An unnamed forest.
In this underdeveloped region far from the centers of civilization, nameless areas like this were everywhere. Though all land had lords, not all land could be cultivated.
The kingdom had no spare manpower or resources to develop the border regions near the Gondor Wasteland. And since the elves had helped humanity build the Sentinel Towers, a magnificent wall stretching in an unbroken line around the entire Gondor Wasteland, the nations of the current age didn't need to station excessive military forces along the border to deal with the occasional Other that wandered out.
As a result, the borderlands had fallen into a vicious cycle of continuous decline.
There was more than one route from Seawright territory to Gulltown in the north, but cutting through the woodland to reach the main road was the shortest. Any alternative meant either circling the entire region or crossing even more dangerous lawless zones, neither a wise choice.
The deeper they went into the forest, the dimmer the light grew, and the thick carpet of decaying leaves on the ground became increasingly bothersome. This wasn't a great forest by any means, but a woodland left entirely free of human interference, growing wild and unchecked, was quite an eye-opener for Gwayne. In his previous life on Earth he'd lived in a man-made jungle of steel and concrete; for countless years after transmigrating, he'd only been able to observe this world from a preposterously distant vantage point. Now, walking through it in person, he realized his imagination of the natural world had been far too shallow.
But fortunately, he was growing accustomed to this body. Its inherent physical prowess and all-around capabilities made the challenges of wilderness survival relatively manageable. Ser Byron and Amber at his side also had no shortage of experience traversing mountains and forests, so the journey wasn't too terrible.
Hestia, on the other hand, was having a harder time. Even in decline, House Seawright was still a great house with a long history, pledging direct fealty to the High King. Hestia, born into it, was a proper noblewoman through and through. By noble-circle standards, she was already considered well-tempered and accustomed to hardship, but against the challenges of raw nature, she still needed some toughening up.
Besides, a mage's physical stamina was never going to be anything impressive.
Rebecca's performance, however, was a pleasant surprise. This girl who looked like an Earth high schooler hadn't fallen behind once on the journey, and her pace through the pathless forest was no worse than the tall, broad-shouldered soldiers'.
When Gwayne asked about it curiously, Rebecca answered with a touch of embarrassment.
"I was wild as a kid. I ran around everywhere just like the boys, even sneaking into the forests on our territory to explore. Back then I hadn't shown any magical talent yet, and my father thought I might be trainable as a knight... He was bitterly disappointed when that didn't pan out. But even though the knight's path didn't work out, I've always kept up my physical training. After all, the ancestral precepts do say that to become a lord who can protect their people, you first need a strong body..."
Gwayne nodded silently. This N-plus-one-times-great-granddaughter of his might sometimes seem like her head had been caught in a door, but she was genuinely down-to-earth and upright.
That was rare among nobility.
The other N-times-great-granddaughter next to her, who was practically gasping for breath, could learn a thing or two.
"There may be some magical creatures deeper in this forest, but nothing very strong," Ser Byron said, using his longsword to lift a dark, amorphous clump from the ground. It slowly turned transparent on his blade and dissipated into the air. "Shadow element concentration is elevated. There's likely a natural mana focus at the forest's center, but it should be a weak one."
"Definitely weak," Amber said, twirling a slender dagger while scanning the surroundings. "If there were a high-quality mana focus here, this forest would have long since been declared ancestral territory of the Arcane Society or the Astrologer Guild. And look at the plants around us, no obvious mutations. That means the elemental concentration here isn't even enough to affect the flowers and grass."
Gwayne looked at these two wilderness-survival experts with some surprise. "You two seem quite knowledgeable."
Rebecca glanced at Byron. "Before he pledged himself to my father, Uncle Byron was a mercenary."
Byron didn't seem comfortable discussing his past. "That's all behind me, my lady."
Amber's little dagger spun even faster. "Tch, that world-weary look. Who doesn't have a past?"
Though the half-elf's face was practically screaming "my past is also very impressive so someone please ask me about it," Gwayne had zero intention of playing along.
In just the day and a half he'd spent with her, he'd learned enough about her temperament. Her rich wilderness knowledge was nine times out of ten the result of being chased through the streets by patrol squads on a regular basis, then having to dive into the woods and survive in the wild. But if you actually asked, she'd never tell it that way. She'd spin some heart-pounding, epic saga, like how she'd once traveled the entire continent and exchanged witticisms with the High Elf Sovereign over tea...
