Chapter 267 (Patreon)

The two strangers soon introduced themselves more properly once the immediate tension had faded.

The man removed his feathered hat for a moment, brushing his long hair back as if trying to regain a sense of dignity after everything they had been through. His posture straightened slightly despite the exhaustion visible on his face.

“My name is Tommy,” he said with a respectful nod toward Kana and the others. His voice carried the tone of someone used to speaking politely with customers. Then he gently gestured toward the small girl standing behind him. “And this little one here is my daughter, Tin.”

Tin peeked from behind her father’s coat with cautious curiosity. Her round brown eyes slowly studied each of them one by one as if memorizing their faces. Despite the messy state of her dress, she still held herself with the innocent confidence only children possessed.

Kana did not hesitate for long.

She simply gave a short nod and motioned toward the wagon.

“You can ride with us,” Kana said casually, as if helping stranded travelers in the middle of a dangerous forest was the most normal thing in the world.

Tommy blinked in surprise for a brief moment before relief quickly replaced it. Without wasting time, he lifted Tin gently into the wagon before climbing in himself. Tin quickly settled beside Suri, her eyes filled with quiet wonder as she looked around the wagon and at the strange little lizard perched nearby.

Thorne chirped proudly as if welcoming a new passenger.

The wagon soon began moving again, the wooden wheels creaking softly as the horses pulled them forward along the muddy road that cut through the dark forest.

For several minutes, the only sound was the steady rhythm of the wagon and the distant rustling of leaves carried by the wind.

Then Tommy leaned forward slightly, his face growing serious.

“I suggest we take a detour,” he warned carefully, glancing toward Kana and Boris. His voice lowered, carrying the weight of someone who had recently witnessed something terrifying. “The road ahead is where we were attacked earlier. I only managed to escape by running and hiding ourselves with my skill [Camouflage] into the forest with my daughter… but those magical beasts might still be there.”

Kana turned her head slowly toward Suri.

The two exchanged a glance.

Suri did not even wait for Kana to speak.

With a quiet sigh she closed her eyes, leaning slightly against the side of the wagon as faint waves of illusion spread outward from her position. The air around the wagon shimmered for a brief moment as invisible ripples expanded through the surrounding forest.

Her illusions slipped between trees, drifted across bushes, and quietly explored the darkness like silent scouts.

After a few moments she opened one eye.

“I don’t see anyone nearby,” Suri reported. “But it’s extremely dark out there tonight. My illusions can see the areas, but it’s still difficult to see everything clearly.”

Kana rested her arm against the open window and leaned her head slightly outside.

Then she focused on her [Night Awareness].

Her senses expanded outward, brushing across the forest like invisible threads stretching through the night. She could feel the movement of leaves, the faint scurrying of insects, even the distant flutter of a night bird somewhere high in the trees.

After a few seconds she spoke.

“I have a skill that lets me sense movement and things around me,” Kana said. “Right now… I can’t detect anyone nearby except us.”

The wagon continued forward.

Then suddenly it stopped.

Adam’s voice came from the front, sharp and alert.

“Something is there!”

Kana and Boris reacted instantly.

The wagon door swung open and both of them jumped down, their boots landing firmly on the muddy road as they moved forward to investigate.

The moonlight revealed a grim sight.

A shattered wagon lay across the road ahead, its wooden frame broken apart as if something massive had crushed it with overwhelming force. One of the wheels had rolled several meters away and now leaned awkwardly against a tree trunk.

Splintered boards littered the ground like scattered bones.

And everywhere around them were dark stains covering the dirt and grass.

Dried blood. Kana immediately wrinkled her nose and covered it with her sleeve.

“This is what I’ve been smelling since earlier,” she muttered quietly.

The metallic scent hung faintly in the air, lingering even after several hours had passed.

Tommy stepped down from the wagon and slowly crouched beside one of the broken planks. His eyes moved constantly, scanning the shadows between the trees as if expecting something to leap out of the darkness again.

“This is where we were attacked,” he said in a very low voice. “It happened only a few hours ago.”

Boris walked carefully through the wreckage, examining the ground and the surrounding bushes with a soldier’s caution.

