Three days had passed since the mission's start. After they had crossed the small mountain range, their surroundings flattened once more.
The temperature dropped gradually, marking the beginning of autumn.
"Is that the elven forest?" Beatrice asked.
They felt it before they even saw it. Dense, concentrated mana seeped through the air. Just breathing seemed to give them strength.
The air felt heavier with every step, tingling against their skin as if it resisted their presence.
As the carriages passed a small hill, massive trees appeared behind it.
Nox felt a faint pressure behind his eyes, the unsettling sense that something ancient was quietly assessing them.
"I'm gonna go pluck some plants and flowers!" Regea shouted, rushing ahead in excitement.
Lina took a sharp breath, half a warning already on her lips, but he was already at the forest's edge.
"It's dangerous," Beatrice muttered, following him.
The closer Regea got to the forest, the stronger the mana's concentration became.
"I heard meditating is four times more effective here," Beatrice said, breathing heavily from exhaustion.
"Yes. My goal is to use those plants to meditate more efficiently," he replied, turning his small bag upside down.
A strange sight followed as a massive shelf dropped out of it.
"Look at that," he said, pointing at small pictures beneath the screens showing the plants' progress.
"It's really useful to know which ones are evolving and how they do that," he added.
"I- I'm glad," Beatrice replied, placing a hand over her heart to calm it.
"Anyway, should we go back to the o-"
A loud roar thundered behind them.
"Guys! Ru-" Nox ran toward them from the carriages, his words torn apart by the wind.
The ground trembled beneath a slow, deliberate step.
A giant green goblin appeared behind them.
It was the size of a truck, far larger than any goblin king.
Its presence alone pressed down on the air around them, raw mana weighing like a physical force.
"That's a goblin emperor, a level one advanced boss!" Beatrice coughed, stepping back cautiously.
With a deafening scream, the goblin slammed its fist into the earth, sending thousands of stone fragments scattering in every direction.
Regea quickly summoned a plant to shield his shelf from the debris.
"Did that monster come from a nearby dungeon or something?" Beatrice shouted as her flame arrows bounced harmlessly off the goblin's thick skin.
The beast answered with a devastating shriek, throwing the two students into nearby bushes.
Heavy footsteps, filled with menace, slowly approached.
Arrows rained down from above, drawing the monster's attention away.
"You shouldn't have done that!" someone yelled.
Nox leapt forward, gripping a massive green bat in his hands.
"Grahhh!"
Despite its size, the goblin's speed was incredible.
A right hook shot directly at Nox, ready to crush him.
His eyes widened as he realized there was nowhere to escape in midair.
Swish-
A blue inferno struck the monster's flank, causing it to lose balance for a split second.
That opening was enough.
Nox's bat smashed into the goblin emperor's face with a devastating impact, sending it crashing against a tree.
The monster, however, simply rose back to its feet.
"Shit… even with the goblin king's bat it's still not dead?" Nox muttered, desperately searching for a solution.
Just as all hope seemed lost, a loud crackling echoed.
Trees seemed to move unnaturally, shadows twitching wildly.
A deep, resonant hum reverberated through the forest, low enough to rattle their bones.
The earth beneath the giant monster opened up, pulling it in with incredible force. Roots thicker than towers briefly surfaced before vanishing again, as if the forest had never moved at all.
Everyone was thrown backward by the sudden surge of mana.
The temperature dropped by five degrees, as if the air itself had been drained of energy.
Seconds later, the forest returned to its normal state.
No trace of the fight remained.
"W- What just happened?" Regea asked.
No one answered immediately. Even breathing felt intrusive in the sudden silence.
"Huff, huff… the forest protects the elves before monsters. In return, the elves give it offerings," Lina gasped, out of breath from running.
"Nox, carry me next time!" she added.
"How unfortunate… there's no loot now," Alma said.
"We're lucky we made it out alive. It was an advanced boss after all," Amon replied.
"Yeah, but its crystal would've been worth more than fifty gold coins."
"I hope the forest won't mind if I take these," Regea muttered, plucking a few plants and absorbing them into his bag's shelf. His eyes shot from the ground to the trees, scared that the earth might open again and swallow him.
"We should return to the carriage. The sun is already near the horizon."
The caravan continued their journey as the road gradually darkened.
"We are now near the city in the west. We will arrive tomorrow."
Some set up their tents again, but the six students didn't feel like it.
"I could never sleep after that shock today," Beatrice murmured.
