Stubborn beast

A few days, ago Matina and her team members had ran into a young girl, they had found her collapsed on the forest's ground, covered in blood that had turned out to not be hers as she had shown no sign of any injuries.

They were currently in the middle of an exploration and had thus chose to bring the unconscious girl to their camp, she may have seemed suspect due to the blood but her clothes indicated that she was but a village girl.

"How's she looking Lala?" asked a girl with orange hair and a face full of freckles, she was sort of the leader of this group but it had never been formally decided by anyone.

"She is fine, a bit exhausted and most likely hungry as well as thisty and all but as we had first seen she is not injured, she should be waking up soon" answered the girl that was tending to the collapsed villager, her name was not really Lala, it was but a nickname, she was called Lalanina, so people usually called her Lala or Nina.

She had dark purplish hair and a gemstone embedded in her forehead as she was gemma, the one that had just spoke to her was a human and her name was Matina, they were two of the four members of their party, which had no name.

The other two were off to go get something to eat in the forest, they were here to fulfill a quest, the one that had posted that quest wanted to know why the animals and monsters of the forest had suddenly started behaving differently.

Thinking about it for a bit Matina had a thought traverse her mind, it wasn't the most relevant thing but she had nothing better to do than talk.

"She is probably from the village the person who posted that quest is from, there is only one close enough for her to get here in this state, right?" she spoke her mind.

"I believe so but seeing her right now, it makes me believe this village isn't in the best of states as of now, do you remember when this quest was posted exactly?" asked Lalanina.

"Hold on" said the leader, rummaging through one of her pouches and pulling out the paper with the quest information written on it, the paper in a sorry state.

She strained her eyes trying to read the beaten up words for a bit.

"Huh, two months ago" she said.

"What do you think?" she then asked her friend.

"They're dead for sure" responded the gemma.

"Directly jumping to the worst outcome and also, your statement is obviously wrong" responded the orange haired girl.

Lalanina looked at her, inquiring for an explanation with her look.

"If that girl is alive, then they are not all dead, that is methamatical" said the leader, proud of herself for that one.

"Matina, its pronouced mathematical" simply stated her friend with a smile fill of sass.

"Is that not what I said?" wondered the freckled girl in confusion.

Before their discussion could go on, the other two members of their party arrived with two rabbits as their spoils.

Ulmidl and Ramine, an orc and a high-elf.

"Has that villager girl no woken up yet?" asked Ramine, the high-elf and of course, an archer.

"Just shake her a bit, wake her up manually and make her eat some of these fat rabbits, look at that, they are so fucking fat they are almost round, I just had to walk up to them and pick them up, they can't run away with their fat asses" spoke Ulmidl, the orc, she had a shield and was pretty much the designed thank of the group while Lalanina was a mage and Matina an agile spear bearer.

"Would it hurt to say a single sentence without cursing?" asked the high-elf a common interaction between the two.

As the four aventurers started preparing to eat the two, apparently obese, rabbits, they didn't notice how quiet the forest had suddenly become has they were talking to one another.

The inhabitants of the forest had went into hiding as they had felt the approach of the new apex predator of this environment, it hadn't come to hunt them however, it was here to finish something, it had tracked the one that had escaped its grasp and lurked around as he listened to the voices of what sounded to it like the voices of four females from the specie it had slaughtered recently.

From the sounds they made and from the vibrations they emmited when walking around, the predator was able to estimate their builds and weight, the presence it was able to feel when pinpointing their location felt similar to that of the one that had cut its head off.

It contented itself with waiting for now, they would inevitably sleep at some point, only then would it strike, this was what the predator had planned on doing but suddenly, before it could react an arrow flew at its face through the vegetation, piercing right through its head and exiting through the other side.

The wound barely bled at all and the monster wasn't even slightly disturbed by the injury that could kill even the mightiest of creatures, understanding that the one with the lightest and refined footsteps had a ranged attack and could also detect it, the creature backed away, it seemed like taking them by surprise during their sleep would be difficult.

The predator walked away without a noise as the horrific wound it had sustained quickly closed.

"What the hell was that for?" asked Matina as the arrow had almost grazed her.

"Something was watching us" responded the high-elf.

"And you shoot at anything that watches you? What if it was a poor child that had been lost in the forest for days? You may have just shot little Timmy!" exclaimed Lalanina in an exaggerated tone.

"Don't worry Lala, it went away, little Timmy is not dead, though I could have sworn I shot him right in his face" responded the archer.

All were unaware of the creature that was stalking them, all but the girl who was slowly waking up.