"Woah, this forest is big. But why is it called the Redwood Forest?" Cana asked while walking through the dense foliage behind me.
"Look closely at the roots and the leaves of the trees," I replied.
Cana bent down to inspect them and noticed a reddish hue near the roots. The leaves had bright red lines streaked across them.
"Is the plant species like this throughout the forest? Wait... other than the color, everything else resembles normal plants. How is this possible?" she asked, puzzled.
I smiled a bit hearing her ramble. It looked like her lessons with Granny were paying off—she was starting to take an interest in this kind of stuff.
"That's the result of the blood of beasts that get regularly killed here."
"Blood of the beasts? But how? And in such a large amount? And how can it affect the trees this way?" she asked, a little startled.
"Well, the Redwood Forest is banned for all wizards except S-Class and their teammates—which should not exceed two per S-Class wizard. Do you know why?"
"Why?"
"It's because the lowest level of creatures in this jungle is B-Class and above. There are frequent A-Rank threats, and even some S-Rank beasts. Because of the high magical content in the dead bodies of the animals hunted here, their blood acts as a catalyst. It gets soaked into the soil, reaches the roots, and spreads throughout the entire tree, giving it that reddish color."
"Wow... sounds cool."
"Yeah, it does—but it also makes this place almost uninhabitable. Cutting down the trees releases a pungent, blood-like smell that takes forever to fade. And since the whole forest is filled with them, the stench makes the place a nightmare to stay in."
"Hm... sounds like a waste."
"Yeah, can't deny that."
"What was the quest again?" Cana asked.
"Even though no civilization exists here, there's an outpost inside the forest for monitoring purposes. A few weeks ago, they stopped transmitting any data. We have to find out why—and report it."
"Alright then, let's go!" Cana shouted excitedly and began running.
"Ha-ha! Wait! That's the wrong way!" I called out and ran after her.
After a few minutes of running...
"Karna," Cana said.
"Yeah?"
"I'm starting to feel like the ethernano in the air is increasing."
"Well, I told you about the blood getting soaked into the soil, right? It also increases the ethernano in the area. That creates a more magic-rich ecosystem, which then sustains stronger monsters. It's a cycle—kind of like a self-sustaining system."
"That's cool. But with all this magic not being used, doesn't it feel like a waste?"
"Yeah..."
Suddenly, I stopped walking. A realization hit me like a bolt of lightning.
'Damn it! I thought the clue to the location of the ritual would be given here—I didn't consider that this forest is the place where the ritual is going to happen! Of course! This is one of the places with the highest ethernano density in the world. The remnants of that Drakon species must be living here.'
I began to look around more cautiously, cursing myself for not being careful earlier and missing such a critical detail.
"Karna, what happened?" Cana asked, a bit worried.
"Cana, don't you think this forest is too quiet? And even though it's supposed to be filled with dangerous creatures, we haven't been attacked once."
Cana's eyes widened. She immediately grew serious and took a few of her magic cards into her hand, ready to use them at a moment's notice.
I spread my magic outward to sense our surroundings, but I couldn't detect any significant life force. That only made me more nervous. Something was definitely wrong.
I brought the mental image of the map I'd memorized back to mind. Judging by our current location, we weren't far from the outpost—we'd reach it by sundown.
Cana and I exchanged a glance. Without needing to say anything more, we silently agreed: we'd head toward the outpost and figure out what the hell was going on here.
By sundown, we had reached a tall tree and climbed to the top. From there, we could look down at the outpost from a distance. It was circular, with walls protecting it and two large doors on opposite sides. Mounted along the walls were six lacrimas—used for capturing visual and magical data. These fed information to the central structure, which was empty except for a small cottage near one of the gates. The cottage was for personnel needing temporary shelter.
In the very center stood a medium-sized pillar with a lacrima atop it. That one absorbed magic to power the surveillance system and sent the information to the Magic Council headquarters.
Our mission was to check whether anything was obstructing the system and repair it if possible. If not, we were to record the issues and return.
But what we saw now...
"Karna, can you see anything?" Cana asked, her voice quiet and tense.
"Yeah," I replied grimly.
The outpost was no longer empty.
Five Drakons—each half the size of our entire guild hall—were lounging inside. Worse, one of them was as big as the entire guild. At the center of the clearing, a ritual circle had been drawn on the ground with what looked very much like animal blood.
So that's where all the animals from the forest had gone.
And the answer did not inspire any enthusiasm.
A/N- hope you like the rewrite