The constant noise of dripping water permeated the entire forest as the snow that accumulated on the trees' canopies slowly melted. Most of the melted water was absorbed by the loamy soil of the forest, but some made it to the dirt road our convoy was traversing. The result was a muddy path that made traveling more difficult.

An hour into our travel and my wagon's wheels already got stuck in deep mud pools three times. Normal merchants would have been doomed if their wagon got stuck in the Wild Woods, but luckily for us, we had an augmenter who could easily lift my wagon every time it got stuck. Although Belka wasn't happy about it since her clothes got muddied. I could've offered to lift the wagon myself since Mr. Marion was almost as powerful as Belka, but then it would be my clothes getting muddied, so I let the Head Hunter do it.

I initially expected Rella's convoy to suffer from the same plights as mine did, but I found out why they used syrons to pull their wagons. When one of their wagons got stuck, the syrons would simply exert a little bit more effort and forcefully pull the wagon free from the mud with raw strength. After seeing that, I immediately decided to get myself a few syrons when we got to the city. The huge beasts were slower than horses, but at least they were good at their jobs. The only job my horses were good at was eating all day.

“So, may I ask what made you decide to become a Night Warden?” I asked Emily beside me. The trip was pretty boring and I wanted to pass the time. I tried opening a conversation with Belka, but the large woman didn't want to talk and kept her eyes glued on the trees around us, constantly scanning for threats. Bah, hunters and their paranoia.

Emily also kept her eyes on the forest, but unlike Belka, the young hunter seemed to have a shorter patience and looked only too glad to pass the time with inane chatter. “I had the lucky opportunity to watch Kazimir and Samantia fight and was amazed at their prowess. I also want to attain the same level of strength as them!”

I heard Belka snort and grumbled quietly on my other side. “I'm stronger than those two freaks…”

I ignored the sulking woman and kept my attention on Emily. “There are many ways to become stronger, why choose the Night Wardens?”

“I'm not only seeking to gain strength,” Emily replied. “Kazimir told me about the purpose of their organization, which was to fight against the forces of the Dark. I want to follow the same purpose and help other people against monsters. If I stayed in the village, I won't be able to help other people.”

“Well, you could have helped the people of Wildpost if you stayed,” I said. “Wildpost is always threatened by monsters, right? You could have stayed and helped the other hunters defend the village.”

“The Head Hunter is already strong enough to do that on her own,” Emily said, and I felt Belka perk up beside me. The young hunter looked straight into my eyes. “And you're also there to defend Wildpost against threats. With two powerful people defending the village, I no longer serve much purpose other than hunting animals for food.”

I was a bit touched by Emily's words. It was more proof that I was part of the village now, no matter how much I sometimes felt like I didn't deserve it. “Hunting for food is still a huge help to the village.”

“I know, but I don't want to spend my whole life in the village hunting for food,” Emily said with a pout. “I want to get stronger so I could help more people. I feel like if I stay in the village, I won't be able to achieve my full potential. There are already a lot of other hunters who could do the same things as me, and most of them are better at doing the job. I'm not needed in the village, but if I become a Night Warden, I'll be able to do more.”

I understood where the young huntress was coming from. Some people were content with simply living their lives normally until they grow old. Some, like Emily, have powerful drives and ambitions to achieve the most they can be. I once thought that I belonged to the former group, and I guess it was true when I was still living in Erfeld with Mom. But after all my experiences and with the power I had, I just found it… wrong to live like one of the mundane people where they grow old and died achieving nothing. But the question was, what was my real goal?

For now, I had my objective of establishing a powerful company so I wouldn't be abused by the people in power. But it didn't feel like a life's goal like Emily's. I guess spreading fashion in this backward world was a worthwhile goal, but it didn't feel like the goal belonged to me. I only wanted to do that in the first place because of my Authority's influence. I didn't have a life goal that I was confident to call my own. Unsurprising, given the fact that I gave up on life long ago. Well, at least I'm not having suicidal thoughts anymore.

My conversation with Emily petered out as I was lost in my inner thoughts, but she didn't seem to mind. I guess she had her own thoughts to organize.

But my thoughts were interrupted by Belka of all people. I thought she was content with simply watching the treeline for monsters, but it seems the large woman was a bit bored too.

