He turned around and led his tribesmen away in retreat.
After walking far off, Grok looked back once more at the bushland, which was eerie in its silence.
"I hope those humans can make it out alive," he muttered softly, unsure whether he was speaking to his tribesmen or to himself.
Dusk. On the stony bank of the small river at the edge of the bushland.
"Phew... phew... Damn it, we finally escaped!" York the rogue flopped onto a rock, tearing open his bracer to reveal a bloody claw mark underneath.
"This morning, we got chased all damn morning by those mad dogs wielding pickaxes and shovels, and in the afternoon, we ran into these cursed green-skins!"
"I thought I was done for today."
"Shut up, York. Tend to your wound first," Captain Garl, the Third-Tier warrior, said in a low voice.
He squatted by the river, soaked a piece of clean linen cloth, wrung it out, and tossed it to York.
Immediately after, he unwrapped the bandage on his own calf, wiped away the bloodstains on the wound with another wrung-out wet cloth, applied hemorrhage-stopping herbs, and wrapped it tightly layer by layer with a clean bandage.
York gritted his teeth and wiped his wound.
"Hss!"
"There isn't even a priest in this godforsaken place. It hurts like hell."
The party's potions had already been exhausted in the morning's battle against the kobolds.
"Cody, keep watch," Garl shouted to the archer perched on a large boulder by the river.
"Misha, are your injuries serious?"
The gray-robed figure, the mage Misha, looked toward the captain who was concerned about her condition and shook her head slightly.
Her arm had been scratched by a stone thrown by a goblin earlier, but the bone was not hit.
"I'm fine. It's just that my mana consumption was too heavy. I need to rest."
Garl nodded, his eyes falling on the crestfallen young man at the back of the party.
Baron Edwood—a ruined young noble, a First-Tier ranger who stumbled even when attempting to use the most basic battle aura.
Right now, he was sitting on a clean rock, tightly clutching the yellowed scroll to his chest. His face was pale and his lips trembled; he was clearly shaken, yet still trying his best to maintain his noble dignity.
"Young Master Baron," Garl walked over and softened his tone. "Are you alright?"
"N-No... I'm fine." Baron straightened his back, striving to make his voice sound less shaky.
"Captain Garl, I'm fine. As long as... as long as we keep going and find that place, it will all be worth it."
He looked down at the scroll in his arms. It was something his father had handed him personally on his deathbed.
The Edwood family had once been prominent nobles in Emberfire City.
Three generations of ancestors had built their wealth starting from mining, amassing a grand family estate.
By his father's generation, poor management coupled with two mining disasters had wiped out almost all of the family property.
Yet his father refused to admit defeat. He staked what little real estate and savings remained to form a long-distance merchant caravan crossing two kingdoms, intending to rely on cross-border trade to rebuild their wealth and restore the family's glory.
Perhaps the Goddess of Luck had played a cruel little joke on their family.
For unknown reasons, diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Halen and the Kingdom of Noland grew increasingly tense, with constant friction along the border.
Checkpoints levying layer upon layer of taxes, alongside mysteriously appearing bandits and magical beasts, made merchant caravans willing to risk the passage fewer and fewer, causing trade volume to plummet off a cliff.
The Edwood family's goods sat unsold. They repeatedly paid high prices to hire adventurers as escorts to try and force their way through the trade route.
Even so, those few attempts were met with attacks by magical beasts and pillaging by bandits, leaving their goods completely lost.
Under the crushing weight of old debts from the mines combined with huge deficits from the caravan, the Edwood family lost every last bit of their assets.
The family was held accountable by the kingdom and other nobles, and ultimately, even their noble privileges were revoked.
On the day his father fell ill, he drove everyone out of the room, called Baron to his bedside alone, and pulled this scroll from beneath his pillow.
"Baron... this is our Edwood family's last hope," his father said, coughing up blood.
"When I was young, I was an adventurer too. Back then, while exploring an extinct volcano, I discovered a treasure inside a cavern—a heap of gold coins and magic crystals."
"However, there was also the aura of a magical beast inside that cavern."
"I originally intended to retrieve it when the time was right, but alas... I never got the chance afterward."
"I no longer have the ability to go there either, so I am passing it down to you now."
"Father, I..." With reddened eyes at the time, Baron wanted to say "I'll go get it," and wanted to say "our family can still hold on," but when the words reached his lips, he couldn't say a thing.
"If you retrieve it, rebuild the family. If you can't, then..." His father closed his eyes.
"Remember! You must wait until you are strong enough before going. At the very least... do not let the Edwood family end with your generation."
Three days later, his father passed away.
Baron sold off the last few valuable pieces of furniture in his home to scrape together a commission fee.
Evidently, the young master had not listened to his father's advice.
He posted a commission in the Emberfire City Guild and hired Garl's party.
"Inside the extinct volcano, there's a treasure," Baron said to Garl at this moment, spreading the scroll out on a rock and pointing to a spot marked with faded ink.
"My father said there is a large amount of gold coins stored inside—enough for all of us to live comfortably."
Garl stared at the diagram for a moment.
To be honest, he had seen far too many of these "ancestral treasure maps." Nine out of ten were fake; in the end, whatever they dug up was either an empty grave or a beast's lair.
However, he did not try to dissuade the young master before him.
Two days ago, in the Emberfire City Guild hall, this exquisitely dressed young man had stood before the notice board, watching at a loss for a long time, before finally walking over with a flushed face and asking him in a quiet voice, "Excuse me... do you accept commissions?"
At that moment, Garl had also recalled his own younger days—the awkwardness of stepping into an Adventurers' Guild for the very first time.
"Alright." Garl pulled his gaze back from the map.
"Young Master Baron, since our Greenwood Party accepted the employer's commission, we will certainly do our utmost to fulfill it."
"However, let me lay out the hard truth first. The strongest member of our party is just me, a Third-Tier warrior. No one can say for sure what the current situation is deep within these woods."
"If we truly run into something we can't handle, I will take you and escape. As for that treasure, we'll just have to rely on luck."
"I understand." Baron nodded vigorously, yet a hint of resolve still shone in his eyes.
He believed that his father would not lie to him.
"Um... Captain," York chimed in while wrapping his wound.
"I have a question. When we were running away earlier, those goblins stopped chasing as soon as we reached the edge of the bushland. Did you notice that?"
"I noticed." Garl's brow furrowed tightly.
"There's something wrong with this place," York lowered his voice and said.
"If those green-skins have the upper hand, they usually bite down and never let go."
"There are only two possibilities for why they'd retreat: either there's something here that terrifies them, or there's something here they are absolutely forbidden from touching."
"Are you saying..."
"What I mean is..." York's gaze swept over the surrounding dense bushes and toward the dark, pitch-black extinct volcano in the distance.
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