The next morning, Petra continued her journey with an additional two storage pouches.
She would stop to study the local fauna from time to time. When she found some flora she liked, she would either harvest the seeds, or draw its poison. Between researching, collecting, eating, and exploring, Petra's days were very productive.
Time passed like this for the next week.
After she finished about a third of her journey, things started to get livelier.
The dilapidated and overgrown forest road had become clearer. With this, more people could be found walking on the public road.
Although shocking, beast tamers were not uncommon, so when they saw the little girl riding the massive centipede, they accepted it as a borrowed beast. Because Petra was too small and too young, it should be impossible for her to be the beast's contractor. That was common sense.
If one were to recognize the species of this centipede, it might cause problems, but the River Winding Centipede had not been seen for a very long time. Because of this, Petra was usually igno---
"You there, little girl! I want this centipede, name a price!"
Or not...
On the tenth day of Petra's journey, she was stopped by a large group of armored men wearing beast skin mantles. The twenty or so men all surrounded a carriage, looking like guards.
As Petra was passing, the man in the carriage seemed to recognize the centipede and ordered his guards to stop her.
A few of the guards blocked the road, stopping Petra's advance.
A slightly chubby… no, an overweight fatty, dismounted the carriage and looked at the centipede with greed in his eyes.
He looked at Petra, his disdain clearly visible for a lesser being.
Petra had no doubt that this man had a very… 'giving background'.
"I want to talk to the owner of this beast, call him over!"
Petra tilted her head, not speaking.
The slightly chubby man became impatient. "Did you hear me, little girl? I want to talk to the owner of this beast, call him over!"
Petra looked at him like he was an idiot.
"It's me, I'm the owner."
The man sneered. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you think I can't see the frog in your hood?"
Petra tilted her head again. What did he mean?
The man scoffed. "You don't seem to know. Looks like your master isn't doing a very good job! It's impossible for you to contract such a big beast. The strain on your little body would cause you to collapse and die!"
Petra gave a confused look. "Is that the general rule? Are there no exceptions?"
The slightly chubby man patiently explained. "Of course, there are. People from the Silver Eye can split their 'contracting weight' between multiple beasts. That's how they control such a large number of birds. As for you, looking at your small body, controlling that ugly frog should be close to your limit!"
Petra thought, 'What is this stupid beast taming system?'
She blinked her eyes.
"Nothing else? Like controlling many large beasts all at once?"
The man became clearly more impatient. "Little girl, if you don't call the owner of this beast over, don't blame me for being rude."
Petra nodded. She felt like explaining that to her was already the limit for this unreasonable guy.
She turned around and casually left.
Although the guards were blocking the road, she just casually went around them and left. The guards stood there, unmoving. They didn't try to stop her, they just stood in place, not even drawing their swords.
This stunned the man.
"What the hell are you doing! Stop her!"
His roar shook the forest.
It was only after he realised his people weren't moving that he realised something was wrong. Confused, he approached and shook one man's shoulder.
After he did, the man collapsed and began twitching violently on the ground. Stunned, he removed the man's helmet, only to realise that his face was purple, and his body was paralysed.
They had been poisoned!
He didn't understand what had happened.
The man was instantly enraged.
He had his remaining men feed the afflicted an all-purpose antidote, then changed his direction to pursue the girl.
* * *
On the other side, Petra was quite happy with this way of using her physique. She could 'store' and 'expel' most poisons, and this naturally extended to the many states a poison could take.
Regardless of whether they were a solid, liquid or a gas, Petra could expel them from her body. She could shoot them from her hands or radiate them as a wave. Of course, this was limited by the quantity she had stored, but it was still very powerful.
Paralyzing a large group of people was incredibly easy.
All she had to do was release the paralyzing poison as a gas, using only a small quantity over the span of a short conversation.
Petra had yet to build a proper lab, so creating complex and advanced poisons were currently out of the question. Using natural poisons found in the nearby environment were treatable, but that wasn't really a big deal.
When Petra reached Sevensen City, she could take that opportunity to concoct a few experimental poisons. One must remember that her knowledge of poisoning came from a different world, so it was possible for some things to be different at a fundamental level.
Thinking back to the slightly fat man, he really did look like a fat sheep. Petra bet that he had a lot of money on him.
The problem was that she didn't want to fight so many people on a public road.
Although it wasn't a big deal, Petra was just being willful.
Looking at the group of angry men who had followed her off the public road and into the forest, Petra found a nice and secluded place to become their grave.
Just as they arrived and Petra planned to start a massacre, something unexpected happened.
Boom!
Whoosh!
Bebang!
A silver comet flashed through the forest.
A man landed between the centipede-riding little girl, and the angry mob running beside the fatty's carriage. The man had short silver hair and elegant black armour. Two pointy ears poked out from the side of his head. On his back was a massive great sword that seemed to be responsible for the majority of his weight.
He stood there, shocking the incoming mob.
"Stand behind me, little girl, I'll protect you!"
He roared, scaring the forest animals with his voice.
Petra looked at this unreasonable fellow.
Her little mind spun, and tears began to flow from her freshly reddened eyes. "Sir, please help me! They want to steal my master's beast! They told me that I couldn't refuse and chased me off the public road! I I I don't know what they want to do with me!"
Hearing this, the silver haired man nodded. He understood everything!
The slightly fat man was instantly enraged. This little imp poisoned his people and ran away, so what if he asked for her beast! He didn't want to steal it, he just wanted to buy it!
