Mila then was able to get in between Shou's words, and expressed her confusion just like ours,

"Can't we just go around it? After all, you said that there are other parts of it. Can't we follow another path like this, but still take the same route?"

"The ship attracts a lot of attention, it takes two days to walk, and if we count the bear, we will complete it in four days."

"Hey! I can hear what you are saying!"

The prince looked at me as if he wanted an answer from me. After all the discussions we had about our rotation, they were waiting for an order from me and wanted it immediately. We would have lost a lot of time on the long road, and we shouldn't have been waiting like that to go right inside that part. But I was also thinking that if we could get through the forest before the end of the night, we could actually save quite a lot of time. So I considered two possible options, and I tried to make the choice that made the most sense.

"Can we finish the forest before the end of the night?" I asked looking back at him,

"You have seen, too, how great the kingdom is. So you should know that it won't end that quickly."

"Yes, I have, but I can't say I walked through to see it for myself."

"We can walk here for days and lose time till somebody finally founds about us. You can't come here thinking like that."

"I see. I understand. But the sun has just risen to the top. So if we hurry, it won't take us long to get through the forest."

The Prince seemed very much displeased by my own ideas, but still couldn't say anything. And Shou, leaving out the last idea to the conversation, said what is in his mind after him,

"It is true that the forest is quite dangerous. But people had come out of the woods, once or twice before.

It was as if Babu's heart had been sprinkled with water after hearing this. He looked at those around him as if he was relieved and safe. And Lezlie, on the other hand, was looking for certainty in Shou's answer by asking him once again.

"Did someone really get out?"

"See! There are people that got out!"

"And I'm even talking about my own personal experience. So there might be even more to know."

"Well, that is for us to explore."

"I am sure from what I have seen. But I still don't know how much they were able to maintain their mental health after they got out of there."

Taking our attention from the creepy story and the talk we had, Hiroshi took our attention to another point and talked about how we could get out,

"We have ten hours until sunset. If we follow the path to a lane near the shore, it will not be difficult for us to escape from the forest if something happens. So it is about you all being brave at this point."

"I'm brave enough to walk through to forest! I'll be fine!" Babu said, still trying to act tough,

"Yeah, yeah. What you say, Panda."

After a few seconds, when we all stopped talking, everyone was again put on a thinking status, leaving every single one of us to think about what actually could wait for us there.

The fact that the prince had tried to warn us by this time, as well as the fact that we all wanted to walk from there, and the information that Shou gave us later, had left us all in a thinking state. We all thought about the scary creatures, ghosts, and anything that could come to our minds by just simply thinking about it. And it was well scary for everyone in there too. But at that moment, even if one of us tried to come up with an idea, nobody would have changed his course and it would just be our plan much weaker to implement. As the Prince said, we could have lost our way and made this situation worse, but still, taking this road could have taken us further in a shorter time, and we could have found a better way.

So being sure about it, we had to take that risk as a group. So we were going to go through the forest and continue on our way.

But from the first step we took, although we felt anxious, we couldn't see anything that looked cursed. Birds were flying, insects were moving on the leaves, and monkeys were wandering in the trees. Everything was going normal as its natural space was normally.

But even though everything was calm and normal, we still had to act vigilantly and carefully, just in case to be safe.

So with big and slow steps, we were moving forward in two rows, scanning around us so that it was not easy for us to be quiet in the forest, as well as to hear the dangers approaching us.

Every ten steps, we were stepping on branches somewhere, making a sound. Our hands bumped at the trees, trying to hold back our sudden moves with tension. Looked around right and left, once again, just to see birds and insects once more.

We continued walking like this, for two straight hours. Until Hiroshi finally raised his hand in the air.

At that moment, we all stopped and leaned forward to see what was distracting him.

Because he was just standing there, looking deeply at something at the end of his foot, and turning his head with slow movements, as if he heard a sound around him. At first, we were all surprised that Hiroshi had a reaction at that moment, since we were all waiting for something to happen in this scary forest.

"Hiroshi what happened?"

But it was useless. Even though we tried to talk with him, he didn't reply back.

He was not saying anything, nor was he responding with any reaction or explanation. He was as calm and quiet as usual, and was just examining his surroundings like it was something that he should do.

Of course, we thought we were being ridiculous because this would have made us go insane because of the fact that we were walking in the forest for hours. But surprisingly it wasn't about that too.

There was something else that was making Hiroshi uneasy. And that something was very close it seemed.

To understand him at that moment, we all looked around, confused, like him. Turning our heads in every possible direction, we tried to seek out the unknown object or creature that would probably come out.

But when the crunching on the floor stopped, a medium-sized snake jumped on top of Hiroshi and attacked him, catching him off guard.

"Hey! Watch out!"

We all tried to warn him, of the unknown danger we couldn't see.

It was so sudden at that moment. From the half-darkness we were walking through, I would have never thought that a normal animal would attack us and even get Hiroshi in a situation like this. It was a very long venomous snake that just flew through the bushes. And its skin and size, shone under the bright sunset, getting us think that Hiroshi could get injured.

But as always, bringing our expectations to our hands, Hiroshi got away from the snake, with a single hand gesture and grabbed it by its neck.

Then slowly turning his head, he talked to us,

"Is this the curse of the forest?"

After Hiroshi threw the snake down again, the snake retreated in great fear and crawled as far away from there as possible. Leaving us all desperate just in a short moment like that, it had been now running away from the bigger danger that it faced from its prey.

But however, we were relieved about the snake retreating, but the fact that even such a normal creature could catch us unprepared here made it even more uncertain what kind of situation this forest would leave us in against the deeper parts of it.

And it scared us, dozens of times more.

Voices were beginning to rise in the depths of the forest. The sound of more than one creature was waiting for us, just as we were frightened. And as their biggest prey found there, it was also inevitable that they would target us. On the one hand, with the raindrops falling on our faces and the deteriorating weather, we were already soaked in a short time. And just then, red eyes appeared from the darkness towards us and left us all in a flurry again.

Babu then spoke, with fearful eyes, and with an agitated mouth,

"I guess this is the curse."