Chapter 59 - Commandments

Souta brought Cl.u.s.ter with him. He was afraid that she would run away once he left her in the village. He wouldn't let a valuable person like her leave easily. He would squeeze some benefits out of her before he let her go.

Souta's group arrived in the inner part of the Desolate Woods. The trees around this part were ten to twenty meters tall, and all of the trees had brown and gray color leaves. It made them looked like withered trees, but this was its natural color. This was the reason why this forest was called Desolate Woods.

"The atmosphere is different than the outer part of the woods," Souta muttered while looking around his surroundings.

"Whoa! This is the first time I see this kind of tree!" Bryan exclaimed while looking around the trees in wonder.

Cl.u.s.ter was also looking around quietly. It seemed that she was still holding back in front of Bryan and Souta. She didn't want them to think badly of her.

"What's with this forest, Souta?" Bryan asked Souta.

"Hmm... This forest is called Desolate Woods. A lot of powerful monsters inhabited this forest but the most dangerous was the Giant Nova Boa and the Mountain Back Crocodile." Souta paused as he turned his head and looked at Bryan. "These two monsters were the overlord of this forest. If we somehow meet these two monster then we have to run as fast as we can. With our current strength, we would not be able to defeat it, because these two monsters are monsters that already created its monster orb. In other words, these two are powerful enough to crash the four of us with the use of best feram."

"What is a monster orb?" Bryan asked with a curious expression.

"Huh...?" Souta looked at Bryan with wide eyes. He couldn't believe that Bryan didn't know the monster orb at all. He couldn't help but sigh at Bryan's ignorance. "Monster orb is the core of a powerful monster. It is also the source of strength of the monster and the reason why the monsters are powerful. The monster orb can be fetched at a high price in the market. It can be sold by a hundred thousand platinum coins. The energy inside the monster orb is more potent than the energy inside the mana stone and essence."

He patiently explained the monster orb to Bryan. "Do you know the light in Ladros City?"

"Yeah." Bryan nodded.

"The reason why those bulbs across the street light up are because of the monster orb. One monster orb is needed to light up all the lights in the whole city for one week. If a person would monopolize a single monster orb then it would take a few months even a year before that person consumed all the energy inside the monster orb." Souta explained to Bryan. The monster orb was also the reason why the human and demi hunted down the monsters.

"I see." Bryan nodded.

"I can't believe you didn't even know this." Souta sighed.

...

Souta's group walked for a few dozen minutes before they met some monster. The monster was a carnivorous plant. The plant was three meters tall. It was a powerful monster but with Souta and Bryan, it didn't look like one.

All the monsters that they met all died by the teamwork of Souta, Bryan, and Yuko.

The trees became twisted like everything around them was changing. The area around them was completely covered in brush and branches.

Souta asked Bryan to clean the area.

"We will rest here for five minutes." Souta picked up a decent place to rest. Of course, he scouted the area within it before he settled with this place.

Souta's group sat down and they leaned their back on the trees.

"This is such a weird forest," Bryan said in a low voice.

Souta ignored Bryan and he looked at Cl.u.s.ter. He noticed that she wasn't gasping or out of breath. It seems like she really holds some power inside her. There's also a possibility that she didn't know about this power and only those higher up of the True God's Holy Kingdom knew.

Souta shook his head and put his hand inside his bag. He took out fruit and bit it.

"This is good," Souta said as he looked at the fruit that looks like an apple on his palm.

"Gulu gulu!"

He heard a sound beside him, so he turned his head and saw Yuko was looking at the fruit on his hand with drool on her face.

"Really." Souta smiled wryly and he took out another fruit for her.

Yuko swallowed the fruit with a happy expression.

Looking at her expression, Souta smiled and patted her head.

After a few minutes, they packed their things and began to move forward. They trek towards the eastern part of the inner woods. The surroundings were dark, so their pace was quite slow.

While they were walking they heard a sound of metal clashing against each other.

Yuko's ears twitched as she looked at the direction where the sound came from.

"That's the sound of fighting," Souta muttered. Then, he turned his head and looked at Bryan and Cl.u.s.ter. "Don't make any noise. We're going to check it."

"Okay," Bryan replied.

Cl.u.s.ter just nodded her head.

"Good. Follow me." Souta nodded in satisfaction at their reply. He walked slowly towards the sound.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Souta's group saw thirty people battling each other. Those people were powerful especially the two people who were fighting in the center. Both of them were wearing a full plate of silver-colored armor. The only difference was the symbol that was engraved in their chest.

The symbol in their chest indicated that they w