Leaving the defence of the perimeter to the other warriors, Milo, stepped further into the fields of bright blue grass, they were tall enough in certain areas to almost tickle his chin, but typically stopped just above his waist, at every step of the way, he expected some sort of lurking beast to pounce, but the entire area was surprisingly calm, apart from a few crickets and dragonflies of a similar colouration as the environment, nothing else appeared or otherwise let its presence known.
Circling around the initial place they had all been transported, he eventually reached the limit of the plains of blue, it would appear that the tall grass were actually seating elevated, a somewhat steep drop of a dozen of meters required to reach a wavy scenery of hills, few crooked tree standing proud nonetheless, their branches in full blooms of fiery orange, contrasting nicely against the blue of the ground, and the green of the sun.
Groups and packs of wild animals could be seen grazing about, goats, deers and all sorts of creatures could be seen simply going about their days, feasting from the grass, flowers, leaves, drinking from ponds and lakes, which were of the same colour as the emerald sun, reflecting its shine.
The great towers were still far, but there was a small town sitting not so far from him, its design rather compact, without walls or other fortifications, seemingly, there were no reasons for the people here to expect danger to come their way.
Although most definitely a place for people to live, this city looked more so like a checkpoint, a road traversing it right down the middle, the central most building simply making way, upon said building a row of sculptures depicting animals in full glory, lion, bear, wolf, even a rabbit, in fact, this bestial imagery seemed especially important here.
Milo tried to enhance his vision, but failed miserably, a slight ache coursing through his head as he reflexively attempted this usually simple manoeuvre, it would take him a little while to get used to this realm's strange mana behaviour, he breathed in and out, taking his sweet time to do what he wanted, whilst his usual habit of circulating mana was wrong, it was not quite atrocious, meaning that it was not completely different.
Spending nearly an hour of experimenting without moving from this spot, simply remaining in place, it was important to mention that Milo was currently completely shirtless, unkempt, without any shoes, the only article of clothing he was wearing were pants and even then, they were in a rather pitiful states, one leg having been cut off for Minli to access an injury, by all accounts, he looked like some sort of wild man, and he was watching a city full of people to boot, Milo was especially suspicious looking, but made sure to remain concealed for the moment.
Finally managing to achieve a lesser version of the sight enhancement using his golden mana, Milo got a closer look at the denizens of this unknown realm.
He himself did not know much about realms, he had heard of the divine realm before, typically referred to as the heavens, there was also hell amongst the realms that people knew of, without even realising that these were other realms, obviously, there were also the realms of the elemental spirits, which immediately meant that the amount of realms separate from this already immense and wide world was pretty much unending, as there were as many elements as there were blades of grass.
They dressed in light yellow for the great majority, necklaces of fangs and claws, beast hair weaved together and worn on top of their flowing clothes, sometimes meant to fasten things together, as far as patterns went for their apparels, it was once more depicting aspects of animals, or beasts themselves.
Milo wouldn't want to make a baseless supposition, but it seemed like beasts were rather important in the culture of those people, who did not appear like to be of any species the young man was acquainted with, the body structure of those folks was very much humanoid, their bare skin was a smooth grey, some sort of smoke hanging just above their flesh, phasing in and out of existence, yet, even when present, never obstructed the view of the denizens form.
Eyes also odd, pupils changing shape every dozens of seconds or so, rectangular like those of a sheep, slits like those of a snake and so on, their connection to the kingdom of animals ran deeper than simple admiration.
Another odd thing that Milo noted, was that their hair was always of a bright shade, the colours themselves were not anything too surprising, but always did they contrast against their grey skin.
Knowing full well that going up to those people was a poor idea, not that they seemed especially hostile or anything, but mostly because he and them looked very much different and that neither of the two parties would understand a single thing the other said, that was a recipe for disaster, this sort of things were better left to the smarter folks, although, his wild looks might actually be a good criteria considering their keen interest in beasts.
When he finally came back to the initial area he had awakened in, nothing had changed, those that were more lightly injured had awakened, Minli was still in deep slumber, her body weight not great enough to flatten the tall blade of grass he had set her upon.
"Milo! Are you alright?" and most importantly, Helena had also woken up, her own injuries had not been too severe, but considering that she had still been hit hard enough to be knocked out, it was a relief to see her .
"Yes, but what about you? Feeling any pain still?"
"I am fine…" she looked at those that still remained unconscious "...Are they?"
"Minli stabilised everyone, so despite the looks of things, they should open their eyes soon enough" the looks of things was indeed pretty bad, gouged out eyes, missing limbs, shredded organs and shattered bones, it was like they had been taken in the jaws of serpents and slammed down repeatedly.
Milo remained silent for a few moments.
"It's all thanks to Griar" without his stand against Loimos, the undead would have had free reign to finish everyone off.
"So he is… I see, in the end, he really became the proud knight he envisioned, huh?"
The ambiance was brought down instantly, so Helena changed the subject.
"What did you discover out there?"
"Well, there are civilised people for sure…"
Milo explained in as much detail as possible, others listening in as he shared what little insight he had gotten.
They had escaped death, but this new environment could prove deadly too if careless.