The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Marco as I cultivated in Fogmire then walked towards the Association’s transportation area. Just inside the clearing around the Gate, I saw a familiar bleached-blond man.

Kesstel was dressed in a blue tunic, black pants and boots, and a bright steel breastplate today. He looked towards me from across the short grass, his face completely disinterested in whatever the woman in front of him was saying.

That woman was Bethany Wilks, decked out in maroon Mage’s robe with magic stones dangling from her neck, wrists, and ears. Her wavy blonde hair was in a thick braid that hung over her right shoulder nearly to her slender waist. When Kesstel looked away from her, her mouth clamped shut and an angry flush colored her cheeks. “Kesstel!” she yelled, trying to get his attention.

He glanced at her and walked away. Her mouth dropped open when he left her so easily and came to me. He stopped in front of me, his back to her. It was only then that his face softened from blank slate to a sorta smile. “Good morning.”

Mentally I slapped my palm on my forehead and laughed. This man, he had no idea what he puts me through just to be his friend. Probably because he couldn’t see the way that Bethany looked right now, her face flushed with anger and wild magic swirling around her feet. Okay, knowing him, Kesstel would know about the magic. The sad thing was he obviously didn’t care. Probably because he didn’t know what her temper meant to my safety.

And it wasn’t just Bethany Wilks that I had to worry about. There was also President Price that apparently wasn’t going to let me apparently wasn’t finished with me yet; what pressure would he apply to get me to join his guild?

All this because Kesstel wanted someone to talk to. And I found I liked talking to him.

Helplessly, I smiled at him. “Good morning. How long have you been in the Gate now?” What time did he have to get up to take out all the dangerous stuff before the rest of the Hunters got here?

Kesstel shrugged. “A couple hours. I normally get here around six. Some of the portal bursts are still open at that time and I can look inside. I just ate breakfast, so now I’m going to check another couple things out before I’m done.”

I couldn’t help frowning at the nonchalant way he talked about his usual morning. So dangerous. The only time I ever went into a portal, I died. “Do you get hurt when you go in?”

He smirked and waved a hand in dismissal. “Occasionally.”

“Right, because you’re Superman,” I muttered. Should I even bother worrying about him? I huffed a breath and tapped on his simple breastplate. “Just don’t do anything dangerous, okay?”

Now the smile that touched his lips was genuine. “Okay.”

I nearly snorted. Did I have any room to ask that of him? I mean, everything I did was dangerous. In fact, I was on my way to an area that was putting me to the test more than any other place I’d ever been to. “Where are you headed?”

The smirk was back. “To a portal.” He lifted a hand and pointed to the East side of the Vale. “Don’t worry, I won’t collapse it.”

So much for not doing anything dangerous. God, we were a pair, weren’t we? This time I couldn’t stop my hand as it pressed against my forehead. Should I laugh or cry, I was so torn, all I could do was give a wobbly smile. “Okay.”

“What about you? Are you going back to the Josu Rainforest? You are being careful there, aren’t you? You’ve grabbed quite a few Hunter’s attention lately.”

I blinked at him. How did he know that’s where I’d been the last couple days? And what did he mean by that?

From over his shoulder, I saw Bethany Wilks march towards us. Her face was set to kill as she leveled her eyes on me. As she reached Kesstel’s side, that glare shifted to a hurt, coyish expression. “Kesstel, you didn’t let me finish talking to you.” She reached out to take a hold of his arm.

He smoothly stepped out of her reach and came to my side. Or should I say, just a half step behind. If it wouldn’t hurt me more, I would have elbowed his side. Okay, I didn’t have the guts to do that just yet, but the thought definitely crossed my mind.

“Miss Wilks, I’ve explained and explained again,” Kesstel’s tone was like a sub-zero freezer. “Please stop drawing this out. Not everything fits perfectly into your rose-tinted world. Every interaction we had together was because of a contract, nothing more, nothing less.”

