Filina, who exhaled with a bewildered face, pulled the bow again towards a bird that ran towards her. The arrow she fired flew at high speed and pierced the bird’s head.
“Why?”
Filina, who had pulled the bow without much expectation, muttered with an absurd face.
Henry, who looked at her like that, frowned slightly, then turned and swung his wooden sword at the flying birds.
Filina looked around for a moment.
The number of freshmen who entered the Wind Forest was around 50. However, where she was now, not a single one was visible.
In fact, while pulling the bowstring at the monsters, I noticed at first glance that the cadets had escaped to another place.
Presumably, she guessed that other people also avoided it in a similar pattern.
Filina put her back close to Henry’s back and fired her arrows.
She could feel him twitching and looking back at her, but she couldn’t help it.
When shooting a bow, she had to focus on the direction the target was, so the defenseless body was dangerous.
However, it was foolish to run to the place where Bessie and Leon were, and they too had closed the distance and were shooting arrows with their backs attached.
Filina turned to look at the freshman, completely covered in birds. His uniform was torn off, and he was drenched in blood.
Filina shouted at him.
“Put that fruit down on the floor right now!”
The freshman slightly lifted his head. However, as the birds attacked his face, he quickly buried his head back in his lap.
Filina spit it out once more with a frustrated voice.
“The birds are running at you because of the fruit you are holding! Carefully put it down on the floor and run away!”
She was wrong. It was better for him to take the fruit himself, put it somewhere else, and run away.
She realized this fact, after everything had already happened too late.
“Hey, this… … … … ?”
As the freshman held out the fruit in his hand, the flapping of the wings of the birds became more fierce. Then he became terrified and threw the fruit in his hand in the opposite direction.
Filina looked at him in dismay.
Splash!
The sound of juice bursting faintly resounded.
But it didn’t end there.
When the birds attached to the freshman flew toward the fruit he had thrown, he got up hastily and took out as many as four more fruits from his pocket.
As if throwing a bomb, he threw the fruit far into the depths of the forest.
The fruit was completely split, and the sour scent pierced the tip of their noses.
“Oh, no… .”
Filina sighed as she lowered the bow she was holding in her hand. Henry turned and looked at her condition.
However, Filina didn’t notice him.
Filina had a disappointed face as if she couldn’t believe the current situation.
She hurriedly turned her head and looked in the direction the monster flew.
The birds running towards the fruit were nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, the dense forest was strangely quiet.
It was like the quiet eve of a typhoon, as if something was about to happen at any moment.
A strange sense of crisis came over her.
“Where have all the birds gone all of a sudden?”
Bessie looked around with a puzzled face and said.
Leon looked up at the sky. A light breeze blew over the wooded space.
Filina exhaled quietly and rubbed the goosebumps that grew on her forearm. Her heart was pounding wildly.
Just as the body reacted first before recognizing it with the head, she foresaw what was to come.
A faint vibration was felt on the ground.
Henry lowered the wooden sword he had raised in the air and suddenly grabbed Filina’s wrist. He said towards Bessie and Leon.
“Everyone, run away from here as far as possible.”
Bessie tilted her head and looked at Henry.
“What do you mean all of a sudden?”
It was none other than Leon who answered Bessie’s question.
“The atmosphere is unusual. Let’s split up first, we will meet them at the tree of hallucinations.”
Leon then took Bessie and ran in the opposite direction. Filina was also led by Henry’s hand and had to hurriedly move to somewhere.
She asked Henry, frowned.
“Why do we have to scatter? We can all just run away together.”
He glanced at Filina and spoke in a low voice.
“The fruit that the freshman threw earlier is a fruit with a very strong scent. When the juice bursts, the aroma instantly rides the air and sticks to its surroundings. It’s probably got on our clothes too. And the monsters a while ago are very sensitive to scents.”
First of all, as the number of monsters was large, it was necessary to distract their attention.
It was unknown what happened, but the monsters had disappeared now, and they had to take advantage of that gap and run away as far as possible.
However, moving with the team with the scent of the fruit covering their bodies was only a signal to them that food was here.
So, they had to separate. They had to find the tree of hallucinations anyway, so they just had to regroup there.
Filina didn’t like the fact that it was Henry who moved with her, but now wasn’t the time to calculate.
Filina looked up at the sky. The yellow bird that Carmen had sent was nowhere to be seen.
