Lyra was looking at Vacuse quietly from her place. If people didn’t know Vacuse, they would think he was speaking the truth and was a youth that was filled with the hot-blooded vision of glory and whatnot.
But Lyra knew that things weren’t that simple. At first, she thought Vacuse was nothing more than an intelligent beast, but she had learned that he was far from that.
He was a scheming monster that always had a backup plan for most things. So, she took great interest in what Vacuse was doing now.
Vacuse looked from Captain Mera to Kagerou. "If you want me to be safe and all, why don’t you try and look into that map to figure out what it’s all about?"
The woman growled as she turned to Kagerou.
Kagerou was frowning. "How do you draw this map? I can’t make sense of all of this."
That was the truth. The way that Vacuse drew the map was more like sprawling on paper without direction and points. Kagerou eventually shook his head and handed the map over to the Captain.
The Captain took one look at it and smiled sweetly. "It seems Lord Vacuse didn’t know the way to the Dungeon. I can’t trust your judgment on this, and so with the authority given to me by the Dragon Lord, I am going to prevent you from going!"
Vacuse frowned. He was finding things more troublesome than he expected. He didn’t foresee that the Captain might stand in his way, and she was logical and right in doing so as well.
But he wasn’t that worried. The plan of raiding that particular Dungeon must happen by any means, since it was crucial for the next step of his plan concerning the Orcs.
Just then, Lord Ragna spoke. "Bring it here. I am a little familiar with my side of the Wilderness. I should be able to read it."
Kagerou gave it, and Ragna frowned as he turned it around, looking at it, and he eventually passed it to his captain. "I see. I know this place."
Vacuse raised his brows. "You do?"
Vacuse wasn’t really worried about being misled. He was familiar with the Dungeon and its surroundings, but only created the maps to make things easier for Captain Mera and her subordinates to coordinate themselves.
They are his shield, and he had every intention of making use of them as such.
Ragna nodded and shrugged. "You should have a map as well. Why don’t you just draw that section out?"
Vacuse blinked. And then he laughed out loud. In truth, he didn’t think about it, but now he was starting to realize how stupid it was that he didn’t simply ask for the map of the Wilderness and then map the section he wanted out.
He smiled. "Thinking too hard about things is really not good. So you see, Captain, my judgment can be trusted about things . We are going to raid the Dungeon then."
The Captain still didn’t look convinced, but her eyes flickered as she was already thinking about how she would keep him safe if it came down to it.
Still, she shook her head. "How will I keep you safe in such a situation? The Wilderness is obviously dangerous!"
Unexpectedly, it was Ragna that snorted. "But this is not the real Wilderness!"
The Captain’s expression turned sour. "I don’t think I need a geography lesson."
Vacuse revealed a gentle smile and ignored his captain. "Tell me more, Lord Ragna."
Lord Ragna snorted. It was a well-known thing that everyone knew, but he still continued anyway. "There exists a Dark Wilderness in the world that’s filled with heaven-shaking treasures and Dungeons with monsters that could crush a mountain with a stare.
"But we don’t have such Wilderness in the Tal’Zareth Continent, which makes us one of the safest continents in the world. What we have here is just a tip of the real Wilderness that passed through.
"Think of the Dark Wilderness as a dead snake with the tip only forming a line through the Tal’Zareth Continent. In fact, some don’t even consider our Wilderness as anything but overgrown forests."
"The rest of the snake is at sea, and the real Dark Wilderness of Tal’Zareth is at sea, known simply as the Dark Wilderness Island.
"And every great power on the continent lays claim to the Island, including the Azgarath Empire. Some even have outposts on the island. We Orcs did once as well, but not anymore."
Vacuse nodded at the lesson.
It was more than that, though.
Because there was no Dark Wilderness in the Tal’Zareth Continent, it meant that the continent is one of the safest in the world, but also considered and looked down on as one of the weakest.
And... they were right in some ways.
Because of the lack of Dark Wilderness, the Soulbearers on the Tal’Zareth Continent could only fight inferior monsters and raid similar Dungeons and artifacts.
But since the matter isn’t something he needed to be worried about, Vacuse simply put it out of his mind and continued eating. To him, he needed to focus more on things that were in his scope of control.
He raised his plate for more meat to be added while he made small talk with Lord Ragna.
In a different part of the Wilderness, where the trees are greater with bark of old moss flesh, a dark blue portal cracked nearby as it radiated intense aura.
The portal was like the surface of a boiling sea, shooting out lightning at intervals. Molded around and behind the berserk portal was an old building that seemed to have fallen to runes.
The building was a Dungeon, but it had broken as no one cleared it over a long time.
Just like the numerous Dungeons that had broken.
In front of the portal and around was a slaughterhouse.
Blood and gore lay thickly on everything, splashing the ground and soaking it.
But even with that, there were no bodies on the ground.