3 Surprises

The night gone a the morning replacing it, the team of 8 woke up refreshed and mostly healed as they exited their shared room and suited up, grabbing the weapons best suited for them, which was only two options, sword or bow.

Now with the entire 8 strong team of 'explorers' ready and armed with swords or bows they trekked over to the edge of the forest they were about to enter. Lemon gazed at the giant moss covered trees in front of him, bared anything could be seen inside except for trees and grass as the forest was densely packed.

"Is it completely necessary to go in there?" Art had as much reservations as Lemon.

"Yeah." However Lemon wanted to act cool so he lied to himself and entered first, while the team followed behind him.

For about 2 hours Lemon and his team traveled into the Forest, and each second put Lemon more on edge.

'I'm not built for this shit.' Lemon was on complete alert inside this forest where he knew a monster or monsters lurked.

Crack!

"What was that!" Lemon stabbed at the sound and almost pierced the Diana's foot.

"Hey what the fuck Mate!? You almost took a few of me toes ya dimwit." She had only stepped on a branch.

"Heh, uh sorry." Embarrassment was all you could see on his face as Lemon's complexion turned a few shades red.

"Don't be too jumpy Mate, you're not gonna notice anything like that, you should be calmer actually take in your surroundings, then you'll notice something." Jason patted Lemon's back, trying to ease his nerves, which worked as his attribute [Empath] came into play, reeling in his emotions and making him calmer, more focused.

'Woah.' It might not have been the exact focus of Jason's intent, but after having calmed down Lemon did feel like he could sense a lot more, the world felt clearer and he could tell between the sounds around him. 'Empath seems to be even better than I thought does it give benefits based on my emotion? I should stay calm as much as possible then.'

"Thanks man." Lemon smiled at Jason which wasn't like he wanted it as usual with his gloomy appearance, instead the smile came off menacing.

However even then for Jason a smile was a smile.

"You're welcome Mate." Jason patted him on the back again as they continued onward.

On their march they came across many berries and vegetables, or at least what they thought was vegetables and berries. No one in the team could identify these things, not even the man on the team who is known by all the Sailors as being a plant nerd, David, knowing all types of vegetables, fruits, berries, trees anything, but not these.

"Nothing really? Can you at least tell if they're poisonous?" Yone asked David as he held one of the weird berries in his glove, it was purplish and black with tiny scales all around it and a spiky stem at the top.

"It's both an unusual color and shape, but y'know you could try it, help us out over agonizing if it's edible." David shrugged with an unamused expression that Yone gave back.

"Whatever." Yone threw the berry into the bag in an annoyed manner, they would try and see if it was poisonous later. "We should look for wildlife now, I haven't seen any." Yone commented.

"Yeah, it is kinda weird aye." Diana commented.

"Don't only look for food we should find out where the hell we are." Japan reminded.

"Oh thanks for the reminder Mate I'll make sure to look around aye, I'll try and see if my eyes are clairvoyant and see through all these trees hm?" Diana said sarcastically.

"Apologies." Jason bowed.

"As it should be." Diana nodded in content.

All the while they conversed Lemon stayed on guard watching out for any dangers that could be trying to sneak them.

As Lemon sat on a log he watched the wilderness until he noticed what he believed to be a rabbit.

'I haven't seen one of those outside of history books, I thought they had been extinct.' Lemon thought to himself as he planned to creep up on the Rabbit and hunt it. 'Well the Spell does seem to bring me back in time so it's not all that surprising, but is it supposed to look like that?'

The Rabbit was different from what he had seen in the books in school, this rabbit was black and had pulsing red veins that glowed slightly along with bloodshot eyes as it foamed at the mouth.

'Rabies? No, that's more than just rabies, maybe it could be a clue to this island.'

Looking back to his 'companions' he signaled them to look over and brought their eyes on the Rabbit he wanted to hunt the rabbit and dissect it.

Seeing the Rabbit Diana nodded and brought her bow up and knocked an arrow back. Taking a deep breath she aimed for a few seconds as the Rabbit ate one of those weird scaly berries.

Crack! Thwip! Thump!

Behind the team a twig was stepped on, startling Diana and causing her to miss the arrow shot making it land next to the rabbit. However unlike how a normal rabbit would act this one was abnormal as it poked its head up and stared at the team, although this reaction was abnormal the rabbit was the least of Lemon's worries.

