Chapter 361: Sometimes Beautiful Sights aren't always Encouraging

The group settled down in the area now that there was a ton of space. The corrupted trees that used to take up most of the nearby terrain had been ripped out of the ground root and all by Titus during his confrontation with them and Henry was able to use a few simple spells to clean up the surroundings. After that they quickly set up camp and were now all sitting around a camp fire getting ready for the Dinner that Aito, Jacob, and Evelyn were cooking. The couple had taken cook as their support job and it made things easier on Aito now that they had almost twice as many mouths to feed compared to their usual smaller group.

As night started to roll in it was easy to see the changes in the surrounding forest. The mist in the area seemed to settle down towards the ground a bit more since there was no longer a large amount of heat that was making it expand. The heavy sun rays that had trouble pouring through the canopy of leaves up above were now replaced with the small signs of moonlight with the occasional cloud that passed by and darkened the area even more. At first Joshua expected things to become fairly dark at night with how dense the foliage was in the forest, but he was surprised when he noticed that there were several plants in the area that had an ethereal glow to them at night. Some vines that wrapped around the trees in the area would glow a light green color while some flowers in the area would glow a variety of colors giving the night in the forest its own dazzling view.

"Well for a place that has so many plants out to kill you it sure does have a beautiful view." Adrian said as he glanced around at all of the flowers. Amy looked like she wanted to pick one, but she looked towards Titus first to see if it was ok. When he gave her a grunt and nod she smiled and went ahead and picked some. A lot of the other girls joined in on the fun while Joshua decided to grab a few of the flowers and other plants that he hadn't seen before to research later. He was sure that Grace and his mother would both like them so they could try to find out if the changed plants had any type of medicinal properties that could help with some of the new diseases that were starting to appear.

When Joshua felt like he had collected a little of everything he had come back just in time to find that dinner was ready and took a seat with the rest of the group. The meal was kept simple so they could all eat it quickly and get some rest for the night after a short conversation.

"So I guess I'll start things off." Henry said as he set aside his now empty plate. "So far this forest doesn't seem to be too dangerous, but that's probably because we're only on the fringe of it. Since we have to spend a lot of time cutting our way through vines while also confronting the corrupted plants its taking us a while to get through the area even if it isn't so large."

"This is a level eighty area so we can expect the boss in the dungeon to be at least that level. I think we'll soon start coming across stronger enemies as we push further in. The only issue is the fact that there could be so many different types of enemies from what we've seen so far and they'll come at us in large numbers." Aito said with a thoughtful frown. "If it comes down to it I can start using higher quality ammo when we face more challenging opponents."

"We'll probably all have to start chipping in more to help out Julia and Titus once we get deep in the forest." Joshua said getting nods from everyone. "Besides there was something I wanted to test out for the night while things are calm." Joshua took out a large piece of wood from one of the killed trees and drained some of the sap that was leaking from it. When Henry noticed what he was doing he helped out with a small spell that helped pull the sap from the large piece of wood, but in the end there wasn't very much of it to pull out. They then bottled it before handing it over Natsumi and Katsumi. "I wanted to check a couple of things. First off I wanted to see if the sap from the inside of trees that were enemies could be used to create talismans. The next thing I want to check is if the blood from beast companions that offer it to you can be used to create talismans."

Both of the sisters' eyes seemed to brighten up at this idea. They quickly got to work testing it out with the tree sap, but after creating a basic talisman with it and doing a small blessing ritual that their job class used to invoke the power of the talisman nothing happened at all. It was nothing more than sap on a piece for paper. This meant that all of the plants that they faced throughout the forest wouldn't be useful for creating their talismans. The two sisters were a little down about this, but they decided to go on with the second test as Titus decided to offer the sisters a large jars worth of his blood which was nothing more than a prick on the finger for a creature of his size.

After words the two sisters went through the same situation, but this time there was a very obvious change when they started using the ritual. The talisman they created started to glow golden the moment thy started their ritual. It took just as long as the last time around, but everyone could tell it was a success by the excited expression Katsumi had and the cool smile that Natsumi let break through. Luckily they didn't have to waste the talismans to find out exactly what they could do. All they had to do was touch them and they would gain an understanding in how the talisman would work for them.

Since the talismans were created from Titus's blood Joshua was fairly sure the ability would have something to do with plants in some way or another since that seemed to be the gorilla's special characteristic. He was half right in this regard since it did turn out to be that way when Katsumi used the talisman, but it was a little different for her older sister.

