Some minutes later, Arlo struck up a conversation with Roy.
"Silent Stalkers, formerly known as Moon Reapers, are the monsters you fought and killed a while ago."
Roy stared at him. "Yeah, what about them?"
Something had been bothering Arlo for a while. His deep, dark expression, brooding eyes, and his head full of creases were a direct giveaway of that. Roy felt that maybe he was about to share the cause of his troubles with him.
"They are silent predators of the night. They only hunt when it's dark and are famous for having patience rivaling monks when it comes to hunting. They would sit in a spot for days and hunt innocent and unsuspecting passersby. It's a surprise to meet them in this land. They aren't inhabitants of the icy, cold land. It's a known fact that they like damp places, and in the north, they are only found in the wetlands."
The wetlands were found in the north of Constantine County. From there to all the way here, one has to cover a considerable distance. So, just what the fuck were the Kiralis doing so far from their homes?
"Maybe they migrated here." Julian chimed in.
"Beasts are like humans; they don't migrate without a good reason," Arlo said thoughtfully. "Maybe something happened in that part of the great forest that is close to the Constantines that caused these beasts to fly all the way here."
The Westlands and all the other lands were legally and geographically considered part of the Great Forest.
It was not wrong to say that the Kingdoms of humans were founded within the Great Forest, and so was the Empire.
But that is a story for another time.
Arlo sped up, walking faster than before. The teens and women in their twenties were forced to walk at a faster pace to keep up with him. Whoever got tired was given a powerful slap of rejuvenation to the back by Arlo. Whoever he slapped would suddenly become full of energy for ten or so minutes before feeling exhausted again.
"How are you doing that?" Roy questioned Arlo.
"Yeah, why do we feel rejuvenated when you pat us?!" Maya's curious cat-like eyes also fell on Arlo.
Under their unmoving gazes that demanded an answer and followed him unceasingly, Arlo felt pressured and thought he couldn't keep it from them any longer.
"Ta-da!"
Arlo opened his fist, and a stone, the color of sand, was revealed to them.
Arlo didn't say anymore.
Roy inspected it.
『You've gained knowledge about the stone of rejuvenation』
『It's a stone with a limited lifetime. It has 300 years of lifespan left. Its effect is to rejuvenate whoever touches it. Its lifespan shortens each time it is used. Its wielder never feels tired.』
"Ah, I see. So this is how you are helping us survive this unending, gruelling walk."
Julian understood that Arlo was using the rune stone power to make them feel energized each time they felt exhausted.
What a cheap but effective trick.
"So this is the cause of our suffering."
Aydin silently sulked, and Maya shed tears.
They wanted to stop and rest, but whenever such an opportunity was presented, Arlo would just recharge them like a smartphone.
Amelia had been working hard all her life. She wasn't like these two half-elves. She could hold her own in this place and keep on striding ahead without walking. She was fine as long as Roy was in her sight.
Delilah was silent.
Roy was the only one working hard to keep the party warm using his fireballs.
About seven hours later, when the sun started to rise, and the occasional howls and roars of beasts lessened, they decided to rest.
"Finally, I can rest! All that walking has bored me to no end and drained me mentally! I'm exhausted!"
"Ah~I can't wait to sit down!"
This was the twins' first time walking for 8+ hours without rest.
They were mentally exhausted and dead tired.
Arlo summoned a runic item shaped like a piece of cloth from his inter-spatial ring and then perched it up at an angle using a branch. He nailed the four edges of the cloth into the ground using half-meter-tall aura nails. It was his signature move and a technique only an aura master could learn or use.
A simple tent was created.
"Go in. You'll be pleasantly surprised when you step inside." Arlo invited them inside the tent with a mysterious smile on his face.
The tent looked average at best, save for the best magical symbols drawn on it.
Everyone was curious to know what was inside, including Roy. Arlo wouldn't have hyped them up like that without a good reason. There was bound to be something unnatural about it.
『You have failed to inspect the average-looking tent!』
This notification rang in Roy's ears. It was enough to make him realize that it wasn't normal. Inspecting it gave him no answer. That meant it was an item beyond what he could comprehend, and most likely, there was no knowledge about it in the mana database, or even if there was, it was restricted to him.
They entered it and found themselves in a completely different world.
"Outside, it's cold, misty, and snowing, but here it is warm and sunny." Aydin found himself at room temperature again and breathed out in relief.
He used to love playing in the snow, and he also liked breathing in the cold, but ever since that dark snowy night in which the Northern Heavenly Duke killed his clansmen, he started to hate what he loved.
He wanted to become the fire that would melt snow and ice.
"Wow, from the outside, it looks like a small tent, but inside it's as big as the Count's manor. What kind of magic is this?" Maya curiously took in her surrounding.
There was a kitchen to her left and a living room before her.
A staircase could be seen going up endlessly. Walkways made of wooden planks connected the staircase to raised platforms sticking out of the walls. On which many shelves could be found. Books, an uncountable number of them, filled each of them.
At this moment, the teens realized...
This wasn't a tent.
It was a freaking library the size of a tower!