'All of us knew not to move so that Diana wouldn't miss! So who is behind us!?' Lemon quickly turned around and unsheathed his sword while at the same time throwing a rock that he had swiped from the floor at the sound in an attempt to slow it down if it had made any moves.

"Woah hey Sailor what was that for." The unknown thing that had stepped on the twig behind them turned out to not be unknown whatsoever, it was the Captain.

Squeal!

Lemon's attention was stolen again as he looked back to where the rabbit was, which is where that bloodcurdling sound had came from.

"What the hell!?" Yone was the one to scream out as the rabbit was charging them like a rabid animal tripping over itself and getting back up just as quick, it had no coordination.

'That's definitely not how a rabbit is supposed to act.' Again the rabbit acted abnormally as instead of what you would think the rabbit would do for an attack like biting, the rabbit instead jumped at Lemon and tried to ram his chest in.

However Lemon had reacted decisively and blocked the rabbit's charge making it bounce back even so the rabbit showed no pain as it jumped back at Lemon, but was shot down by an arrow from Diana.

Not wasting a second Lemon stabbed his sword through the head of the rabbit fully killing it.

[You have slain a Dormant Infected Rabbit]

'Infected? With what?' Lemon wondered before bringing his attention back to the Captain as he sheathed his sword.

"Captain you're alive?" Macht, who had been silent this entire time finally spoke out when he saw the captain and walked up to him happily.

Lemon had his own reservations with this knowing that it could be a trap, but even then he decided to scan the expressions of those around him.

Lemon's attribute [Empath] kicked in as he understood all of their emotions which ranged from confusion, happiness and anxiety. However Lemon found an outlier in these emotions, Jason, he seemed even more on guard than Lemon his wariness palpable as he hovered his hand over the sword on his waist ready to draw at any moment.

'Does he know something I don't? It doesn't make sense for him to be this on guard.' Was the thoughts of Lemon, but for now he decided that the Captain was the biggest threat as the target of Jason's caution.

"Haha it's pure luck and inconvenience that I had landed at a different part of the island than everyone else." The Captain laughed cheerfully and Macht joined him, but Lemon just couldn't throw the feeling away that something was wrong, when he looked at The Captain he felt that his proportions were off, not by much but by just enough, his memories of Captain and the man in front of him didn't match up perfectly.

'And he has no wounds, based on his clothes he should have many wounds even some fatal, but he's as clean as if he had taken a shower.' Lemon's thoughts further delved into suspicion as he felt that this man in front of him was his Nightmare Creature.

'If it is, then I'm fucked, it's intelligent and definitely stronger than me, plus I'm not a sword fighter, I'm better with the spear.' Lemon panicked but his emotions quickly reigned themselves back in and he focused on the 'Captain'.

'His emotions are surprise, hunger, sadistic glee and joy as if he had found the last piece of a puzzle.' Seeing his emotions Lemon was now sure that this 'Captain' was a Nightmare Creature as he resolved himself. 'The best bet is to kill him in a sneak attack.'

Lemon's body calmed down as he walked calmly to the Captain with a smile before sneaking a glance to Jason and giving him a knowing nod.

"Hey Captain! When I didn't see you on the beach I was certain you had died!" Lemon laughed cheerfully and joined next to Macht.

"I thought I was a goner too Sailor!" Captain laughed alongside him.

Shing!

Lemon unsheathed his sword as fast as possible aiming to decapitate the doppelgänger in one swing, but as he had said before he isn't a sword wielder so the speed of his quick draw wasn't fast enough allowing the 'Captain' enough time to lean back and dodge the swing.

Without any talk the doppelgänger swung his arm and smashed it against Lemon's waist, at least that was the idea however Lemon was fast enough, blocking the blow with his sword, although all that had done for him was stop his bones from being broken nothing else as he was launched into a tree.

Not even half a second later Jason was upon the doppelgänger with inhuman speed as he sliced at him, removing the hand of the fake Captain easily.

The Captain gave no heed to the wound and retaliated with a kick to Jason's side that was parried with his sword making the fake lose his balance before a punch was delivered to his jaw however he still showed no signs of pain and counterattacked with another kick to Jason which connected and sent him tumbling down.

"What the hell!?" Macht and the rest finally processed a second of what was happening, but all too late as the fake grabbed Macht's head and broke his neck with ease.

"Macht!" David yelled in disbelief aiming his bow at the fake however before he could fire both the fake and Macht's corpse turned transparent and disappeared.

The group of 8 had now been turned to 7.

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