Chapter 114: Cha.113 The Test (2)

When the captain arrived and watched Yasmin perform, he didn’t overreact like Cici did, but Qasim noticed a hint of excitement in him too. Then he turned his head to face the boy.

"What’s your power?" the captain asked.

Qasim took a deep breath. He had expected this question, and with a straight, calm face, he answered.

"My body gets way stronger as I fight, but since I’m injured from my last mission before I ended up here, I need some time to recover."

Then he tilted his head, and with a sinister smile stretching from ear to ear, he added,

"But once I’m healed, my powers can overwhelm anyone and anything."

The captain raised an eyebrow.

"Interesting..."

Qasim felt a sense of relief as he thought,

I managed to trick them! All that time with Valen paid off!

He put on a small, sad smile with a tired expression as he remembered Valen.

"With my authorities, I can’t open the vault that has the forbidden weapons, so you two are stuck with just this dagger. But it should be enough, considering your unique powers."

The captain said this as he ordered Cici to bring him a piece of paper.

"This is a small map of the nearby forest. We call it the Fake Forest since it’s just a small fraction of a much bigger and more dangerous one."

He then gave the map to Qasim before continuing.

"You two have to pass a test first, which will increase your value when the commander returns from his expedition."

The captain then pulled something from his pocket.

Qasim stared at the colorful sphere in the captain’s hand.

"This is the monster’s core. It’s an indicator that you have killed a monster, and it’s considered a valuable source of energy here."

"Bring me ten of these from the monsters in the forest before the fire stops."

He pointed at a red candle that Cici had just lit.

"You can start now," the captain said before sitting down.

Qasim stared at the candle for a moment to measure how quickly it was melting. Then he turned to Yasmin to explain what they had to do.

"I see. Let’s go now, then," Yasmin commented.

Qasim nodded, and she covered both of them with the black cloud, leaving the place while the captain simply crossed his arms and waited.

...

With the help of the map, both of them arrived at the forest, and Qasim was amazed by the scene.

Calling this a forest feels wrong...

He thought as he walked past a crimson spear with spikes pointing out of it.

The ground was red and had a sandy texture, making it feel more like a desert, with strange crimson towers scattered all over the place.

After wandering around for some time, they finally saw their target.

A black, jelly-like mass with two limbs and yellow eyes all over its surface.

Qasim turned to face Yasmin and started whispering.

"I will be the bait. Since I can’t use my powers, it’s up to you to kill it once it starts chasing me."

Yasmin nodded and instantly jumped to the highest crimson spike.

Qasim looked at her, then turned to face the monster. It seemed to simply be standing on the sandy ground, doing nothing.

But what made Qasim uncomfortable was the fact that those yellow eyes had definitely seen him.

It’s staring at me...

Qasim thought of moving around to get it to chase him, so he started jumping and moving his hand over and over.

But the monster stood still.

Qasim slowly made his way closer to the monster, and each time, he got no response or reaction whatsoever.

That’s definitely some kind of trap...

Qasim felt frustrated knowing that he was heading into a trap, but he couldn’t help it as he slowly stepped closer and closer to the monster.

To his complete surprise, still nothing happened, even though Qasim was now just a couple of feet away from the yellow eyes silently watching him.

"If I knew you would be this passive, I would have asked Yasmin to just stab you right away."

Qasim sighed in relief, but then he suddenly jumped from the pain in his arm.

He turned his head and saw one of the spikes slowly touching his skin. Qasim immediately destroyed it before it could go any deeper.

That spike wasn’t that close to me before... Did it move on its own?

Qasim was confused as he looked around at the spikes, but then he heard a loud noise behind him that sounded like flesh burning.

He turned back, only to see the monster right next to his face, its yellow eyes staring him down so closely that he could see his own reflection in them.

Qasim instantly jumped away with a pale face, and the monster’s eyes began radiating, finally reacting to his actions.

Qasim immediately started running back, his heart racing.

Took you long enough!

The gigantic monster, covered in multiple yellow eyes, chased Qasim through a forest of crimson spikes.

Qasim noticed that each spike had a human face growing from its trunk.

The faces hadn’t been there before. They had only started appearing as Qasim passed them.

The monster was so focused on catching Qasim that it failed to notice Yasmin standing on one of the spikes.

The moment the monster entered her range—

She jumped down and struck the monster’s head with her new dagger.

The monster’s body disappeared into colorful dust, leaving behind a single colored core.

Countless colors danced inside it, with yellow making up the biggest part.

Yasmin picked up the core from the ground and handed it to Qasim.

He gave her a small smile before turning back toward the crimson forest.

He looked at the countless small towers stretching into the distance.

"One down..."

He tightened his grip around the core.

"Nine more to go."

Suddenly, both of them started hearing screams around them, similar to those of humans.

The faces on the spikes began screaming at them, with red liquid dripping from their mouths.

"What is happening?" Yasmin asked as she narrowed her eyes.

Qasim took her hand, and they started running deeper into the forest.

"I don’t know, but it started because either the monster started chasing me or..."

Qasim paused as he looked down at his arm, where a small spot of blood was visible on his skin.

I thought I removed that thing before it pierced my skin.

He clenched his teeth as he looked at Yasmin.

"Probably it’s because one of these things pierced me."

Yasmin tilted her head and asked him if he had been poisoned.

"No," Qasim answered without hesitation.

"I don’t feel anything, and even if I got poisoned, I don’t think it will affect me..."

Qasim remembered how his body hadn’t surrendered to the poison of the scientists back at the village mission, so he was confident that even if he had gotten some sort of poison from those spikes, it wouldn’t hurt him.

After they walked for a while, they noticed that the screams had stopped and the spikes around them no longer had human faces on them.

Qasim pulled up the map and looked at it before speaking.

"We should be very close to the first area..."

He showed the map to Yasmin and pointed at the first of three circles surrounding the forest’s outline.

"I don’t know how much time is left, but we better hurry. And to do so, we have to..."

He then licked his lips and smiled as he continued with a nervous expression.

"We have to enter their territory."