Chapter 256 – Reunion
A forest is a collection of plants. A place where animals do not come and go becomes the territory of plants.
Conversely, plants cannot grow where there is animal traffic.
There is a road in the forest.
It is not an artificial path that someone intentionally creates. It is a path that was created naturally as countless animals and humans passed through a relatively sparsely forested area.
The small path between the bushes pointed out by the old man was a natural path, but it did not appear to be frequented.
“Hmm… Look at these footprints.”
“Even if you look at the footprints…”
I know someone has passed this bush, but that’s it.
I can’t figure out anything more from these footprints.
Roin poked at the footprints in the bushes and said.
“Judging from the moisture and hardness of the footprints, they are new footprints. What do you want to do?”
At Roin’s question, I looked at Trisian. She is now the decision-maker for this group. Trissian was silent for a moment before she opened her mouth.
“Is there anything else we can know besides that the footprints are new?”
The old man stuttered and answered as if reading the footprints.
“Hmm… In terms of size and shape, three males and one female? Hmm… No, the footprints of one man are rather old. Then two men, yes. I guess that’s right.”
“The footprints of a woman and two men in such a deep forest… Very suspicious.”
A woman and two men in a forest where disappearances often occur… Maybe two men dragged the woman away?
Trissian nodded her head.
“I looked around all the places the pharmacist might know. And I found a new clue here. It would be good to follow in their footsteps.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
The order has changed.
This time, the old man took the lead and walked while tracing the footprints.
The footprints were quite long. After walking for a while, he stopped when he noticed that the guards following Trissian were breathing heavily.
“Whoa… Shall we take a break for a while?”
“Hmm… That sounds good.”
At my suggestion, Trisian also nodded after seeing the guards breathing heavily.
She leaned against the tree beside her with her elbows clasped in her arms without any sign of tremor.
The blue sky was visible through the leaves that were slowly turning red.
The sun at the top began to slowly decline.
Winter is drawing near, so the days are short, and since we are in the woods, it will set earlier.
It took me more than five hours to get here because I had wandered and wandered as if exploring the forest. Considering going back, it might be difficult to proceed any further.
“Mr. Trissian.”
“What is going on?”
“Are you going to proceed? You have to think about how long it will take to get out of the forest.”
“Hmm… That’s true, but…”
Trisian seemed a little conflicted as she looked at her footprints.
She does not know how much further she will have to walk before she will encounter the owners of the footprints.
She might run into it in ten minutes or less. Conversely, there is also the possibility that she will not be encountered until after the sun goes down.
We didn’t bring our camping gear, so any further tracking would be risky.
“I can’t help it. Today here,”
-Kyaaaaa!!
It was just when Trician tried to get her to resign and withdraw. The tearing screams heard from somewhere made everyone in the party widen their eyes and looked at each other.
“It just…”
“It didn’t feel that far away! Let’s go quickly!”
Trisian took the lead and started running.
After that, Roin and I, Natalie. The guards and the pharmacist began to follow.
Trisian was sprinting at such a speed that it was hard to understand how she was so fast with her armor on.
Over the shoulder of Trician, who ran in the lead, I could see a small clearing in the distance on the forest road.
The commotion is getting closer. The women’s day line scream is confusing. The owners of the footprints must be beyond this clearing!
“Whoop, whoop… !”
Reaching the clearing, Trissian stood there, exhaling heavily, shrugging her shoulders.
She wondered what was going on. As soon as she came out to the clearing, she stood beside her and kept an eye on the situation.
“Aww!! Dad! Dad!!”
A girl, a girl who seemed to be the age she would become an adult in a year or two from now, was crying sadly on her knees.
She glanced at the ‘object’ the girl calls her daddy.
There wasn’t even a speck of life in the crumpled, sunken corpse. Yes, it is more accurate to describe this corpse as a mummy. A mummy withered.
She shifted her gaze to the girl’s back. There were two men in gray cloaks.
