"Why are we even in this forest? Don't you two know the place? Why did you come here at all?" Haruka said.
The old man answered her,
"In truth, I did not come here of my own will as you know. Also, the Forest of Illusions does not have a fixed location, so i did not know it would be here."
Haruka looked at him in confusion.
"W-what do you mean?"
The old man replied,
"This forest is created by fairies."
She asked in surprise,
"Huh? Fairies?"
He answered,
"Yes. Fairies are known to love nature, so they live in forests and make them their home. But they are also very afraid of humans, so when they enter a place, they surround it with a barrier of illusion."
She said happily,
"Then we just have to wait until they take us out of here somehow i heard that fairies are nice !"
He replied,
"Unfortunately, things are not like that."
She asked,
"What do you mean?"
He answered,
"When they see a human inside their territory, they absorb their mana and kill them."
She said in shock,
"W-what??!! Does that mean we are going to die?"
The other man answered her question,
"Yes, that seems to be the case now."
Then he added while moving to lean against a tree,
"Anyway, I feel sleepy now."
She looked at him and said,
"How can you be so relaxed in a situation like this, sir?"
He replied with his eyes closed,
"Then what do you want me to do? Scream as if screaming will make them let me go."
She replied,
"I think you are right."
A voice from another place said angrily:
"How dare they enter my forest, these rude humans. It doesn't matter anyway… more humans mean more food. I wonder which one I should choose. The girl, the old man, or that man?"
After examining them, it said,
"I've found it. I will choose the girl. After all, ladies first."
Haruka sighed and said,
"Anyway, I should—"
She did not finish her sentence when she saw the forest changing its terrain. She said in surprise,
"W-what is this? Is the forest moving
After she looked closely she said is the forest changing its shape?"
Little by little, she realized that the forest was isolating her from the two of them. She began running toward them while thinking,
"Is this forest trying to separate us? I have to grab at least one of them!"
But she felt something grab her leg.
"W-what now—?!"
She turned around and found plants slowly pulling her toward them. She pulled her leg and cut them, but another plant grabbed her other leg, then another, then another.
Then her hands were grabbed as well.
She screamed at the top of her lungs,
"Help!"
But another plant blocked her mouth and slowly entered through it.
She thought,
"Damn… damn it! I have to move quickly! I have to catch up to him and to the old man!"
But she saw the plants covering her and pulling her toward a pit filled with plants, slowly, to absorb her mana.
A voice from another place:
"What… what is this? She doesn't have even a single particle of mana. How is that even possible? Tch… it doesn't matter. At least her body can be used as fertilizer."
Haruka began to be dragged into the pit until half of her body entered it, and the plants had entered her mouth to eat her internal organs.
She began to think with lifeless eyes,
"I can't move my body… I'm being absorbed slowly… some plants even entered my mouth… I'm suffocating… I can't breathe properly… I'm going to die like this…"
"Who would have imagined that I would die because of plants…"
She slowly closed her eyes,
and the plants reached her heart and began to cover it and take control of it slowly…
To be continued…