“But—”

“Goodbye, Miss Wilks.” Kesstel put his hand on my shoulder blade and directed me towards the teleportation area. His hand was gentle on my back, but he forced me to keep up with his long-legged stride.

I couldn’t resist glancing over my shoulder at the woman Kesstel left in his dust. I thought she’d be burning with anger, fire flickering around her, ready to burn me to a cinder. But she stood there, watching us walk away. Her shoulders drooped and her hands were fisted in the folds of her robe. She didn’t take a single step forward or even try to talk as we turned the bend in the tunnel leading to the teleportation circles.

I glanced up at Kesstel. “That was a little mean, you know.” Hang on, this was the woman who was trying to kill me? Why should I care?

He huffed with frustration. “You have no idea how persistent that woman is. She’s never been told no before so she doesn’t know when to stop. I’ve tried to be nice, but she just won’t get the message.”

Still, I didn’t want to talk about her anymore. Seriously, I’d had enough of that woman. “How did you know that I’ve been in the Josu Rainforest? Are you stalking me again?” I tilted my head to the side, giving him a stink eye.

He finally relaxed enough to slow down to a normal pace for me. “No, not even close. I was trained to collect data from the time I was ten. It's a habit that dies hard. With your unique abilities, as soon as I heard about a moving cloud under the rainforest canopy, I knew exactly what it was.” He tapped his hand on my back, as if to prove I was corporeal. “Definitely not a ghost.” He dropped his hand and strolled along beside me.

“How long do you think it’ll take for the hype to die down?” I fought the best when surrounded with Mist, but with so many people hunting the Josu Ghost, I didn’t dare expand it any farther than necessary. In a location that was as dangerous and over my level as the rainforest, it would be a lot easier if I could use my mist.

Kesstel shrugged. “Until someone catches that ghost, I guess.”

“You’re not helping,” I muttered.

“Do you want me to?” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes.

I had a feeling that if I asked, he’d drop what he was doing and help. But I wasn’t going to leech off of him. I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” Not even close.

To my surprise, Kesstel waited with me the whole time I was in line. He, as usual, drew a lot of stares but since he didn’t care, I tried not to as well. Even more surprising was the fact that Bethany Wilks didn’t come after us. After a short wait, I waved a goodbye to Kesstel and shot up through the transportation circle.

I landed at the edge of Josu Rainforest and used the momentum from transporting to jump right up into the trees. Since I picked the Cyan-Agaric yesterday, a new one would be growing somewhere in the rainforest today. Unfortunately, they never grew in the same place twice, which meant I was back to square one. Really, the mushroom could be ten feet from where I stood right now for all I knew.

I needed two more, but my goal today was to catch an Aero-Teuthida — two would be preferred. I’d only seen one so far in my scour of the west half of the rainforest. I knew that they were hard to find, but this was a little ridiculous. Then again, there wasn’t much I could do if another Hunter killed all of them before I even got to them. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d have better luck on the east side of the rainforest.

With that in mind, I sprinted east along the road-like branches. Like yesterday, there were a lot of Hunters prowling around the tree tops, killing whatever moved and making it difficult to run in a straight line. The sounds of the activities — the yells of attacks, yelps of red flower sneak bites, and sounds of trees being rendered into pieces and crashing to the ground — filled the musky, stale air. The Velociorheas below were hyped up, ready to eat whatever fell, be it human or monster. Some of the Hunters dropped to the ground to kill several Velociorheas, but as soon as they landed, dozens more of the monsters appeared as if out of thin air and joined the fight. As soon as one monster died, three more would arrive. It wasn’t long before the over-zealous Hunters were forced back up into the trees.

I was hoping to have an easy time — well, as easy as it could be in this place — leveling up today since I was so close to the next level. But right then I worried that I wouldn’t even get a kill in at all.

