Salvaging
The sun streamed through the Harimal Forest's tree leaves, and the chirp of birds filled the air as they flew from branch to branch.
Everything felt almost too peaceful, like the world was waiting for something to happen. This serene setting makes it easy for the infected beings to sneak up on us, ready to pounce.
Christine glanced at the map on her GPS, a low hum emanating from the device.
"We need to turn right and locate the giant tree and the broken tent."
Axel's finger shook nervously as he pointed at the dark path of the forest, his voice filled with curiosity about the unknown path ahead.
"Is that the right path?"
"Didn't Commander Katoki already tell us this is the way?"
Axel responded by bobbing his head once and following my lead. The three of us navigated through the darkness to locate poison mushrooms and android parts.
But as I made my way to the dimly lit path, I addressed the group with a nostalgic speech.
"It's been years since we've been together like this, eh?"
"Yes! 6 years, to put it simply, since the first time we've been converted into Authonoids."
"I even recall the time we spent roleplaying a random game from our middle school club, Shadow Combat Zone. Remember that?"
"Oh yes! I exactly remember the time you were roleplaying as a rebelling demon with Scott, who was roleplaying as a demon lord."
"And we were even in a band playing metal songs, as we also performed it at the Minerva's Academy Summer Festival, remember that?"
"Of course! I even remember that you're jumping from stage to stage when playing the riffs!"
"Ahh, good old times."
After Axel and I exchanged laughs from our brief nostalgia trip, I glanced at Christine on my right side, who's bound to be silenced and focused on her GPS. Which prompted me to question her.
"By the way, Christine. You're used to being confident and showing your middle school syndrome. Yet, you are shyer this time. But why are you still using your old eye patch on your left eye?"
Christine quickly looked away from her GPS and timidly answered, almost as if she were trying to keep her secrets hidden.
"It's not because I'm still having middle school syndrome. It's because... my left eye has a sight problem."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
But she then glanced down and confessed her hidden thoughts.
"I lied. My left eye isn't injured. I choose to display it during battles."
The sudden onset of her middle school syndrome perplexed me. I gently prodded her once more, my words hanging in the air.
"Like how?"
She stopped her step in front of us, dramatically took off her eyepatch, her left eye a striking turquoise, and proclaimed something in a poetic tone that still lingers in the air.
"O' the evil one, abandon hope all ye who face the might of Divinocchi! May the angel's wings and God's eyes enlighten your blackened faith! Now, I shall eradicate thee with the taste of BANISHMENT IN THIS WOOOOORLD!"
Her eloquent war speech left me in awe. I could feel the emotion of the song on the battlefield, and it made my hair stand on end with goosebumps. Axel and I both exclaimed our amazement with simultaneous clapping.
She spoke her middle school syndrome speech, and the feeling of shyness was so strong that she wanted to run away. She hid her face, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, and mumbled her response.
"Lord, have mercy on me."
Axel patted her shoulders, and the comforting sound of his light laughter filled the air.
Continuing our journey, I then asked Christine again.
"Regarding your healing abilities, have you been attending a medical academy in this area?"
She exchanged a glance with me as she elaborated with a hand gesture.
"I've been studying medical stuff since I was in elementary school. Considering my father was a pharmacist at Veloce Pharma, using natural herbs to make alternative medicine was the source of my motivation."
"But it was so unfortunate that Veloce Pharma went bankrupt because of data hijacking by a third party that wanted to take them down."
I silently nodded and responded with a query of my own.
"Could it be that the Veloce Pharma strategy is a lot neater than the rest of the Big Pharma they have exposed us to?"
"It could be. Business can be a real bummer if you don't use it right."
"How are your parents doing now?"
But it silenced Christine, and she responded to Axel's query with a tinge of sadness.
"I lost my mother to hereditary cancer when I was 10. Subsequently, my father left the pharmaceutical field to pursue priesthood. Witnessing such loss, I am driven to prevent similar tragedies."
Axel's expression shifted to a more pensive look as he responded with a sympathetic nod.
"Oh, my condolences for that..."
With that, we didn't elaborate any further and continued our journey.
***
The thick canopy of trees blocked out the sun, casting a shadow that made the air feel stagnant and oppressive. After a brief minute, we witnessed a colossal tree towering on our left, with its mushrooms sprouting from its trunk. Behind it, a broken tent with the shredded roof's fabric caught our attention.
On noticing our arrival, Axel pointed at the objective.
"That must be the tree and the broken tent Commander Katoki mentioned before."
But then I proposed a plan that I thought would be beneficial to everyone.
"How about the three of us divide our tasks? Someone picked up the 30 poisonshrooms from that tree, and the rest picked up dead Android parts from that tent. Any suggestion?"
After everyone nodded in understanding, Axel suddenly responded.
"Unfortunately, it'll become unbalanced if you re-consider the weight of these goods."
But all of a sudden, Christine surprised us by snapping her fingers and offering us a simple solution.
"How about if we divide everything into three instead? So we will balance everything in our backpack and overload nothing."
