The Forest of Dream Delusions
"Since you're already back, then we should be heading back as well. This hunting grounds trip ended early because of that fog,"
Liushu, who once again didn't have a cigarette to smoke, looked gloomy.
"Actually, I should have brought these students back much earlier, but I didn't want to have to return here to wait for you again after going back to the school, so I decided to wait for you here,"
"Well, I guess I should thank you for that..."
Mo Ying didn't quite know what to say.
"Where's Director Wei?"
"She went to look for you. In the end, you came back, and she disappeared."
"But don't worry, she's much tougher than you think. Let's just head back first."
"Will it really be okay?"
Mo Ying looked worriedly at the portal behind them.
"It's fine, let's go."
Liushu had already started leading the students back.
"Mo Ying, did you encounter something unusual?"
Xiya walked over to Mo Ying's side.
"I did run into something, but it wasn't a big problem. Let me introduce you—this is Anlus, the fairy I contracted with. See, I'm super amazing,"
"... What's her ability? And what's the price?"
Shuang Yun asked directly, getting to the heart of the matter.
"It's an ability I'll almost never need to use. The price... is just some magic power."
It was obvious she wasn't very good at lying.
Xiya, who knew Mo Ying well enough, could tell Mo Ying was lying, but didn't call her out.
Shuang Yun believed Mo Ying.
"Let's head back to the school,"
"Yeah, time to go home. Is it that late already?"
Mo Ying stretched lazily.
She'd had her fill of fun for one day.
Inside the fairy homeland.
Wei stood atop a giant leaf, facing a red-haired fairy.
"I remember you..." the red-haired fairy spoke.
"You are... the first priestess of the elves... Your name is... Wei."
"It's been tens of thousands of years, huh..."
"Even if you once wielded the strength to fight a thousand, now, you're just a servant under the Goddess of Time."
"Take back your words before I tear out your tongue."
Wei said coldly. Dıscover more novels at novel✦fire.net
The red-haired fairy let out a shrill laugh, and the surrounding magic power surged.
There was no doubt—she too was a queen.
"Let's see how much power the Goddess of Time's servant really has!"
Mo Ying and the others returned to school. About a month had passed since they'd entered the hunting grounds.
Very few students and fairies had made pacts, and Mo Ying was one of them.
Director Wei only returned to the school three days after—they guessed she'd spent three days searching for Mo Ying in the hunting grounds.
Mo Ying was tactful enough not to ask about it; she could tell Wei was not in a good mood.
In that month, Shuang Yun's grades improved by leaps and bounds. If they'd once hovered between average and excellent, now she was already an outstanding student.
"Looks like that time travel really taught her a lot,"
Liushu lit a cigarette.
Even though Shuang Yun had no memory of that time travel, she obviously learned a lot—her body remembered it all.
These inexplicable sword techniques allowed her to quickly establish herself in Dreamscape Academy.
In the past, the future, or on another timeline, who had she met?
A gentle breeze swept by, and a verdant leaf landed on Liushu's head.
He looked up at the flourishing trees inside the school, and the blossoming flowers in the gardens.
It was a beautiful scene, but Liushu had no time to enjoy it.
Because—it was autumn.
Autumn, the season of decay. Yet now, the branches sprouted new buds, and the flowers were all in full bloom.
Even more, they were exceptionally lush.
Looking at his feet, there were roots of trees snaking from who-knew-where; these branches were already decaying, yet they still kept spreading.
Liushu lit his lighter and tossed it onto the branches.
The flames slowly started to burn.
Those branches turned to ashes; before it could spread further, Liushu stamped the fire out.
"Something's about to happen,"
Liushu had a bad premonition.
He remembered that time, in another city, when he encountered a flower from the hunting grounds. Looking at the abnormal scene now, he already sensed something ominous was brewing.
"What's the hunting grounds closest to Anzelona?"
At the World Moon Hunters' Association, Akina posed the question.
"The Tenth Hunting Grounds, forest of Dream Delusions,"
Efilia replied while trimming her nails.
"Seems this hunting grounds is already starting to influence the outside,"
Feligini said, looking at an exceptionally flourishing potted plant in the association.
"That's not a good sign."
Akina lifted up a floorboard in the association; underneath, it was filled with tree roots and tendrils.
Akina ripped the vines and branches apart with brute strength.
As those vines and branches tore free, they turned partly to black ash and drifted down.
Clearly, they were products of magic power.
"I've received reports too. Lately, deaths in the Forest of Dream Delusions have suddenly increased, and the number of people who've gone mad has risen a lot."
"Incidents of people attacking others for no reason have appeared all over the streets of Anzelona. Those people all went mad after coming out of the Forest of Dream Delusions,"
Efilia played with her long hair, starting to comb it.
"Looks like, for some unknown reason, the Tenth Hunting Grounds is going to stir up a storm,"
"And what's it got to do with us? No one's hired us to be bodyguards in the hunting grounds. Not a single job. We dig wild veggies and mushrooms in the countryside every day,"
"At this rate, soon we'll be pushing up daisies ourselves."
Efilia bit into some wild veggies in her hand.
"If Liza Yila doesn't come back, we'll be kicked out. There's only five days left before rent is due here. Yeah, it's a rundown place, but if we can't pay, we'll be thrown out all the same,"
"We can't even scrape together a thousand Naye for a month's rent. My god."
Efilia clutched her head.
"It's been this long, but Liza Yila still hasn't come back. Did the bandit gang kill her after all?"
"Unless the sky falls, seems unlikely."
"Or maybe, after she got the money, she decided to take it all for herself?"
Akina offered a more sinister guess.
At those words, the other two lifted their heads slightly.
There was a hint of menace in their gazes.
"She'd better not have done that."
Efilia's voice had turned chilly.