Neia’s mother had been a famous paladin in her time, and she had excellent sword skills. However, as her daughter, Neia had no talent for the sword, no matter how much she practiced. Strictly speaking, the bow techniques passed down from her father meant that she could use bows skillfully even without any training.
No, the fact was, Neia was fortunate just to inherit that half of her heritage. However, the skills used by the paladins which Neia so admired could only be used with melee weapons. For Neia, who wanted to become a paladin, being talented with ranged weapons was a waste.
Once more, she gripped the reins tightly.
She straightened her waist and adjusted her position on the saddle. She had spent a long time on horseback after leaving the Royal Capital, and her butt and thighs were quite sore now.
She could have asked the Paladins to use low tier healing spells to get rid of the pain. However, she was a girl, and she was a little embarrassed to ask that of them. Also, it was still not yet at a level where it would affect her ability to work the reins, so that made it even more difficult to ask.
...I’ll just apply the herbs afterwards, as usual. I need to thank Dad for that. In the past, when I said my butt hurt, he’d run over with an annoyed look on his face… Did I thank him back then? ...Hah.
Neia forced herself to stop before her tears spilled out.
“—Ah, Captain, I can see paved roads. We’re about to enter the Sorcerous Kingdom’s domain.”
The dirt road suddenly turned to cobblestones halfway through its course. It felt strange.
Neia looked to the sky.
“So, will we ride all the way to the Sorcerous Kingdom? Or will we set up camp at night?”
“I think we ought to be able to make it before sunset if nothing else happens. However, we might be taken for an invading force. What should we do?”
“Let me discuss this.”
Remedios tugged on her reins and her horse slowed down, and then she began speaking to Gustavo.
However, this ought to be the Sorcerous Kingdom’s domain from here on in… but where are their troops? There aren’t any fortresses either. There were forts on the Kingdom’s side…
Usually, there would be forts at a country’s borders, but there were none here. Since the Sorcerous Kingdom was just one city, had they concentrated all their forces into the city?
Neia’s gaze travelled along the paved road.
The gentle slope ran between the hills. In the distance, she could see a patch of leafless winter forest.
She recalled how she had gone camping in the winter with her father. That did not change, no matter where she went. The scenery here felt just like that of the Holy Kingdom.
...Living in the human world’s a pain, huh.
The words her father had casually mumbled pricked her heart like a thorn.
Her father had chosen to live in a city because of her mother. If her mother was not around, he would have chosen to stay in a little village near the forest, living off the bounty of nature.
When she had still been a child, she felt that living in a natural setting was a pain. However, after going on this journey, she could understand what her father had meant by his words. Was that a sign of maturity? She ought to be able to talk about different things with her parents now.
Pain flashed through her heart as she thought about these things. However, it was only for a moment. That was because ahead of them — due east along the road — she could see something blurry along the snaking path that passed between the hills.
—Could it be a fire!?
Neia squinted her eyes, and then looked carefully again.
There was a milky-white, smoke-like object there. No, it was not smoke, but fog. And—
“Sorry to interrupt you while you’re speaking! There’s something like fog ahead!”
“So what?”
After Neia reported to the rear, Remedios took off her helmet. There was a puzzled look on her face.
“Neia Baraja. Is there anything about it that bothers you?”
“Yes. According to this map, there are no large lakes around, yet there’s a large bank of fog ahead. I’m sure it must be an abnormal occurrence.”
The bank of thick, milky fog seemed to be spreading wider and wider, and it looked like it would reach Neia and the others any time now.
Her father had taught her about all sorts of natural phenomena, and when she pondered the situation based on that knowledge, the appearance of this fog really was quite strange.
“Squire Baraja. Could it be some sort of abnormal climate change?”
That question came from Gustavo, who had picked up on what was going on before Remedios.
These abnormal climate changes referred to usually impossible phenomena occurring in a large area. For instance, there might be a place where a large scale ritual spell gone wrong filled an area with toxic rot-gases, or a place where once a year, a desert might rage with sandstorms for a week, or perhaps a place where multi-colored rain fell at certain times.
In other words, he was asking if this fog was one of those mysterious occurrences. However, Neia had not gathered any information on such things. She sensed that she would probably be scolded if she answered as much, but she had no choice but to answer honestly.
“My sincerest apologies, but I have no information about the fog that has appeared before us.”
“In other words, you didn’t gather enough intelligence, did you?”
Yet another difficult question. Who could say that they had collected enough information?
“Captain Remedios. Deciding what to do now is more important.”
Their horses had come to a halt.
The fog was getting thick enough that horses could not advance through it. Given what they had learned earlier, there were no cliffs near E-Rantel. If they advanced slowly, they ought to be able to deal with whatever came up. However, this rapidly brewing fog made them hesitant to move through it, however slowly they travelled.
Neia sniffed the fog.
It smelled of water vapor and nothing more. There was nothing about it that would have bothered her. However, that was exactly what bothered her.
“Captain, could this fog have been generated by a monster? My father once said that some monsters had the magical ability to generate fog, and they would hide in it to stalk their prey.”
“...Everyone, draw your blades! Anyone still on the road, clear off right away!”
This quick decision-making was a sign of Remedios’s excellence in battle.
Neia and the Paladins moved their horses as directed and left the road, whereupon they circled up. By this time, the thick fog looked like it was going to swallow up the entire world.
It was thick enough that she could barely make out her companions next to her, and visibility was zero beyond fifteen meters. Her unease boiled in her chest, and she imagined she saw wraiths in the movement of the fog’s currents.
It would be good if she could determine what was approaching them by sound, but she was surrounded by fully armored knights. Every move they made caused metal to scrape against metal, and it hampered Neia’s sense of hearing. Under these conditions, it would be very difficult to detect anything that was closing in on them. By Neia’s reckoning, the only one who could still discern objects by sound in these conditions was her father.
As she realized her father’s greatness once more, she desperately pricked up her ears to listen.
“This is a really weird fog; it doesn’t get this thick even on the sea.”
“Aren’t we about to reach the Sorcerous Kingdom’s city? Are there still monsters this close to the city limits? Or are these strange things par for the course because it’s the Sorcerous Kingdom?”