Edel waited patiently for her friend to come out, occasionally scaring unsuspecting birds that made the mistake of searching for food near her. She was ready.
When he came out of the city he was accompanied by the two adventurers she vaguely remembered leading out of the forest. They used to be more common in her part of the forest a long time ago. As for Kiel, he was jumping from side to side, running ahead and waiting for the humans to follow.
She didn't know what had him so excited, but it wasn't going to change her plans.
She waited till they headed further inside the forest, stalking them from a distance. She knew he wasn't as good with smells as she was, and she'd tested that out when she followed him from the forest to the city.
When approaching, however, she still decided to go against the wind to mask her smell. Finally when she was a few meters away, she let the ether course through her body, feeling her muscles tense and letting her instincts carry her body forward as she ran at him as fast as she could.
She closed the distance in fractions of a second, and before they had any idea of what was going on, she stood above Kiel who'd been walking further ahead this entire time and growled louder than she'd ever had. It was practically a roar.
He jumped in surprise, teleporting immediately after on the very top of the tree he was next to. That was impressive, she had to admit.
It took him a second to realize what'd just happened, and when he teleported down, he did not seem amused.
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Kiel wanted nothing more than to run back to their place by the river and give the stone to Edel and form a contract. Melissa on the other hand asked if they could follow him further inside the forest after looking over the paper the man inside the guild gave them.
He was getting better at sending his thoughts through the link, and hopefully with a bit more practice he would be able to communicate more clearly.
He was waiting for the millionth time for the humans to catch up, when he felt something was wrong. He didn't have time to react, however, as the monster attacking was much faster than he anticipated. The monster appeared on top of him, standing over thrice his height imposingly and roared.
Before he could see who the attacker was, his body reacted on its own, jumping back to avoid the attack. He didn't stop there, however, and teleported half a second later to the top of the tree he was next to. It took him a second to realize who the attacker was, with his heart beating a mile a minute. Melissa looked ready to torch the hostile monster, and he had to stop her before she hurt Edel.
For how stupid that was, she looked awfully proud of herself, and for some reason that made him want to get back at her even more. Well, her surprise still wasn't going to top his.
He asked Melissa to give him the stone.
After she set it on the ground next to him, he meowed at Edel to get her attention. He tried to ignore her wildly wagging tail and focus on the stone.
Pushing his will and ether into it, he focused on the terms of the contract next, 'I wish to form a bond with you, to have the ability to speak and understand you the same way humans speak to one another.'
Short, sweet and simple. He still had to meow for the purposes of the intent of his words. He didn't know how what he said could be translated to what his thoughts were, but at the end of it the stone glowed all the same.
It took only half a fraction of a second before the stone burst into flames and cracked, signaling that the contract was complete.
He couldn't help but send over his thoughts of amusement to Edel, watching her jump in surprise as she stared at him. He spent some time relishing in the feeling he would never have to rely on vague gestures again.
Edel couldn't reply with words the same he could, but instead her ability to send over mental images or emotions was much better than him with only a few minutes of having the bond.
Behind him, Melissa couldn't help but comment, "You two are adorable!" which she seemed to have also said out loud based on Cassandra rolling her eyes. She said something he couldn't understand and ignored them.
Next on the list was one hundred percent going to be learning the language. He was used to being unable to understand other people speaking, but if he was going to live in this world, he had to learn the language at some point or another.
With that part finished, it was now his time to uphold his end of the bargain. In order to get the stone, the plants he brought them either weren't enough, or they took advantage of them. Regardless, they had to accept a mission regarding the quiet zones, and he told Melissa he could help her with that.
He considered he was too hasty in agreeing to help, but in the end he got the stone, and it wasn't a big deal for him to guide them inside a quiet zone.
Finding one of those zones was easier the deeper they went in the forest. Melissa seemed to trust him implicitly in that, but her friend was more hesitant, though she followed them all the same.
It took him about forty minutes to find a quiet zone. That seemed like a lot, but that wasn't time they spent running. The nearest quiet zone was less than an hour's worth of walking distance away from the city.
That brought some uncomfortable questions into play, but it wasn't really his problem to care.
Edel, Melissa and Cassandra followed him inside the quiet zone. In this place he demanded absolute obedience. If any of them ran outside the range of his influence it would tire him out a lot faster to protect them.
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The two adventurers didn't seem to be able to feel anything inside the space, though both he and Edel could tell something was wrong. Melissa tried to cast her magic with no luck, confirming her suspicions about the space.
The fact she couldn't cast inside this place was surprising to hear, but she didn't seem to want to share more and he could hold his curiosity.
If it was something terribly important she would probably have mentioned it.
He took them as far as he felt confident in protecting them even if he lost concentration for a bit. Melissa asked him to go further inside, but he ignored her and she didn't push it.
If she couldn't find anything here, it was unlikely anything would change deeper inside.
She spent the next hour concentrating and testing a few different things from the space around them. She took a sample of the dirt, the bark of some trees, and even a small plant that he grudgingly made the exception and helped them get deeper into the zone.
At the end of it, he was dead tired from the constant exertion. Even with this requiring very little of his will, after an hour the result was a good headache that was building and he wanted to rest.
Melissa didn't seem satisfied from what he could see, but he wasn't about to spend the rest of the day with a searing headache just to satisfy her curiosity. He wondered what she would say if she saw the tentacle he'd buried near the river.
