"Right."
"It's up to your discretion, Young Master."
"I do not sense the beings attacking us, Master. Do you want me to hunt them down?"
"Wait, you can't sense them, Yanael?" Zach asked his familiar. She, who could even sense and track the underworld assassins, couldn't tell what was attacking them or from where?
Zach turned to Lexi for help and information.
However, she just raised her hands and shrugged.
"I'm just tagging along. You're dealing with this on your own." Lexi was curious about what Zach would do. He had talked himself up a lot when telling them about his adventures at the Academy. There were probably a few crumbs of truth in the mountain of bread that was his story. Lexi wanted to know how many crumbs–how much truth Zach had spoken.
Zach sighed. He looked at Yanael again.
"You can't tell where they're attacking from, but you can tell about how far away they are, right?"
Yanael nodded.
"The furthest one who attacked us was around thirty steps away, Master."
"That close?" Zach frowned.
"Whatever. I'll throw up a barrier that large. It will be weaker than a piece of paper. Go wild, Yanael. I'll tell you where they are if they run through it."
Yanael nodded and unsheathed her weapons.
Zach made a large barrier. He gritted his teeth in concentration and didn't say a word. Fortunately, he didn't need to for Yanael to notice the exit he made in the barrier around them. She dashed out, cutting down three poison darts aimed at Zach. She then turned her blade to the grass when the barrier was sealed behind her.
Like an artist, she drew long golden strokes over the canvas that was the grassy field. She left behind piles of cut grass.
The others watched on as she made short work of the grass, dodging, blocking, parrying, or cutting down the poison darts whenever they flew at her. Since the enemies weren't strong, Yanael didn't have to fight with her life on the line, and she stepped and strode through the field with grace.
Zach frowned and looked at the poison darts that were still piling up around the barrier. They weren't as frequent as before, and the more Yanael cut, the fewer poison darts flew through the air. Still, none of the Labyrinth's monsters tried to run.
After a while, he noticed something in the grass, but he waited until Yanael was done, and the poison darts had stopped flying to check it out. He took down his oversized barrier to ease his mind.
He crouched down and picked something up by the foot with a confused frown.
It looked like a bipedal rat. It had slightly longer arms than ordinary rats. It also had opposable thumbs, meaning it could easily grab and hold items, such as the dart shooter on the ground next to it.
Red blood dripped from the gash through its chest. Yanael had almost cut it in half between one side of its neck and the area beneath its chest on the other side. It dangled and looked nasty, so Zach dropped it on the ground after inspecting it.
He looked at Lexi.
"What is this?" It wasn't like any monster he had seen in the Froltip Forest around the Academy. The greatest difference was that it used tools. It had a flute-like dart shooter and a belt to carry poison darts. It probably also made those poison darts itself.
Even if the monsters of the Froltip Forest had been intelligent enough to use tools, tricks, and traps, they wouldn't.
"A ratling."
"It looks weak as shit. How come Yanael couldn't sense it?"
"They're masters at camouflage. They're also weak enough that if you look for something powerful enough to be threatening, you won't discover them. But their poison can be pretty potent, so it sells for relatively good coin back at the Hall."
Zach picked up one of the poison darts and sniffed it. He scrunched his nose. It stung just smelling it.
"So, we gather all of these up?" Zach gestured at the poison darts on the ground.
"Up to you."
Zach shook his head.
"Seems like a waste of time and effort. It's not like we're poor." Zach winked at Lexi. It was true. They were as far from poor as they could get.
"Let's just leave them for someone else to pick up if they want."
"That's unlikely. This floor is huge. As far as I know, no one has found the edges of it. Those who try always end up on the second floor before they get close."
Zach raised an eyebrow and looked at Lexi.
"You make it sound like they didn't have a choice about going to the next floor. How do you get to the second floor, Lexi?"
Lexi shrugged. Since he hadn't read the Guide, he would have to figure it out on his own.
Zach sighed and shook his head lightly before starting to walk again.
It didn't take long before the drizzle of poison darts to pick up as well. But it seemed like mostly a waste to stop every time they ran into a group of ratlings, and it didn't seem like they were interested in fleeing, so Yanael roamed outside the barrier and cut down ratlings like the grass they were hiding in.
The group left behind them a wide trail of cut grass and ratling blood as they walked through the field.
After a while, Zach noticed something.
"...Is it just me or does it feel like they're only targeting me?"
Since the poison darts came from all around them, it wasn't easy to tell, but it seemed like they were all flying toward him before being bounced away by the barrier. The ones that seemed aimed at his companions just happened to have been shot from the opposite direction of whoever was in between him and the poison dart.
"You noticed just now?" Lexi asked condescendingly.
"Well, thanks to someone, I have been busy repairing my barrier."
"I said sorry, didn't I?"
"No."
"Oh."