Lightly popping out of the crystal gate, Jade alighted on a land of soft grasses.
It was fields of green and the bright blue sky as far as the eye could see. He saw mountains in the distance. An old road cut through the grasslands, and the occasional boulder rose up from the ground. Unobstructed scenery, the sort that cleared the heart, spread before him.
“The Great Altano Plains sure are big.”
“It’s such a pretty sight!”
Lowe and Lululee, who had also come out here through the crystal gate, casually commented on the location. Adventurers wouldn’t normally have much to do with this place—even caravans took their time moving along the old road here. But now there were plenty of them here, Jade’s party included.
Of course, Silver Sword had not come here for fun and games. This was work.
“Is this quest really worth us coming out here?” Lowe muttered as though it didn’t quite make sense as they went down the old road. “The boss is only going to be on the level of a B-rank dungeon, at most. It doesn’t have to be us out here.”
“If we were just defeating monsters, then sure,” said Jade. “Our job is to find out what’s making them come here.”
Two weeks ago, the Adventurers Guild had issued a strange quest: Defeat the monsters on the Great Altano Plains.
Monsters, which were supposed to appear only in dungeons, had appeared on the Great Altano Plains, which were not a dungeon. The condition for completing that quest was to defeat the monsters that had popped up on the plains.
The monsters weren’t very dangerous, but no one knew why they had started showing up here. Since there was nothing else to do until the fighting tournament, many adventurers had taken on the quest of defeating monsters on the Great Altano Plains.
Jade looked around the calm vista. Even after coming all the way out here, he still couldn’t get a whiff of ether or anything. “Normally, monsters won’t go near places that don’t have ether, to say nothing of a boss-class monster that can win the territorial dispute for a dungeon here, even if it’s just B-class. It’s strange. I guess the guild didn’t pay too much attention to it at first and wrote it off as an abnormality, but the monsters just keep coming… Anyway, this quest will be good practice for the tournament, so I’m sure the adventurers are glad to have it, though.”
“Doesn’t this mean it’s the same as the Forest of Eternity?” Lululee tilted her head. “That wasn’t a dungeon, either, but a monster still showed up there.”
“I considered that, but it’s not the same as what’s going on here.”
Normally, ether was emitted from dungeons, which were constructions made by the ancients.
The exception was the C-class dungeon known as the Forest of Eternity. The Forest of Eternity was, as the name suggested, a forest rather than a man-made structure. Despite that, it emitted a slight amount of ether, attracting weak monsters. But it turned out that the source of this ether leakage was a hidden dungeon in the forest.
“There’s not a hint of any ether around here. There’s nothing that would make monsters come close…”
“Hmmm…” Lululee furrowed her brow as she crossed her arms.
“Anyway, the quest we’ve been given this time is the defeat of the monsters on the plains and to identify what’s drawing them here… Though that’s easier said than done; searching these massive plains seems like a huge undertaking…” Jade came right to a stop.
“What’s up, leader?” asked Lowe.
“…A scream.”
Lululee’s and Lowe’s faces tensed. They knew Jade’s eyes and ears were superhumanly sensitive, even when he didn’t have his skill up.
“There’s a party fighting somewhere…this way.”
No sooner had Jade said that than he was running off toward the source of the scream.