level spirit beast, it wasn't so fast that Toz didn't have enough time to duck.

And as Toz ducked, what looked like a tuft of his hair at first, jumped. Toz wasn't the only one who had noticed the monkey and its attack. All the cats had as well, which included Lucy, who was relaxing on Toz's head.

Lucy jumped and avoided the monkey's strike, but he didn't land on Toz again. Before the monkey flew by and escaped, Lucy landed on its shoulder, after which he easily stretched a paw to the monkey's head.

While his magic worked perfectly fine from a distance, Lucy had noticed that if he had direct contact with his target, he could easier and quicker gain control over their mental shadows. Against demonic creatures like the three robed figures and the Demonic Spark Bear in Tumbling Thunder Forest, that hadn't mattered since their minds had been made of pure darkness. But Lucy noticed it wasn't quite as effective against humans and beasts who usually only had a fragment of their mind veiled in darkness.

However, if Lucy was in direct contact with his prey, he could fill the target's mind with his own shadows and do the same thing he had done toward the demonic creatures.

With a jolt and a whine, the flying monkey lost control of its body and crashed through a couple of trees head first. Lucy had taken cover behind the head and climbed off the monkey's spasming body after it stopped at the end of a track plowed through the vegetation.

Lucy looked at the others with pride as he finished off a fifth level spirit beast all alone in an instant. Toz naturally gave him his due compliments before proceeding to roughly dismantle the spirit monkey. The materials from a spirit beast, especially a spirit beast who was obviously a cross between two different types, could be worth a lot.

If the wings were inherited from a parent whose wings were valuable but usually came in much smaller sizes, they would fetch a decent amount. But they could also be from a pretty common spirit beast variant of a wild beast. In that case, they wouldn't be very valuable. However, the only way the group had of finding out would be to go to the guild and ask them for an evaluation.

Toz and the cats looked around for a few more materials before heading back to Dormant Thunder.

Their second expedition had ended earlier, but the spirit monkey's body had taken up a lot of storage, and it was about time they went to another region of the forest to explore.

The materials they harvested from the monkey, while not extremely valuable, were worth more than everything they had harvested during their first expedition. Going deeper into the forest had paid off, in addition to being slightly more exciting since they had been attacked by a spirit beast.