“How's the progress going with the leather armors?” she asked.

I was confused with Belka's question for a moment, but a distant memory suddenly reminded itself. I made a deal with Belka a long time ago where I would provide her with leather armors so she wouldn't have to deal with the greedy Luth anymore. I completely forgot about the deal since a lot of things happened after that: the monster attack on Wildpost, the Night Wardens attacking me, encountering the dryads, meeting the goblins, fighting off Urka the blasted pussycat, and lastly, establishing my company. A lot of things happened since my stay here that I completely forgot about our deal.

“A-Ahem, the armors are still being processed,” I said as an excuse. “I will see to it when we get back from our travels.”

Belka looked unconvinced at my bullshit, but before she could retort, I felt something in my fabric sense. A good opportunity to change the subject came at the right time.

“We've got monsters incoming!” I shouted, informing everyone in the convoy.

Rella and her convoy, which was traveling in front of ours, were quick to react. The large men that made up her entourage stopped their convoy and stepped off from their wagons while wielding weapons. Most of them held swords and clubs, while some wielded crossbows. Rella herself simply stood on top of one of her wagons to watch over the situation, sending a wink my way as her gaze passed me by. I wonder how strong she is as an augmenter?

My convoy was just as quick to react to my warning. Belka hopped off the side while Emily climbed on the roof of my wagon, an arrow already nocked on her large bow. The Night Wardens hopped off their seats and stood vigilant on either side of their wagon. Taloress excitedly got up from her seat and immediately asked me where the monsters were coming from. The Blooming Lady had been silently complaining the entire time about the boring trip.

“Do you know what monsters are coming?” Belka asked.

With my fabric sense, I easily recognized the shapes of wolves running toward us. They were not as large as the wargs and the pack consisted of more than thirty wolves. We were dealing with dire wolves, although I wasn't sharing it with Belka. Although I could trust the hunter, Rella and her men were strangers, and I didn't want to reveal too much about my abilities.

“I don't know what they are, but they're fast and there's a lot of them coming from the east,” I said loudly so everybody could hear.

Everybody immediately focused their attention on the forest to our right. I could tell Rella was observing me discreetly, probably to see how I fought. It didn't bother me too much since I could easily disguise my power by using weak spells.

Soon, the wolves arrived and after observing our convoy for a moment, decided to focus on Rella's wagons. Belka, Samantia, Kazimir, and I weren't exactly masking our auras, and the wolves must've quickly concluded that Rella's convoy was an easier target.

Rella's men didn't wait for an order and started firing off their crossbows at the charging wolves. Most of the bolts hit the agile monsters, thinning the pack before they could reach the convoy. A lot of the wolves died on the spot from the powerful crossbows while some were crippled.

Rella's men no longer had an opportunity to reload as the wolves finally reached them. The men with swords and clubs met the rabid monsters resolutely and started hacking and bashing away, moving around expertly as they battled the wolves. One glance at how the men fought was enough to tell me that they weren't simply hired for carrying crates around. They moved like trained combatants. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Rella's strength since the wolves never managed to get past her men.

Belka looked impressed at the men's performance, but we didn't just stand by and watch while Rella's convoy fought off the attack. With a shout, Belka dashed forward and started pummeling wolves left and right, shattering their skulls with one blow. A wolf pounced on her but the large woman simply caught the poor thing midair with one hand. The wolf cried as Belka threw it against a tree, a resounding snap reaching my ears as the monster's spine broke.

Taloress didn't want to miss out on the excitement and dived into the pack of wolves. She held a dagger in each hand, which I bought from Bersk before we left, and started slashing around wildly. I thought my reckless puppet would get overwhelmed, but to my surprise, Taloress displayed a certain finesse in how she fought the wolves. Despite being surrounded, she moved smoothly like water as she slipped between the wolves, slashing and stabbing at every opportunity, sometimes even using the monsters' momentum against them. Since when did she train to move like that?

Taloress uttered a dismayed cry as one of her opponents suddenly died from an arrow that pierced its head. When I took a closer look, I realized that the shot landed right in the wolf's eye with crazy accuracy. Taloress glared at Emily, who didn't notice my puppet's ire and simply fired again, killing another wolf.

