'Ah, I messed up big time...' Thought Jay, who had closed his eyes due to the sudden fright of the snake lunging at him, now only able to feel how his entire body was suspended in a moving gelatinous mass.
This was certainly a pretty bad situation, caused by nothing more and less than his own recklessness.
Thanks to the fact that he had seen the Aqugas snake weakened and about to fall, coupled with the fact that he believed Overload would work, he had been filled with courage, or rather, recklessness.
As a result, now the snake had caught him, and it was only a matter of time before he ran out of air, therefore, although he wanted to continue feeling guilty for a while longer so that this lesson would not be forgotten, he had to quickly think of a way to escape this situation.
'Now then...'
However, just as Jay opened his eyes and before he could do anything, he felt everything around him begin to tremble.
The next, his body immediately began to fall to the ground, the gelatinous mass that held him falling with him.
*Chak!*
At the same time that Jay's body crashed to the ground, the gelatinous mass holding him dispersed into the surroundings, losing its shape just like a water balloon being popped against the ground.
"...What?" Said Jay in surprise as he quickly stood up and surveyed his surroundings.
Right now, his body was covered by what appeared to be the body of the Aqugas snake, or rather, a minimal amount of it, as the vast majority of the snake's body was scattered on the ground.
From tail to head, there was no longer any trace of the snake, only the gelatinous mass that made up its body, as if the force that was maintaining the snake's form had disappeared from one moment to the next.
"Could it be that... the snake..."
While anyone else might also think that the Aqugas snake had collapsed from exhaustion or something like that, Jay knew it was something much more serious.
"It's... dead..!" He said, Taking some of the gelatinous substance in his hands to better obersve it.
The most telling sign of this was that neither his radar nor that of his little ones could detect any sign of life coming from the "body" of the Aqugas snake, indicating that indeed, said monster had finally fallen.
It had been unexpected and sudden, but nonetheless, it was a good thing for Jay.
"Ahh..."
Seeing this, Jay couldn't help but let out a big sigh of relief.
After the intense battle against Kesar, although the monster was still fighting as if nothing had happened, in reality the damage it had received had been quite severe, which was only aggravated by Jay's reckless attacks.
To begin with, its body was not made to fight on land, something that unfortunately the snake didn't realize even at the end of its life. That way, with no time to recover, expending large amounts of energy at every moment to replace her lack of water and blinded by her anger, the snake's fate was already decided.
"That... definitely was too close..." Jay said, sitting down on the ground roughly, almost letting his body fall.
He had been keeping calm up until now because the situation called for it, but now that the snake had died, the danger of the situation came to him all at once.
This was normal, after all, this was the first time he had encountered a monster in every sense of the word.
While it was true that he had already had contact with certain "monsters" such as the Gray Rats or the Great Rat, these could not be considered true monsters, plus at the time he was more concerned with another type of human monster.
However, now he had encountered a monster that would be able to obliterate both Jared and the Great Rat, so even though he had been confident only moments ago, the Aqugas snake itself proved to him to the end that this had been a grave mistake.
And had the snake not collapsed at the last moment, Jay wasn't confident that he really would have been able to escape.
"This... can't be considered a victory..."
After saying that, Jay shook his head and decided to leave those thoughts for later, heading towards the unconscious Kesar, whose body was stuck to a tree in an odd position, his face practically kissing the tree trunk.
***
While Jay was trying to wake up Kesar, in another part of the immense sea of trees, specifically in a place that was particularly close to the coast of the island, two people were observing the beach under an atmosphere of silence and darkness.
One of these two people was a man who was standing in a dignified manner with his hands placed behind his back, the air he gave off was that of someone who had everything under control and an imperturbable calm was present in his eyes.
Coupled with his incredibly attractive appearance and the faint glow of the moonlight passing through the small spaces between the branches of the trees, this made for a somewhat mystical scene.
However, what was going through this person's, or rather, James' head at the moment was anything but calm.
'...Why...why haven't I been able to find a single monster so far...?!' James thought, racking his brain as he tried to find a reason why his stay on this island had been filled with tranquility.
From the moment he arrived, although he had encountered a few minor monsters such as squirrels or raccoons, they simply fled when they saw him, a product of being intimidated by the pressure he emitted.
While not what he had expected upon arriving on the island, this was still acceptable, since if he wanted to catch one, he would just have to chase it down.
