"I wonder how Kreweir and the others are doing?"
Leilin struggled to his feet, feeling as though his entire body was about to fall apart.
"I have the Chip and I ended up like this — their situation can't be any better. I need to find them quickly. If they stumble into a trap or draw some wild beast, things will really go south."
Leilin fished a red vial from the leather pouch at his waist, pulled the oak stopper, and poured the scarlet liquid over his wounds.
Tsss!!! White vapor billowed up as Leilin gritted his teeth, his face contorting in pain.
Once the white mist dissipated, a thin red membrane coated the wound, sealing in the blood and locking the torn flesh together. Leilin flexed his arm — it barely hindered his movement.
"This coagulation potion works well enough, but it hurts like hell to use!"
Leilin grumbled, then pulled out a vial of blue Stamina Potion and downed it. The blue liquid was sweet, carrying the fragrance of fresh white bread. He felt much better almost immediately, some of his strength returning. He stepped out of the undergrowth and leaned against a large tree to rest.
"Chip! Is there anything I can do about that hallucinogenic gas?"
Since he now knew that only the gas in that area could render someone unconscious and there were no other dangers, Leilin didn't mind lending a hand to rescue his companions.
If it truly wasn't feasible, Leilin would have to turn back, notify the academy's instructors, and pray for them.
"Suggestion: Clean water provides an effective barrier against this gas!"
The Chip's response came through.
"Clean water?" Leilin opened his canteen, thoroughly soaked a cloth, and wrapped it tightly over his nose and mouth before making his way back along his tracks.
"I thought I'd gotten much farther than that — it's less than a thousand meters!" Leilin followed the trail and, in just a few steps, arrived back at the spot where the five of them had split up. He couldn't help but feel exasperated.
"Chip! Scan the area ahead and generate an image!"
Now that he knew there was hallucinogenic gas up ahead, even with protection, Leilin felt somewhat uneasy.
"Ding! Scan complete!"
An image materialized before Leilin's eyes. Not far from where the five of them had originally stood, across a stretch of low ground, grew clusters of enormous mushrooms.
These mushrooms were massive — nearly as tall as a person — with an eerie purple hue. Their surfaces were covered in dark spots that seemed to form the faint outline of a pained human face.
"What kind of mushrooms are those?"
"Database comparison in progress! Similarity: Spider-Faced Man 98.7%, Gorya Mushroom 74.5%, Purple Umbrella Flower 23.3%"
"Spider-Faced Man?" Leilin searched his memory for the botanical guide he had studied in the library.
"The Spider-Faced Man is a remarkable plant. It emits an extremely potent hallucinogenic gas that humans and other intelligent creatures with even slightly below-average constitutions cannot withstand. It tends to attract birds and establish a symbiotic relationship with them. It seems those two Red-Eye Crows from before were lured here by these mushrooms."
Leilin noticed several skulls at the base of the purple mushrooms — some appeared human, along with many others from different animals.
"But around our academy, such dangerous plants should have been cleared out long ago. Unless… they were transplanted recently!"
Leilin speculated, and suddenly felt a chill run through his body, as though he had grasped a corner of some dark conspiracy.
He shook his head. "This isn't something I can get involved in right now. I need to find Ni Lan and the others quickly, and then leave immediately!"
With the Chip's detection, finding the rest of his teammates was extremely easy.
Lannuo had collapsed nearby, with a tree branch pierced clean through his thigh — it looked like he had run into it himself.
Kreweir was found not long after. At the time, he was hacking wildly at a large black boulder like a madman, unable to even notice Leilin approaching. In the end, Leilin knocked him unconscious and carried him away.
As for Ni Lan and Lilith, they were the luckiest. Shortly after leaving, they had been ensnared by a cluster of vines. When Leilin found them, the green glow of a Speed Potion still lingered around the two of them, and they were completely unharmed.
Leilin took all four of them well beyond the Spider-Faced Man's range of influence and found a small stream, then tossed every one of them into the water.
This was the Chip's recommendation.
As the ice-cold stream water continuously surged into Kreweir and the others' noses and mouths, their bodies began to convulse violently.
"Cough! Cough!!" Kreweir and the others started coughing violently.
Leilin then moved them onto flat ground and laid them on their backs. He picked up his weapon and stood off to the side on guard.
"What happened?" Kreweir rubbed his aching head and propped himself up.
"Do you remember what just happened?" Leilin walked over to Kreweir.
"Right! I remember now — we ran into a Mountain Fierce Bear, and Scavenging Wolves!" Kreweir touched the wound on his face.
"Did you save us?"
"That's right! But what we ran into wasn't wild beasts. I'll explain everything once the others wake up." Leilin gestured toward the rest of the group, who were clearly showing signs of regaining consciousness.
Once they had moved beyond the Spider-Faced Man's sphere of influence and drunk large amounts of clean water, all of them finally recovered their sanity.