In fact, it was a natural course of events.
Currently, all imperial knights, including the Knights of Judgment, were committing numerous corrupt acts for their own purposes.
Before Shane’s regression, it was only normal that Anais would deliver ironclad justice to them.
The only problem was that Anais didn’t consider the aftermath of her actions.
As a result, the remaining people had to deal with the consequences.
Shane who shared the same goal as her but wanted to prepare for more orderly chaos had a reason to understand the cause of Anais’s sense of justice.
I made a mistake. I didn’t expect to get involved with Anais so quickly.
If possible, he should have delved into the soul of the Knight of Judgment he killed while saving Dilaila.
But is there a substitute?
No, perhaps,
He might have found an even better clue.
Shane watched Anais and Dominic’s group as they returned from their search.
It’s already been 15 days since the search operation began.
After having enough rest, the group resumed their expedition.
[The expedition has become easier with a guide in the underground tunnel. How long will it take to reach the target point?]
[By human standards, about ten days. And human, there is something I want to ask you.]
[What is it?]
[If we return to my homeland, my kin will not welcome you humans. What will you do then?]
[Not everyone here needs to enter. Besides, your kin won’t want to make new enemies immediately.]
Suddenly, Orca stopped in her tracks.
She stared at Shane for a moment, then resumed walking and asked again.
[New enemies? Are you saying my kin have enemies in this place?]
[Yes. They are like me but are targeting your kin more aggressively.]
[Do you know them?]
[They don’t know me, but I know them.]
The Dragon Heart of the Great Mezaiya Forest.
There’s no way the organization wouldn’t be aware of that item.
They must have been steadily oppressing the Great Mezaiya Forest and the elves living there for a long time.
However, upon hearing this, Orca tilted her head in confusion.
[But isn’t this strange? The phenomenon you humans call a dungeon is held in time by Akasha, the god of humans. Our kin here cannot die even if they die, and cannot live even if they live.]
It’s like a curse.
Orca said that and Shane nodded in agreement.
[Normally, yes. But there are always exceptions.]
[Exceptions?]
[Do you remember when I temporarily lifted Akasha’s seal for you?]
[…Don’t tell me, for them too?]
[I don’t have the ability to lift their seal completely. However, there is a way to avoid the eyes of the Great Seal for a while.]
The Great Seal of Akasha seems perfect at first glance, but it’s not without flaws.
Orca, standing right before him, still had her physical freedom despite being sealed in time.
The same went for Dilaila.
In fact, Dilaila was one of the few who had completely regained her freedom from Akasha’s Great Seal.
These gaps in the Great Seal existed, and some were even created by Akasha, the god of humans.
However, the organization used that gap in another way.
[Do you know why you haven’t suffered any mental damage despite being sealed for such a long time?]
[Probably because of the time reset.]
A dungeon resets after a certain period of time.
Dead monsters revive, and destroyed surroundings are restored to their original state.
Naturally, the mental fatigue caused by this process would also reset.
But what about this dungeon?
[Doesn’t it seem like there are a lot of decaying corpses?]
[…!]
Only then did Orca recall the decaying corpses of monsters she had passed by on her way here.
Of course, there is no reason for there not to be decaying monster corpses in a dungeon.
If they had died before the sealing, it would make sense.
But aren’t there too many?
Moreover, the number of insects eating the corpses was never small.
[The time in this dungeon has not stopped. It is flowing properly. No, to be precise, it has been twisted.]
[What do you mean?]
[It means that the timeline was split by someone. Although this place is still sealed, time itself continues to flow. And this twisted timeline must be quite a painful experience for your kin.]
[…]
Orca clenched her fists tightly.
How long had they been conducting the exploration?
With the underground not seeing the sun, their sense of time began to blur. It was then that the expedition team sensed something unusual.
“Something’s strange.”
Just after finishing a battle and taking a rest, Adam gathered the leaders of the expedition and said this.
“Hmm, you’re right. The frequency of those bugs appearing has increased.”
“That’s right. But not just that, somehow…”
“It feels like we’re being lured.”
Raviata responded to Adam’s words, and when Adam expressed further oddities, Eleksa also added her opinion.
“Now that you mention it, that seems right. There were an unusually high number of blocked paths.”
Lastly, just as Dominic mentioned, they couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were being lured somewhere.
“Hmm. Based on this old man’s experience, it seems right to proceed cautiously in times like this.”
“I don’t want to delay the schedule any further, but I agree with Sir Dominic. Also, recently I’ve felt as if someone has been watching us.”
“Hmm, really?”
Adam dismissed Dominic’s words, saying it was just his intuition.
Meanwhile, Shane was slightly surprised by Adam’s words.
So he’s not the commander of the royal knights for nothing?
Among this expedition team, Adam’s side was considered to have the weakest fighting power.
But unexpectedly, Adam’s intuition was sharp.
Even Raviata hadn’t sensed the eyes watching them, but Adam did.
It was quite surprising.
Have they made their move?
In a way, it was rather strange that it had been so quiet up until now.
Given the nature of the organization, they would have been meticulous enough to eliminate any obstacles early on.
I see why they haven’t moved yet.
Of course, it wasn’t that the organization underestimated this expedition team.
They were just waiting for the right moment to deal with the entire expedition at once.
When the time came, they would certainly start unleashing everything they had prepared.
As expected, it’s starting to come.
The presence that Adam had sensed.
