This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Without much of a word, the two of them slinked through the forested outskirts. In the distance, Karin could hear children yelling and screaming as they played. Hearing them shout and chant brought a smile to her face; a reminder of what she was out here to protect. However, she quickly wiped her face clean, and returned her focus to the woods.
Every once in a while, Haku would stop to check anything that looked slightly out of the ordinary. A foxhole. A fallen branch. A literal turned-over stone. Karin mostly followed along, shadowing his every turn. There was not much she could add to his already thorough survey. Anything she did notice, she reasoned Haku had considered already. Bringing it up or breaking off from his route to check something would only reduce the amount of ground they could cover that evening.
Eventually, they came across a small stream that carried no more than a trickle of water. Likely rainwater flowing down from the hills. Haku turned inwards, traversing deeper into the woods. Another fallen branch. A decaying log. At one point, Haku briefly motioned towards a brush, not even pausing a moment to check if his partner had followed. Staring in that direction, Karin eventually picked out a snake hiding in the shadows. She understood why Haku veered to the left.
Up above, a chorus began as the breeze picked up. The rustling leaves drowned out all other sounds, reducing their world to the small patch of the woods they could see. Not too long after, Haku stopped dead in his tracks for the first time during this patrol. He held out a hand to prevent Karin from walking any further. Slightly alarmed, she gazed at his face, discerning where he was looking. Though, just as she did, she caught a glance of something unusual. A circular inscription on the ground, clearly exposed to the open air without any cover or concealment. A seal.
Honing in her senses, she detected a store of energy packed into the seal. A dangerous amount of energy for such a small package. It was a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment.
“A trigger bomb seal?” she quietly uttered. It was a technique normally found on battlefields.
Haku slightly nodded, eyes scanning around this small clearing. “Looks to be. Why it’s here, I don’t know.”
“And out in the open like this,” Karin added. Acutely observing his actions, she started to look around as well. “Do you think there are more of them around?”
“That’s what I was wondering as well.”
The two of them stood absolutely still, each contracting their own energy signatures so that they did not disturb each other.
“I’m only sensing one,” Haku discerned after several moments.
“Same here… But…”
Haku glanced back at Karin as she trailed off, waiting patiently for her to voice her lingering thoughts.
“… Why…?”
“I don’t know. It’s too powerful to be a mischievous prank. It’s unnecessary and impractical for hunting. I can only imagine it’s meant to do someone harm.”
“Mm,” Karin mumbled. She vividly recalled the attack her group faced several days earlier.
“It’s too dangerous to leave it here. It’s too close to town, where children come out to play.”
“Right.”
Silently staring at the explosive seal for a little longer, Haku came up with a solution. “It’s too unstable to try and disarm. It’d probably be safer for us to set it off.”
Karin concurred.
“Can you seal it off?”
She shook her head. “Linking types are not my specialty. The best I can provide is a shield.”
“That will have to do.”
Turning around and tracing his steps backwards a bit, Haku palmed a tree and glanced back at Karin.
“First, let’s get off the ground.”
Nodding, Karin followed him as he retreated some ways further from the explosive seal. He glanced back a few times to make sure he still had line of sight to the target, before eventually picking a tree to climb.
They both squatted down on a thick branch, peering through several branches to locate the seal on the forest floor.
“How far can you erect a shield?” he asked.
“Only a few meters in front of me.”
He nodded. “Do so as close as you can to the explosion.”
She nodded in response.
“I will strike the seal from here with a bolt. As soon as I do, form your shield.”
“Will do.”
Releasing her energy, Karin held her hands together and formed five balls of azure energy, growing them gradually. Haku observed as she nurtured these spheres to size, then sent them out in a circle a few meters in front of them. They hovered steadily in the air, evenly spaced out in a pentagon shape, ready to activate.
Gazing at this for a moment, Haku nodded again, positioning himself to face the target.
Karin brought her chin down a bit, gazing uneasily at the trigger bomb seal. She still felt uneasy about how easily spottable a complex and explosive seal was in the middle of a peaceful forest, certain there was more to the situation than they could observe.
Resting an elbow on his knee and opening his hand in front of him, Haku brought his thumb and middle finger closer together, concentrating a small ball of light blue energy. As it grew, he slightly twisted the two fingers, consequently twisting the ball of energy into a rapidly spinning bolt.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Mm.”
