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Chapter 12: Shadow

In this undeveloped region far from civilization, nameless places like this were very common. Though all pieces of land came under certain territories, not all of them had undergone development.

The kingdom had no spare manpower and resources to develop the border areas near the Gondor wasteland. And since the elves helped the humans build great walls that surrounded the entire Gondor wasteland with sentinel towers as nodes along the walls, the countries did not need to station too many soldiers at the border to deal with the monsters that occasionally wandered over from the wasteland. Thus, the border fell into a vicious circle of continuous decline.

There were other ways of traveling from Cecil territory to Tanzan Town in the north, but the path through the forest was one of the shortest routes. If they were to choose the other routes, they would either have to take a long detour to bypass the whole area or to pass through lawless areas that were even more dangerous, both of which would be unwise.

The deeper they ventured into the woods, the darker it became. The decaying leaves accumulated on the ground were becoming annoying. Although it was not too big of a forest, the wild growth of the plants in the forest without human interference was an eye opener for Gawain. In his previous life, he lived in a man-made concrete jungle. After transmigrating, he could only observe this world from a distance. At this moment as he stepped foot through the forest himself, he realized that his idea of nature had been too superficial.

Fortunately, he was gradually getting used to this body. His strong physical capabilities and all of his innate qualities enabled him to easily take on the challenge of surviving in the wilderness. Knight Byron and Amber, who were with him, also had no shortage of experience trekking through the wilderness. Thus, the journey had not been too terrible for them.

However, Heidi had to suffer a little. Though the Cecil Clan had declined, they were after all a long-standing aristocratic family that had been loyal to the royal family. As a true aristocratic woman, Heidi was no doubt well-trained and hardworking within the aristocratic circles, but in the wilderness, she still required more experience.

Besides, a mage would not have much physical strength.

However, Rebecca’s performance was quite surprising to Gawain. This young lady, who seemed like a high school girl on earth, never once straggled behind. When they were running through the forest with no paths, she performed no worse than the tall and strong soldiers. Gawain asked her about it curiously, and Rebecca answered quite embarrassed, “I was quite wild when I was a child. I’d always run around like boys and even venture into the woods to explore. At that time, I had not shown any magical talent, and my father thought that I might be able to become a Knight… but I let him down in the end. But even though I couldn’t go on the path to becoming a Knight, I still take the time to train myself. After all, Ancestor said that one must first have a strong physique in order to be a leader that protects the people… ”

Gawain nodded silently. Though this nth+1 great granddaughter of his seemed occasionally to have suffered brain injuries, she was quite a down-to-earth and upright character.

This was rare in aristocratic circles.

This nth great granddaughter who was nearly short of breath should really learn a thing or two from her.

“There may be some monsters deep in the forest, but they won’t be too powerful.” Knight Byron picked up a lump of dark substance from the ground with his longsword. The lump slowly became transparent at the tip of his sword and gradually dissipated in the air. “Shadow elemental enrichment. There should be a natural magic focal point somewhere in the middle of this forest, but it’s probably the weak kind.”

“It must be really weak,” Amber swirled the dagger around as she looked around and sized up the situation. “If there was a high-grade magic focal point, the Association of Mystics or the Association of Astrologers would have declared this forest to be their territory a long time ago. Besides, from the look of these plants around here… There is no sign of them being affected. This means that the elemental enrichment is not strong enough to even affect these plants.”

Gawain looked at the two wilderness survival experts with a bit of surprise, “You guys seem real knowledgeable, huh?”

Rebecca glanced at Byron, “Uncle Byron was a mercenary before he swore allegiance to my father.”

Byron did not seem too fond of talking about the past. “It’s all in the past, Miss.”

The small dagger in Amber’s hand was spinning even faster. “Pfft, looking so battle-scarred. Who doesn’t have a past?”

Though the half-elf girl’s face had an expression saying ‘I’ve got an impressive backstory too, ask me about it!’, Gawain had no intention of entertaining this young lady. Just from spending a day and a half’s time together, it was enough for Gawain to learn her tendencies. That rich experience she had in the wilderness must have been gained as she was being chased all around the city by the guards and then fled into the wilderness when she had nowhere else to run. But if you were really going to ask her, she would definitely spin a hair-raising thriller of a story for you—like how she had traveled the entire continent and even laughed with the Elf King or something in that vein…

As they were talking, they had already walked some distance towards the deeper part of the forest. The surrounding trees were becoming denser, and the rays of light shining through the canopy were becoming sparser.

