355 Chapter 355: Reconnaissance

"Any sign of Ana anywhere?"

"Nope."

I shook my head bitterly at Redfield's question. I had sent my flock of Corvus out to scout ahead, but I had yet to find anything amiss. There was no sign of poison or withered plants – traces left by a poison mage passing by. I would think that I would at least find a few dessicated trees or a corpse of a monster that succumbed to venom, but…nothing.

It was entirely possible that Anastasia hadn't passed through this forest at all. Hell, it was very likely that Ana didn't come to the forest in the first place. In which case, where could she have gone? I knew for sure that she wouldn't stay in the city, but where else could she have gone?

"Viper reporting in. We found traces of poison in our sector. It's clear that the target has passed through here at least."

Viper was the call sign of one of the fire-teams that had undertaken this mission along with us. By the way, the call-sign for the fire team comprising of me and Redfield was Stars. A sneaky coincidence, given that Redfield merely took the name because it was the acronym for the special operations police team he used to be a part of before Feng Hai recruited him into the Silver Wolves.

Life could be funny that way sometimes.

"She's here!" Redfield looked a little more optimistic than before, and he clenched his fists excitedly. "You were right, Richard!"

"Yeah. I mean…where else could she have gone? So what do we do? Do we head over to Viper's sector?"

"No." The veteran mercenary shook his head. "We continue searching our area. Just because Viper found traces of Ana doesn't mean she's still in there. She might have passed through that area a while ago. Each fire team is to stick to their own assigned areas until we find more concrete signs that Ana is nearby."

"Roger that." That made sense. If all of us rushed toward a single sector, we might miss Anastasia entirely, passing by her as she made her way through one of the other areas within our search radius. He was also right that it was likely that she was no longer in that place. Anastasia probably wouldn't stay in one place for too long.

We proceeded through the forest, looking out for any signs of clues that might lead to Anastasia's whereabouts. Twigs crunched under our feet – there was little point trying to be overly stealthy. Even if we tried to navigate the treacherous terrain silently, the monster inhabitants had more than enough ways of sounding us out. Infrared vision, smell, mana sense, etc.

Speaking of which, we hadn't run into any monsters so far. I looked around the dense cluster of trees that we were traversing through, as if expecting some serpent monster to slither down one of those thick trunks. Every rustle of a branch, with slowly drifting leaves, put me on sharp alert, but I saw nothing. Neither did my Corvus.

Viper continued to report in sporadically, informing us of their progress. There were signs of Anastasia having passed through the area of the forest they were currently searching in, but they were not recent, and she evidently had gone long ago. Still, they were confident that we would be able to locate her eventually.

The other teams continued to silently sweep the forest, until one of the other teams reported in.

"Eagle here. Spotted some traces of poison. Very likely to be the target's spells. A couple of Blood Boars have died from venom, their carcasses are rotting here."

"Might want to burn it," his partner remarked over the com.

"Belay that order. We don't want anyone to know we are coming, especially the target. We also don't want to alarm the monsters and draw attention to us." Feng Hai's voice came from the command channel, as calm and decisive as ever.

"Roger that, Wolf."

"Stars to Eagle. How recent were those signs?"

"Um…relatively recent. A few hours old." It was the female partner who answered this time. "The target has most likely already moved on from here. But we'll continue sweeping the area. Maybe we'll find more clues."

"Thank you, Eagle."

"No problem."

Lowering his hand from his com bead, Redfield sighed heavily before glancing around. He shrugged helplessly.

"It might just be our bad luck that we're not finding any signs here. Still, let's not discount anything and continue searching."

"Affirmative," I replied. Redfield raised an eyebrow at that, but chose not to say anything. Instead, he continued foraging ahead, occasionally glancing at me to provide directions. Gazing out of the eyes of my multiple Corvus soaring over the forest, I shook my head.

Still nothing. It sucked, but at least the other teams found the clues we needed. It didn't matter who found Anastasia, as long as she was found. What, you think me being the protagonist would automatically lead to us being the ones who located her? Reality didn't conveniently develop like that. The odds of us being the ones to find Anastasia were literally one in eight (since there were pretty much eight fire-teams sweeping the area right now). If I was a betting man – and I wasn't, because I would always lose – I wouldn't bet on such low odds.

Funnily enough, what my Corvus found wasn't Anastasia but someone else.

"Wait," I told Redfield, holding up a fist to indicate that we should stop. Why did we bother with field gestures if I was going to speak anyway? Oh, for the readers' benefit. "I see someone."

"Ana?" Redfield eagerly asked. I shook my head.

"Doesn't look like it…" I paused for a moment, and then frowned. "Those black hoods and sneaky movements…they seem like they are from the Assassins Guild."

"What?! Are you sure?"

"Not really. They are people wearing hoods and black ninja costumes. I'm just making a guess. I don't think cosplayers will take the trouble of going into a monster-infested forest just to show off their costumes, so they are either Assassins or…ninjas or covert operatives. Except that covert operatives know better than to dress like that."

"You might be right. We had better get a closer look, to confirm their identity." Redfield gritted his teeth, and bade for me to lead the way. While I did so, he pressed a hand to the com bead at his ear. "Stars to everyone. Be warned…possible presence of the Assassins Guild. Going ahead to confirm their identity right now."

"Wolf to Stars. Roger that, but be careful. Be very careful. Try not to let them know that we're here as well, and avoid combat if possible."

"Roger that, Wolf. Will do our best."

"What are the Assassins doing here?" someone asked over the main channel, her voice a whisper.

