We slowly open the door and step outside.
There are trees right next to the house, whose leaves cover the house as if hiding it.
Because of that, there’s no light.
“Get down!”
Yells Argo as I cautiously look around.
The soldiers immediately move. I guess it’s expected of them.
I go right, and Argo left, as we dodge an arrow.
It came from a branch in front of us.
The archer gets ready for a second arrow, which seems to be aimed low at the soldiers on the ground.
But before that happens, I throw a knife that hits the archer on the shoulder, who loses balance and falls.
But we have no time to rest. We’re in a forest, so monsters soon appear.
They’re goblins and orcs, and Appraisal tells me they’re replicated.
“Argo, it’s them.”
“Got it. I’ll take them down. The soldiers can look after themselves.”
Argo starts swinging as soon as he says that, and I follow.
I swing my sword down, and take down one at a time.
I stay calm even as I’m surrounded by replicated monsters, dodge, and step forward to swing.
The monsters that are cut go down and don’t move again. And then disappear without a trace,
The soldiers look nervous when they see that.
If there are replicated monsters, that means the culprit might be here too.
I look at the two soldiers, who are back to back to cover each other’s blind spots while they fight goblins. There are three of them, so I focus on the others.
The goblins are up to level thirty now, but they don’t feel stronger than the ones in town.
The same goes for the orcs. They’re high level, but don’t feel stronger. That’s because my level is high, since it looks like the soldiers are having trouble.
But if I go to help I’ll be exposing my back, and I might put the soldiers in even more danger.
I’ll take down the enemies around me, and then help.
What worries me is that they might keep coming like the ones in town. But since there aren’t any more coming after the first ones that appear, we can get through them.
“Looks like we did it.”
Says Argo to the tired soldiers sitting down.
I see their faces twitching, probably because they took down three goblins and left the rest to us.
“So what now? It would be hard to look with just the four of us.”
I say to the three of them.
It would be different if I could see their reactions… I can see reactions on Map, but nothing making any big moves.
I see ten reactions that I think are orcs far away, but other than that, it’s just animals.
“We can’t look through the forest alone. Should we go back for now?”
“Yes. I think so.”
A loud noise echoes as the soldier responds.
It came from very close too. The house we just came from.
We look at it, and said house collapses.
“Seriously? It just collapsed on its own… That can’t be right.”
“Probably…”
Argo gulps and nods.
There was that weird noise too, so there’s no way it just collapsed. Although we can’t tell for sure if someone did it.
If it was on a timer, we made the right call not investigating inside and leaving right away.
“Sora, can you do something about that?”
“It’s not impossible, but…”
It’s not just the house, when I look around, I see trees have fallen too.
I think I can move them with magic, but if someone caused this, who knows what happened to that secret passage.
If it’s just filled with dirt, I can move it with magic, but if it’s completely collapsed, it’s done for.
“So should we go back through the forest?”
“I think that would be faster.”
The soldiers look dazed, but nod limply when they notice us looking at them.
I think they can hear us.
“But if it ends here, what was the culprit trying to do?”
Argo has a point. If the goal was to cause chaos in town, that’s been done.
And the culprit got away too. Well, we’re not actually sure of that.
At least, if replicated monsters were left here… No, I don’t think that’s likely.
Let’s just go back.
Thankfully, Map tells me where we are, and it doesn’t look like there are monsters around us, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.
The issue is whether their stamina will hold.
First it was the fight with replicated monsters, then this chase. I’m sure they’re both physically and mentally tired.
And me… Well, I’m fine thanks to Walking. And Parallel Thinking makes up for me being sleepy.
We make it back to town before daybreak.
We’re questioned, and the sun is fully up by the time they let us go.
We also learn that the secret passage collapsed, becoming completely blocked.
It took time between receiving the report on the passage and getting ready, so no one was caught in the collapse.
Join my patreon to support me and read ahead.
Thanks for the treat.