Gawain looked up. Between the shadowy branches, the giant sun was scattered into dots of light as if there was a huge plate hung upside down in the sky, and the sunlight reaching his body felt a little cooler.

Betty, the weakest among them, could not help but sneeze. She felt her hands becoming so cold that she almost dropped the pan.

Amber stopped spinning her dagger, and she suddenly bent down. Her light colored eyes flickered in alert. She looked at Gawain, and her breath came out in a white puff as she said, “Don’t you guys feel that… it’s getting a little too cold here? ”

Heidi suddenly looked serious, suppressing her lethargy of being on the road. She raised her staff, stamped it forcefully to the ground, and uttered a mouthful of hard-to-pronounce incantation, casting the Detection spell.

This was a common spell that could be learned once a person become a level two mage. As one continued to level up to become a Master Mage at level nine, the spell would correspond to different spell moulds. This was not an offensive spell, and its purpose was to detect hidden energy phenomena within a certain area of effect such as hidden magic traps or invisible energy fields. Upon fully casting the spell, it could detect energy traces up to one level higher than that of the spellcaster. Heidi was a level three mage.

Though Heidi was a level three mage (the highest level for Novices), being of lower level than Byron who was an Intermediate (though only starting out), the convenience and versatility of her spells could be more useful than physical combat powers.

As Detection started to take effect, Gawain noticed fog shrouding the surrounding.

No, it was not fog, but it was spiritual energy, which was hidden previously, so dense that it was affecting the physical realm.

They gathered from all sides and grew stronger. Then, it became so dense that it was almost impossible to see past the trees more than ten meters away. In the pale fog, a hazy figure seemed to flash past.

Betty’s eyes widened in horror. Just as she was about to scream, Gawain stopped her mouth. “Shh, don’t make a sound. It’ll alarm the thing in the fog.”

The young lady’s eyes were pried wide open, tears almost flowing out. She nodded as she grasped the pan in her hand tightly.

Gawain could not help but shake his head and thought, ‘She didn’t cry when she saw the dragon earlier, but she’s being so frightened now. People sure have different weaknesses.’

“What are these things?” Rebecca was also slightly scared. She clasped her staff tightly. At the tip of her staff, there were already small fiery sparks jumping, “When did we get surrounded… by these things?”

“Mist Wraith, damn it.” Heidi gritted her teeth. “Why is this thing here?”

Mist Wraith. Gawain had already found information about this from his memories. It was something that could occur either naturally or made by man. Natural occurrence was more common. In places where shadow energy gathered and undead wandered, the Mist Wraith had a very low probability of appearing. It was part of the shadows. But with the presence of undead, it would become extremely destructive. However, Mist Wraiths would not be visible after forming. They would form in the spiritual realm, and in the physical realm, humans would not be able to see even a trace of it.

Unless the victim had already stepped into the mist.

It would slowly kill the victim before he could even realize it through the use of coldness and planting illusions and fear into the mind of the victim. Typically, a normal person would die before knowing what hit them if they were to step into the mist because they would not be able to see anything.

The dense fog would not appear until the moment when their souls fell into the shadow realm, and it would take hold of their memories in their near death state.

It was also possible to artificially create the Mist Wraith, but the prerequisites would be extremely demanding, and the effect was not as good as other spells of the same level. Thus, those Necrolytes would not waste their time on such a thing.

Gawain had already pulled out his Sword of Pioneers, but he had yet to launch any attacks. Mist Wraiths were very special. Though one would receive damage as soon as one entered its range, the Mist Wraith would not be the first to attack. This damage were only the effect of the ‘hostile environment’ that was an intrinsic attribute of the Mist Wraith. It would only go berserk when the ‘thing’ in the mist was disturbed.

A Mist Wraith would be very hard to stop in berserk mode.

Gawain was not sure if the mist had already been disturbed, so instead of ordering an attack, he carefully searched for thin sections of the mist so that they could prepare to break out. But just as he did so, a light, ethereal laughter from the mist suddenly reached his ears.

Sh*t! He was being played by a lump of mist!

Gawain immediately raised his longsword and swung the sword in the direction of the sound. A dark red light projected from the blade and split the fuzzy figure from the mist into two.

“Fire at that white thing scurrying in the mist!”