Actually, it wasn't a bad idea.
He hadn't risked touching it and in the end it lay forgotten a meter below the ground. He didn't want to give it up for nothing, but maybe Melissa could arrange for a reward.
And if they figured out what was going on, he could learn about it from her at a later date.
Edel on the other hand didn't know what Kiel was doing, but seeing him happy was more important for her. They left the quiet zone after a boring long hour, and started heading back towards the river. That place didn't have anything particular in it, but it was where she and Kiel first met, and she liked it for its simplicity.
When they reached the river a few hours later, it was well into the afternoon.
During the long walk, she kept herself entertained by bothering Kiel now that they weren't inside the quiet zone. She also learned what a name was, and she had one! Her friend was Kiel, and she was Edel.
She liked it.
When she woke up from her daydreaming, Kiel had started digging where they'd previously buried the squid tentacle. She wasn't sure what a squid was, but it was how Kiel had described it, and she knew what the tentacle looked like. She only hoped those squids weren't as scary as that monster.
Kiel and the other adventurers were very careful in digging up the tentacle. He hadn't considered that digging up something you shouldn't touch would be this hard, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Thankfully nothing went wrong and Melissa was very careful in picking it up. As for the tentacle, being buried in the dirt for a few months didn't seem to do anything to it.
Getting rid of it was definitely the correct decision. Although it seemed normal now, he could still remember how geometry stopped making sense when he first stared at it. It still felt weird when he focused on it with his affinity sense.
Melissa didn't pay too much attention to the tentacle, and instead sat down to rest.
This had been a long day, and she was already dreading the way back. Kiel sat next to Edel, and it didn't take him more than ten seconds to cause mischief as he teleported above her head and didn't leave no matter how hard she shook her head. Each time he was thrown away, he teleported back.
That led into a chase where Edel and Kiel became a blur of movement. Following Edel wasn't terribly hard, but the teleporting cat was another story entirely.
The two of them seemed to have endless amounts of energy, and she wanted to know their secret.
After she and Cassandra rested for a bit, they got up, and to her surprise both Kiel and Edel followed them. She wouldn't say this out loud, but she was glad they did. Exploring the quiet zone as Kiel described it brought back awful memories, and she could barely feel the difference between normal spaces and the unstable one.
It was late in the afternoon when they reached the gates, thankfully before they closed them. Getting inside the city after they closed the gates was a painful endeavor she had no wish to repeat more than once.
Kiel had asked her more than once if the city would allow Edel inside. The paperwork for this kind of stuff was prohibitively annoying, so the answer was definitely not. But on the other hand, they did come back with a lot of information and evidence that something weird was going on. If nothing else, the alien tentacle would probably be enough to grab the attention of the guild master, and that could open some doors.
She told him not to worry.
"Halt!" The guard at the gate yelled in a tone that bore no question.
Looking at the approaching guard, she tried to appear as harmless as possible, though she knew it was a moot point with how tightly the guard gripped his spear, "We bear no ill will, just me and my companion. I have the guild's card with me, and if you ask for the guild master he will vouch for the other two behind me."
The man didn't let his grip ease, but he looked at her in consideration, "The guild master is a busy man. If you want to cause trouble you can go somewhere else."
She stopped him before he could continue, "I know he's a busy man, we went out on his request and came back with results. Send a message for me, will you?" She showed him the mission papers.
More guards had gathered at the gates by now, and the man looked annoyed at the extra work. He called for another guard to go bother the guild. If these people were lying about the guild master part, he was in for a good show. Unfortunately that didn't seem likely based on how confident the woman looked and the gate she came from.
Usually only foragers left from this gate and the rare few adventurers. Most adventurers never came back, which said something about those that did.
It was only a few minutes later when the guild sent someone at the gate. And they didn't send a simple messenger like he expected, no... the guild master came himself.
"Ah, I see you're back already." The guild master turned to the guard, "I can vouch for the two beasts, thank you for allowing me," he said politely.
The guard was pretty sure they weren't beasts but wild monsters. Tamed beasts had a different look in their eyes, but then again he wasn't about to contradict the guild master. That wasn't a mistake you made if you valued your life.
The man let them in with a warning and thanked the guild master for helping out with the situation.
After entering the city they headed straight for the second floor of the guild house. The man situated them on a chair and asked the receptionist below to bring water and snacks for the guests.
Kiel looked from corner to corner, examining everything that caught his eye. The first time he came his mind was too preoccupied with the contract stone to pay attention to his surroundings.
Now that he was paying more attention, this was the first time he thought this wasn't a building that fit this world. The style of the second floor resembled somewhat that of expensive old buildings back on Earth, making for a weird contrast between his expectations and what he was looking at.
The receptionist brought them food and water and left immediately after.
That was probably for the best as when Melissa removed the tentacle from her bag, the entire room exploded and a sickening feeling of bloodlust filled every corner of the room.
Melissa looked about to faint, and her friend wasn't much better.
He and Edel fared better, but they could barely move under the pressure of the man's aura. He felt like the man was going to kill them the very next second, and then... the pressure was gone.
The man looked furious, but the way his arms trembled wasn't one of anger.
If Kiel hadn't kept his eyes on him since his appearance by the gate, he would never have assumed this was the same person.
His voice was cold and the cordial tone was long gone from it, "Tell me everything."