CHAPTER 104: THE LOST PACKAGE: PART II

The jungle felt warmth, even the coldness. Even though Elesch and Nova didn’t care about the cold, they wore clothes that didn’t match the cold; the jungle warmed them up further, which Adam was happy about.

He was the only one who actually wore some sort of sweater; it wasn’t too thick or too thin, and it helped him stay at a neutral temperature. With the jungle feeling slightly warmer, he felt cozy.

The sunlight, unintentionally, carved out the path for the trio to the bandits. The sunlight even made strange and intricate patterns as it splashed through the leaves.

Nova carried his litter box, with the kittens cozy inside, purring. Their voice mixed in with all the noises from the insects. Luna poked her head out, examining the area, then, with her little paws, started to hammer the air, as if trying to start a conflict with the jungle itself.

Adam led the way, sniffing, as Elesch took Luna and Sol out of the litter box, playing with them, as Nova took care of the rest. They kept walking flat lines, to extremely steep slopes, to some other strange slopes, eventually making their way into a clearing.

Adam kept sniffing, inhaling a faint scent of one of the bandits, though he wasn’t sure if it was the bandit or if either one of two hadn’t showered in months. He decided to go with the first option, telling the others he had found a faint scent of one of the bandits, leading to the east from where they were currently.

They kept following him, as the scent grew stronger, eventually leading to another clearing, where they found the bandits resting, with the package in the center of them. The trio was behind a couple of trees, Nova tugging all the kittens in the litter box and shushing them with his hands, which, of course, none understood.

Nyx purred softly, lowly, yet enough for the closest bandit to hear. At first, he ignored the sound, like he thought it might have been some stray cat, but as the purrs grew slightly louder, with more chimming in, the bandit went in the direction of the trio, trying to understand why there was so much meowing all of a sudden.

As the bandit grew closer, he looked at the trees, behind them, up and down, but he found nothing. Then in an instant, Nova was behind them, silently falling from the trees, minimizing the noise so that even the bandit had no idea. Nova grabbed the bandit by the mouth, then summoned his dagger to slit the bandit’s throat.

Not faint muffles left the bandit, low enough for none of the other bandits to suspect. Elesch decided against using her void manipulation to disperse the body and instead hid the body behind another tree, trying to cover the blood spill with mud, which nearly covered it.

After another five minutes of inspection, one of the bandits grew uneasy about his missing friend, the one Nova had killed effortlessly, so he grabbed his gun, nervously holding it, shaking slightly, as he ventured into the trees, nearly where he thought his friend had gone.

He stepped into the shadows of the trees, not finding anyone, but as he ascended through a couple more trees, towards his right, he saw something. Maybe his friend, maybe an animal, he went to check, making sure that it wasn’t his friend. But to his horror, it was the body of his dead friend. Then, he heard a breath running down his spine, which made him even more fearful.

He turned back, almost about to pull the trigger, but before he could do that, Nova disarmed him. He took the gun, destroyed it into pieces in front of him, then gave him a slight, soft kiss, to mock him, then in the next instant killed him.

Elesch stacked both of the bodies together, as only three more bandits remained. None of them looked interested in the other two missing; in fact, they looked pleased that the other two had left.

Nova saw their hands, seeing that one of them was a C-rank bandit, while the other two were E-rank and D-rank. The C-rank may possess some threat, though for the most part, Nova should be able to take him on, since he was honing on his achievement of being a C-rank Adventurer.

His Circle of Pillars itched at the thought of evolving to C-rank. He smiled, leaving the other two confused, but smiling along, because why not? Nova gently put the litter box down, letting Elesch guard it, as he and Adam would take out the other three remaining bandits and secure the package, which was wrapped in a cardboard box.

It looked like it had documents inside, maybe not important enough to make it a higher-tier mission, but still important enough to have an E-rank retrieve it. The thing that Nova didn’t understand was: Why did Marcus make this mission an E-rank mission even though the bandits were much stronger, making this at least a C-rank mission? It just didn’t make sense.

Nova and Adam stepped into the clearing, facing off against the remaining three bandits, as one of them, the E-rank, threw the cardboard box backward, having no intentions of losing it today. Everyone stared down at each other, cracking and stretching themselves, knowing full well that the fight was going to turn into a blood bath.

Nova and Adam exchanged glances, nodding, then smirked at the bandits, lunging forward to push them immediately to defensive positions. Elesch watched from the back, masking herself with the trees, to guard the kittens, while also spectating and eating imaginary popcorn, while enjoying the fight.

The E-rank and the D-rank bandits stepped forward first, smirking, thinking that just because they had powers, like the rest of the trio, they were better. Narrasism at its finest. Nova didn’t like the way the E-rank was smiling; it was creeping him out, thus leading him to charge up his own ego to fight the C-rank, while Adam took the other two, weaker, bandits.