Blackened Forest Part 2

1000 hours, 18 June 0145...

Inside the Harimal Forest, the sunlight pierced through the tree leaves and the birds chirped while flying back to forth. Everything felt uncanny where it felt too peaceful and no single threat at all.

"We must go to the right to find the giant tree and the broken tent," Christine said while looking at the map through her smartphone.

"Are you sure this is the right path?" Axel asked while looking at the dark forest path on the right.

"Didn't Commander Katoki already tell us this is the way?" I replied to Axel while walking inside the dark forest path.

"Oh, ok. Let's go.," said Axel.

Wasting no seconds, the three of us searched our way through to find Poisonshrooms and dead android parts.

***

As we reached the middle of of Harimal Forest, it was slightly darker, considering Harimal Forest was a tropical rain forest with thick leaves that cover the path above the ground.

As we continued our journey, suddenly, we saw a gigantic tree with a growing mushroom in it and a broken tent behind the tree on the left side.

"That must be the tree that Commander Katoki mentioned before!" Axel said while pointing at the gigantic tree with a growing mushroom in it.

"There's also a broken tent behind that tree," I continued, while pointing at the broken tent behind the mushroom tree.

"Alright, I have an idea. How about the three of us divide our tasks? Someone picking up the 30 Poisonshroom from that tree, and someone just picking up dead Android parts from that tent. Any suggestion?" I asked to everyone.

"Sounds good to me. But, considering the dead android parts were heavy as hell, it'll become unbalanced if you put 1 person picking up entire dead android parts and the rest picking up Poisonshrooms," Axel answered directly while nodded.

Suddenly Christine said to us.

"How about if we divide everything into 3 instead? So we will balance everything in our backpack and we will overload nothing.,"

"Oh, that's a great idea," Axel replied and nodded his head in agreement.

"Well, the point is we must finish our task first and never let our guard down," I said while I removed my Backpack belt and opened my Backpack for harvesting the Poisonshroom, and picked up 3 large thick zip-lock plastic bags from my backpack.

"Of course, leader!" Axel replied while he put down his backpack to pick up the zip-lock plastic bags.

When the three of us took out our zip-lock plastic bags from our backpacks, we got a call from Commander Katoki through our comm channel of a sudden. I answered Commander Katoki's call.

"This is Commander Katoki speaking to the Black Vulture squadron!" Said Commander Katoki.

"Go ahead, Commander," I replied.

"Did you guys find the mushroom tree and the broken tent?" Commander Katoki asked.

And then, I answered while pointing at the mushroom tree and the broken tent in front of me.

"We're right in front of them,"

"Good, now collect 30 Poisonshrooms and 24 dead android parts quickly, and head back to the safe zone as soon as you've collected these materials!" Said Commander Katoki assertively.

"You told us to hurry because there's a lurking Infectoids and Monsters in this dark forest, right?" I asked while as I looked around inside this dark forest of Harimal Forest trying to find any lurking Infectoids and Monsters.

"Might be. The point is, just make it quick!" Commander Katoki answered.

After that, the three of us replied.

"Copy that, Commander!"

"Alright guys, let the harvesting begin," I said.

"Yes!" Axel and Christine answered. After that, the three of us started harvesting the Poisonshroom from the mushroom tree and put it into our zip-lock bags.

The reason we must put these kinds of mushrooms into the zip-lock bags is, Poisonshroom has a chemical substance that can melt fragile and thin things like papers, plastic bags, and even fabrics.

These mushrooms contained a nasty poisonous smell in it. So it was recommended to keep the distance of your nose from this mushroom, or else you could get nausea and diarrhea. Or you can just hold your breath whenever you don't wear a gas mask.

These thick zip-lock bags contain a special substance that could counter the poison from these Poisonshrooms whenever we put these mushrooms inside these bags safely, where the poison and the nasty smell wouldn't pierce through these zip-lock bags.

***

After we finished collecting 10 Poisonshroom in each of our bags, I tightly them and stuffed them in my backpack. I then stood up and moved into the broken tent behind the mushroom tree.

"Hey, Tsuyuki! Where are you going to?" Axel asked while he was closing his backpacks since he had also finished collecting the 10 Poisonshroom.

"I'm going to the broken tent to collect dead android parts," I answered while walking into the broken tent behind the mushroom tree.

