It wasn't until Agil revealed that James's name was still active on his Friend List that he reconsidered his belief that the man had died. Kirito had tried to confirm the man's status among the living by taking a trip to the Monument of Life but all he had found was a blank section of stone where the man's name should have appeared. But the lack of a name did not equate death since those that died had had their names crossed out with a line and the date and cause of death listed beside their name on the monument. It was a confusing puzzle.
A mere eight hours after the incident, the Guild Leader that Tracker James had been working for on his last job led Kirito and Agil into the part of the forest where the group had faced a large pack of Furgrin and a minor Boss Monster. The man had then apologized again to Agil (for abandoning James in a moment of weakness – the man had been both terrified and horrified over what had happened and feared he and his Guild would be struck next) before leaving. Kirito wasted no time in picking up James's trail from the Furgrin clearing and followed it to where the final trap had been activated to finish off the last of the minions while the Guild fought the boss.
The tracks around that half dismantled trap had been confusing; it looked as if James had been rolling and thrashing about all over the clearing for several more hours. The weirdest part had been the smaller set of tracks that walked away from the area; tracks which were also the only tracks leaving the area. Kirito and Agil had followed those tracks through the forest to a small clearing where they led straight to an old stump in the middle of the clearing before they disappeared completely; stopping only to deal with the various Monsters that attacked them (including a large pack of Ravenous Wolves that had attacked them just before they reached the stump clearing).
The trail appeared to have been obliterated by the tracks of the Wolves and it almost looked as if the Wolves had killed whatever or whoever it was that they had been following. There were a couple of discarded traps lying about the stump but no sign of whoever it was that had set them up (though Agil swore up and down that it had to have been James). A short search of the stump and the clearing revealed no hidden hiding places or new trails and Agil had sunk his axe into the stump in frustration.
When they found no new clues after searching the area several times, Kirito and Agil had left the forest to check the small handful of places that James frequented when he deigned to visit the various towns on the off-chance that James had found his way out of the minor Dungeon. He hadn't or if he had, he'd gone to ground in yet another Dungeon. The two of them returned to the forest just after sunrise and continued searching for any clue as to where James had gone.
Using a spiral search pattern, they'd moved out into the forest beyond the clearing with the stump on the off chance that the man had taken to the trees in order to escape the clearing to prevent the nighttime predators from picking up his trail. In the back of his mind, Kirito also began wondering if maybe the smaller footprints meant that some Monster had finished the man off and then left but James's name was still active on Agil's Friend List (even if the locater function that let a person find their friends through the Map was not working for some reason).
He knew that without asking because the dark skinned man had unfailingly sent James another message once an hour in the hopes that James would respond to one of them. The longer Tracker James remained silent the more worried and desperate Agil had grown. The merchant had even started to get angry by the second day of the search though there was also true fear beneath the anger since James apparently had no reason to ignore Agil; which meant he was incapable of replying for some reason.
It was late afternoon on the third day of the search when Agil finally got a reply; firm evidence that James was still alive. The older man had let out a sigh of relief and flashed a grin at Kirito before responding to the reply. Kirito had spent the next five minutes watching Agil grow increasingly frustrated as James had stubbornly refused to cooperate and let them know where he was. He'd then started cursing as James ignored the next handful of messages and Kirito had resumed his efforts to pick up James's trail in order to give the irritated man some space.
Agil had gone from frustrated and angry to fearful just a couple of hours later when James finally gave in and sent another reply. Kirito could still recall the abject horror on Agil's face when the man had glanced up at Kirito after reading through the note and revealed that James had just sent him what amounted to a suicide note. The fourteen year old had been stunned that a man he'd respected (due to his reputation alone, since he'd never met the man) could be broken in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
Kirito had then grown nervous at the thought that there might be something truly frightening out there that Tracker James had stumbled upon and if it broke the man rumored to tackle hoards of Monsters with nothing more than a cheap dagger and an arsenal of mere traps, then what chance did a boy like him have against it even with a sword?
Agil didn't seem to care about anything except for getting to his friend in time to prevent him from taking his own life and once Agil had gotten the general location of his friend the two of them had taken off at a dead run with Agil passing on the news that his friend had ended up trapped beneath the nesting tree of a flock of Carrion Crows. As Kirito ran beside the taller man, he mentally ran through every possible attack in his repertoire and tried to recall whether or not the Carrion Crows had a Boss Monster. He prayed that he had leveled up enough to at least hold his own against whatever Monster the other man had stumbled upon aside from the crows long enough for Agil to teleport James out before any of them died.
Out of all the possible scenarios that he'd feared they were running into, Kirito never expected to find a frightened child beleaguered by a the largest flock of Carrion Crows he'd ever run into at the end of the trail. Apparently, that hadn't been what Agil was expecting either given the shocked expression he'd seen on the older man's face at the time.
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