The handsome young man with blond hair that reached her shoulders in a ponytail, and the middle-aged man with a bushy beard and brown hair turned back all back were men he had seen before.
“Gemanic and Beck…”
They were the ones who formed a party together when exploring the ant burrow.
I remember the flame sword that Gemanic wielded because it left a deep impression.
The two of them also looked surprised at our sudden appearance.
The girl who cried while hugging her mummy hiccuped in surprise at our appearance and widened her eyes.
“Whoa… Whoa… This is Denevalve Trissian, captain of the Westway Guards. He came here while investigating a recent disappearance in the forest southwest of the city. Who are you?”
Trisian, who seemed to have stabilized his breathing to some extent, showed his wariness towards Gemanic and Beck.
“Ah, nice to meet you. My name is Gemanic, a second-class mercenary.”
“Beckda.”
Trisian, who checked the mercenary card that Gemanic and Beck had taken out of their arms, looked at the girl who was kneeling on the floor.
“Um, who is this girl?”
“I am a client. A request came up to the guild to help her find her father.”
“Was she the daughter of the missing pharmacist?”
“I’m not missing anymore, but…”
My mother muffled her words so that the girl could not hear them.
Found the body, so it’s not missing.
“Um, then… What? Are you saying that all the people who have disappeared have been mummified like the corpses here?”
“No, that wouldn’t be it.”
At my question, Trisian shook his head.
“There are dozens of people missing. But the only body found here is this one. Nothing has been resolved.”
“By the way, who the hell is doing this to dry people to death?”
It is a corpse that has dried up and shows no signs of moisture. I feel sorry for the girl called my daughter, but I wonder how well she could hug a corpse like that and cry.
“How does Natalia look? Who do you think did it?”
“Hmm… I guess I’ll have to look at the body to find out…”
At my question, Natalya showed a troubled expression.
Since the girl is crying while holding her father’s corpse, it would be difficult to talk about seeing the corpse.
I looked at the corpse in silence and turned my gaze to the approaching person.
“Hanseong, it’s been a while.”
My munic came over waving her hand. She was quite dumbfounded because she honestly never expected to run into him here.
“That girl posted a request to help find her father? She doesn’t seem to have enough money to hire 2nd and 3rd mercenaries…”
“Aha… I mean…”
At my question, Jemanic smiled bitterly.
“The request money was only 1 silver that the girl had worked hard to collect.”
“… You said you would take it and help?”
One silver is only 100,000 won. It’s not enough money to hire Gemanic, a 2nd-class mercenary, and Beck, a 3rd-class mercenary. I couldn’t understand why he helped find that girl’s father.
He studied the girl’s face carefully.
Her face is full of freckles and she’s not that pretty.
She doesn’t give a lot of money, and it’s not like her client girl is a fabulous beauty. Then why?
As I was looking at the girl with such a question, my mother opened her mouth as if she let out a sigh.
“It is very unfortunate. I’m thinking maybe I’ll just get 1 silver. How about you, Hanseong?”
“Hmm?”
I couldn’t figure out what my mother-nick was suddenly asking me, so I tilted his head.
“What?”
“They said this was the West Way’s guards, so you were commissioned by the guards and moving together?”
“No, I’m just helping.”
No money was received. I’m just helping her because I want to erase her debt to Trician.
In fact, I don’t have any labor power at all to help. Roin is doing the tracking, and in case of a fight, Natalia is going to leave it.
“You are truly amazing. I guess it’s right that I don’t take money from that girl either.”
“Huh?”
“By the way, what about dozens of missing people?”
Gemanic misunderstands and passes the story on his own.
However, I don’t have the hobby of having a long conversation with a man, so I passed it on moderately without solving the misunderstanding.
“I heard that there are more than one pharmacist or hunter who went into this forest and then disappeared. It seems that they entered the forest before us. Did you see any traces of other pharmacists or hunters?”
“No… I had never seen anything like it. Okay… Not one or two are missing, the problem is quite serious.”
