“Koyuki, are you ok?” Helena shouted.

“I am alive!” I answered. I looked up and saw Skadi bandaging Cassie's wound. Helena was running towards me. Torben was standing there looking concerned.

“Your legs are bleeding!” Helena said. She pulled a salve and some bandages from her backpack.

“Koyuki, next time do not rush in alone. That death fog even prevented me from helping. This could have ended badly.” He said.

“Sorry.” I apologised. He made a good point, we were a team. “I should not have acted alone.”

“You did defeat it but we will need to talk about that fight, after everyone is bandaged.” Torben said.

I winced as Helena was applying the salve. My pants had several holes in them. I would need to replace them back at the camp. Two of my goblins and one squirrel survived the fight. Of course, Nyx was alive too. Alive? Ok, maybe that was the wrong word. Anyway, she seemed fine. Nyx was watching Helena apply the bandages. It almost looked like she was making sure I was taken care of.

“That was a nasty thing.” Helena said as she worked. “I knew there were dangerous plants but I have never heard of that thing.”

“I was not briefed on anything like this.” Torben said. “It is strange. The academy does not want their students to die but this could have easily eaten us.”

“Maybe they missed it?” Skadi suggested.

“It had a lot of bones around it. And it was huge. I doubt that it just grew recently.” I said. “Maybe they think this is a threat a student has to be able to deal with?”

“I guess we just have to ask them.” Torben said.

When Helena was done she helped me stand up. My legs hurt but I could move. We all sat down in a nearby patch of grass to have a debriefing and rest.

“I will come up with a potion that burns those stupid plants. How can this thing resist fire? That is not fair! I will find all those things and find a way to burn every one of them!” Cassie ranted.

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“Resistant does not mean immune. We could have tried more of your potions.” Torben said. “Which brings me to the debrief. I will start with myself. I failed to recognize the danger. As the team leader I have put us in a bad situation. I apologise.” He even bowed to us.

“Next, reactions. Skadi, your defence of Cassie was commendable. You saw a teammate in need and acted immediately. Cassie, you should have announced your use of a potion. A plant can’t hear, so we were able to communicate freely without alerting the enemy. You should have warned us in case the plant did catch fire. Also, you should have thrown some more to try to overwhelm its resistance.”

She nodded.

“Now, this is also my fault, but we should have retreated. I should have given that command. A plant is stationary. If we had just backed up a bit there would have been no problem and we could have come up with a proper strategy. My instinct was to charge, my mistake.”

He looked at me. “Koyuki, that was your mistake as well. Especially since you are not a front line fighter. We could have used the cloud Nyx created as a distraction to retreat. You charging in there was dangerous. We could not see what was happening, nor could we provide any support.”

I nodded.

“So, how did you kill it?” Torben asked.

“It tried drinking my blood. I shoved death mana down its throat… Tendril? Vine? Anyway, it killed it.”

“Good. Overall I am proud of you. Once more we emerged victorious. None of you panicked. Nobody abandoned their comrades.”

A sudden crunching sound made us all look… at Nyx. She was eating the undead squirrel. There was no shame on her face as she kept chewing.

“At least I still have the goblins… Nyx, don’t eat them! We can use them.” They used up very little of my mana and if I could arm them they might come in handy.

“Goblins are not very strong but I am not sure if that matters for an undead.” Torben said.

I did not really know either. But I only needed them to stab some things with a spear. Maybe I could strengthen the bones even after they were raised?

“I can sharpen some sticks while we rest.” Skadi offered.

“Thanks!”

“I will help.” Helena volunteered. The two of them went to look for some sticks.

"I will search the dead plant for anything useful. You two rest.” Torben said.

That left Cassie and myself. And the undead. After Nyx finished her meal she curled up next to us.

“How is your foot?” I asked.

“Hurts. I think they injected something with those thorns. It itches. But I can walk. Might need a new shoe though.”

“I definitely need new pants. Thankfully, my wounds don’t itch. Just… normal pain I guess. Maybe the death mana killed the poison they injected?”

“Could be. A shame there is nothing left to study. Then again, good riddance. We should totally exterminate that plant species.”

“Yeah. Hm. Do you think plants can become undead?” I wondered.

“Uh… you are the expert.” She shrugged.

There was no skeleton to animate. But maybe there was a spell for zombie plants? I would need to ask Gronir when we were back at the academy.

Skadi and Helena returned, they sat down again and started sharpening the sticks they found.

“I found some gems.” Torben announced. “Not much else that was useful. There are some rusted and broken blades. I don’t think they are salvageable. But those gems look valuable. Maybe someone carried them who got eaten.”

He walked towards us and showed us the three gems he found. Two were red, one was green. I was no expert but they looked expensive.

“They look expertly polished. We should be able to sell them.” Skadi said.

Loot! I smiled. If we got some money out of this the pain was a small price to pay.