“…What do we do next?” Alnea said, glancing around the canyon. A new canyon. To them, of course. To the Night Canyons itself, it was quite an old canyon. And a quite a big one at that. Easily nearing five to seven kilometres in width, and several times that in length, the canyon was one of the largest canyons he had seen, yet. The canyon was so large, that after his master dropped them to the ground, he failed to even see its walls.
Technically, they were still in the outer branches of the Night Canyons, but they were right on the edge of the inner branches. The resources that could be found in the branch would be appealing to even some of the True Wanderers. Or maybe, some of the more daring False Wanderers, who were desperate for a breakthrough, could also venture into the canyons. Thus, this time, they might not only have to deal with the Oren Beasts, but also with other Wanderers.
“Should we find a place to rest first?”
Instead of answering his question, Yuri looked at him in silence, before turning towards Cecilia.
“What about you? Do you think we should look for a place to rest as well?”
“…I think it is a pretty reasonable idea. If we are going to stay within this canyon for a long time, then finding a place to rest is a must.”
“And how do you two think we should do that?”
“We should look for a place that is less inconspicuous, and is not surrounded by Oren Beasts from all sides. It should also have an easy way to escape, in case we are ambushed by stronger enemies, and need to run.”
“Right,” Alnea added from the side. “It would also be better if it has some natural places to camouflage ourselves. Like boulders, shrubs. And it should not be too far away from a source of water. Otherwise, going back and forth every day to collect some water over a long distance can be a little risky. There are a few other things that we should also consider, but for now, let us start looking with these points first.”
“Is that how you two have been living in the canyons for the past month?” Yuri said, shaking her head. “Maybe this is also another reason why big sis Nyssa made us train as a team.”
“…What do you mean?”
“…Did we say something wrong?”
“There is nothing wrong with what you two said… if you were only looking at Oren Beasts as your enemies. But they are not our only enemies. Leaving aside the Wanderers we may encounter, you should both know why, despite having lower number of Oren Beasts, the Night Canyons are considered to be just as dangerous as the Bright Light Forest.”
“…Because of its tricky terrain that gives an advantage to the Oren Beasts.”
“…Saying that the environment gives an advantage to the Oren Beasts would be an understatement,” Yuri said. “You have not felt it since we have been only in the outer branches so far, but this canyon is very close to the inner branches… We should be beginning to experience some of the dangers of the canyon from now. You two should better remember that other than the Oren Beasts, and the other Wanderers, the canyon itself is also our enemy. Rather, it is our greatest enemy. And the most unpredictable one.”
“…Then what should we do now?” Alnea asked, unconsciously tightening his grip on his sword. Even Cecilia looked a little tense. Only Yuri remained as calm as ever, even if a little solemn.
“We begin by looking at our immediate surroundings,” Yuri said. “The first rule of survival in the Origin’s End is to always be aware of your surroundings. The same is true for all the other Thrall Domains, and our current situation. We need to find out where we are, what is in our surroundings, if there are any traps, and whether we are surrounded by Oren Beasts.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Checking for Oren Beasts, and their traps was fine, but figuring out where they were… They were in the Night Canyons. And all that lay in their surroundings was darkness… Somehow, though what she said made sense, Alnea could not understand what she was trying to convey. And he did not wish to appear dumb. At least not on the surface. Not when he had boasted of surpassing everyone just a little while ago. So, he used a little cheat, that he could not share with anyone else.
“…So, what should we do?”
Yuri looked at him with a hint of amusement in her eyes, but she did not let it show on her face. Donning the same solemn expression as before, she added, “What I mean to say is, before doing, or deciding anything, we need to observe our surroundings.”
“…Observe?” Alnea mumbled, and looked around himself. Fortunately, the canyon was not dark enough to completely block out the view of their surroundings. They were unable to see what lay some hundreds of metres in the distance, but the light coming in through the cracks at the top of the canyon was enough to illuminate the things that were just within their immediate surroundings.
The ground they were standing on was covered with some kind of grass. Not the Blood Sucking Grass, thankfully. But some other, greenish red grass. Not a species that Alnea knew. As his master had said, he had only spent less than a year on building his foundations. There was a limit to the number of things that he knew. Yuri, and Cecilia though, they had been training to become Wanderers for much longer than him. So, it was only natural for them to recognise what it was.
“Red Herring Grass,” Yuri said, after crouching down to pinch a blade of the grass within her fingers. “You can think of them as normal grasses, or weeds in the wild. Unlike the normal weeds, or grasses though, these grasses thrive on blood, not water.”
“Great,” Alnea mumbled. “Another blood thirsty breed of grass. Don’t tell me that they suck blood out of people too, like the Blood Sucking Grass.”
“Even if barely, the Blood Sucking Grass can still be considered as a precious herb,” Cecilia added from the side. “How can these Red Herring Grass compare to them?”
“The Red Herring Grass indeed cannot compare to the Blood Sucking Grass, but that is not what we have to focus on here. By observing, I did not mean that we just have to observe. We also have to draw our own conclusions from our observations, and conclude whether the area is safe or not. Since Alnea does not know about the Red Herring Grass we can skip over him this time. You tell me, Cecilia. What do you think when you see the Red Herring Grass under our feet?”
“…What is there to think about them? Like you said, they are just weeds. They can be found anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” Yuri said. “Only where there is blood.”
“But this is the Night Canyons… A Forbidden Area. There is bound to be blood everywhere.”
“…Yet the Red Herring Grass does not grow on all those areas, does it?”
“That still does not prove anything… There is too little information to draw any conclusion from…”
“The information is enough… you just do not know how to look at it.”
“…I don’t know what either of you are talking about,” Alnea said, holding his head in his hands, before turning towards Yuri. “Let me get this straight… You are telling me, that just because there is Red Herring Grass around us, we can draw some conclusion for it?”
“…The Red Herring Grass may not be a species of Oren Beasts, it may not even be a precious herb, but it is special in its own right,” Yuri said, and paused for a couple of moments, before turning towards him, and Cecilia. “Did you know that the smell of Red Herring Grass has a slight numbing effect which can slow down our thinking? Even Wanderers, if they are not careful, and are not actively protecting their minds, will see a drastic fall in their thinking capacity.”
“…Now that you mention it, I do feel a little light headed. But what does that have to do with the conclusion that you were talking about?”
“…Let me put it in another way. Do you know why these grasses are named as Red Herring Grasses, Alnea?”
“…Before today, I had not even heard of that name.”
“…Red Herring Grass always grows in a symbiotic relationship with Oren Beasts, where in, it draws in unsuspecting prey, using its smell to numb their mind, and thoughts, making them go round, and round in circles, serving as distractions, while the Oren Beast it is in a symbiotic relationship with would sneak up on the prey, and finish it in one strike. This way, the Oren Beast would get its prey, while the grass would get the blood it needs.”
“Wait a moment… A symbiotic relationship… Doesn’t that mean…” Cecilia mumbled, as her face paled at the thought of what she had missed. Alnea was no exception either. With blood draining from his face, he quickly entered his Spirit State to observe his surrounding in greater detail. But it was already too late by then.