"How interesting," stated the innkeeper, a middle-aged man, whose apron continued to slip down his neck. "Not long ago another small group of adventurers came here, they didn't even bother to order any food or drinks and instead went straight to their rooms. They must've been quite exhausted to even refuse some free alcohol I offered them.

"It really is rather unusual, but after experiencing the whole trip until here I can kinda understand how they feel," sighed Bao, still exhausted from the fight.

"You might be right, young man. It's just that it's quite unusual for us to have so many visitors in a single day. Normally even merchants are rarely seen in this faraway village." The innkeeper reached under the counter and pulled up a bunch of keys. "Your stay is for three days and two nights, correct?" The man had finally finished with the small talk and cut to the chase.

"Yes," answered Morell, who seemed a giant, standing next to Bao.

"Perfect! Thank you for your patronage. The food you ordered should be ready soon, I'll bring it to your table then."

Three days, that's the time needed for the storm to pass and for them to restock their supplies, at least according to Elincia's calculations.

The village they were staying in at the moment, marked the exact halfway point of their trip, which is why it was a good chance to take some rest from the constant travel stress.

"Looks like something is really going on up north if other adventurers are also heading up to the frontier," said Morell while sitting down next to Elincia.

"Couldn't it just be a coincidence? I mean they are adventurers. Roaming around freely and acting as they please is what their job consists of after all." Bao took a big bite out of a chicken tight he held in his hands.

"Precisely because they're adventurers they'll go where the scent of money leads them and as you may have guessed, they earn money by killing monsters, well among other things."

"Meaning, that they are going there because monsters are crossing the frontier which the kingdoms couldn't handle," Elincia finished Morell's sentence.

"That is indeed quite troublesome, we should..."

"Thank you for your patience, here is the food and drinks you've ordered." The innkeeper interrupted Morell by placing plates with all kinds of foods on the table, spreading a delicious smell across the whole room. "Just asking out of my own curiosity, what brings your group to this godforsaken village? I mean, as I said before, we don't get a lot of visitors here so everyone is kinda curious about the sudden arrival of two adventurer groups."

"We've received a hunting request for a special monster far up north," stated Bao with a grim look.

"That sounds like quite the troublesome quest, to be asked to travel such long distance for just a single monster subjugation, but if you are here that must mean that the reward offered to you must be quite high at least." Only after the endless stream of words came to a halt, the innkeeper noticed that everyone on the table had stopped eating and stared with darkened eyes in his direction. "It looks though as you are all quite exhausted so I'll leave it at that. Enjoy your meal!" With a quick bow, he walked away from their table, back to his designated spot.

"What a considerate bartender," scoffed one of the guards, spurting out breadcrumbs all over the table.

"So, you think that something' s going on on the frontier?", asked Bao ignoring the rude guard and bringing back the discussion from before. "What would that be?"

"How should I know, it's been a long time since there were any news from the frontier. But if we are talking about the worst case scenario, well then..., hell I don't even want to think about it."

"Than what?"

"It would be a stampede on a scale so large that all the kingdoms in Nelenia would need to work together in order to be able to defend the frontier, or we would all be doomed. Even the Elves would need to step out of their neutral position," said Elincia with an expression Bao had never seen on her before.

"And our mission requires us to go exactly there huh..."

"Not exactly... The city, or better the tower the son of the king had seen is located in no man's land."

Bao couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and put up a confused expression.

"You don't even know about that?", Morell marvelled.

He only shrugged his shoulders as a response.

"You're a really hopeless student you know that? Now then, I already told you about the frontier right? The border between civilization and nature." The adventurerer placed a loaf of bread horizontally as an example for the frontier and a bowl of salad as the untouched nature. "In between those two borders is the so called no man's land. Long ago a group of people, which called themselves the settlers, crossed the frontier to conquer even more land from mother nature and in the beginning they even succeeded at that. They build cities and villages traded plants and monster materials never seen before with the civilized cities behind the border and became rich in doing so, creating a rich and prosperous kingdom."

"But nature didn't like that it's territory was taken from it," assumed Bao.

Morell nodded: "A brutal war broke out killing thousands of people and stomping down all the big cities. This was the first and only time that a stampede of such a large scale happened. Now both, civilization and nature lies in ruins there."

Distressed about what he just heard, Bao looked in the direction of Elincia, who only nodded in agreement with what Morell said. It was as if he went from the tutorial of the game directly to the final mission to complete it.

"If I remember correctly didn't you mention that a whole army died right there."

"I said that an army went there and never came back, we don't know if they actually died there or what happened to them. We are not going to war with whatever protects that city, we only want to destroy the holder of the souls."

"And what if the souls are trapped in something that was created by nature, wouldn't that be a declaration of war then?"

"David, first you want to safe the souls and research Eternal Slumber and now you're backing off? This whole expedition was started because you wanted to, now continue on your path even if the hurdles might seem difficult," ranted Morell. "Understood?"

"Yes Master."

"Good so, and now lets finish this feast before everyone goes to their separate rooms."