Chapter 17: Uneventful first encounter

    Eryndor knew something was wrong when things weren''t making sense.

    He sat down calmly on the bed, his headache finally residing a bit.

    Did they do it on the orders of the mayor? But why would the mayor deliberately ask his people to send wrong information?

    Eryndor assumed for a moment that it was indeed the mayor who directed his people to do it.

    But then he had trouble thinking ''why'' would he do this?

    What would he get out of sending us incorrect information? And that too one which was so useless?

    Eryndor termed this incorrect information useless because it was about a strong infected animal which wasn''t present at the first place.

    If it was incorrect information about a place having a weak infected animal when in reality it had a strong infected animal, it would''ve put his group in lethal danger.

    At least there would be an outcome.

    What good would this information do though?

    The only thing which stood out about this was that the place of bears was close to the red area which the information package prohibited them from entering.

    Again, what good would that do if we never set foot in the red area though?

    It was still a uselessly wrong information.

    Eryndor thought hard about everything, recalling all the information he had including the conversation with his teammates.

    Aha!

    He finally recollected something Drakarion spoke about not long ago.

    He spoke about going from low risk to high risk infected animals as if it was only obvious.

    The rest of his teammates, including himself, had agreed back then as if it was only logical to do things that way.

    Why wouldn''t it be? When battling with unfamiliar opponents, everyone wished to get used to fighting by going against a weaker opponent first.

    By that logic, they would head towards the bears at the very end.

    It would most likely be the last day of their mission where they would decide to deal with the bears after capturing all the other infected animals.

    Eryndor''s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he arrived at this point in his train of thought.

    Everyone followed him, witnessing their target shortly.

    Eryndor gestured to them by putting a finger on his lips.

    Then, he directed Drakarion and Paulina to hold the limbs of the cat.

    Before the cat could even register what was happening, Eryndor took out a tranquilizer and swiftly administered it.

    Its piercing red eyes sent shivers down his spine as he watched them close gradually.

    Its meows turned into whispers before the cat fully calmed down.

    Eryndor was deep into thought as he made a note of one thing.

    Infected animals seemed to have their senses lowered, else there is very little probability that a cat of all animals would be oblivious to people approaching, unless it was really in deep sleep.

    I''ll need more data on this.

    "A rather uneventful first encounter I must say."

    Drakarion remarked as he dusted his hands.

    Valentina glared at him.

    "What? You wanted someone to die instead?"

    The battle fanatic young man helplessly put up his hands as he defended himself.

    "Nope, not that intense either, you misunderstood me. I was just looking forward to a good fight."

    Paulina used a two-wheeler vehicle to deliver the cat back to their inn while the three of them moved to the second location.

    It was also a cat, this one a bit on the grayer side of color.

    By the time they reached, Paulina had already returned.

    "Meowwww."

    The gray furred cat quickly pounced on the nearest person, who happened to be Eryndor.

    Not one to be panicked so easily, he quickly used telekinesis to subtly change its direction and avoided the jump by sidestepping.

    No one noticed what happened.

    Eryndor mentally heaved a sigh at that and turned around to continue the fight.