When it came to Katsumi the talisman would create seeds once activated that would shoot into the ground or any nearby surface that Katsumi targets. These seeds would sprout into young and flexible trees within seconds that could be used both offensively and defensively. Offensively they could swipe at nearby enemies, grab hold of them with their branches and put them into a strangle hold of sorts, and even shoot out spikes created from their tough bark that could injure enemies as well. Defensively they were a moving barricade that could block weaker attacks easily and take the hit for stronger attacks in a bad situation. Their only real weakness was fire.

Natsumi actually didn't get a plant related benefit when she used the talisman, instead she got an insane strength boost that would increase her strength stat by fifty percent for five minutes. This was incredibly useful when it came to dealing damage for Natsumi, but she would have to get use to the sudden increase in power behind her attacks. Although her strength would increase her other stats didn't so her body would have trouble using the new found strength until she got accustomed to it.

The two sisters and Lilly all seemed excited to figure out what kind of talismans they could create from Lily's other beast companions, but it was getting late and the group needed to start getting some rest so they can get up early in the morning and make the most out of the coming day. They didn't have much more than a week to explore this place so they would make the most of it and try to clear the dungeon within that time frame. Joshua set it up so that Lilly and the Asawa sisters would be on guard duty at the same time so they could work on a few more talismans during that time if they wanted to. He knew that Lilly would most likely have Titus and Cinder out at that time so he didn't have to worry about them getting caught by surprise.

Everyone made their way to their tents and bedrolls to get a decent sleep. Joshua had guard duty in the middle of the night so he made sure to get to sleep fast. It didn't feel like more than a few minutes of closing his eyes when Lilly entered his tent to wake him up for his turn to keep watch. From the smile on her sleepy face he could tell that Lilly, Natsumi, and Katsumi must have created some interesting talismans, but he let her go and get some sleep while he went out and climbed a nearby tree so he'd have a good vantage point of the entire camp area. If any plant or beast tried to do anything funny he'd not only sense the movement with his aura, but have a far easier time spotting it with his eyes.

Titus and Cinder were both still out, but neither of them were keeping watch at this point. Titus was laid up against the largest tree in the clearing that was thick enough for him to lean up against. He had his eyes closed, but Joshua knew that he would get up if he felt anything dangerous approaching the area. Cinder was in a similar situation, but she dug a little pit just out of range of their campsite. She then froze it over before curling her legs up underneath herself and lying in the pit.

Joshua turned his attention away from the campsite and started looking up at the sky above wherever he could make it out from all of the leaves and branches in the way. It looked like a normal clear sky sort of night with not a cloud in sight. He could barely make out the moon since it was in a crescent shape at the moment so the lighting coming from above wasn't the best. The only reason he was able to see the campsite clearly was all of the glowing flowers around the area. It was in this serene moment that Joshua noticed something strange starting to drift in the skies above. He looked up and noticed an odd object floating in the sky. At first he thought it might be a cloud or something similar, but it was too low to the ground since it was only hanging a couple dozen or so feet above the forest.

Knowing something odd was going on Joshua rushed up the tree to get to the top to see what was happening. It didn't take him very long to reach the top and when he did he was able to get a good overall view of the entire forest. It stretched on for quite a ways, but with a little bit of aura added to his eyes he was able to see far enough to see the center of the forest. He figured the group could reach that point in another couple of days with the pace they had been making through the forest, but that wasn't what was currently grabbing his attention.

The weird objects Joshua could see hovering in the air were these large pieces of red fluff that looked like floating dandelions that were spreading over the forest. It was a beautiful sight, but it was giving Joshua some bad feelings about what could possibly be going on. The source of the floating oversized spores seemed to be coming from the center of the forest mainly, but he could also see other areas that were producing smaller amounts of them. Even so he had a feeling that they had something to do with the corruption going on in the forest.

It didn't take long for Joshua to confirm that fact when one of the things started floating down from the sky and broke apart over several trees in the distance. The moment this happened all of the plants in that area that Joshua could see started shaking violently. Similar things seemed to be happening all over the forest and Joshua could see how the corrupted plants were quickly taking over the area. He kept an eye on the campsite from up above just to make sure none of the spores came close to their location. He'd have to keep an eye out through the night, but he'd wake the others if something went wrong.