Crystal Ore Plains
The flames that had swallowed the vast forest had changed a great many things on this land. Monsters that once lived deep within the woods were driven outward, and territorial battles between them broke out without end.
Those that lost their fights had no choice but to move on in search of new dens. In short, an unseasonable great migration of monsters had begun.
Their movements set the land's mana into violent turmoil. The mana pouring from those enormous bodies rose into the sky, forming massive storms that blanketed the entire region.
We had originally estimated the return to base at roughly a month, but the constant need to shelter from those mana storms stretched the journey far longer than planned.
Today, too, dark clouds began to gather overhead, and our party had no choice but to search for a cave in which to wait out the storm.
We found a suitable one in time and took cover. As if it had been waiting for that exact moment, a fierce storm came crashing down.
Kuuuuuuuuum—!
"It really is coming down hard."
"Still, at least the fire went out. That's something to be grateful for."
Celion and Noel shared a brief exchange as they looked outside. As Noel said, the storms that kept rolling in had played a vital role in extinguishing the blaze that had consumed the forest.
Of course, the great forest itself was gone, leaving nothing behind but black ash.
The survivors who had received my healing magic — Noel, Dorban, and the others — recovered their condition at an astonishing rate as the days passed. It had only been emergency treatment, the bare minimum of recovery magic, yet their bodies had already changed so thoroughly that their regenerative power far surpassed anything human.
They checked over their own conditions with puzzled tilts of the head, but none of them seemed particularly concerned about it.
After the violent storm had raged for a long while, the dark clouds covering the sky finally began to withdraw, and we left the cave and started walking again.
The rain that had poured down with the storm left the air thick with humidity.
We reached the base a full month and a week later than planned.
I frowned as I took in the distant outline of the outpost. Part of the high gate wall we had built up so carefully was smashed open, as if it had taken a direct hit from a bomb.
"Looks like there was a monster raid."
Celion had spotted it as well; her brow furrowed as she spoke.
Drawing closer, we found a great many people hard at work repairing the collapsed outer wall. They paused in their labor when they noticed our approaching party, smiling lightly and waving us in.
Just as we were about to enter the base, a man hammering away up high tilted his head and called down a question.
"Did a general recall order go out from the base, by any chance?"
"What are you talking about?"
Celion shot back. The man's sudden question stopped her in her tracks.
"No, it's just strange. Most of the teams that were out on expedition have been coming back all of a sudden."
"Other teams besides ours?"
"Mm. You'll see once you're inside."
Following his words into the base, we found the place thronged with people. Most of them had not been here when Celion and I left.
"Let's head to the lodgings first."
We returned to our quarters as Celion suggested and unpacked what we had brought.
After the long journey, most of the team collapsed straight onto their beds — but Celion did not rest. She sorted through her gear in short order, gathered up a stack of documents, and headed back outside.
Celion returned to the lodgings a full day later. I was sitting in a chair eating when I greeted her weary-looking face.
"Welcome back."
"Mm…"
"What kept you?"
"This and that… I talked things over with the various team leaders."
Celion stretched into a long yawn, then snagged the soft piece of bread from my plate with a quick swipe. Biting into it, she looked at me with a peculiar little smile — as if she were deliberately trying to get a rise out of me.
I simply stared back at her. She never usually pulled pranks like that; she must have been in pretty rough shape. I pulled a fresh piece of bread from the basket beside me and pushed it into my mouth.
"Mm…"
An awkward silence settled between us. Looking uncomfortable with it, she cleared her throat and disappeared into her room.
Celion emerged again in the dead of night, after the sun had long since set. She summoned every member of her team, saying she had something important to tell them.
Only twenty people gathered. Barely a month earlier, Celion's team had numbered thirty — but the King's assault had cost us ten of our own.
"Sorry for calling you all so late… What I need to say is…"
Celion began slowly. She told us about the forest we had been investigating being completely burned away, and about the great monster migration that had followed.
The return of the other expedition teams was tied to the same events. As the displaced monsters moved in search of new homes, countless base camps had come under attack.
"Can't we just reorganize and head back out on expedition?"
That was Noel's question. Celion shook her head.
"That was the plan… but the Tree Forest has opened."
"The forest opened?"
"The Tree Forest we were surveying — that enormous forest that blocked off the center of this land — burned to the ground, right? A path has opened through it."
