The Beasts' Forest:

Susan would not usually show her happiness outwardly a lot, but at that moment she could barely keep herself from grinning widely as a strong sense of anticipation filled her heart while working on setting her bed.

She tried her best not to let this false happiness affect her, and to stop herself from thinking of this as nothing more than a small, baseless hope, she still failed though, and miserably at that.

Adam's words gave her something she never thought that she would have, they gave her hope, rekindling some thoughts she didn't even dare to think about before.

Of course, there was still the possibility that she won't be able to use magic after all, that things were as Adam said, that she only had a weird condition and magic was still out of her reach, she did understand that, but even with that, she couldn't stop herself from getting excited, her chances weren't zero like they were before.

A few minutes later, she couldn't even remember how she found herself inside her bed, she couldn't remember how she got it ready and how she entered it, her body was basically working on its own as her thoughts wandered all around.

"Good night," Adam's voice sounded from a place not far away from her.

"Good night," she answered.

Despite her excitement and anticipation making it hard for her brain to just fell down into the waiting embrace of sleep, she still understood that she had to sleep, as Adam said, the journey ahead of them was still long and she had to get enough rest.

After a long and arduous struggle with her raging thoughts to keep them under control, Susan was finally able to chain them long enough for her to fall asleep.

Susan slept deeply and dreamlessly for a while, but unfortunately, that didn't last for long.

Her eyes suddenly opened up wide as her shocked mind tried to understand what was happening; a hand was covering her mouth.

Unconsciously, she started struggling as one of her hands went to her mouth and the other to claw at the face of whoever was assaulting her.

However, she soon froze as she laid her eyes on who it was that was covering her mouth.

It was Adam.

The alleged livitus was looking at her with one hand on her mouth and the other beside his, lifting his finger to his lip, gesturing for her to calm down.

The look on his face was serious and made her stop her struggling right away and without even thinking much about it.

His expression made her feel that things weren't alright, she barely saw Adam with that kind of expression on his face and seeing it then made her worry.

Seeing how she had finally calmed down, Adam slowly retracted his hand back while keeping his finger on his lips, warning her not to make any sounds.

Susan, who had no idea what was happening, obliged as she got up slowly and carefully, the first thing she noticed was that the cave was totally dark, the spherical lights Adam cast before weren't seen anywhere, she guessed that he must have dispersed them after they fell asleep, she couldn't understand why wouldn't he just cast them again though.

As soon as she had sat down in her bed, she turned to the entrance of the cave, where Adam had kept an intense and serious gaze locked since he had made sure that she had woken up.

The place in front of the cliff face where the cave was, had a small clearing, so the gentle silver light coming from the incomplete moon in the sky was able to lit up the small area, while what laid behind that, the place where the forest started, appeared as if it was a dark wall with only blurry shapes representing the many tall trees out there.

In a far corner of her mind, Susan remembered the night she ran from her village and to the forest, and how she was able to see where she was going even though the night then was a lot darker than it was at that moment, with no source of light at all, that made her got a new understanding for just how weird her state was at that night.

Susan couldn't see a thing as she examined the area ahead, yet she didn't try asking Adam about what was happening.

He himself was looking outside with a small frown on his face

The longer time passed while things were in such a state, the faster Susan's heart beat, and the more fear and anxiety she felt.

Her mind also kept on messing with her senses, making her see things that weren't there amidst the pitch-black forest, putting scary beasts and bloodthirsty monsters just at the corner of her eyes, things that would disappear when her eyes would fall on them

"It already knows that we're here..." Adam suddenly said without any warning.

Susan jumped in her place and almost shouted from the sudden voice next to her, she wasn't expecting him to speak after that whole period of silence, then what he said finally registered in her mind and she was able to process it.

"Wha... What is it?" She asked with a dry throat.

"I don't know..." Adam answered without taking his eyes from outside for even a second, "something is weird about all of this... I wasn't able to feel anything at first, what woke me up was closer to a hunch from being anything else, and since then I've been trying to locate this danger and what it was, but I wasn't able to come up with anything about it, all I was able to confirm is that there is something outside..."

Adam's voice as he spoke was light, dripping with doubt and confusion but also seriousness, it seemed as if this weird situation had made him extremely careful.

Susan glanced outside and saw the blurry figures of the trees as they swayed in the darkness just out of the borders of her clear vision.

The forest was silent, except for some occasional sounds that would sound out from one second to the next: the rustling of the leaves, the crackling of the trees as they swayed, the occasional call of night birds, all those brought some much-needed life to the silence of the forest that made her heartbeats sound up like drums in her ears.

