The Walker Of Voids

It had been 3 hours since the group had first departed, and despite there being a few small fries on the way that weren't even worth Lloyd's attention, there was nothing but trees and skies to look at.

"I believe I see it." Hime announced while looking into the distance from the top of one of the trees she had chosen to climb.

"Its pretty scorched, so I think it would be a little hard to miss." Roderick chuckled.

They continued to walk toward where Lloyd had fought the rabbits, and while Hime and Roderick already knew what the scene looked like, the rest were frozen in surprise, unable to believe that a half-step first commandment could create so much destruction on their own.

"Nature sure does heal quickly." Lloyd muttered to himself, yet those with heightened hearing heard his words and looked at the charred forest before them.

"Oh? I don't think this is nature's doing. I believe that the dungeon heals over time. Give this a week, and it will look exactly the same as the first time you saw it." Roderick explained while touching a patch of fresh grass that seemed to have been spared despite the scorched planets all around it.

"Does that mean that, in a week or less, monsters are 'respawned'?" Lloyd asked.

"Maybe. I don't know yet, but if we think about it the same way we feel about permanent dungeons, monsters aren't bred; they are spawned. While it doesn't happen much in temporary dungeons, it's not impossible."

Roderick explained.

"Squeak."

"Huh? Oh, look, it's a rabbit." Felix muttered before his hand broke a sound barrier and reached the rabbit in the blink of an eye.

"What are you doing?" Veronica asked while holding Felix's hand an inch away from the rabbit, who was still looking at Felix's incoming hand with its curious big black eyes.

"Well, the kid said he had to fight them, right? It was clearly going to lure me in with its cuteness before chomping down on my head." Felix defended himself while the rest of the group, including Lachlan, face-palmed.

"No. From the fact that they aren't releasing an ounce of killing intent, they are most likely a monster that only attacks you when you attack it, and thinking back to what Lloyd said, attacking one would also anger the entire colony, which would force us into killing them." Veronica explained before reaching out her hand and petting the orange-furred rabbit.

When Veronica tried to pull her hand away, the rabbit moved closer to her and rubbed its head onto her hand as if it was asking for more pats.

A red glint passed through Veronica's eye, a glint that no one other than Lloyd seemed to notice.

Narrowing his eyes, Lloyd was going to say something, yet before he could, he watched a beautiful smile stretch across her face as she held the rabbit in her arms and squealed like a little girl.

"It's so cute!~" She screeched while Lloyd only felt a little weirded out by her sudden change, but he guessed that animals could do that to a person.

"Can I keep it?~" Veronica asked.

"Sure, why not?" Roderick answered while scratching the back of his.

"No. We have bigger things to worry about than a pet rabbit." Hime sneered while glancing at Roderick while embarrassingly shrugging.

The group continued walking for a few more hours while tracing the direction that all the rabbits had come from when Lloyd had fought them by looking at broken twigs, branches, and even footprints.

However, doing so turned out to be much harder than it seemed simply because the dungeon was still healing, meaning many of the footprints had disappeared, or at least the ones that were feint.

"You sure did a number on this area. What kind of spell did you release to do this much devastation?" Rex asked with a hint of excitement in his voice that sent a chill down Lloyd's spine.

"It looks like he used a fire spell. From the wounds seen on the trees, the scorched marks left behind, and the pattern of burns, Lloyd most likely used a flurry of fire bullet spells. However, such a spell would take an extremely high amount of mana to do without a magical artifact to use a middle-man.

Maybe a staff? No... Or it's a magical book with the runes and enchantments written within it to take the toll of the mind and put it on his mana instead, allowing him to focus on making the spell more efficient rather than having to analyze it. But that wouldn't make sense, either. Lloyd isn't a mage. He is a... Mutter mutter mutter mutter mutter mutter mutter mutter..."

The group looked at Tina for a moment before shrugging. Everyone but Lloyd who was perplexed by what he was seeing. The once shy girl was now muttering her theories and ideas out loud without a care for the world.

'Is this the same girl that would squirm every time someone would look her in they eyes?' Lloyd asked himself with an agape mouth.

"Don't worry. She does that sometimes." Rex chuckled.

"Really? She must have some passion in learning the arts of mana and everything about it." Lloyd replied, still feeling a little awkward after seeing Tina in that state.

"Yeah. I feel jealous of her drive to gain knowledge whenever I look at her." Rex sighed.

"Don't you have any passions?" Lloyd asked with a tilt of his head, yet he only received a chuckle from Rex.

"I do. Hey, I probably have the most ambitions in the entire group... I work out every single day and push my body to its brink so it can fix itself by the next day and be stronger than ever.

I work on my martial arts, meditation, and control of emotion, yet in all of those, I'm either not as good as someone else on the team, or I am the best at it but can't match the same drive Tina shows for her interests." He explained.

'He likes her...' Lloyd immediately concluded. He knew that expression... After all, he had seen it in the past whenever he could look in the mirror.

It was the expression of someone who was so in love with another that they would do anything to catch their attention or gain their love.

A gloomy expression passed through Lloyd's face before it immediately went back to normal before Rex or anyone else could see it.

All good memories come to an end, and Lloyd could remember the precise date when that memory ended since it was the start of a new memory with a new family and a new group of people who cared about him much more than the last group did.

Hours passed, and everyone talked idly. While the number of monsters had seemed to increase ever since meeting with the first rabbit, the increase wasn't as big as they hoped, which either meant that they were very far from where the boss was, or that they were walking diagonally rather than moving in a straight line towards the boss area.

This meant that the trip would take much longer, and at the same time, the chances of completely missing the boss were also very high.

"Hm?" The hairs at the back of Lloyd's neck stood up while a feeling weird feeling welled up inside of him.

'We're being followed.' Lloyd concluded, yet as he tried to turn around to see what was following them, he felt a hand on his shoulder before he realized the group had gone silent.

"What are they?" Felix asked.

"I don't recognize their footsteps or smell since I've never encountered them before, but if I concentrate, I can smell a faint whiff of berries and blood." Hime explained.

"Silent footsteps. Small body. Camouflages well with the surroundings and doesn't seem to be hostile against us..." Lloyd muttered with volume that allowed everyone just about to hear him, yet instead of telling them what they were, a smirk appeared on Lloyd's face as he walked in front of Rex, disappearing from the monster's line of sight.

[Presence Concealment]

Lloyd remained quiet, something he couldn't have done without [Soundless Steps].

As he stared from one of the branches he stood on, he couldn't help but smile slightly when the creature became clear to him.

'As expected... Foxes.'