Not wanting to lose more kills to the young huntress, Taloress returned to the battle with more fervor.

I, on the other hand, was content with simply casting weak spells at the monsters. My Force Blasts nowadays were powerful enough to blow small trees off the ground, but I used a weaker version on the wolves to prevent gathering attention on myself.

I locked in on a large clump of wolves trying to gang up on one of the men and sent a Force Blast. There was a boom as the wave of force traveled through the air, impacting the wolves and sending them flying in the air like ragdolls. They were still alive, but most of them should be crippled. Rella's men didn't miss the opportunity and killed the wolves injured by my spell.

I searched for another group of wolves and sent Force Blasts their way, crippling them to allow Rella's men to easily cut them down. I did it several more times until the few survivors of the pack finally decided we weren't worth it and started retreating. The battle only lasted a few minutes.

“Is everybody fine?” I asked when the last wolves disappeared from sight.

“The Night Freaks certainly are, they just stood there doing nothing,” Belka said with a snort as she glared at Kazimir and Samantia, who were still standing by in their original positions.

Kazimir frowned. “If we joined as well, it would have been overkill. Our intervention was unnecessary and would just waste resources, especially when there's a possibility of another wave coming.”

“Alright, then if no one's hurt, should we get moving, then?” I interrupted, not allowing Belka to escalate the situation.

The Head Hunter looked miffed at me but simply walked towards the dead wolves. “It would be a waste to let their pelts go to waste. Give me half an hour and I'll skin the wolves.”

“Alright, maybe we could sell them in Halros for a good price,” I said.

Everybody agreed to evenly split the profits from the pelts before Belka and Emily started skinning the wolves. After half an hour, the hunters managed to skin the pelts off of half of the wolves, but we decided to leave the rest behind since it would be too time-consuming. We had a schedule to follow and we had to get moving if we wanted to stay on track.

By midday, we arrived at a waystation where travelers could rest or make camp during their journey. The place was simply a small flat area with packed dirt where tents could be set up, although it was currently a bit muddy from all the melted snow.

“This waystation is at the halfway point between Wildpost and Halros,” Rella said. “From here to the city, the travel should only take four hours, maybe five if we got slowed down by the muddy road.”

“Then it should be fine if we take a short break and eat our lunch here,” I said to everyone's agreement.

Emily used her forestry skills to easily make a fire in the middle of the camp despite the wet floor. With deft hands, she made a spit out of some sticks and started skewering some of the wolf meat we brought with us. I would have loved to bring the rest of the monster corpses with us, but our wagons were already too heavy.

I simply watched from the sidelines as the Night Wardens offered to help Emily prepare the food. They already had everything well in hand and I was sure I'd just mess things up if I offered to help. While I waited, Rella walked up to me with a smile.

“You used some interesting magic back in the fight. It's the first time I've seen it. May I ask what type of magic it was?”

I frowned at Rella's words. It wasn't weird for people to not recognize my magic since as far as I knew, I was the only one who could use Wild magic. But that only applied to people with adequate knowledge about magic. None of the people of Wildpost questioned me about my weird magic because to them, magic was magic, and they didn't have the proper background knowledge to realize that my spells were unusual. Even Belka didn't notice it.

But Rella did. Not only that, but she was an augmenter as well. A seed of doubt started forming in my mind regarding Rella's identity. I wanted to smack myself on the forehead for not realizing it sooner, but Rella was not just a simple merchant substitute for Kane. Suddenly replacing Kane should have already been a big clue, but I was too stupid to realize it. The question was: what does she want?

A more paranoid part of me thought she was one of the mage hunters of the Mage's Guild. There was a possibility that they finally caught on to my actions. But I immediately dismissed that notion since Rella would've just apprehended me a long time ago.

No, she was up to something else, and I was starting to think it was related to the clothes I sold to Kane a long time ago. My products must've caught the attention of Kane's superiors and they decided to send someone with more authority to deal with me. It was plausible given the fact that Kane was quickly replaced before I even managed to sell him my second batch of clothes. Which meant Rella was probably a high-ranking employee of the trading company that Kane worked for.