"Then…"
"Exactly. We can push into zones no one has ever reached before. And there aren't any monsters near there right now, either. They all fled the fire and came down this way."
"So we're heading there…?"
"That's right. The other team leaders agreed. Every team is moving there together."
Celion's gaze turned to Dorban, Noel, and the remaining two survivors — all of them people who had lived through the King's assault.
"Anyone who wants to come along, stay where you are. Anyone planning to leave on the next ship, head back to your rooms."
At her words, roughly ten people rose from their seats. Half the team, gone in an instant.
Dorban and Noel held their ground, but the other two survivors mixed in with those ten and returned to their rooms.
To the ten who remained, Celion gave a brief rundown of what lay ahead. I diligently copied her words into the notebook issued with our supplies.
"We leave in three days. Be ready."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Time slipped by quickly, and the promised departure day arrived. For those three days, everyone inside the base had been kept frantically busy — preparing massive wagons, packing food and essential expedition gear, and even venturing out nearby to haul in anything that was running short.
"There are so many of them…"
I murmured in awe from Nightmare's back. Five teams in total had gathered at the gate for the joint departure. Leaving only the bare minimum needed to hold the base, virtually everyone had assembled.
Adventurers capable of fighting monsters alone numbered well over a hundred. Add the scholars joining for research, and the grand total came to an astonishing one hundred and twenty.
"Move out!"
Once the head count and supply check were finished, the base gates opened at once. As the massive doors slowly swung wide, the lead teams began filing out.
Our team had been assigned to guard the wagons, so we walked at a leisurely pace alongside them. It was a fairly comfortable post — no need to keep constant watch for monsters.
The road toward the burned forest was anything but smooth. Starving monsters robbed of their habitats charged us at every turn, and the occasional mana storm shook the land beneath our feet.
Even so, the pioneering party never stopped. They pressed on, slow and steady.
The wagons, piled high with every kind of cargo, were the single greatest reason we had to take detours. Where there was no path, we cut timber and built bridges; where sheer cliffs rose before us, we hauled everything up from above.
After roughly two months of that, we finally reached the forest that had burned black as coal.
I looked out over the ash-choked road. Even with the fire long extinguished, a searing heat still rose from beneath the black cinders.
Considering how much time had passed since the blaze, the complete absence of new sprouts suggested that Calvein's mana still lingered here, burning every last trace of life away.
The blackened forest had simply become a road. The vine-trees that once towered toward the sky were nowhere to be seen. The charred corpses of monsters that had blocked the path crumbled to dust at a touch, and the soft breeze that occasionally blew through was enough to topple great columns of charcoal where they stood.
Looking at the wide-open path, I had thought we would pass through quickly — but that was not the case at all. The scholars who had come with us kept poking around every which way, and the delays piled up.
They carefully examined the remains of burned monsters and the traces of plants, but their true interest lay elsewhere.
"What kind of fire could reduce monsters to ash without even leaving bones…?"
"A fire-breathing monster… I'd love to know its internal structure."
"To set an entire forest ablaze, it would have to carry gas in its body at all times — so it must have been enormous."
"No footprints nearby, either. Suggests a flying monster…"
"A giant flying monster that breathes fire? Reminds me of the legends of Calvein — the one said to have burned everything in the world."
I listened to the scholars' conversation in silence, absently stroking the back of my hand.
It took a full week to emerge from the open forest path.
As the black ash road finally fell away behind us, life began to return to the surroundings. With the dark cinders that had clouded our vision gone, what spread out before our eyes was a barren plain thick with brilliantly glittering minerals.
Crystals jutted up along the path, sparkling beautifully — yet the ground beneath them was desolate beyond measure.
Not a single blade of grass grew here. It was hard not to wonder whether any living thing could survive in a place like this.
"Oh, this is…"
Scholars and adventurers alike scattered in every direction to examine the crystals.
And then it happened. As I glanced around, I caught a strange movement far up in the distant sky. Something had emerged from between the clouds, swimming through the air as if through the sea.
A massive body and fins that fluttered out to either side slipped free of the white clouds. The rest of it remained hidden, but I was certain a long tail fin trailed behind it.
"A whale…?"
"That's…"
I was not the only one who had spotted the enormous whale soaring through the sky. One by one, the gazes of adventurers who had been absorbed in the minerals lifted toward the heavens.
In that same moment, the great whale vanished back into the clouds.