“There is no slavery going on!” Jace protested Tully’s words rather loudly.

“Oh? Is that why Lord of Thunder was so desperate to get us out of the picture?” Rose snarked back.

Jace scoffed. “I don’t wanna defend my father, by Lord of Thunder is another piece of work. The guy’s is downright insane and more than a little paranoid. And besides, my father won’t care that I disappeared.”

“Yes, and what happened has nothing to do with your father pushing for ‘restrictions’ on those with magical powers?” Rose wasn’t having it.

Jace raised his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t agree with my dad, ok! Just…it’s not slavery. That’s a different thing.”

“Perhaps it would be prudent if we moved away from this conversation.” she interjected before it got worse. The two of them weren’t even listening to each other, just throwing their points around in hopes they would land.

“Oh, sure.” Jace shrugged as Rose glared at him.

“What do we need to talk about then?” Rose turned to her. “Tell me what is your family responsible for?”

The girl seemed strangely hostile for some reason. Wichita considered making up an elaborate lie about Arcana being good. Perhaps she could act like she was from one of the weak species Arcana had hunted to extinction. Weren’t the Istel mana lifeforms too? That could work.

Rose’s glare made her hesitate. Would she be able to lie to the girl? Perception Skills were tricky. And she was too close to human to be sure that Rose wouldn’t pick up any clues.

“Ok!” Tully interjected, ending the glaring match that had she was having with Rose. “How about we all calm down.” the younger girl said really slowly. Rose turned her head towards her sister and glared at her.

“I am calm.” she protested.

Tully gave her a look of disdain.

“Do you see me - “

“Tully is right.” Wichita interrupted. “I think we should focus on preparing some more. Didn’t Tully still have to explain her class to us?”

“Oh.” the younger girl seemed a bit surprised at the attention she was facing. “Oh, sure! I have two of them [Sword Forge] and [Sword Call]. The [Sword Forge] is the Skill that lets me make those silver laser shot thingies. I don’t know what [Sword Call] does.”

“[Sword Call] allows you to access the energy in the energy of your sword in the first place.” Wichita said as she sensed the mana around her start acting up again. “The two Skills are fairly standard. No, I meant testing it out on that box that is emerging from the ground.”

“What?” The three transmigrators turned to where she was pointing at once, looking at the box that was emerging from the ground.

“That’s like, a shipping box.” Rose commented. “Why would there be a shipping box here?”

“I know right? I expected it to be a treasure chest. But it’s just a plain old box.” Tully answered. Even Rose looked puzzled.

“Why would there be a treasure chest here? This isn’t a dungeon.” Jace asked the question on their minds.

Wichita couldn’t make sense of what he had said, though. Why would there be treasure chests inside a dungeon? What kind of person kept treasures with prisoners? Didn’t they risk the prisoners stealing them or using them to harm their captives?

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t see the similarity. The forest is like a dungeon, giving us fair trials and stuff. But we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, so now it doesn’t know what to do with us. That doesn’t sound familiar to you?”

“The adventurers usually die if they get caught in a higher level dungeon though. And like, dungeons don’t usually level down monsters.” Rose commented. So they all knew what this dungeon was. Perhaps something from their world? Wichita was not sure if she should expose her lack of knowledge.

“Well technically the forest didn’t either.” Tully pointed out.

“I would question that.” Wichita interrupted deciding that she did not want to reveal it. There was merit to appearing strong. “The forest almost assuredly has more powerful beasts, considering its Tier. In fact, I would bet that lacking in beasts that it can pit against us fairly might be one of the reasons it is doing this. Now Tully, would you mind shooting the box?”

“Wait. Wouldn’t that, like, piss the forest off?” Rose asked.

“The forest is not a human, miss rose.” Wichita scoffed. “If the box is a trap, then it will make it easy to destroy. If it is a message, then it will make it difficult. I doubt even Tully could destroy it in that case.”

The girl in question shrugged and sent a little Sword Qi towards the box. The single-minded force of destruction collided with the box that was rising from the ground, and then bounced back. Wichita ducked, seeing the others follow almost immediately. But the Qi just bounced off the ground and fizzled off.

“A message then.” Wichita said. Then doubted herself. “I hope. If that is a monster, then I fear we might be done for.”

Rose glared at her. “So we wait until the box is finished rising up? Why is it so slow anyway?”

“Cause it's a dungeon duh.” Tully answered.

“What does it being a dungeon have to do with it!” Rose practically yelled back. “I haven’t read a single book that mentions how slowly treasure chests rise in a dungeon. Not even the dungeon core ones!”

Tully pouted as she walked over to the chest. “The dungeon is probably taking its time to decide what it wants to give us.”

Rose stared at her like she couldn't believe what her sister was doing. “I think the chest is done rising up.” The younger girl said as she peaked into the open box.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“What does it say?” Wichita asked. With the System normalizing languages, there was little doubt that the tree’s message would be understandable.

“Oh um.” Tully gulped. What did it say? Was it a threat? There had been forests before that had told people lost in it to clear of its land. And then killed them when they asked for assistance.

“In the hearth lies the water. In the rush, sustenance. Pause at your risk for there lies trial.”

Wichita blinked. “A riddle?” she breathed out in confusion. A forest did not usually give riddles. That was the jurisdiction of caves and their like.