“I apologize, Miss Rella, but I strive to keep my cards hidden,” I finally answered Rella. There was no way I was revealing to her the true nature of my magic. Even though she didn't seem like a bad person, I wasn't trusting her with my secrets.

Rella pouted at me. “Trying to cultivate a mysterious persona, huh?”

“A merchant has to have his defining characteristic.”

“More like eccentricity.”

Rella quickly dropped the topic and opted for small talk, which was fine by me. I asked her about what we should expect when we arrived in Halros and Rella proceeded to tell me about the shops and businesses in the inner city. There were auction houses, casinos, spas, and even brothels. Rella spoke of the decadent luxuries available in the city.

I was intrigued by all of it, although I was sure she was just talking about the good aspects of the city. Bran and Belka had already told me enough stories and anecdotes about Halros that gave me an image of a lawless and derelict city. Rella was just telling me about the good things, although I guess it would be weirder if she extolled the extreme poverty of the city instead.

Lunch was soon ready and we began our meal. I was very surprised when I took my first bite of the dire wolf meat. It was delicious, so much so that I quickly wolfed down the meal with gusto. I always ate dire wolf meat back at the cave, but this one was way more delicious, probably because spices and seasonings had been added. I may have a large supply of meat back home, but I didn't have seasonings like salt or pepper, hence the bland meals I always ate.

Master, this is disgusting, Taloress complained as she ‘ate’ her meal.

Try to endure it, the others would become suspicious if you didn't eat, I replied as I relished the food. Taloress didn't enjoy the food as much as I did since she didn't have taste buds or a digestive tract. The food simply plopped inside her body whole when she swallowed it, staining her fabric with grease.

Once lunch was finished, we quickly cleaned up the place and went back to our journey. Luckily, monster attacks no longer occurred, although the muddy road still provided a few delays. Just like what Belka told me when I first came to Wildpost, the northwestern portion of the Wild Woods had few monsters. It seems the dire wolf attack earlier was just an aftereffect of the rising monster population in the forest, but otherwise, we encountered no more monsters, even to my fabric sense.

The road we were traveling in led straight to Halros, but it also branched off to several smaller paths. Belka explained that it led to other smaller villages in the forest, all of which were older than Wildpost. When I asked how Wildpost grew bigger and better than the older villages, Belka simply answered that they sucked at making money. The older villages were established in the northwestern portion of the Wild Woods because it was safer, but it also resulted in less revenue due to fewer monsters to hunt. On the other hand, Wildpost thrived because it was smack dab in the middle of the Wild Woods with all sorts of monsters to hunt and sell. It was an understandable answer, but I had a feeling that wasn't the only reason why Wildpost grew bigger.

At late noon, the trees around us started thinning and there was less mud on the road, speeding up our progress. We were nearing Halros, and I couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and dread. At long last, I would be able to establish my company, but that also meant revealing myself to the public. Maybe not as an Ascendant, but as the owner of a company. I was sure being famous would bring its fair share of troubles, but it was a risk I would have to endure.

Soon, the forest finally gave way to flat plains. We exited the Wild Woods from the northwestern corner, and directly to our east, I could see the distant Sunrise Mountains. To our west were flat plains as far as the eye could see. But directly to our north, about one kilometer away, I finally saw the city of Halros. It was… disappointing.

The walls that surrounded the city were as tall as the ones in Vont, but it was extremely dirty. Pillars of black smoke steadily rose from the city, the soot sticking to the stone walls. As we drew closer, I realized that the walls didn't surround the entire city. Outside the city walls was a sea of ramshackle buildings that surrounded Halros like a sieging army. Instead of cultivated fields, Halros was surrounded by a large shantytown where the destitute lived. I felt my heart fall at the sight. If the situation was the same on the other side of the city, then the shantytown was bigger than the city.

“Welcome to Halros,” Belka muttered darkly beside me. “Never thought I'd come back here after all these years.”

I knew the place was horrid based on Bran and Belka's descriptions of it, but I haven't even entered the city yet and I already knew it was going to be really bad. I glanced at Emily, expecting a regretful expression on her face, but instead, she looked even more determined and resolute. I guess she wasn't kidding when she said she wanted to help people.

“Is this seriously it? This is Halros?” I asked in disbelief.

Belka gave a tired sigh. “The one and only.”