Chapter 103. Three Monsters.
The very next morning they left the inn, heading straight for the gates beyond which lay the inner part of the Magical Jungle.
Just as Severus had expected, the walk through the town was calmer than last time. The moment people spotted the sticker on his cloak, they immediately lost interest, and there were not many around at such an early hour. He still half expected some kind of setup from the other groups, but everything was almost suspiciously quiet.
He even managed to stop at a couple of shops that were just opening and stock up on some ores, along with herbs and other ingredients that could only be found in the inner part of the jungle. There was even a fifteen percent discount, and everything already cost far less than it did in the outside world.
So they reached the gates without any particular trouble in half an hour. Six wizards guarded them, wearing the same uniform as those stationed at the entrance from the outer part of the forest. The guards here were a cut above, though. Each of them was at least a mid-rank Master, and the commander, in a more elaborate chest plate with a golden symbol, was at the highest rank and nearly at the peak in terms of his core.
As Severus approached the exit, his path was immediately blocked.
"Where are you going?" The captain's gaze darted to the sticker and he frowned. "There will be a sortie today, so the exit from the safe zone is closed. Go back."
"Is that so? A few minutes ago I saw someone leave this place," Severus said with a slight smirk, and the captain only snorted in reply.
"So what? If you have been told you are forbidden to leave, then you are forbidden. Go back, or else." His palm rested on the hilt of his sword.
"I see. Then I am off."
But instead of returning to the inn, Severus simply walked past them. The captain remained standing there with a glassy stare, and so did his subordinates. They did not move even after Severus passed through the dome.
Since there was no one near the exit or close by, except for a couple of wizards who had just left a large stone building not far away, nobody noticed the guards' strange behavior. A few minutes later they returned to normal, but they did not remember what had happened and only exchanged puzzled glances.
Meanwhile, Severus had already walked a hundred meters from the town, studying the terrain as he moved along the route Brew had compiled.
The magical background here was almost five times denser, which meant the rest of the ingredients should definitely grow here. Examining the foliage, brighter than anything that grew in the ents' forest, Severus could not hold back a smile. And if the forbidden part was five times denser again, then with those crystals, this would become the ideal place to reach Grand Archimagus rank. But first he still needed to finish his business, because if that creature really lived in this world, it was time to study space magic and get out of here, assuming he still had time. Shaking his head and setting the useless thoughts aside, he raised his gaze to a tree, where a pair of blood-red eyes watched him.
"Mm?"
At that moment he heard foliage rustle to his left. A few seconds later, five men emerged from the bushes. At the sight of Severus they immediately tensed and drew their wands, assuming this was some kind of trap, because by definition, no one wandered the inner part of the Magical Jungle alone. They began scanning the surroundings.
Severus paid little attention to the newcomers. Instead, with genuine interest, he studied the monster in the tree, whose magic he could barely sense at all. That was strange, especially with a material core that had sharpened his five senses several times over, plus a spell that enhanced perception further.
"Hey! What are you doing here alone?! Don't you know this is a very dangerous place?" one of them barked, watching Severus grimly. But as soon as Severus shifted his cloak aside and his palm rested on the sword hilt, the speaker's eye twitched, reading it as a threat. "Are you threatening us?! And what are you doing here anyway?! If you are near the town, that means you just left it. Who gave you permission?!" No answer came, and that only angered him further. "Are you deaf?! Maybe I should clean out your ears for you?!" The tip of his wand glowed.
A tired sigh escaped Severus when he noticed the loudmouth's movements. More than anything at that moment, he did not want to be distracted by idiots, because he had finally worked out who was watching him and what Brew had advised him to flee from at top speed.
"Stop. Lower your wand," a nervous voice from another man said. He did not take his eyes off the very spot Severus was staring at.
"What are you..." the first began, but the moment he saw how pale his companion had turned and where his gaze was fixed, he followed it, bewildered, then trembled at the sight of those red eyes. Damn! How unlucky do you have to be to run into this monster?! Almost cursing his own stupidity, he slowly began to back away.