“I am confused.” Jace said. “Is the forest telling us where to find food?”

“And what challenges we might face while retrieving it.” Rose answered. “I suppose this is it trying to be fair?”

The girl turned to Wichita for answers, but for once she had none. How would she know what the forest was doing? This was outside of her expectations, very much out of the norm.

“I would presume from the run that something called the hearth has water. There might be beasts that attack us while we run, providing sustenance. So we will need to hunt to survive. There is something called a trial whenever we stop.” she answered.

The ‘riddle’ was easy enough. The forest was either very bad at making them, or decided they were not worth the trouble of making a better one. Wichita was not sure if she liked either of those options.

“I would presume that -” Wichita could not continue as she felt the trees start shaking around her. The four of them looked at each other, and then voiced their mutual agreement. “Run.”

Perhaps it was a hallucination, but she thought she saw a cat following them. But once again, it had disappeared before she could confirm its presence.

“Prepare for beasts!” she yelled as they ran for the diverging paths.

Tully’s hands glowed with Sword Qi, while Jace tried to make himself look smaller. Rose glared at him.

“What? I don’t have any helpful Skills!” he yelled at her, Wichita did not understand why there was a need to yell.

“I don’t either!”

“Well, you have my gun.” he shot back.

“The gun ran out of bullets.” Rose looked at him like he was an idiot. “I can’t use it anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Did you not know how many bullets were in your own gun? How idiotic can you be Jace? At least try using your brain sometimes!”

“I just took the first gun I could get my hands on, ok! I don’t even know what gun that is!” the boy protested. “I don’t really use guns, as you know!”

“The food is here.” Wichita commented as she looked at the vines. This would be troublesome, her needle wouldn’t be able to target important areas. The needle question was, of course, heading straight for the vines.

“That is what the forest wants us to eat?” Jace looked offended by the vines’ appearance. Wichita did not know enough to judge, but that looked healthy? There was plenty of green on them. Didn’t humans need that?

“The things don’t look very digestible!” he yelled.

“Tully, Sword Qi!” she ordered. “Rose, look out! Jace, stop speaking.”

Tully was the only one who actually followed her orders. Jace just looked at her like she had insulted him somehow. Rose, on the other hand, had more things to say.

“What do you mean, lookout?! What am I supposed to look out for?!” the girl yelled back.

What part of look out did she not understand? That was such a simple thing!

“Just look out! For monsters or trees or whatever the forest throws at us. Come on, you’re the person with the perception Skill. I have to try to deal with the vines.”

The vines were increasing, feeding on something as they increased in number. The needle was making quick work of them, and so was Tully, but they weren’t quick enough. A part of her wanted to join the fight, try bashing the vines with stones or something. But that wouldn’t really be helpful.

“Tully, focus your Sword Qi, try to tell it to go inside. The Qi should listen to you.” she said, presuming that it would act like mana. The books mentioned that Qi existed, not how it worked. The needle needed no such commands, it was just enjoying itself.

“Stop enjoying yourself and get to work!” she ordered the bloody thing. The thing in question just shivered, as if shrugging her command away. But it still followed.

What a pain. Wichita needed to find a way to make it listen to her. The thing was getting on her nerves, and not in a good way.

Thankfully, the vines were dying. In large numbers.

“How do we collect this?” she asked. “Is there some special preservation you need?”

“What?”

“The vines! Is there some special preservation you need to keep it as food?” she asked.

“Oh um.” Rose looked at the vines doubtfully. “I have no idea. Perhaps cooking them? I haven’t really cooked that much before. Like, I know how to do basic stuff, but something like this is just -”

“Rose!” she yelled back, though she wasn’t sure why. There was a fight going on, but they weren’t really involved. The needle and Tully were handling it. The three of them were dead weights.

“Oh, um guys.” Jace interrupted. “I don’t think we have time for preparations.”

Wichita looked to where he was pointing. The forest floor had been replaced by square cobblestones, making a diagonal pattern across the road. The cobblestones were also disappearing, and beneath them was some kind of liquid. Yellow, boiling and looking unpleasant, she did not want to test it.

“I think that might have mana in it.” she said, relaying what her mana sense was telling her.

“What does that mean?” Rose asked.

“The thing can hurt me! Get the vines!” she said, puling at them. There was now Acid Mana in the air. And Corrosion mana. Even some Poison mana.

“The forest didn’t skimp on the poison.” she murmured as she pulled on the vines, taking off a rather large one. That could be a weapon. Poison mana would work well with it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to eat this?” she asked Rose, who was busy staring at the boiling yellow liquid between the cobblestones. The girl jumped as the floor below her started popping off cobblestones.

“Don’t stand in space!” Wichita yelled. “A gap can appear right beneath your feet, you don’t want to be caught where it does.”

“What do we do?!” Rose asked. Even Tully was nodding quickly. The cobblestones were disappearing one by one, the holes emerging closer to them as time passed. Tully was closest to the holes, it would reach her in a minute or two.

“Run ahead! This is a test!” she yelled back.

The three of them looked at her like she wasn’t speaking sense, But she was. This was a test that they needed to pass, in her eyes there was no other way.

“Come on!” she yelled as a cobblestone fell right below her right foot, even though the cobblestones hadn’t started dropping anywhere near her.

Oh, fuck this forest!