We walked up to the entrance together, and for a moment Ken stopped at the edge of the fog, staring into it like he was trying to decide whether his own common sense was worth trusting. Then he glanced at me, took a slow breath, and stepped forward.

I followed him.

The Circle swallowed us almost immediately.

The cabin was still standing just ahead of us, and the sight of it made the place feel even more unnatural than I remembered. The corpses we had seen before were gone now, which meant they had either been buried or dragged off by something worse, and neither option made me feel better.

He glanced toward the strange green sky overhead and frowned, clearly remembering just how wrong this place felt. "Yeah. This is as bad as I remember it."

I followed his gaze up to the sickly light above us and let out a breath of my own. "I still do not understand how a place like this exists."

"Okay, focus," he said, shaking himself out of it. "Rabbit’s Thorn first, then Junglereaper."

"Right. How do they look?"

"Rabbit’s Thorn mostly grows low to the ground," he explained. "It looks like three small cotton-like tufts attached to a thin stem, almost as if the plant is trying to hide under the dirt. Junglereaper grows higher up, usually in trees or along branches. It has dark green leaves shaped like hooked blades."

"Hmm."

I looked around the area again, trying to make sense of the strange landscape in front of us, then started forward beside him. "All right, then. Let’s find them."

We kept moving through the Circle at an easy pace, staying alert but not rushing, because rushing here felt like a good way to get ourselves killed for no reason. Ken had already drawn his bow from his back just in case something decided to jump out at us, and I reached into my system inventory, willed my dagger into existence, and felt the familiar weight settle into my hand a moment later.

"You should teach me that spell," Ken said with a serious expression as he scanned the trees around us. "I could cheat on exams all day."

"Sure," I said. "Pay me ten gold and it is a deal."

Ken scoffed, but he kept moving beside me, and we both started checking the area more carefully. He moved toward a tree and examined the leaves, while I kept my eyes on the ground, looking for anything that matched the shape he had described. A few moments later, Ken straightened up and pointed ahead.

"There," he said. "That tree over there. Junglereaper. A lot of it." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I followed the direction of his finger and saw what he meant. Several dark green plants clung to the branches and trunk, their leaves shaped like narrow hooked blades, clustered together in groups exactly like he had described. Even from where we stood, there were enough of them to make this trip at least look worthwhile.

We headed over to the tree, and as soon as we got close, Ken crouched down and pulled a handful of broad leaves from the ground. He wrapped them around his fingers like a crude shield before reaching for the Junglereaper, clearly making sure not to touch it bare-handed. Good to know. Not that I ever planned on handling the thing without protection, but it was still useful information.

"At least they could have given us a bag or something," he muttered.

"I will put it in my inventory," I said before correcting myself quickly, since revealing the system out loud was still not something I wanted to do. "I mean, the spell I have. Hand it over."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Ken tore off a few more leaves and began pulling the plants free one by one, using the leaves to protect his hands while he worked. Each time he handed me a bundle, I took it and stored it through the system inventory, watching the faint golden glow appear for a split second before the item vanished from my hand. We kept doing that over and over, one plant after another, until the tree had been stripped clean of the Junglereaper we could reach.

After the tenth one disappeared into my inventory, Ken straightened up and looked the tree over again.

"Well, this one does not have any more," he said. "We should keep looking."

"Hmm," I replied, already scanning the nearby trees and ground for the next patch.

Then I heard that sound again.

The Teleporter.

The noise only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was impossible to mistake. It sounded like reality itself had been stretched too far and then snapped back into place. The closest thing I could compare it to was hearing a mountain collapse from miles away, except the sound arrived all at once, compressed into a brief, violent crack that made my stomach tighten every time I heard it.

Ken and I immediately crouched.

"Shit. A Teleporter," I muttered.

"It came from that direction."

I nodded.

"Let’s go the opposite way."

"We can circle around and head for a safe zone," Ken suggested. "If we search for the plants there, we’ll have somewhere to run if one of those things starts chasing us."

"Good idea. The problem is I don’t know where any safe zones are."

"I do." Ken glanced around nervously. "My father used to tell me stories about his adventures in here. I know where a few of them are."

The sound came again.

This time it was closer.

"Then let’s move."

We hurried away from it, heading toward the slope I had rolled down during my fight with the Teleporter. Keeping our knees bent, we carefully descended the muddy incline. Rain must have passed through the Circle recently because the dirt beneath our boots was soft and slippery, forcing us to watch every step.

Once we reached the bottom, we picked up our pace.

For a brief moment, I thought we had put enough distance between ourselves and the monster. Then the sound came again. Much closer.

Too close.

"Shit," Ken muttered. "It’s behind us."

"We need to hide."