Just a few seconds before, she had the idea that anything would be better than to remain in that oppressive silence, but now after hearing what Adam said, something that sounded as if it came right out of her mom's scary bedtime tales, and how what he said gave no real explanation to what was happening, she wasn't really able to decide which was worst.

"Could it be some kind of monster? One with abilities that are well-toned towards hiding and hunting?" She wracked her brain as she tried her best to use the small amount of knowledge she had, to come up with an explanation as she looked at Adam again.

"Could be..." He answered, but from his tone, it seemed as if he was thinking about something else entirely, "though as I said... There's something weird going on here..."

"Did you try doing a scan to find out what and where is this thing?" She asked again, offering the best idea she could think of. The spell Adam used to scan for things gave her the impression that it was extremely accurate, and that it should be able to help in a situation like the one they found themselves in.

"I didn't," Adam shook his head, before explaining as if he could feel her confusion even without looking at her, "as I said, at first, all this was nothing but a hunch, and I didn't know if what set it off was some beast or entity that was just passing by, or that we were already targeted, and as I'm sure that you have noticed, that technique isn't made to be subtle by any means, if I had used it then, I would have been felt by whomever it was that I felt weird about."

"But know we already know that we're probably being targeted..." Susan continued with what Adam left unsaid.

"Exactly," he nodded then added, "stand behind me and don't move," before he crouched down and laid his right hand on the ground after seeing Susan take her place behind him silently and nod at him.

A short while after, Susan felt the expected waves pass under her, this time she didn't have the heart to try and sense them better, she just kept on looking between Adam and the outside of the case, fearing that something would jump at them when he was distracted.

A few seconds after, those waves disappeared and Adam stood up with the frown on his face deepening.

"Did you find anything out?" She questioned as she hugged herself tightly.

"Yes and no... It's quite weird, what I got was a bit weird and concerning, there's nothing outside, or at least, my scan wasn't able to find anything outside, that isn't unexpected really, because there is more than one explanation to that and more than one way to avoid my scan, the easiest of which is hovering in the sky or standing atop a high object, which can somehow explain what we might be dealing with considering the other thing I felt.

"You see, I was able to notice some weird foot trails in the forest and circling the borders between it and the clearing, from their shape and how they seemed, I think that we are dealing with some kind of gigantic insect...

"And what's weird about that then?" Susan tried to put her fear of this gigantic insect aside and try to understand what was going on, "Doesn't it mean that there's some kind of insect that's good at hiding and sneaking outside? That seems like a logical explanation to what's happening."

"What's weird is that the trails had a hint of mana that was different than a mana that a monster would release, it was way purer than that..." He replied as he shook his head.

"What does that mean?" Susan knew when things went past her limits and asked.

"What that means is that there is a monster outside, and this monster is under the effects of some kind of spell, and from the situation we're in right now, I'm willing to bet that it's an invisibility or concealment spell," answered Adam.

"Wait, do you mean that someone cast a spell on a beast?" The thought was so out of her imagination that she didn't know how to react and her voice rose up a little.

"That's what I think at least," Adam shrugged.

Susan wanted to ask more, but before she could get the chance to do so, Adam waved his hand at her lightly, meaning for her to wait for a bit.

"Since we know that we're being watched... Then there is no need for us to lay down and play dead anymore," she heard him murmur.

Right after, ten big shining spheres like those that lit the cave before that night manifested.

After they appeared, and with the darkness retreating back, leaving the place to the light, Susan felt her body relax, as if a big weight was lifted from her shoulders, even she didn't notice how much the darkness was affecting her.

Adam waved his hand again, making one id the spheres move back to the back of the cave fast, while he had one hover right above their heads, showering every part of it with their light, as he sent the other eight outside, making a half-circle formation around the cave they were in.

That made the place outside as bright as it was at day, that was the first time that Susan saw that much light at night, to the point that that made her forget the situation they were in for a second.

With the lights, Adam gave the clearing a brief glance before closing his eyes tightly as he murmured something, a while after he reopened them again and his pupils were shining in a milky white light, they were extremely eye-catching, seeming as if they were two bright stars in the night sky.

Adam then looked outside as if he was searching for something, but soon Susan noticed a change in his expression, his eyebrows met as he narrowed his eyes as if to see clearly.

"That's supposed to be enough to find whatever it is..." She heard him murmur to himself before turning to her, "stay here."

Susan nodded, it wasn't like she was going to head outside where an invisible monstrous insect was waiting for any chance to lunge at her.

seeing that, Adam finally took a cautious step outside.