As Kael walked through the village many villagers came out of their houses and looking at the clothes in the hands of the men they shook their heads while sighing and joined them.
Most of the villagers lived together at night but since the night was so dense that the light couldn't extend much, especially from small torches which burned on less grass, only those with bigger torches stayed together.
Slowly they reached the middle of the village where multiple stones were buried and reading the simple words on them it was obvious that those were tombs of dead people but each tomb was denoted to multiple villagers so it was not a proper tomb either.
He watched calmly as villagers talked with the old men and after getting to know who died they created a similar tomb with three names and placed it near the other tombs.
Kael watched for a few moments before a few villagers asked him about finding flaming grass, to which he politely declined.
Some were a little surprised at his polite answer and when the two old men told about his condition they understood.
In the end they just said that don't risk your life and it was better that you return alive.
Kael had some other plans though. "Can I get a torch and some flaming grass? I want to look for the grass even at night. It might be possible for me to succeed that way."
Villagers discussed among themselves as every bit of flaming grass was very important for the villagers. Some families were already using some other flammable materials which didn't last long and this ended in tragedy.
Giving even a bit of it was too much but given the fact that what Althar was doing was for the betterment of the whole village, they all agreed to let him go.
"Alright, take three nights worth of flaming grass and this torch. You do know how to ignite flaming grass right?" The person who was the village chief of this village said.
Kael had heard of it from the old men so he nodded. "Yes."
"Alright, when are you leaving?"
Kael wasn't planning to extend his stay in this trial so he wanted to figure out things as quickly as possible. "I will leave right now."
While talking with both old men he had also figured out the location of the cave so he didn't have to ask that again.
"Very well then, give him what he needs."
.....
After a while Kael was climbing the steep winding path to reach the edge of the crater. In his hand was the torch of the family which had been killed last night and a few strands of flaming grass.
The flaming grass looked like dried-up stalks of wheat, each one of them long and flexible. The way to ignite the grass was also very simple.
Break the stalk and it itself ignited into fire and wouldn't stop burning unless it was completely burned. It also burned very slowly and brightly. Even water didn't totally put out the fire on the grass, it would just suppress it.
Ten stalks of grass were enough for a single night with five for one hour and the other five for the next hour. He was given 30 stalks of grass, enough for three nights.
The cave was a little far and it would take him about two hours which was the whole day to reach there, so it was obvious that he had to spend a night in the wilderness.
Although, since every organism nearby had died in a similar way, there weren't any left which could pose any danger at night, so at least he wouldn't be in any danger as long as he was in the range of his torch.
He climbed to the top easily and saw the vast expanse of forest which he had crossed yesterday. He turned to his right and saw the river which had sent chills down his spine yesterday.
This river flowed through the cave which was containing the monster, so all he had to do was follow it to reach there.
He didn't hesitate and came near the river. There were only one or two small bones here. He sighed once and began walking towards the upper stream.
...
Nothing eventful happened other than the fact that the amount of bones increased as he walked closer to the cave. The trees had become sparse and he could see a small mountain just a little further than his current location.
This was the mountain which had the cave of the monster.
'Let's see how much I am fucked up.'
As he arrived closer he saw the cave and seeing the green vines he shook his head with an annoyed expression.
According to the old men, these vines had grown more prominently the more they attacked. So their every failed attempt was making things harder for them to kill this monster.
The vines had totally covered the whole cave. He was barely able to see anything inside. It seemed that he had to approach even closer.
He paid more attention as he passed through some of the scattered vines. Those sharp thorns were easily visible given their size and they sure were intimidating.
When he came almost close to the entrance he finally was able to see the big red flower growing in the middle of the cave through very small openings in the vines, just beside the flowing stream.
Seeing an almost beautiful and mesmerizing flower of an elephant's size and the area around it filled with bones was a scene which he hadn't expected to see in his lifetime.
To think this harmless-looking flower was terrorizing so many villages.
'Well, surely it looks harmless right?'
A flower as big as an elephant was nowhere harmless yet he thought that. It seemed the Extreme trial had made his sense of danger skewed.
'Now how can I kill it?'
Villagers had even tried a burning arrow to burn it but they found that the flower's outer petals were bouncy and the arrow got bounced off and that much time wasn't enough to ignite it.
In response more vines grew around it and sending arrows became almost impossible and he could see it right now.
All these tries from the villagers were good knowledge for him but their failed attempts also made this the trial of Extreme.