The next morning—
After entering the Secret Realm, the first day had mostly consisted of aimless adventure, treasure hunting, and Petra constantly escaping from people she had offended—or people who wanted to capture or kill her for the bounty.
The second day, meanwhile, had been mostly occupied by the Beast Tide.
Entire sections of the forest had been flattened, practitioners had fought throughout the night, and countless beasts were either dead, fleeing, or hiding deep within the fog-filled forest.
And now…
The third morning had quietly arrived…
* * *
Drip…
Drip-drip…
Drip…
Cold droplets of condensed water slowly fell from the canopy overhead.
High above the forest floor, hidden between several enormous trees, a large rope-style hammock-house gently swayed in the morning breeze.
Despite being a quick fix, the overall structure looked surprisingly decent, with layers of Interwoven ropes, bark-like shields, sheets of leaves, and several stretched beast hides mixed together to form a suspended nest-like platform between the surrounding tree trunks. Small woven walls blocked the wind, while several hanging baskets used for storage swayed nearby.
Before dark, Rose and Lira had built it together, and it was done with a similar method to how the buildings in their childhood home were crafted.
Apparently, both of them had learned this special style of weaving when they were young.
Inside the hanging house—
Petra rolled around lazily, her groggy little eyes faintly furrowing as she mumbled something inaudible.
Mm~
She stretched her tiny limbs before slowly opening her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was a dense white wall directly in front of her face.
Petra blinked.
She shifted in place, then reached out her small hand to rub her eyes.
"…Huh?"
While still half asleep, she rubbed her eyes one more time, then pushed herself up into a half-sitting position and slowly looked around.
Her bright emerald hair fell over her face, but after brushing it aside and tucking it behind her ear, she finally got a good view of her elevated surroundings.
After looking, only then did she realize that it wasn't a wall; no, the fog filling the forest had thickened significantly overnight. It completely filled the surrounding forest like condensed milk, making it difficult to see even ten meters ahead.
"…Woah~?"
She blinked in confusion, eventually questioning herself if she was still asleep.
The atmosphere felt a bit strange, as if she were lost in an empty dream.
Petra slowly sat up, and only then did she discover that all the girls had somehow become tangled together while sleeping.
Lira's tail had wrapped around Rose's waist, Rose's leg was crushing down on Wind's chest, and Mell was sleeping upright against the wall, half propped up by their pile of flowers.
Petra blinked twice.
"…What an amazing view~! Hehe!"
While fighting the urge to jump back in, she slowly pulled herself out and fixed her hair.
After eventually reaching the 'door' of the hanging house—
Swoosh!
She jumped out directly, then fell all the way down.
Several seconds later…
Poof!
She smoothly landed on the forest floor, before looking back up toward the woven structure.
"…Mm…"
She tilted her head, then Petra crossed her arms thoughtfully.
"I need a better pop-up house in the future." Alone for once, she looked genuinely troubled.
"…Damn it, I really want a spatial ring… Mmmm! How inconvenient!"
Petra grumbled.
Her eyes slowly shifted to the side, and soon, she looked at a shallow burrow that had been dug nearby. Here, the giant frog had dug a hole to sleep for the night. When Petra looked over, she immediately met its eyes, and it instantly stiffened, then began to sweat profusely.
"Woof!"
…That was not the sound of a frog!
Anyways… the creature's large black eyes filled with panic. Its expression was practically screaming: 'Please don't make me eat a house!'
Petra rolled her eyes.
"Like hell!"
She wasn't that cruel!
Although she could solve her problem by treating the giant frog as some kind of living storage ring, she didn't want to! The 'Sky Strike Dart Frog', with its 'Void Belly ability', could store inanimate objects, but doing this was a bit uncomfortable. Petra was very kind to her own people, well… to most of them—
"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
Bang!
Rose fell from the sky.
Petra: "..."
She crashed into the ground face-first, then sprawled out like a limp cat. Without time for her to even get up, just a second later, Swoosh! Lira jumped down after her, landing directly on top of her back. Her feet were together, and her arms stretched high above her head, making a cute little pose.
Mm, it was an elegant landing, ten out of ten!
"…Oof!"
As for Rose, her ears violently shot up.
The cat beastmen immediately exploded with rage, jumped up, and grabbed Lira by her tail loop. Petra watched in awe as she proceeded to swing her sister around like a weapon, then twirled her straight into a tree—BANG!
"Get off me!"
"Wah!!"
Boom!
Petra: "..."
Lira 'crashed' into the nearby tree...
The commotion woke up Wind and Mell, who, after fixing themselves up, popped their heads out of the hanging house and looked down. They were just in time to see a red-faced Lira jump up at Rose. Rose met her challenge head-on, and the two of them disappeared into the nearby foliage, fighting furiously.
Meanwhile, after coming down, Mell quietly stepped towards Wind.
The silver elf looked pale, and like Petra, Mell was worried about her current condition.
"…I don't like this fog," Wind muttered while rubbing her forehead. Her silver-white eyes were slightly unfocused, and her face was pale. "It wasn't this bad yesterday, but now that the fog has become so dense, it's interfering with my sense of direction! I never knew I relied on 'it' so much…" She was naturally talking about her abilities as a white whistle.
Mell frowned.
"Are you feeling a sense of vertigo?"
"...Uh-huh, yeah…" She nodded, then stumbled from the dizzy spell. Without another word, Mell bent down and helped Wind by letting her lean on her shoulder.
Wind accepted this surprisingly fast.