Shane realized that just from that one thing. The cards the enemies had prepared were beginning to move.
From now on, they would have to proceed cautiously and step by step.
However, no matter how cautious Shane was, he couldn’t tell the expedition team about this fact.
For the time being, he could only leave them with a warning not to stray from the academy group.
They had started moving.
“Ambush!!”
It happened while they were walking through the underground tunnel as usual.
Raviata and Shane were the first to stop in their tracks, and the moment Adam hesitated, the glow stones around them exploded all at once and plunged the surrounding area into darkness.
Adam shouted just before it happened, but who wouldn’t be panicked by the simultaneous disappearance of the scarce light source and the incoming attack?
“Argh!”
“Ugh!”
Eleksa’s adventurer party hurriedly raised their shields to defend, but the attackers skillfully targeted the knights at the back.
“What the hell is this?!”
When flames surged from Raviata’s hand at the front, the surroundings quickly lit up.
The attacking enemies were unkown shadows moving eerily.
The creatures, composed of a murky purple aura, were grabbing the neck of the explorers in the darkness.
A fierce battle ensued.
Klein used the skills he had gained over the years, unleashed a more refined dragon’s breath, and swung his sword. Anais who was beside him scattered her shining white aura and cut down the enemies.
Dilaila created a spear and shield from the earth and calmly controlled the battlefield, but the chaos did not easily subside.
“Damn it, what are these things? Aura! Unleash your aura!”
“Ugh… It’s useless! Even when cut, they keep moving!”
“What is this?!”
Enemies that kept moving even after being cut by the aura!
Aura is not merely a technique to enhance cutting power.
It depends on the training method, but the basic principle is that when cut by aura, the internal magical power is disturbed, so the level of killing power could change.
Yet the creatures charged without flinching despite such attacks. So the knights were naturally thrown into confusion.
As the damage seemed likely to grow, Shane considered revealing the solution himself but Klein shouted first.
“Simply cutting them is ineffective! Attack with surfaces, not lines! Strike them!”
A few knights immediately changed the form of their aura.
Having shown considerable strength in the great forest until now, Klein had earned the implicit recognition of some knights.
Whether they were from the imperial or royal families, they quickly read the flow of the battle and adjusted their tactics.
As soon as the form of the magical power that formed the aura began to change significantly, the effect soon appeared just as Klein had said.
“The enemy is weak to impact! Keep that in mind and fight accordingly!”
The knights responded to Adam’s shout. He was the first to implement the strategy.
As the enemies started to fall one by one, the heat of the battle gradually subsided.
“Phew…”
Looking at the fallen enemies, the group checked on those who had been injured in the previous fight.
“What is this…”
Those who had been hit by the enemy’s attacks had all died in bizarre forms.
Black flowers had bloomed on their corpses, which were pale as if all their magical power had been drained.
Seeing this, Raviata frowned.
“This is just like…”
At the same time, Raviata’s gaze turned to Orca who turned pale when she saw the enemies.
[Is this the handiwork of the enemies you mentioned?]
[Yes.]
In the place where the purple aura surrounding the enemies disappeared, elves with blue veins were lying down.
[Dark elves.]
The exploration was postponed for a while, and the group took time to hold another meeting.
“We’ve never heard of such monsters in the Great Mezaiya Forest. This is something the Kingdom of Haiel has investigated on its own for decades.”
Dominic asked after hearing Adam’s words.
“Hmm… but didn’t the expedition teams fail to reach the center? So, what are they exactly?”
Adam looked at Orca whose pale expression had not gone away yet.
“Judging by their appearance alone, they are very similar to elves. However, elves don’t look like that.”
“Well, that’s right.”
Although there weren’t many elves free from the Great SSeal of Akasha, the elves they knew did not have such traits.
“Leader Raviata, do you know anything about this?”
Adam was unable to find an answer and asked Raviata. After a moment of contemplation, she spoke up.
“First of all, we all know that elves are the masters of the forest, right?”
“Of course.”
“But actually, elves don’t live in the forest simply because they are strong in the forest. Their traits are not particularly related to the forest at all.”
“Hmm?”
Her words puzzled the group. They all fundamentally understood elves to be a race that lived in the forest.
“There are elves who live in the desert, and there are elves who live in the polar regions. Elves are a species that adapts differently depending on their environment. They are in the forest simply because of the purity of its magic.”
“So, should we consider those elves to be corrupted by something?”
Raviata nodded her head in response to Dominic’s question.
“It seems something unusual has happened in the cradle. Since the entire forest isn’t engulfed by that kind of magic, only a part of it must be affected.”
“Hmm… In any case, their ambush was very dangerous. If one is wounded by their magic, they end up like those who were sacrificed earlier.”
The individuals who died in the previous battle collapsed in agony and soon met their deaths. Even though they weren’t struck in vital spots.
Black flowers bloomed from their wounds.
“But what have you been doing over there all this time?”
Dominic asked Shane during this meeting.
Shane had been collecting flowers from the corpses that perished in the recent battle. He took out a monocle and examined the flowers closely.
“If we want to deal with the enemy, we must first understand them. I thought there might be clues in the flowers they left behind.”
“Hmm, that makes sense. Have you found anything then?”
Dominic asked, and the group’s attention turned to Shane.
Shane was someone who had previously formed hypotheses about the weather phenomena of the Great Mezaiya Forest without even visiting it.
So wouldn’t he notice something different now that he saw it firsthand?
Shane slowly began to speak.
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