Volume 3 Chapter 89 Surprise Attack Strategy (Rejected) I
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Serena and Kian took the lead.
Rufna, Priscilla, and Sarah followed behind.
At the very end was Natra, and they moved through the forest in that order.
The woods were mostly oak and pine, spaced almost evenly, like they’d been thinned out on a schedule.
There were no low bushes or ferns up to waist height, just a carpet of dead leaves on the ground, with acorns rattling in the gaps.
This place was pretty well maintained──
Just recently, loggers must have been working here.
It looked perfect for pig grazing in winter, and right now villagers gathering mushrooms, crickets, lingonberries, or big rats for food wouldn’t be surprising.
(If Oswald and the Knight Order were still around, this domain would never have fallen to monsters. It sounds like some twisted chain reaction──like the crazy stories about wind blowing and bucket makers profiting──but maybe if I’d teamed up with Oswald, things could have turned out differently.)
’Such worthless thoughts. No use at all.’
(You’re right.)
Kian shook his head slightly and stared at the milky white fog seeping between the trees.
It had grown thicker since earlier.
Serena, walking a step ahead, looked half submerged in milk from behind.
Without a vampire’s Magic Eye, the evenly spaced oak trunks looked like tall, black giants looming──pretty creepy.
The air brushing his skin was growing warm and damp.
At the same time, a strong stench of rot began to creep into his nose.
The smell only Kian seemed to sense; Serena and Rufna showed no reaction.
Maybe it was some kind of magic, just like this fog.
”Wow, this is such a dreamy scene! If I had any art skills, I’d have my brush and palette ready. Oaks stretching straight up through cotton candy fog──this isn’t something you see every day.”
”Good thing you’re not some artist who thinks a quest is just a picnic. Hey, stay close by me. It’s a pain to keep watch otherwise.”
”Ms. Serena, can you still track the footprints?”
”Yeah. But it’s fading little by little. This… might be deliberate to leave no traces.”
”Rean is a heavily armored warrior. If you’re careful, you can definitely follow the footprints.”
”Yeah.”
Serena nodded at Kian’s words,
”Wait… the smell of perfume.”
She muttered softly, tilting her chin up to the misty sky, sniffing as she moved her nose.
”What?”
”Perfume… Is that Juniper? There might also be a hint of Lime’s scent mixed in.”
”Juniper Berry’s perfume, huh? Juniper has strong antibacterial properties, and combined with Lime’s scent, it creates a clean and refreshing fragrance. It’s something the forest folk──Elves──prefer to use. Lord Kian, do you have any ideas?”
”Ms. Vestacia used to wear it. She said she couldn’t bathe during quests. I see she’s still using it…”
”It’s coming from behind that tree over there.”
With that, Serena dashed towards the oak tree ahead.
She jumped over the raised roots from the ground, crouching down on the earth beyond.
Kian peered in from behind her, and there lay a broken bottle rolling about.
Just beyond the bottle were Rean’s deep footprints.
”An atomizer. It’s a refillable container for carrying alchemical perfume. No doubt it belongs to Ms. Vestacia.”
”Ah, then she might have tripped on the roots. So the container fell out of her pocket.”
”And then she stomped on it hard with her sturdy boots. Unfortunately for Ms. Vestacia, the ground was harder at the root of the oak, so the atomizer shattered.”
”For us, it was lucky. It smells amazing like Juniper.”
”Ms. Serena, can you follow the scent?”
”It’s continuing in the same direction as the man’s footprints. Thanks to stepping on the perfume with his heel. ──This way.”
Following the scent was quicker than tracking the man’s footprints buried in the dead leaves.
Serena raced against the wind blowing invitingly from the mist.
Kian and the others followed her like shadows.
”────────”
(There’s something ahead.)
His sense of smell is weak because of the mysterious stench, but his Magic Eye, enhanced by his ‘glasses’, is working fine.
Kian sensed a magician’s staff, radiating strong magic power, lying far beyond a thick layer of fog.
