"Do you still have that talisman?" Marionette asked during their walk.
"Talisman? Oh you mean this thing?" Inside the open pocket of her hoodie, she pulled out a crumbled ball of a long strip of pale-yellowish paper.
After opening it and returning it back to what it should look like, it revealed a line of runic language coming from top to bottom.
"Please keep that on you at all times. I'm sure you still remember what it does from our teacher, correct?"
"Yeah, yeah. I do. No need to baby me, beautiful~..." She waved her hand before shoving the slip into her hoodie. The talisman she currently has crumbled into a ball was called a Return Slip.
It was basically just a one-time item that allowed them to be found by the Mages with Spacial abilities and teleport them out of the Forest, if they were in danger.
Mages are the teachers at the academy that Mirage, specifically brought along for this very reason.
Marionette nodded and faced forward, but only after turning a bit to the side, smiling a bit at Lillian's words before going stoic again.
They walked on for a bit. It was at this point that Lillian realised that the group had actually travelled pretty far from them in that short span of time.
"It's either that or we got lost."
Marionette slowly turned to Lillian, with a deadpan expression. Lillian chuckled nervously and held up her hands. "I was joking. Don't worry."
She then paused before continuing, "And I'm sure you can track them either way, even if we were lost, right, Marionette?"
After she said that, her ears twitched at a faint sound passing through the air. It was... a whistling sound. Most definitely something coming at a very fast pace.
The both of them stopped. Marionette folded her arms and nodded briefly before saying:
"I suppose..."
Lillian then watched as Marionette slowly raised her hand, pushing it out to the side and without looking...
Fwoooosh—!
... Caught a metre-long, silver needle, targetting her head. She threw a curious glance at the pointy projectile.
Lillian tilted her head at it. Not even a bit concerned that Marionette had almost been skewered. Well, it wasn't like she believed Marionette could die so easily to something like this.
However, that isn't to say her feat wasn't the least bit impressive. The needle was undoubtedly crossing through the air at the speed of a few miles per hour.
Even she didn't think she would be able to do that, especially so without looking.
Marionette lowered the needle and opened her hand, showing cuts in her beautiful white palm.
She scrutinised the dimension of the needles, figuring it was covered in tiny, razor-sharp spikes.
She then looked towards Lillian with a blank expression and said:
"You might not want to touch this."
"Yeah... definitely not."
Marionette then looked to the side, clutching the sharp needle. She narrowed her eyes and locked onto something far in the distance.
With a fluent twist of her upper body, she brought back her arm and threw the needle with extreme force, sending it back.
She then continued to stay in this pose before straightening her back, humming in a satisfied tone before looking towards Lillian.
"Alright. Let's keep going."
"E-eh... you didn't even let me have a chance to fight it..."
Marionette raised an eyebrow before rolling it, "It was too weak anyway. I'll let you fight something of a much stronger rank."
She raised her cut palm, facing it towards Lillian and saying with a subtle smile:
"Do you want clean it?"
"Clean it?"
Lillian tilted her head before realising what she meant. "Ohh... yeah, give it here." She clutched Marionette's hand and twirled her fingers at it, summoning a ball of water that dragged itself over her wounds.
Marionette briefly expressed faint disappointment:
"Not exactly what I meant."
Lillian raised her head at her in a confused manner:
"Hm? What did you mean then?"
Marionette felt a bit hesitant to reply and instead responded with:
"Never mind."
"Ehhh... come on! Now you made me curious!"
Lillian watched as Marionette continued to stubbornly remain unresponsive. She pouted a bit.
What did this woman mean when she said clean it? What...? Did she want her to lick it clean or something?
Lillian let out an exasperated sigh. After seeing that Marionette's hand was moderately cleaned, she tossed the ball of water away.
The two then continued on where they found corpses of monsters strewn along the way, most likely from their group.
It was also at this point that they stumbled upon another monster.
Lillian looked up at a furry bear that was standing on its two hind legs, causing it to stand at double Lillian's height.
It had an angular head with a sharp snout and a large brown furry body.
She then glanced down at its paws, specifically, its claws. They were long—about a few inches long—and were covered in scales made of bones. Like some sort of exoskeleton.
Lillian turned her head back towards Marionette to find her busy dealing with a monster of her own.
A large python, at least 20 metres long and a few metres wide, dived constantly at Marionette, who dodged with elegance in her steps.
In her hand, she wielded a long whip with a wooden texture to it. It was like it belonged to the root of some sentient tree due to how lively it whipped through the air for a—
—SNAP!
Lillian tilted her head at the weapon. She couldn't help but find that it seemed somewhat familiar... she eventually turned back to her opponent and saw it still facing down at her.
Lillian turned back at the bear and sighed:
"So I'm fighting you, huh? Not a bad opponent I guess." Just as she was about to pull out her Odachi, the Black Maw, Marionette called out to her.
"You aren't allowed to use the Odachi. Abilities only."
Lillian glanced back at her, with a deadpan expression, "Eh?" Before noticing an ominous shadow looming over her in the shape of a 4 pointed paw.
She turned back around and saw the bear swung down on her...