If it was watching, it should have already reported to Carmen and Lawrence right away about Filina’s team.
Filina turned her head and looked at the spot where she had passed the swordsmanship academy.
A quiet stillness lingered among the tangled bushes.
There was no call. Had they known their situation now, the instructors would have rang the bell sooner to signal to the cadets to return.
Filina hurried her steps with a cold face. Then, suddenly, she asked with a puzzled face.
“So, who took that freshman?”
It was a late question. Filina, who was dragged away by Henry, suddenly remembered the freshman who was left behind.
“Do you not know who made us suffer right now?”
She frowned and replied.
“Who am I to blame? In the end, it was our luck that we got involved in something like this.”
“We were lucky enough to avoid it. If you had ignored the freshman in the first place….”
Filina laughed at his cold voice and asked.
“Did you know that that person was a member of the 1st Order? It will also affect the scores of each team.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
It was a dry answer. Filina looked at Henry with a slightly distorted expression.
Yes, that’s right.
Henry wouldn’t need to go out anyway.
It would be more hell for him to go home.
Filina looked back for nothing, hoping that the freshman who was left alone had escaped safely in the other direction.
Where else is there a vain dog death, as much as being bitten to death by birds?
As someone who has already experienced such a dog death, she sincerely worried about the freshman.
When Filina turned her head back to the front, she hit her forehead against Henry’s broad back.
It was because Henry, who was walking forward, suddenly stopped in the middle.
She asked with a frown.
“Why did you stop all of a sudden?”
At the same time as she asked that question, a small echo was heard from the floor. Then, suddenly, the ground shook violently, like an earthquake.
Filina unknowingly grabbed the hem of Henry’s robe while trying to keep her balance, and he naturally grabbed her waist.
Henry wrapped his arm around her waist tightly to protect Filina from falling.
Then, as if at some point, the earth rumble stopped.
When Filina felt Henry’s hand tightly wrapped around her waist, Filina groaned and tried to remove his hand.
As she was about to forcibly shake off Henry’s hand that was much larger than her own, goosebumps suddenly appeared on her forearm. The cold air passed. She trembled in a chill of unknown meaning.
Filina turned her head forward only later. As time passed slowly, there was only a quiet sound of breathing.
Henry was already silently staring at something in front of him.
“… what is it?”
Filina’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Through the dark grass, a huge bird covered in black was looking at them. The cool air washed over them.
Fortunately, the location of the bird was somewhat far from where they were standing.
However, with one big flap of its wings, it seemed to be able to catch up with this distance very quickly.
The trees that stretched out thickly and the bird, which was comparable in size, had a tremendous sense of pressure that could not be compared with those they had fought earlier.
Perhaps, those birds earlier disappeared because of this giant bird’s existence.
Her heart was pounding like crazy. A feeling of extreme fear came over her.
“Sir Debussy.”
Henry’s low voice was heard. She couldn’t even think of answering, just staring at the monster in front of her.
Then Henry parted his lips once more.
“What are you going to do?”
Then Filina turned her head and looked at him.
“What..?”
As she asked what he meant, Henry asked Filina quietly, looking into her eyes.
“I’m asking if you want to run away or fight back.”
“… fight? Against that monster?”
Filina pointed at the monster with her hand and asked with a blank face. Then Henry, who was looking at her quietly, suddenly said something completely different.
“I have never seen such an expression before, Sir Debussy.”
“…..What?”
“Now, are you afraid of that monster?”
Henry looked at Filina with curious eyes. Filina’s face, looking at Henry, was distorted as if she had heard an absurd sound.
‘Do you call that a question? There is a monster that looks like an intermediate level or higher right in front of you, isn’t it more strange to have a rather casual face?’
Moreover, Henry was holding her tightly, the distance between them was so close that they could even feel each other’s breath.
When Filina turned her head forward again, the monster that had barely moved in front suddenly spread its wings wide.
At the same time, a strong wind blew.
Filina took a deep breath and stepped back.
The monster flapped its wings as if it was about to take off. The strong wind moved the grass and dust around it.
Henry released the hand that had wrapped around Filina’s waist, and immediately grabbed her hand.
A warm feeling passed through her skin.
“… … First, let’s run away.”
Henry exhaled in a soft voice and started running in the opposite direction with Filina. The monster flew up to the sky in an instant, knocking down all the tall trees.