“But I don’t see any bodies,” he said after a moment.

Tommy let out a quiet sigh.

“Of course you don’t,” he replied. “I didn’t see exactly what happened to them…. I had to run with my daughter immediately but they were probably eaten.”

Kana scratched her head thoughtfully.

Her eyes moved slowly across the scene.

“Man-eating magical beasts are actually pretty rare,” she said after a moment. “Most beasts avoid humans. We’re dangerous prey. Too noisy, too armed, too troublesome to fight.”

She crouched briefly, touching the ground near one of the bloodstains.

“Even aggressive beasts usually attack to protect territory or food. They don’t normally hunt people for meals unless something strange is going on.”

Kana stood again, frowning slightly.

“Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

For a moment, the group stood in thoughtful silence.

Then Kana suddenly clapped her hands together as if remembering something important.

“Oh right!”

She pointed back toward the wagon.

“We actually have somewhere important to be,” Kana said, remembering their objective in the first place before they got sidetracked.

She casually gestured behind her toward the wagon.

“That big eater young lady can help us track those magical beasts later,” Kana added.

From inside the wagon, Suri’s voice immediately exploded.

“I HEARD THAT!”

Kana pretended not to hear anything.

Tommy slowly shook his head, clearly worried by how casually the group seemed to treat the situation.

“You all look very young,” he said carefully. “And I’m telling you this is extremely dangerous. You didn’t see what attacked us earlier. They’re big and have large claws but I couldn’t see what they looked like, they intentionally destroyed our magical lamps when they attacked us.”

His hand instinctively rested on Tin’s shoulder as he pulled her a little closer.

“I strongly suggest we report this to the guild first,” Tommy continued. “And we should definitely take a detour away from this road.”

Kana watched the man for a moment. Then she looked at the small girl quietly clinging to him. After a few seconds she let out a soft sigh.

“…Alright.”

She turned toward the wagon.

“Adam,” Kana called. “Let’s take the detour. At least it’ll help them. Mentally.”

Then she glanced toward the dark forest once more.

“Suri,” she added calmly, “keep spreading your illusions. I want to know what kind of interesting magical beasts are wandering around out here.”

Inside the wagon, Suri grumbled loudly.

But the faint shimmer of illusion magic once again spread quietly into the surrounding forest.

…..

The group continued their journey with their two unexpected companions, guiding the wagon along a winding detour that curved far away from the road where the destroyed wagon had been found. The path was narrower than the main route, forcing Adam to carefully steer the horses between thick bushes and the occasional tree root that pushed through the muddy ground like the bones of the earth itself.

Taking the longer route would probably delay them by a full day, perhaps even two if the weather worsened or the roads became worse ahead. Still, none of them argued about the decision. Compared to the possibility of encountering whatever monstrous creatures had torn apart that merchant wagon, a slower journey felt like a reasonable price to pay. Well. Kana was simply concerned about the merchant and her daughter, they looked extremely afraid. She herself preferred to hunt whatever attacked them.

Suri, however, had not stopped searching.

Throughout the journey she leaned slightly out the wagon window from time to time, her expression focused as faint ripples of illusion magic drifted outward from her position. The magic flowed silently through the forest, spreading across the trees and undergrowth like invisible mist as her illusions wandered far ahead of the wagon, carefully scanning the surrounding wilderness.

Yet despite her continued efforts, she saw nothing.

No magical beasts lurking among the trees. No strange movement in the grass. Not even the distant echo of something large moving through the forest.

The silence of the wilderness remained undisturbed, which somehow made the situation even stranger.

“They definitely passed through that earlier,” Suri muttered one evening, resting her chin against the window frame as she watched the fading light of sunset between the branches. “But now it’s like they vanished completely.”

Kana, who had been sitting quietly nearby, remained slightly hunched forward with her elbows resting against her knees. Her eyes were half closed as if she were listening to something beyond ordinary sound.

“Then they’re probably using a skill,” Kana replied after a moment.

Suri turned toward her.

“A skill that hides their presence?” she asked.

Kana nodded slowly.

“Something like concealment like Tommy and you have,” Kana explained. “Maybe it suppresses their scent or distorts their detection abilities. Some magical beasts develop strange abilities.”