The earlier roar lingered in their thoughts, a silent reminder of how close death had been.
"How about we explore the forest and find some night plants?" Regea said, eyes gleaming with excitement.
"Are you crazy? Alone at night?" Beatrice asked, her voice a mixture of fear and disbelief.
However, she wasn't completely reluctant to the idea of being alone with him.
"We'll accompany you!" Alma shouted, Nox, Lina, and Amon right behind her. "We won't sleep anyway."
"Alright, but let's ask the leader first," Beatrice said.
As the group approached the others, half of them were already drunk.
"Oh, hello. You wanna drink too?" the black-haired man asked.
"No. We wanted to stroll around for a bit," Lina replied.
"Fine but be careful. If you don't return, we'll just continue our journey alone," he said, opening another beer.
"Of course."
After ten minutes, they reached the massive forest again. Caves and tunnels in a nearby canyon led further underground.
"These giant trees are so scary," Nox thought, gulping heavily.
"I'm with you," Lina whispered, gently grabbing his hand.
Warmth surged through him, driving away the cold of the night.
"That was good, right? Not too much contact," she thought, her eyes nervously flickering between her hands and his reaction.
"I wonder what the mana concentration is here," Nox said, taking out his mana detection device.
Many distinct colors appeared on the small screen.
The normally green area had turned light yellow where the forest began.
"Wow, the mana concentration is so high that the device registers it as a source."
"There's us!" Lina said, pointing at six yellow dots.
"Wow, what a flashy device you h-"
Everyone froze.
A dark red dot appeared on the screen.
The device vibrated faintly, something it had never done before.
"That color… an error?"
"Pssst! Get down!" Nox whispered, throwing himself onto the grass.
Moments later, a sound echoed from the canyon.
A hooded woman emerged from the shadows of a tunnel, moonlight illuminating her blood-red lips. A small white flag was imprinted on her coat.
The air grew unnaturally still.
She moved swiftly, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared.
The six students remained silent for several minutes, not daring to move a centimeter.
"What was that?" Beatrice whispered. "I couldn't sense her aura at all. Maybe she's just a lost wanderer."
"No. If a mage is far stronger than you, it's impossible to sense their aura unless they allow it," Nox replied.
"And did you see the color on the screen? Dark red would mean she's as strong as an S-rank."
Alma stood up and jumped down the canyon with a wind spell.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Lina shouted.
"A hooded woman coming out of a tunnel at night. Don't you want to know what's in there?"
They knew it was risky, but curiosity got the better of them.
Nox held Lina tightly and jumped into the canyon.
"You're scared of some big trees, but not of that?" she whispered.
"I'm scared as hell."
"Oh, don't worry. I'll protect you," Lina replied, patting his head gently.
He had no idea how she would do that but it still calmed him.
As the six reached the entrance, Lina's face turned thoughtful.
"I did it again. I just can't refrain from teasing him," she thought. "I hope he doesn't mind. I would actually protect him if needed, after all."
Small torches hung on the walls, casting eerie shadows across the stony floor.
"This looks like a dungeon," Beatrice said, glancing at the monster corpses beneath them.
"Yes, that's probably where the goblin emperor came from."
Amon crouched down and examined one of the corpses.
"That's insane. We're on the first floor and there are boss-level monsters here."
"Boss-level? That would mean the dungeon is at least A-rank."
"That's impossible. Such high-ranked dungeons are heavily guarded," Lina said. "Except it's not registered…"
As the six reached the floor's end, an astonishing sight awaited them.
A giant monster's corpse lay on the ground. Its head resembled a wolf, but its body was enormous, filling the entire tunnel. A putrid stench emanated from it, as if it had not been dead for long.
"That's a wolf ruler, a level two advanced boss," Beatrice whispered, afraid it might revive.
"Something's wrong," Amon said, stepping closer.
"Its energy…"
He stopped mid-sentence, reconsidering his words.
"Its energy is gone."
"What? That's impossible. The energy of a magical beast remains even after death," Lina gasped.
"I know, but even touching the corpse, I can't sense anything. The blood is still fluid, so…"
"Something extracted its energy?" Nox asked.
"Or someone," Lina added, glancing at him.
A heavy silence fell, everyone staring at the corpse with thoughtful expressions.
Nox's mind raced. He thought back to their mission, the auction and every strange occurrence.
"Oh, of course. It was right before our eyes the whole time," Nox said.
Puzzle pieces fell into place, forming a clear picture.
"I remember now."