"We're coming with you!" said Christine after she finished collecting the Poisonshroom and followed my lead together with Axel.

I just nodded and continued walking into the broken tent behind the mushroom tree.

***

Inside the broken tent, we saw tons of dead android parts scattered beside the chest in the middle.

"Alright, which dead android parts should we pick up? Inside the chest or outside the chest?" I asked myself while looking at the chest in the middle of the tent.

"I don't know, just pick whatever you want," Axel answered while taking off his backpacks and picking up his empty zip-lock bags for dead android parts.

I opened the chest and started looking inside of it. Inside, I saw several unusual dead android parts. It was an ominous-looking android head, android weapons, arms, android soul system boxes, and android black boxes.

I picked up the dead android head because it caught my attention more than the rest of the dead android parts inside this chest. When I was inspecting the dead android head closely, I realized something different from the rest of the dead android heads that I had usually encountered.

"Wait… This one is rare!" I said while grabbing the dead android's head with both of my hands.

"What is it?" Axel asked, confusedly looking at the dead android's head in my hands.

And then, I explained.

"Kalbaroth head, an Archer-type android. Unfortunately, it was dead a long time ago and I don't know why and who put this head into this chest?"

Something unusual in the Kalbaroth head caught my eye. It was a Red Crescent logo on the forehead.

"Wait… what is this?" I asked myself in confusion.

"A Crescent logo?" I continued inspecting the Kalbaroth head.

There might be a similar Red Crescent logo on each of the dead parts. I asked everyone about the Crescent logo on each of the dead android parts that they've accidentally found. With no second, Christine replied while grabbing a dead android arm.

"Wait, I've found one!"

"Ok, can you lend me that arm for a second?" I asked, and then Christine lent me the android arms from her hands.

I grabbed the dead android's arm and inspected each of the Crescent logos between this Kalbaroth head and this android arm to find any similarity in it.

"What's going on? What do you want with this arm?" Axel asked, looking at me inspecting both Kalbaroth's head and an android arm.

"There's a Red Crescent logo on this Kalbaroth head. I wanted to find out if there's a similarity between these dead android parts," I answered while looking at both Kalbaroth's head and an android arm to find any similarity or difference between the two crescent logos in it.

And it seemed like both of them had no difference at all. It felt as if there was some riddle inside these dead android parts about the Red Crescent logo inside of it.

"What's the meaning behind these logos?" Axel asked, confusedly.

"Could it be…"

When Christine was about to say something. There was a roar behind us where a monster was about to attack us.

*HAAAANNNNNHHHHHH*

The Monster behind us thought we let our guard down to becoming its feast. Until…

With my ultra-instinct, I quickly drew my Kiryu, cocking my Kiryu through my quick-draw holster, pointing my Kiryu right at the Monster mouth in behind me, and…

*BANG*

I killed one monster behind me by shooting the Monster with my Kiryu. After that, the three of us glanced our back to check out the situation. Until we saw one dead Raptor monster called Ragoos on the ground.

"Shit! It's Ragoos!" Axel said while drawing his Hammer in an alert stance.

"Great, now we're in their territory," I said while sighing in frustration because these pitiful Monsters would keep interrupting our good time to collect some materials in the wild.

*ROOAARRR ROAARRR*

Herds of Ragoos revealed their selves from the dark shadow of the forest, as lurking beasts that would devour our back whenever we let our guard down in the blackened forest.

"Are any of your goods safe and sound?" I said to Axel and Christine while walking into the herds of Ragoos and bracing myself, fighting against them all.

"What about yours, leader?" Axel asked back. I smirked sinisterly, putting my right hand into my Nakajima throttle on my back, and replied.

"Heh! I want to commit genocide toward these insects!"

After that, I revved my Nakajima, and it made a loud 2-Stroke noise, even the exhaust from my Nakajima popping flames when I rev it into the rev limiter.

*BRAAAAAPAPAPAPAP POP POP POP BANG*

The herds of Ragoos roaring as their roar echoed upon this blackened forest. However, their intimidation was nothing but just a pitiful bark in our eyes. The three of us took stances and were ready to fight those beasts.

As this forest blackened by these beasts, we're ready to lighten up this place with our burning exhaust blades and give them hell.