Before he could even speak, the silver-haired man drew his sword and roared into the sky.
"Silver Annihilation!!!"
A silver light bloomed in the forest and crashed into the unprotected carriage.
Mountains of men flew amidst the sound of breaking wood and shattering wheels. The carriage exploded and the slightly fat man was ejected forward. He crashed into the mud and did a flip. His guards were scattered, some injured, others groaning in pain.
After recovering from his momentary dizziness, the first thing he did was roar, "Damn elf! Do you know who my father is!!"
His roar even scared the elf.
An awkward silence fell over the forest.
The silver haired man tilted his head. "No. Should I?"
The fat man coughed up blood. "I am the son of the Castle Lord of Solrin Castle! How dare you attack me! Do you never want to cross the Northern Gate ever again!!"
The silver haired elf narrowed his eyes. "This man was truly a villain. Using such a threat to make me halt my justice."
He looked back at the cute little girl on the centipede.
Her eyes were red and her body was shaking violently. She casually put away the bottle of suspicious liquid and looked back at him with puppy dog eyes. If he let this man leave just like that, then what would happen if he came back for revenge? He doubted whether this little girl could protect herself.
He could see the man's guard team reassembling.
He had to decide quickly.
He looked at the little girl and asked, "Little girl, where are you headed?"
Petra responded crisply. "To Sevensen."
The elf frowned. That was quite far.
Just as the elf was lost in thought, a whistling sound came from afar. The elf, the chubby man and Petra all looked over. The whistling sound was like the hum of cicadas, but it was also like the chime of summer windchimes. Its resonance seemed to pierce the eardrums of anyone who listened to it.
Petra suddenly had a bad feeling.
The centipede under her suddenly became restless.
Petra wanted to leave, but these two walking 'loot crates' made her reluctant. Also, she seemed to have the feeling that, whatever 'that' was, it was coming for her.
Petra pursed her lips.
She didn't need to see the fat man's face turn pale.
"It, its, It's the, it's the Forest Ghost!"
She didn't care about the elf who also seemed to have become very serious.
"That troublesome guy has appeared."
After hearing the mumbling of the two, Petra was quick to decide. Instead of waiting around for whatever that thing was, she would just run.
Petra whacked the centipede awake and commanded it to move. Dozens of little feet kicked up a storm, before dashing into the forest opposite the approaching presence.
Petra ran at full speed, fully displaying the legendary speed of the River Winding Centipede.
The little girl disappeared in a flash, leaving the elf, the man, and the monster hiding in the dark stunned. The thousands of eyes that had yet to ominously emerge in a despair filling display were slightly taken aback. This wasn't the usual script. Wasn't its prey supposed to just stand there, terrified, waiting until it appeared and it was too late to run.
Who was this delicious smelling brat!
The elf felt like something was wrong. With that speed, couldn't she have just escaped?
The fat man, on the other hand, realised that this little girl seemed to have been leading him and his men into a trap. If it wasn't for this elf Interrupting, and the appearance of that monster, he felt like he probably would have died.
He cursed under his breath.
His vicious little eyes looked in the direction that she had disappeared. Now he was sure that it was a River Winding Centipede, the kind of legendary beast that you could only read about in books.
He felt jealous that such a little girl could ride such a legendary thing.
When he returned, he would send someone to steal it.
'Sevensen was it? Little brat, I'll be waiting!'
As the fat man was plotting in his head, he didn't notice that the elf had already disappeared. He was left alone, standing amidst the broken carriage. His men were on guard, but very few could even sense the oncoming danger.
Suddenly, a transparent snow-white vine shot out from the darkness and wrapped around the closest guard's leg. The vine dragged the guard into the darkness, leaving only a crunching sound echoing through the trees.
The fat man suddenly came back to his senses.
Cold sweat dripped down his forehead.
He realised that the vine was too fast for him to even see.
"Formation, Retreat! Don't let it drag you into the darkness!" The fat man organised his guards quickly. "Watch the ground for traps! Don't lose your focus, this thing can target the soul!"
The fat man didn't know what was attacking, but he had heard a few rumors.
One eye, then two, then three, massive eyes continued opening in the darkness.
The fat man suddenly felt cold, like something was peering into his soul. A seed of despair bloomed in his mind, freezing up his actions.
Thousands of white vines, all shaped like hands, emerged from the darkness.
Fear overtook the man.
He wanted to run, but his body wouldn't listen.
The countless white hands grabbed one guard after another, slowly dragging them into the darkness.
The fat man, terrified, wanted to use the life saving treasure that his father had left to him.
When he pulled out the talisman, the white hands seemed to reach out and grab something.
There was a violent flash of intense white light, then the forest was left in silence.
* * *
We return to Petra.
Petra rode the centipede at full speed.
Her little heart was still beating fast. Although she didn't see what that monster was, she was sure that it wasn't something she could beat. Because of this feeling, she understood that this was another form of Intuition manifested by her constitution. Petra could tell whether a poison could be used on something.
Because the current Petra mostly relied on poisons to fight, when she encountered a monster where poison wouldn't work, her body reminded her.
If she had stayed, she would have been helpless.
Thinking back, that thing was probably not attracted to her physique, instead, it was targeting her unique soul.
She frowned.
If that thing was wandering around the forest, she had to be careful on the way back.
Petra threw these thoughts aside for now and continued down the road.