Suri frowned thoughtfully but did not argue.

If Kana was correct, that meant the creatures that attacked the wagon were far more intelligent than ordinary magical beasts because they were hiding. Hiding from them.

The journey continued cautiously.

Then sometime during the following afternoon, Kana suddenly lifted her head.

A gentle breeze slipped through the open wagon window.

Kana inhaled slowly. The air carried something new.

Salt.

The faint but unmistakable scent of the ocean drifted through the air.

Kana blinked as the sensation washed over her. They were close now.

Adam must have noticed the change as well, because he gradually slowed the wagon as the road began sloping downward toward the distant stone gates of the eastern city.

The only port city in the entire kingdom.

The road widened as they approached the city walls, and the quiet forest sounds slowly gave way to something different. The distant cries of seabirds echoed faintly through the wind, sharp and restless as they circled somewhere far ahead.

Kana rested her chin against her hand, gazing toward the horizon where the sky seemed slightly brighter beyond the distant rooftops.

A strange feeling stirred inside her chest.

She felt… conflicted.

The others were clearly excited. Suri and the boys had been whispering about the ocean for hours now, imagining what it might look like beyond the city walls. It was the first time any of them would see such a vast body of water.

Kana knew she should feel the same excitement.

But instead…

She frowned faintly. For some odd reason, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she had already seen the ocean before.

Not just once but many times.

A vague image flickered somewhere deep in her mind. Endless waves stretching toward the horizon. The sound of wind sweeping across open water. For a moment she even had the strange impression that she had lived over the ocean for a long time.

Maybe even months.

Kana blinked slowly.

Then rubbed her temple with a quiet sigh,“That doesn’t even make sense…”

Her memories doing these kinds of things from time to time. Fragments appearing out of nowhere. Then fading again before she could understand them.

“Finally!” Suri suddenly shouted excitedly from the window, completely interrupting Kana’s thoughts.

Suri leaned halfway outside the wagon with bright eyes sparkling in excitement.

“I heard the fresh fish here tastes incredible!” she declared enthusiastically.

Her stomach rumbled loudly in agreement. Boris leaned forward from his seat as well, his large frame making the wagon creak slightly.

“I heard the fish in the ocean can grow really huge,” Boris said with excitement shining in his eyes. “I want to catch one myself.”

Kana slowly turned her head toward him. Her expression showed deep skepticism. She strongly doubted Boris had the slightest idea how fishing actually worked.

“I just want to swim,” Kana muttered quietly.

The wagon suddenly became silent.

Boris froze. Suri slowly turned her head. Tommy blinked.

Even little Tin looked up in surprise.

All of them stared at Kana as if she had just said something completely absurd.

Suri narrowed her eyes slightly, “You’re jesting… right?” she asked cautiously.

Kana looked back at her without any change in expression.

No smile. No hint of teasing. Just a calm, usual serious look of her.

Suri stared at her for several seconds. Then covered her mouth dramatically.

“My goodness,” she whispered in disbelief,“She’s serious.”

Kana tilted her head slightly, confused by their reaction.

Meanwhile the wagon continued rolling forward until the massive stone walls of the eastern city finally rose before them. 

Unlike the tall gray walls protecting most cities in the kingdom, these walls looked far older and far more weathered. Years of salty sea winds had slowly transformed the stone surface, covering large sections with thick patches of moss that clung stubbornly to every crack and crevice.

The green moss spread across the walls like creeping paint, giving the entire structure a strangely ancient appearance.

The scent of the ocean was much stronger here.

A short line of travelers waited patiently near the gate entrance. Most of them were simple gatherers returning from the forests beyond the city walls, their backs bent under the weight of large woven baskets filled with fruits, herbs, and freshly gathered leaves.

The guards stood lazily beside the entrance, occasionally inspecting the baskets as each traveler stepped forward.

Beyond the gate…

The distant roar of waves crashing against the shore echoed faintly through the streets of the port city, carried inland by the steady breath of the sea wind.

Post note:

Suri now hates when she is called a big eater? 😂

Kana, the previous went on a cruise trip… 🌊Hope you enjoy the chap! 🙂

Next Chapter