"Do you think they are looking for Anastasia as well?" another person guessed, his tone tense and anxious. "I thought they were content to let her die."

"That's what they told me," Feng Hai growled. "I don't know what they're playing at, but it's also likely that those people may not be Assassins. Stars, confirm their identity if possible. But if they are Assassins, then they should most certainly be after Ana. I knew I couldn't trust those lying bastards!"

"What use would they have for her? Wouldn't they…die if she blows up in their faces? Or are they planning to cure her, after all?"

Various questions arose in the channel, but Feng Hai silenced them by reminding them of the need to maintain coms discipline.

"I know you are all worried about Ana, but we are professionals. We are soldiers. We will take things one at a time. Continue looking for her for now – while it's possible that they may not be here for Ana, we should find her before they do. I don't think anyone knows what their motives or reasons are, and it's useless to speculate. We'll find out if we watch them. Stars, that's your job."

"Roger that, Wolf," Redfield acknowleged, then lowered his hand to nod at me. "All right, kid, we have a job to do."

"I hear that." I snapped off a salute, and then hastened my pace, but not so much that I would draw the attention of the ninja wannabes currently swinging through the forest. For some stupid reason, they were not trekking on the ground, but were instead jumping from branch to branch…like ninjas. It always puzzled me why they thought jumping from tree to tree was a more effective way of traveling. Sure, it might be faster and easier in terms of navigating difficult terrain, but it consumed a lot of energy – it was a complete waste of stamina. Not only that, it was a lot more dangerous. If you tripped and fall on difficult terrain, chances were you would only come away bruised and bleeding. If you missed a step and fall while jumping from one tree to another, odds were that you would most likely break a bone or two. If you were lucky. If you weren't, you might hit your head and die almost instantly. I guess manga artists thought it was cool, or it perhaps was easier for animators to animate characters soaring through the landscape with minimal movement instead of trying to animate the deceptively simple act of walking – animating even a simple movement was a lot more complex than it seemed, and required drawing multiple frames, instead of merely sliding the character across a background when making them jump from one place to another.

Keeping my eyes – or rather, Corvus's eyes – on the ninja wannabes, I tried to lead us through a dense forage of plants, keeping our silhouettes as concealed as possible. To my astonishment, a Wood Ape dropped out in front of the jumping ninjas, roaring as it swung its meaty fist at them. Vines rippled across its hulking frame, whipping out to ensnare the Assassins.

"?!"

Without missing a beat, the Assassins continued plunging toward the Wood Ape without stopping. Several silver flashes streaked through the air, and the vines fell to the ground in pieces. The Wood Ape bellowed in rage, but then toppled over, its head severed from its shoulders. Both disembodied head and body crashed into the ground with a dull impact.

The Assassins continued moving on, as if there little combat was no more than a little nuisance, a fly that they had just casually swatted away. Glancing at the Wood Ape's headless corpse, I was astonished when I saw both the head and the carcass fuming and rotting.

Poison! Those ninja wannabes didn't just behead the Wood Ape! They actually poisoned it too!

"Holy s…!"

"What?! What is it?!" Redfield demanded, placing a hand on my shoulder and almost shocking me out of my skin. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and briefly informed him what I had just seen. He regarded me grimly and sighed. "They took out a rank C Wood Ape in a second?! Yeah, seems like they are professional killers all right."

"Instructor Feng Hai is right. We should avoid combat with them if possible."

I glanced at the comment section and rolled my eyes at the readers complaining about me being a pussy or having absolutely no confidence. Look, life wasn't about fighting and winning all the time, all right? We had a mission – to locate Anastasia. Plus there was a sizeable number of Assassins, and only two of us. Even if we were supposedly stronger, it was very reckless and disadvantageous to challenge a numerically superior enemy. Not only would we get bogged down and waste too much time in pointless combat – time we could spend searching for Ana and monitoring these guys' movements – there was a chance we risked an injury.

And getting injured in a monster-infested woods like Aurora Forest was pretty tantamount to a death sentence.

Redfield softly reported what I had just seen to Feng Hai, revising the possibility of the ninja wanabes being Assassins from likely to extremely likely. Judging from the use of poison, their precise movements and flawless killing techniques, they were definitely Veneneum Assassins. There was no doubt about that in my mind.

The Veneneum Sect. Anastasia, who was formerly a member of them before I knocked her out and handed her to the Silver Wolves. Yeah, they were definitely after her. Even though Feng Hai requested them to save her, and they outright rejected him, they were still evidently pursuing Anastasia. Why? It couldn't be to kill her, right? She was currently a ticking time bomb. It would be much easier to just let her blow up and kill herself. Even though she specialized in poison magic, that didn't mean her body was able to resist such critical levels of toxins.

Redfield must have seen the question on my face, for he offered me an explanation.

"The Woeful Poison Body isn't just a technique to strengthen the user's killing abilities," he explained grimly. "They are also…treasures to other practitioners who have attained the Woeful Poison Body."

"Treasures…?" I repeated incredulously. Redfield nodded.

"That's right. I told you, right? Training Woeful Poison Body involves the consumption of poison to convert the magical toxins contained within the poison into a special kind of venomous mana. The more toxic the poison, the more effective it is in enhancing their strength. And what is a Woeful Poison Body if not another type of highly toxic material?"

"They are planning on consuming Ana?!" I exclaimed in horror, my eyes going wide.

Redfield nodded again, graver than ever. "To be more precise, I believe it is the Veneneum Sect Leader who plans to consume Ana's own toxins in order to elevate his powers to unprecedented levels."