Luckily, the amount of Hunters seemed to thin a bit by the time I made it to the east side of the rainforest. I stopped on a branch, breathing a little hard while I looked through the drizzle that wet my body. I wiped my face with my hand, even though I knew it was going to get wet again immediately. Geez, all this moisture was going to make me mold, I swear.

A shiver of awareness went down my back. I leaned to the side just as a bat-like monster flew right passed. Its body missed me, but the hooked thumb at the end of its four-foot wingspan clipped my shoulder. I wobbled on the slick branch before I caught my balance. Pain throbbed from my shoulder down my left arm where the monster’s talon pierced through my armor. Scowling, I Mirrored my kindjal and brandished them at the monster.

It looked like a bat, for the most part. It had black bat-like wings, a black bat face and ears. But its dark green body was more like a wasp’s, with a small thorax and a bulbous abdomen. The wings stretched all the way from the monster’s neck to halfway down the abdomen, leaving just a bit of room for stubby feet. Oh, and yes, there was a giant stinger on its butt.

The level 30 Zotz shrieked at me and swooped around to attack once more. I swung at the monster with my left sword, trying to force it off its trajectory again and moved to stab it with my right. But the monster curled its body and wings around my left sword and arm, willingly taking damage, as it thrust it’s seven inch stinger into my torso. My right kindjal was just in time to strike against the steel hard stinger, forcing it to the side. My brows pinched together as I felt the stinger pierce my side. It hurt like hell, but the wound wasn’t fatal.

The Zotz opened its mouth wide, revealing long canines and arched around my kindjal to bite at my wrist. I cancelled Mirror. The kindjal disappeared from my left hand. The bat monster shrieked when it suddenly didn’t have anything to hold onto and fell backwards. The Zotz let go of my hand and pulled its stinger out of my side, arching its wings wide to fly. My right hand slashed up, cutting into the thin skin of its wings. It jerked away, preventing me from cutting the wing all the way off.

It flapped awkwardly in the air, its left damaged wing flailing like a tattered sheet, the skin closest to its body flowing freely in the air. But it didn’t fly away. I Mirrored my kindjal again and brandished the blades at it, my lips curling in a sneer. The Zotz opened its mouth and let out another shriek, but this was different than before. A high pitched ring echoed through my ears and rattled my mind, making me see double. I groaned in pain and narrowed my eyes, trying to join my vision back together. The bat monster dived at me, aiming at my head this time.

I gritted my teeth and cast Mist, converting all the drizzling rain around me into thick vapor. The Zotz paused, obviously thrown off by the sudden distortion around it. I, however, relaxed. My vision was still affected by the shriek attack, but inside the mist I didn’t ‘see’ with my eyes. A black and white picture of my surroundings within twenty feet of me formed in my head, making me aware of every nook and cranny of every tree and shrub.

As well as a wiggling squid hiding in a tree hollow fifteen feet away.

I focused on the bat monster and jumped into the air, both blades ready. The monster thrust its stinger out, aiming at my chest yet again. I stabbed my left blade down, into the abdomen just above the stringer and forced it away from my body. The monster opened its mouth again. I stabbed my right blade through its opened mouth. With a crack, my blade broke through the monster’s skull.

The carcass went limp and dragged me down towards the ground. Solid mist appeared under my feet and I jerked my blades out of the monster’s body. I quickly thrust down where the energy crystal was inside the monster’s thorax. The monster exploded into the little lights, brightening up my mist cloud from the inside, and leaving two drop items.

[+95 EXP]

[You have Leveled Up!]

Several voices rang through the air leaving me no time to celebrate getting to Level 27.

“Look! The Josu Ghost!”

“Get it!”

“No, it’s mine!”

A group of mid to high leveled Hunters entered my mist from the north, south, and east sides. They hurried along the tree branches to reach the middle as fast as they could even though they didn’t know what was at the center of this mist. Me.

I hissed in my mind as I focused east of me where the Aero-Teuthida remained hidden in the tree. Damnit!