As for why he would want to catch one, that was because he didn't know if this test had a hidden criteria for passing, and like Sarah, he also had his suspicions about it. The theory that seemed most feasible to him was that he had to do something with a monster, whether it was capture it, defeat it, or something along those lines.
Therefore, he had hoped to find a strong enough monster while scouring the forest, he wouldn't lose anything by trying anyway.
However, before he could find a monster worth the trouble, a certain person appeared to interrupt his walk through the forest, forcing him to knock him unconscious and have to carry him out of a sense of responsibility.
From that moment on, as if that person was a curse, he hadn't encountered any monsters, he couldn't even feel a trace of them, almost as if all the monsters in the forest were avoiding them.
"Boss, I notice a disturbance in your qi, is something wrong?" Suddenly asked the person next to him, the same young man he had defeated and knocked unconscious several hours ago, although he had obviously already woken up.
While James' outward appearance indicated that he was calm, being a pugilist, the young man was especially sensitive to fluctuations of qi, which showed James' true emotional state.
"...Haa, I told you to stop calling me boss." He replied, letting out a sigh as he turned his gaze towards the young man.
An extra detail was that when the young man woke up, he completely abandoned his defiant attitude he had at the beginning and instead started treating James as if he was his superior, making the latter not quite sure how to react.
"That's not possible, boss! You have already proven that you are stronger than me, so in order not to further tarnish my reputation and to make amends for my mistake of having behaved disrespectfully towards you, the least I can do is to give you the same respect as a superior!"
The young man's voice was filled with a great deal of determination and assurance, as if what he had just said was simply the natural course of things.
Hearing this, James simply decided to stop insisting and instead started a conversation, asking him if he wasn't worried that in fact this test actually did have some hidden requirement.
"I'm not particularly worried, boss! I trust the words of the examiner and for the honor that precedes the Eitsirc Academy, I'm sure that they definitely wouldn't lie!"
Gradually, James was realizing exactly what kind of personality this young man had, and to be honest, he didn't dislike him at all.
"I don't think they're going to lie to us either, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a monster around to test that theory anyway, although for some reason we haven't come across any... what a bummer."
Even for someone like him, who had an enviable repertoire of high-level martial techniques, he even had techniques for locating his position and seeing beyond the obvious, but none for being able to track monsters.
Considering the size of the island, even if he could improve his eyesight so he could see twice as well, it wouldn't be that useful to him.
"If you're talking about the monsters, none of them will come near us since I've been using a martial technique to repel them so they won't bother you on your walk, boss!"
"..."
A few seconds passed in silence, during which James only managed to blinked a few times before closing his eyes and looking away.
'So he really was the cause all along?!' He thought, gripping the bridge of his nose with his fingertips.
When he referred to the young man as a curse, it was obvious he was joking, but as it turned out, he truly was the cause of the problem!
Then, taking a deep breath, James calmed down and spoke to the young man, "Would you please stop using this technique so I can find a monster then...?"
It was already quite late, so he didn't want to spend time arguing or getting upset, besides, he didn't think the young man had any bad intentions in doing this.
As for why James hadn't felt this technique despite having better qi control than the young man, there were countless martial techniques, so he couldn't be expected to know how each of them worked.
*BAM!*
Immediately upon hearing James' question, the young man slammed his head into the ground at the same time as he prostrated himself on the ground.
"I'M SO SORRY!" He shouted, not daring to make eye contact with James.
Seeing this, James knew something was wrong, "What's the matter...?"
The young man then explained to him that the martial technique he had been using was special, not having to use qi every moment to show its effects, but it was more like for a certain amount of qi, the technique would stay active for a while depending on the amount of qi used.
What was worse, the effect spread to any person or object that was in constant close contact with the source of the martial technique, namely the young man.
"So... how much time left before the technique loses its effect...?" James asked again, his right eyebrow twitching slightly.
"Since I used it about 20 minutes ago... I'd say at least about four hours."
*Crack!*
The ground James was standing on suddenly sank due to him increasing the force he was stepping on.
"...Haaa..."
However, the next moment he took a big breath of air and exhaled, forcing himself to calm down.
"Well, never mind, since it's come to this, I'll just have to look for a monster on my own, I just have to move faster than they can detect the repellent."
After saying that, James activated a martial technique to increase his speed and shot off into the depths of the sea of trees without waiting for the young man who was still prostrate on the ground, though soon after, the latter quickly followed him as well.
Slowly but surely, the night was progressing.