The others, seeing him retreat, did the same, making almost no sound, hoping the creature would not pursue them.
Severus paid little attention to what the five of them were doing. He simply kept looking calmly straight into the monster's eyes.
A Dark Hound: king of the inner part of the Magic Jungles, with incredible speed and strength, and claws sharp enough to tear apart anything. But most importantly, impossible to detect, even with artifacts and charms. Looks like I chose a bad time to leave, right in the middle of its breakfast. I wanted to reach the next point quietly, not fight monsters, but apparently fate has other plans. Still, if I remember correctly, Brew said its fangs are worth a thousand mouro each, its claws three thousand each, and the hide about thirty thousand. In perfect condition you can get all forty, and not even counting the rest of the carcass, that is already around one hundred and ten thousand. A rather "good-natured" smile spread across Severus's face. At the sight of it, the Dark Hound, already perched in a tree, seemed oddly uneasy. Usually prey ran from it in horror, but here Severus was smiling in a strange way, and instinct told the Dark Hound it would be better to look for other prey, something far more ordinary.
The Dark Hound immediately glanced toward the five wizards. At that same moment they went even paler; next to them even a corpse would have looked more alive.
They did not even try to fight. They just turned and ran. The Dark Hound watched them, gave a single nod, then looked at Severus one last time and shot after the fleeing wizards.
All Severus caught was a dark, blurred silhouette disappearing into the bushes, and even he could not track it. The Dark Hound was simply too fast.
"Well, perhaps that is for the best," Severus said with a shrug, and continued along the route.
"AAA! HELP..." A familiar scream carried from somewhere in the distance, then cut off sharply.
"Creepy," Nagini summed up. Like she had with the serpent, she had tried not to show herself much this whole time.
"Indeed. A very lively little place."
He had not even walked another hundred meters when the sky began to fill with dark clouds and another monster blocked his path: a huge white tiger, almost four meters tall, with sparks of lightning dancing around it.
"Wonderful. Now the second-strongest monster too." Severus's eye twitched. How lucky did you have to be to run into the second one within five minutes, a creature that barely yielded in strength to the first?
Of course, he could have tried to go around the tiger. The problem was that the second barrier limited his perception radius to fifteen meters, and by the time he noticed it, bypassing it was already out of the question.
He studied the magical beast's eyes, trying to work out who had cursed him, and the tiger did not take its gaze off him either.
"Human, did you see a dark four-legged creature nearby, the one you call the Dark Hound?" Its voice was rough, each word edged with a growl.
"Yes. The Dark Hound is having breakfast nearby," Severus said, pointing in the direction of the screams.
The tiger nodded and rushed off that way, the dark clouds following it.
Nagini remained silent.
"You said it," Severus said, pulling out a small book and opening it to the first page. "So who else is left?" Flipping through several pages, he found an image of a huge bear with large, branching antlers. "And where is it?"
Nagini did not comment, because she had grown curious herself, waiting to see whether a third would appear.
A minute later, peals of thunder rolled in the distance, accompanied by the tiger's roar. After that came an enraged wolf howl and the sounds of something very heavy colliding. Even from where Severus stood, he could feel the tremor in the earth.
"Maybe we should go?"
"Let us wait a little longer. I have wanted a small menagerie for a long time. Let them tire themselves out, then we will take both. And I need to interrogate them. Maybe there is a place here similar to that underground garden." Climbing to the top of a tree, Severus watched thoughtfully as trees and stones were thrown back and forth and lightning struck from the sky.
"Only you would think of turning them into pets." Nagini seemed barely conscious, but mentally she was completely exhausted. Five minutes, too many shocks. When she glanced nonchalantly to the right, her eye twitched. She should have stayed in London.
To the right, a huge bear, nine meters tall with massive antlers, was moving toward the carnage, looking furious about it.
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