As they talked, they'd pressed deeper into the forest. The trees grew ever thicker, and the daylight filtering through the canopy onto the ground grew ever more sparse.
Gwayne looked up. Through the shadowy tangle of branches, the great sun was fractured into scattered specks of light, as if an enormous plate had been turned upside down in the sky. The sunlight falling on them seemed to have grown noticeably cooler.
Betty, the weakest of the group physically, couldn't help sneezing. Her hands were freezing, and she nearly dropped her frying pan.
Amber stopped twirling her dagger. She suddenly dropped into a low crouch, her pale eyes flashing with wariness. She looked at Gwayne, her breath forming a puff of white mist as she spoke. "Does anyone else feel like... the temperature has dropped way too much?"
Hestia's gaze sharpened in an instant. The fatigue from the march was forcibly suppressed. She raised her staff and struck it against the ground while rapidly reciting an awkward incantation.
Detect Distortion.
This was a general-purpose spell, learnable from the second circle of formal mages all the way up to the ninth-circle Arch-Mage, with corresponding spell models at each rank. The spell had no offensive capability whatsoever; its purpose was to detect hidden energy phenomena within a certain range, things like concealed magical traps or invisible energy fields. When cast at full power, Detect Distortion could identify energy signatures up to one tier above the caster's level, and Hestia was a third-circle mage.
In terms of professional rank, Hestia as a third-circle mage (the peak of low rank) was weaker than Byron, who had entered the middle ranks (though only at the initial stage).
But in terms of magic's convenience and versatility, her spells could accomplish far more than brute force.
As Detect Distortion took effect, Gwayne noticed fog rising around them.
No, it wasn't fog. It was celestial energy that had been hidden until now, already dense enough to affect the material plane.
It gathered from every direction, concentrating and growing stronger, until it was so thick that trees just dozens of meters away were barely visible. Within that churning, pale mist, indistinct shadows could be glimpsed flickering past.
Betty's eyes went wide with terror. She was about to scream when Gwayne clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Shh. Don't make a sound, it'll disturb whatever's in the fog."
The girl stared with enormous eyes, tears threatening to spill. She clutched her frying pan with one hand and managed a shaky nod.
Gwayne couldn't help shaking his head. she hadn't cried when they saw the dragon, but now she was this frightened. Everyone had different weak points.
"What are these things?" Rebecca was also scared. She gripped her staff tightly, small sparks already dancing at its tip. "When did we get... surrounded by all this?"
"Wraith Mist. Dammit," Hestia said through gritted teeth. "How is this here?"
Wraith Mist, Gwayne had already located the corresponding knowledge in his memories. It could occur naturally or be manufactured, though the natural variety was far more common.
In places where shadow energy converged and the undead roamed, Wraith Mist had an extremely low probability of forming. It was part of the shadow environment, but tainted by undead influence, making it highly destructive. However, once formed, this mist was invisible, it took shape and grew in the spirit realm, leaving no trace whatsoever in the Prime Material Plane.
Unless the victim had already wandered deep inside it.
It killed those who stumbled into it slowly and imperceptibly, through hypothermia, hallucinations that invaded the mind, and creeping fear. Ordinary people who wandered in would often die without ever understanding what had happened, because they never saw a thing until the very end.
The dense fog would only become visible in the instant their soul plunged into the Shadow Realm, filling their final dying memory entirely.
Artificially creating Wraith Mist was theoretically possible, but the conditions were too demanding, the requirements on the caster too extreme, and the results inferior to most spells of equivalent level, so even the darkest spirit-channelers wouldn't waste their time on it.
Gwayne had already drawn his Pioneer's Sword but hadn't launched any attack. Wraith Mist was special. while merely being within its range caused harm, it didn't actively attack at first. The damage was simply an inherent property of it being a "negative environment." Only when the things inside the mist were disturbed would it turn violent.
And a Wraith Mist gone berserk was very difficult to deal with.
Gwayne wasn't sure whether the mist had already been disturbed, so he held off on ordering an attack. Instead, he cautiously searched for a thin point in the mist, preparing to break through when the moment was right. But just as he was doing this, a soft, ethereal laugh drifted to his ears from somewhere deep in the fog.
They'd been played by a damned cloud of mist!
Gwayne immediately raised his longsword and brought it down in a slash toward the source of the sound. A dark-red arc of firelight separated from the blade, cleaving in two a vague silhouette that had materialized in the fog.
"Focus fire on the one darting around in the mist wearing white!"