He’d matured so much. I felt that calling him a handsome young man was more accurate now than anything—he was no longer a boy.
With his hair cut short, I doubted anyone would ever mistake him for a girl from now on. And no matter how much dirt and filth he might be covered in, it would never fully obscure his refined elegance. Royalty sure was amazing.
Prince Wald smiled radiantly.
In the dark of this moonless night, the red of the campfire reflected in his emerald eyes.
“It’s nothing,” I finally replied.
Then, at that moment...the campfire light in his eyes flickered and vanished.
There had been no wind to snuff out the fire—no wind rustled the boughs of the great trees above us.
All sounds had vanished from the forest. Even the usual chitter of animals was gone.
Then, after the fire had been extinguished and our surroundings had been plunged into an inky darkness, a dim, pallid glow began to fill the forest.
No, wait. A fog was beginning to roll in.
White mist approached us from far in the distance. It suffocated all the sounds of the forest as it crept closer.
Grabbing his pack from where he’d left it sitting next to him, Wal thrust it at me. He drew his sword from its scabbard, his grip tight around its hilt.
He wasn’t preparing to stand his ground and fight, however. He was only playing the part of a decoy, buying time for me to throw everything together and get ready to Jump.
As a rule, we prioritized escape. Our ultimate goal was to return to our homeland, not to win battles.
We hadn’t been attacked by other transmigrators yet, but we wouldn’t take any risks where monsters were concerned. As soon as we knew one was on our trail, we would clear out immediately.
So as long as Wal remained close at hand, we’d be fine. But I was still relieved that he could hold off an enemy.
Hold on... Huh?
Wal’s blade shone with a cold, whitish-blue light.
Although I was a non-metal craftsman, there were still two types of metals I could handle without issue: silver and mythril. The latter was also known as “saint’s silver.”
Because the prince had lost his sword during our escape from Tachyrinn, I had given him my military-issue sword after I’d reinforced it with mythril.
Now, the saint’s silver blade was shining blue.
“Spirits of the dead are coming,” I warned Wal.
Mythril only glowed this way when it detected the presence of creatures hailing from the Realm of the Dead.
“Kariya, we’re surrounded by the mists. Does that mean the world’s connected to another realm—to the one of the dead?” he asked.
I cast my gaze at the protective barrier around our camp. Its usual glow, active whenever the barrier was erected and functioning, had faded.
Somehow, the protective barrier had been neutralized.
We had to Jump.
It was a split-second decision. I couldn’t hesitate just because night had fallen or because we were in the middle of the woods.
Tossing everything into my storage, I grabbed Wal’s arm as he vigilantly surveyed our surroundings.
But the moment I attempted to Jump, that mysterious voice I’d heard before echoed in my mind.
Leaving the area will cancel your participation in the event.
Will you proceed?
My surprise got the better of me. “Is this a forced event?!”
“Kariya?!” Wal yelped my name in response to my open bewilderment.
I had heard a system message I remembered from Golden Dawn. Remnants of the game’s support system had been replicated in this world in the form of a divine voice that I had just heard.
The faint mist thickened.
Think, damn it!
The mist connected us to another realm, and the voice had described our situation as an “event.”
That meant our current circumstances weren’t something that I had triggered, not even by accident. This was an event that was guaranteed to occur once all the requirements for it to activate had been met.
The white mist.
An event that would end if I teleported.
The location was probably irrelevant. We were in one of many unnamed forests with towering trees in the beginner areas of the Central Nations.
Was it the season? It was early summer. Monsoon season. And if this were a realm merger with the Realm of the Dead, the monsters we’d encounter would be ghosts.
Only consecrated weapons or holy magic could defeat spirits. Since I had been a non-metal crafter in Golden Dawn, this wasn’t an event I would have ever encountered.
“Is something wrong, Kariya?”
Still tightly clutching his sword, Wal looked at me. The depth of his concern was clear in his eyes.
That was when I realized something.
This wasn’t my event. It was his.
In Golden Dawn, some events could be triggered by NPCs, who would then be the central figure in them...and that was exactly the type of situation we’d found ourselves in now.
This particular event occurred in the early summer—“around the summer solstice, on the night of a new moon.” It wouldn’t trigger in towns or villages as it required being “in a place with no others, surrounded by nature,” and it would revolve around “an NPC who lost a family member or loved one within the past year.”
From within the white fog, the spirits of the dead would steal the faces and voices of the dearly departed and try to deceive the NPC into joining them in the Realm of the Dead. To win the event, players had to prevent that from happening. And if anyone tried to Jump away, the system would issue a warning.
Because this was an NPC-centric event, I couldn’t simply grab the star of the show and bail. If I did, the only one to escape would be me.
The forsaken living would be damned, dragged down to the underworld.