Fu…

"Guys, not that way, my nipples tell me it's over there!" I say, seeing my group heading toward the side the suspicious priest had pointed, while I point the opposite way.

Priest tips, the conversation from a few days ago, no, this is all too suspicious...

"Your nipples?" Dan and Joseph echo at the same time, not understanding anything, while Helena smiles at the reference.

Without waiting for the democratic vote on which way to go, along with Helena, I take the lead, creating a herd effect in my group.

"What's the use of bags of coins if they're paying for almost anything we ask? I'd prefer if we found something else, a PS5, I don't know, something useful..." Dan murmurs, as we walk toward the forest.

"But have you tried asking them for money?" Joseph asks, still walking side by side with Joh, sharing the shade of his sombrero.

"Hmm... No, why?"

"Because they refuse to give it, saying they'll buy whatever we need... So gold can be quite useful in the future, since the freedom they say they give us seems limited." Says Joseph, kicking a stone on the path.

I couldn't agree more.

I mean, the twins are probably filthy rich and I'm their disciple so, even if the priests stop financing me, I'll have money but, just in case, it's good to have some money saved, right?

"Shut up and walk faster!" Says Alex, taking us out of the subject, irritated at being the only one without shade in the scorching sun.

⁂

"It's over... there?" I say, pointing to a specific direction while looking at my map.

"No, no. It's over there!" Helena corrects, while looking at her own map and pointing with her finger more to the left of where I had pointed.

It turns out the treasure maps have markings saying where a treasure is buried so, basically, we just need to orient ourselves and go after the prizes.

Walking to my side and tilting her head close to me, Helena observes my map, before saying "Where do you think we are?"

I point with my index finger where I think we are.

"No, that's f11, we're clearly at f12, look at the forked tree on the map." She points to a tree that has its trunk divided into two branches, then points to the forked tree icon on the map.

"Hmm... True, you're right."

I admit I'm not the best when it comes to directions.

Folding my map to continue exploring, Helena holds my arm "Wait..."

"What is it?"

"Hey guys, decided on the direction?" Dan interrupts, approaching with the rest of the group.

Everyone had already put away their parasols, since inside the forest there was plenty of shade from the enormous trees that reminded me of gigantic sequoias.

"That way." Helena points to a specific direction, apparently giving up on the subject with me.

"This place really is the fruit forest, huh." Says Dan, while picking a round, blue fruit with peach texture that grew not only on the unreachable branches of the tall trees, but also on its own trunk, reminiscent of cocoa or jabuticaba.

"Drop that! —Clara shouts, slapping Dan's hand, making the fruit fall— What if it's poisonous to touch?"

"Hey, how would a fruit be poisonous to touch?" Dan asks, irritated by Clara's actions, while she ignores him and takes his hands, checking his palms.

"Well... Considering that here basically has everything that exists in our world only much more, if we think about poison ivy, there must be something like a poisonous fruit ivy, right?" Says Joseph, crouching to look at the blue fruit, which was now split on the ground with a viscous blue liquid coming out of its cracks.

"B-but wouldn't they warn us?" Dan says, shivering.

"Well, they warned it was poisonous... At least I think it's common sense not to keep touching something poisonous." Says Alex, rolling his eyes.

"Guys, I found it!" Helena shouts, drawing everyone's attention.

In front of her, a small hole in the ground with an eye-catching red cloth, which served to cover some object, made it clear that the church people didn't try to make our lives too difficult in this treasure hunt.

"So they didn't hide it underground or something? You just find the location and grab the items?" Joseph asks, surprised.

"Well, since they didn't give us shovels or anything, I don't think so." I respond, while crouching and removing the red cloth covering the item in the hole, revealing a fat leather pouch.

"Coins!" Dan exclaims, while I take the pouch and spread the coins from its interior on top of the cloth on the ground.

"Twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty platinum coins, huh. They're not kidding around. What do you say about 4 for each and 6 for Helena, since she did all the navigation work and still found the treasure?" I try to find a solution for the missing coins.

"No problem for me." Clara responds, nodding her head.

"For me too." Joseph agrees, with everyone else nodding in agreement, after all, each platinum coin costs 10 gold coins and, despite being a lot, we could simply exchange everything for gold coins to divide later; it's not worth it, though, considering Helena really is being the most useful with reading the map.

"Okay, now let's go that way." Helena says, pointing to another direction.

"Right, captain!" Dan responds with a salute, getting everyone to walk in the new direction.

"Guys, how about we go the other direction?" I say, making them turn to me.

"But this side has much more treasures..." Helena explains, confused, walking to my side and pointing her finger to the open map in my hands.

"I don't know, I think the other side might have better treasures, since the quantity is less—" I'm interrupted by Dan, when I try to whisper to Helena.

"Dude, have you never heard the saying? Better quantity than quality!" Dan insists, giving me a half hug and walking with me at his side.

Ah... Shit.

I hope this direction isn't what I'm thinking it is...

⁂

And I wanted to be wrong.

Smash

In front of me, a grotesque scene unfolded.

Severed human limbs swayed in the wind while hanging from thick white webs that attached them to the high tree branches forming sinister human bells.

Below the sinister bells made with human limbs, a large black figure could be seen on top of a young woman, who screamed with all her might; her voice, already completely hoarse, made the scream sound like a bestial sound coming from the deepest valley of despair.

My group, completely paralyzed and in shock, couldn't emit a single sound; Clara, Joh and Alex just fell backward, in extreme shock, while the rest of us remained static, without moving a single muscle, as if any simple movement on our part could draw the creature's attention to us.

Amid the grotesque scene, only Helena's increasingly tight grip on my hand reminded me that what was happening in front of us was really...

Real.

Standing still, we watched as the enormous figure, a gigantic black spider, played with the intestine of one of the summoned young women, making intricate braids, like a little girl playing with her new doll's hair.

However, unlike the child, with the skill and delicacy of a surgeon who cares not to kill their patients.

"L-lucy?!" Clara murmurs in shock.

Amid the screams of despair, as if noticing her name being said, the young woman, using all her remaining strength, raises her head in our direction, looking directly at us while, with her already completely hoarse voice, murmurs "Shaav mmehh..."

"J-jacob..." Clara murmurs, pointing up, where, following her finger, a human head swings in the wind, its expression of pain still stamped on his face.

Unfortunately for us, the plea for help loaded with despair and hope made by the terribly tortured young woman, who lay under the spider with her intestines exposed, missing one of her legs and with one of her hands looking like a ball of ground meat just removed from the grinder, actually became our curse; making the enormous spider, previously entertained with the young woman's intestines, now turn its head to look in our direction.