Lifting his arm off his knee a bit, he held his hand up in front of his face, pointing the bolt with his index finger. Then, twitching his two stabilizing fingers, he released the bolt, shooting it quickly towards the seal.
As Haku made his shot, Karin contracted her energy once more, taking in the energy signatures of her surroundings.
The twisting bolt struck the seal, producing nothing but a small dust cloud at first. Shortly after, it began to gradually glow, the ground swelling up.
However, it wasn’t just that. Karin felt a small amount of energy shoot out from the seal in all directions, through the ground and up the trunks of nearby trees. One directly towards them. The hairs rising on her neck, she rapidly resonated her own energy as the vestige of triggered energy broke a concealment seal on a tree just off to the right in front of them, revealing a concentration of unstable magic.
Haku realized way too late what was happening, tipped off only by Karin’s sharp reaction. He tensed his legs to leap backwards in a moment of fight or flight, but stopped a split second before doing so as Karin swung an arm in front of him, releasing a swirl of azure energy that quickly metamorphosed into a wall of concentrated water magic.
This was all Karin could produce before the tree promptly exploded. The shock struck her water barrier, her magic absorbing most of the energy from the explosion before the pounded barrier launched backwards and struck the two, launching them off the tree. The tree they stood on just moments before folded and snapped beneath them, flinging splinters into the air that the water barrier also caught before they reached the two.
They crashed into the brush down below. The impact knocked the air out of Karin, making her lose her grip on her barrier. With the loss of ownership, the water energy condensed into natural water and splashed down on them. Still imbued in energy, the water slid off their bodies as they laid there, stunned for a moment.
Both of them were quick to recover their senses a little, drawing up a leg to protect their bellies and straining their necks to look for any more dangers. They blinked and dodged their heads behind a drawn-up arm as splinters continued to rain down around them. No other explosions followed. The trap was quick and instant, simultaneously blowing up multiple trees around the exposed seal.
They laid side by side in the brush, still glowing with their released energy, as the last bits of wooden splinters fell down around them. On the other side of the blown open forest, a weakened tree careened and fell over, slamming into the forest floor.
Then, it was silent. Completely silent. Deafened and disorientated, they could not hear the wind rustling the leaves anymore, even though they could see the branches lazily swaying. Wincing, Karin relaxes her head back to the ground, allowing her energy to dissipate. She quietly groaned as she raised her hand up to her head.
Haku also dismissed his imbuement. He briefly checked himself, brushing off a few splinters that laid flat on his torso, then turning in the bush to check his team mate. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she grunted, removing her hand and attempting to get off her back. However, she winced again as a sharp pain tore down the right side of her torso, instinctively drawing in an arm to coax it.
Seeing where on her body Karin was having pain, Haku realized she was probably not okay, drawing his gaze to where she held her hand. “Did your injuries open back up?”
Karin took a few deep but unsteady breaths, releasing an azure glow on her torso where her hand clutched. Silently evaluating herself for several moments, she eventually shook her head. “No. Nothing’s ruptured.”
Looking back up to visually inspect her neck, Haku finally nodded, giving her some space. He sat up and gazed over at the clearing, finding a medium-sized crater left over where the originating explosive seal was. It appeared it had also blown up along with several other trees in the clearing.
“Looks like the primary aim of the trap was to pelt the surrounding area with splinters,” he determined.
Karin grunted in agreement, releasing the glow on her torso and raising her hand to feel the side of her neck, where the healing cut was.
“Whoever set the trap is skilled… and serious about causing harm.”
“Ah.”
Haku swung his legs to the left to jump out of the brush, rubbing the base of his neck briefly. “They can’t be ignored. I’ll probably have to check around the area for more traps like this.”
Turning to her right side and drawing in her legs, Karin attempted to get up, but her unstable footing in the brush only allowed her to sit upright, her weakened state hindering her ability to hoist herself out of the tangled branches.
Haku turned back towards her and stretched out a hand. “Can you stand?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get you back to the house first.”
“I can continue, still.”
“No, it’s dangerous for both of us to continue like this. We should rest up, and you can continue tomorrow if you wish.”
He raised his hand a little higher, prompting her to take it. Conceding to his reasoning, Karin nodded and grabbed a hold of his hand, grunting as he helped her get back up to her feet.
Brushing herself off a little, she gazed around the clearing one last time, clutching her torso again and coaxing it with a thumb, before she turned around and stepped her way through the wooden debris towards Haku, who had started to leave before turning back to wait for her.