But the place where the staff was located seemed strange, a square area enclosed by a collapsed stone Wall, even though it was inside a forest.
Is it some kind of ruin?
Ahead, the well-maintained forest becomes increasingly disordered, and hidden within is an area enclosed by a stone Wall.
Combined with this milky white fog, it acts as a natural barrier to keep people away.
”Ms. Priscilla, we’ll be entering an area where low bushes and thorns are sprawling. Your Witch clothes might get their hems break.”
”Seriously? It’s easy to run right now, though.”
She replied, but she wasn’t running, she was floating through the air, gliding.
Looking closely, the ‘Parasol of the Night Queen’ in her hand is emitting magic power.
It seems she’s floating thanks to its effect.
”It will soon become dense. Everyone, there’s a place like an old ruin ahead. A staff used by a Witch seems to be lying there.”
”Understood.”
Everyone replied in unison.
Kian looked back at Natra at the rear, and she shook her head.
”No one seems to be following us. It’s okay.”
”Alright.”
”Ahead, just as Kian said, there are a lot of thorns growing like a wire mesh! Should we go around!?”
”No, I’ll freeze them and tear them away. Let me go ahead.”
The silhouettes of the trees seeping out of the fog become increasingly disordered, overlapping in multiple layers as if to block the path of the intruders, and begin to bend their trunks sideways.
The low bushes become like a low fence, and further in, the thorns clump together and grow densely at the base of the trees.
Kian stepped in front of Serena, froze the unpruned trees, and broke them with his arms to clear a path.
He froze the unnaturally growing thorns as well, kicking them away.
The thorns, which were hard and flexible for plants, were brutally torn apart by the ‘Silver Ice’ armor.
They went ahead and entered the area with the stone Wall, about a meter high, that they’d been peeking at.
Ducking under the pine trees in front of his face, Kian slipped through the gaps and went over the stone Wall.
Serena was more nimble than Kian, squeezing through the openings.
Priscilla dropped her pointed hat, had Rufna pick it up, and then hopped over the stone Wall.
The rest of the Nakash group, as always, landed on the other side of the stone Wall with a strange, ghost-like movement.
”────. This is…”
Kian, who had gone ahead of everyone into the stone Wall area, looked around.
The surroundings were still covered in a thick fog.
But the place where Kian and the others were standing was a clear clearing, as if forgotten by the encroaching plants.
About 20 meters square.
A one-meter stone Wall behind them.
In the fog to the left, something over 5 meters high was silhouetted.
The stone Wall was crumbling from the highest point, sloping down to the right, and abruptly stopped at what appeared to be the entrance to the square.
Beyond this square ── something like a giant stone statue was standing even further back.
A powerful magic power wave was coming from there.
It was hard to see because of the fog, but at this distance, he could tell how strong the magic power was.
It was the land itself that was emitting the magic power.
In other words, this place was right above a Spiritual Vein, where the earth’s life force was leaking out from the tear.
The magic power gave off a refreshing, pure impression, like a clear stream gushing forth.
Speaking of the high stone Wall, this place was like the ruins of…
”It looks like the remains of some kind of temple, doesn’t it?”
Priscilla muttered, adjusting the position of her Witch hat.
Rufna, Sarah, and Natra scattered around the white-haired Witch, warily glaring at the fog-covered sky.
”The magician’s staff. The one Kian was talking about, right?”
Serena walked to the center of the square and picked up the blue magic stone-adorned staff that was lying there.
”It’s Ms. Lyritisse’s.”
”The human magician, right? So she must have come all the way here…”
Sarah scans the surroundings, then approaches.
”And one more ── the cat Beastmen Lady Ninini should be with them too. I saw some traces of movement in the trees.”
”Really?”
”Yes, I’m certain.”
”Master, did you notice Rean’s tracks became smaller and more spaced out as if something was chasing him?”
”No. How about Serena?”
Serena passes the staff to Kian, then shakes her head.
”I was too focused on following the scent.”
”If Rufna is right, then Rean started running from somewhere along the way. But why?”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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