"Stay here. Don't move."
After giving Groot his instructions, Rocket picked up his gun and slowly headed out.
"Ow."
"Careful, Klee."
Albedo held Klee's hand as they made their way through the dense woods.
After a branch snagged her hair, Paimon lowered her flying height. Looking ahead, where Wanderer had long since vanished from sight, she couldn't help worrying:
"Traveler, why hasn't Little Round Hat come back yet? Do you think he's run into trouble?"
Lin Ze kicked aside a broken branch on the ground and tilted his head, listening carefully.
"Don't worry. If A Scaramouche had gotten into a fight, it wouldn't be this quiet."
Smack.
Smack.
Smack, smack.
The repeated slapping sounded particularly clear in the dark, quiet woods, where only insects and birds could otherwise be heard.
Frowning, Paimon flew to the back of the group and found the source of the noise. She lowered her voice to accuse the culprit. "Cowherd, what are you doing? You've been slapping yourself the whole way! Stop it already. What if you get us spotted?"
Smack!
Itto slapped the back of his neck again. He held his palm up in the dim moonlight and inspected it for a while. Once he'd confirmed that Miss Mosquito's corpse was indeed lying there, he turned to Paimon with a miserable expression. "You think I want to? There are way too many mosquitoes here! I've already got a bunch of huge bites, and it hasn't even been that long. Damn it! I didn't come all this way to serve these mosquitoes an all-you-can-eat buffet!"
"Huh?"
Paimon's eyes widened. "There are mosquitoes?"
Itto pointed out several spots on his exposed skin. The little floating companion touched them and found that they really had swollen into large bumps.
"You're right. Those bumps are huuuge!"
"Exactly! Haven't