Petra watched this with eyes filled with suspicion.
-
After some time passed, Petra began her morning routine.
First, she stretched. Second, she had a snack, and third, she began a few experiments to test the surrounding Secret Realm. After all that, another twenty minutes passed, and Rose and Lira finally stopped fighting.
While Rose and Lira packed up the camp with Mell, Wind sat this one out, and Petra wandered off to test the newly thickened fog.
Standing within the vapor, Petra slowly spread out her mental energy before attempting to 'push' her senses outward through the mist. The fog resisted strangely; it felt almost sticky in a bizarre sense. Unlike normal fog, it was much heavier, and almost alive in the strange way it 'didn't' move.
This fog must be the ability of some creature, she mused.
Besides the slight resistance, there wasn't much more to note. Although it was annoying, it was far from impossible to deal with, but pushing it away wasn't really worth the energy.
"…Interesting," she muttered, narrowing her big black eyes.
She began trying different methods to test the properties of the fog. First, unlike her mental energy, there was no resistance when spiritual energy swept through the mist. This told Petra that whatever created the fog was also controlling it through some method that utilized Mystic Energy—not Mental Energy, but another derivative of Mystic Energy that she was currently unaware of.
Next, Petra checked the composition of the fog, looking for any poisons or unique contaminants.
To her slight surprise, she found nothing…
Finally, she collected some of the condensed fog, but it quickly lost a lot of its unique qualities after being separated from the source. She tried to mix it with fog she produced herself using a spell, but the two fluids refused to blend, acting like water and oil.
After that, she continuously tested ways to perceive further into the fog while muttering under her breath. Petra had crouched down at this point, and to Wind, Mell, and Rose, she looked like a little girl playing in the mud.
Unfortunately, nothing she tried worked particularly well. In the end, Petra couldn't find a way to help Wind, at least, not in a short amount of time.
Eventually, after finishing a few final experiments, Petra gave up…
She finished filling out a small notebook she was using to take notes, added it to her Inner Library, and then destroyed the physical book.
-
After everyone had finished waking up and settled down, it was time for a quick team meeting.
The girls gathered together beneath the enormous tree, while the thick white fog continuously drifted through the surroundings. Petra sat atop a large rock; the fat frog tightly wrapped in her arms. She crossed her legs, and her face was full of energy.
"Alright!" she declared. "Serious discussion time!"
Clap-clap!
Wind remained leaning against Mell, while rubbing her forehead. Rose sat nearby, while Lira hung upside down on a tree branch, lazily swinging her tail.
The girls all began to talk about what they wanted to do going forward. The main focus was whether they wanted to stay in the outer ring to search for more treasures, or advance towards the central ring and try to see what those three points on the map were all about. With the fog suddenly becoming very thick, it was clear that getting lost was a real possibility, but that didn't seem to matter to them much.
Petra puffed out her cheeks.
Soon, the girls gradually began discussing their options.
-
Time passed.
While they were still talking—
Tap…
Tap-tap…
Tap-tap-tap…
A faint sound of something suddenly emerged from within the depths of the nearby fog.
This sound immediately caught everyone's attention, and they all quickly turned.
Slowly, very slowly—
A short figure walked out from the white haze…
Petra raised an eyebrow.
"…Hm?"
'Who is this guy?'
This figure looked strange…
At first glance, he resembled a ghost, but not quite. He wasn't a soul body, nor was he part of the rarely recorded Ghost Clan, no, instead he seemed to be some other kind of lifeform.
Under normal circumstances, Petra would not be able to determine this, however, she had recently been working with Jillian a lot, who also just so happened to specialize in this field, so she was sure that this young man was no spirit.
The man's face remained completely expressionless, and although his movements were stiff, he clearly possessed some kind of purpose and a limited amount of intelligence.
He slowly approached the group, and as he did, his body flickered faintly like an unstable flame.
When he reached them, Petra quickly noticed something else…
The clothing he wore resembled the current uniforms of the Hellon Empire's Imperial Army, except much older. The design was outdated by at least several generations, and the damage reflected on his uniform seemed to be life-threatening.
At his waist rested two short knives and a small letter pouch.
'Some kind of messenger?'
Petra rolled her eyes thoughtfully.
The figure stopped directly in front of her, before silently extending a folded letter that had been grasped in his hand.
"…For me?" Petra asked, a confused look on her face.
Petra casually reached out, but the moment her fingers touched the paper—
Her hand passed straight through it!
"…Eh?"
Then, the letter distorted and dispersed. In addition, the figure, as if affected by the touch, suddenly dissolved into white mist before scattering back into the surrounding fog.
The forest became silent again…
Everyone stared blankly, not sure what to think.
"Did we just see a ghost?" Rose finally asked, her voice slightly shaky.
"Creepy…" Petra muttered.
* * *
While Petra and the girls had just woken up, the same situation was happening to the surrounding explorers. The fog had thickened, blinding many people and causing countless more to become lost.
Like the ghostly figure Petra had encountered, these ethereal echoes appeared one after another, each doing their own thing.
Some were harmless, dissipating at the slightest touch, but not all were docile! The stronger echoes, those with a more solid physical form, would attack on sight, slashing at anyone who approached, and when combined with the limited range of vision, countless people had begun to panic and flee. It was unknown if this change was caused by yesterday's stampede, or if it was simply a natural feature of the Secret Realm, but today's chaos was undoubtedly just as deadly as the day before.
Today, as one person woke up after another, it quickly became clear that things were getting bad…