Me and Axel both nodded in approval of Christine's idea as we quickly took off our backpacks.
"Ok, that's a great idea."
We nodded once, reached into our backpack, and picked up three large, thick zip-lock plastic bags, ready to collect the poisonshroom.
We had just taken out our zip-lock plastic bags from our backpacks when Commander Katoki's voice came through our communications channel. I had to heed Commander Katoki's call.
"This is Commander Katoki to the Black Vulture Squadron!"
With my right ear to the communications call, I responded.
"Go ahead, Commander."
Then Commander Katoki asked us a question that he'd asked previously.
"Did you guys find the mushroom tree and the broken tent?"
I looked around my surroundings and replied with a finger gesture.
"We're right in front of them."
After receiving our rather concise response, Commander Katoki asserted it once again.
"Good, now collect a certain amount of them prior to the mission briefing, and head back to the safe zone as soon as possible!"
"Copy that, Commander!"
We all disconnected from the communications channel with a last beep. And then I gave the command as I opened the zip-lock bags.
"Alright guys, let the harvesting begin."
The three of us plucked several poisonshrooms from the mushroom tree and stuffed them into our zip-lock bags without pausing for a moment.
A sickening, sweet odor emanated from the mushrooms, signaling their potential toxicity. All harvesters have to keep their nostrils away from the mushroom to prevent nausea.
Thanks to the peculiar substances contained in the zip-lock bags, we could carry the poisonshrooms without worrying about their potent odor.
After we got ten of the poisonous mushrooms in each bag, I zipped them up and stashed them away in my backpack. The mushroom tree cast its shade over me as I got to my feet and walked inside the tent's tattered back corner.
"Tsuyuki, where are you going?"
Axel followed my example and talked carefully as he did so. The torn tent shook as I walked forward, leading the pack.
"I'm going to the broken tent to collect dead Android parts."
They followed me through the torn remnants of the tent, their sacks bulging with the poison mushrooms.
***
A sizable chest was in the center of the torn tent, and there were various pieces of dead androids scattered all around it. When I took a quick look at the chest, I queried with a shade of bewilderment.
"What specific parts did the commander told us to gather?"
Axel looked confused and shrugged his shoulders once before responding.
"Not really. Just pick whatever you want."
While everyone else was opening their bags, I opened the creaking box and saw what was inside. What I saw seemed to be ordinary android body parts, although some of them were odder than the latter.
Out of curiosity, I took one of the dead androids' heads from the chest. Yet there was something about it that made it stand out from the others.
"Wait… This one is rare!"
Axel came over to me as he saw that I was curiously staring at the dead android's head.
"What is it?"
As the latter walked behind me, I took a brief breath as I explained.
"Kalbaroth is an archer-type android. It was dead long ago, and I don't know who put it here."
However, a distinctive red crescent logo on Kalbaroth's head caught my attention, demanding my closer inspection. And as I doubted if each dead android's parts had the same red crescent's logo as this, I heard Christine grasp the android's arm with a clang as I queried her.
"Christine, can you lend me that arm for a second?"
Christine nodded her head in quiet assent and handed me the android arm.
The deceased android's arm had the same red crescent emblem as the one I had just found. Their symbol attached to their parts piqued my curiosity upon closer inspection.
Everyone around me seemed perplexed as I examined these lifeless android parts. Axel touched my shoulder with a query.
"What's going on?"
As I looked at the two pieces of the dead robot for a while, I then turned their faces over my shoulder, hoping to find any clues.
"Both of them have red crescent logos on them. What does this even mean?"
Suddenly, a deafening roar reverberated behind us, as though a monstrous creature had leaped from the shadows, poised to strike.
HAAAANNNNNHHHHHH
I reached into my quick-draw holster and cocked my Kiryu, aiming it directly at the monster's mouth over my shoulder.
And then…
BANG
We turned around quickly and saw the lifeless body of one of the raptor-like monsters called Ragoos. As soon as the noise's echoes got closer each second, we drew our weapons and stanced up as I moaned in exasperation at their interruption of our fun in gathering.
"Great. Now we're in their territory."
Ragoos' ravenous roars rang through the forest's shadows as their silhouettes emerged slowly from the darkness. The sound of their stampeding hooves rocked the ground, a symbol of their terror as we entered their territory.
But before I'm about to rock those monsters hard into the splay of gore, I then queried the group in a low but stern tone.
"Are the goods safe?"
With Ragoos's intimidating chaos in the background, Axel requested clarity as he drew his enormous hammer.
"What about yours, leader?"
I gave a wry grin and put my right palm on the Nakajima throttle, the metal cold to the touch.
"I want to commit genocide against these pieces of fuck!"
Exhaust flames popped as I pushed my Nakajima to its maximum, where a deafening 2-stroke noise echoed through the forest.
BANG
With a deep, guttural roar that sent chills down my spine, the Ragoos herds' growl filled the blackened forest. Yet, their supposedly terrifying roars are just mindless dogs' barks.
Our revving arcs were ready to dispel all darkness. And in this blackened forest, we shall give them hell!