As though cheering Green Eyes on its second expedition, winter slowly drew to a close and the weather began to warm.

That was not entirely a blessing. It was nice not to have to walk with cheeks frozen red, breathing into cupped hands to thaw them, but warmer weather meant more sweating—and a greater need for water. That made summer, not winter, the worst season for exploring the Demonlands. Water was the hardest resource to secure there.

Having a priest at least meant dirty water could be cleansed through a miracle of purification, but supplying enough for everyone to drink was difficult unless the priest was exceptionally accomplished.

They slaughtered monsters time and again on their way into the Demonlands, but did not bother collecting any materials from them. They wanted to travel as light as possible until they reached the ruins. Once they loaded up with everything they could carry there, they would only have to throw away the miscellaneous things gathered along the way.

Had another expedition been following them, it would have rejoiced at the wealth of free materials.

After several days following their previous route, thick fog began to gather ahead. This was definitely the region where their compass had stopped working last time; its characteristics must have changed in the meantime.

Fortunately, Roden proved an excellent guide through the fog, drawing on the information he had recorded on their previous visit. Shan dealt with most of the troublesome monsters that attacked along the way, including giant spiders. Even so, their progress was inevitably slower than across ordinary wilderness, and another three days passed before the four reached Delephon, the Mountaintop City.

Entering the city through the narrow approach, they spotted several horses tethered to a nearby building.

"Those are..."

"Looks like someone got here before us."

It was hardly surprising. The watchtower in this mountaintop city offered a clear view for tens of kilometers in every direction, and for some reason, monsters were reluctant to approach. Many expeditions taking this route stopped here to plan their explorations or rest.

Their only cause for unease was that their previous encounter with an Altoan expedition had ended so badly.

They went to see who the strangers were, wary, only to find a familiar face. A mountain of a man waved and called out in delight.

"Oh, if it isn't the boy genius who turned me down! Fancy meeting you here!"

"Pakan?"

The expedition already there belonged to Pakan the Bear Hunter, the giant they had met several times in Shedil. They were warming themselves by a fire in the ruins of a building whose original purpose was anyone's guess.

"Traveling light, I see. Haven't been out long, then? You already went back, rested, and set out again?"

"Yes. It looks like you're heading back now."

From what Shan had heard, Pakan's expedition, Giant's Footprints, had left shortly after Shan set out on his last expedition. They had spent quite a long time wandering the Demonlands before returning.

Their wretched appearance bore that out. Perhaps they had no changes of clothes left: their clothing and armor were ragged and caked with monster blood, their weapons chipped. Looking more closely, Shan saw that two of the original eight members were missing.

"Yozo and Marinak..."

Shan stopped as the smile vanished from Pakan's fierce face. For a moment, the giant could not speak. Then his shoulders sagged.

"... Well, that's how it went."

Even seasoned explorers could not simply shrug off the grief of losing companions. All the more so when they had spent so long together.

Unsure how to respond, Shan hesitated, then slowly patted Pakan's broad shoulder.

"Hang in there."

"Thanks."

The comfort seemed to help a little. Pakan grinned and vigorously tousled Shan's hair with his huge hand.

"On that note, are you sure you won't join our expedition?"

"I'm not joining."

Shan shook his head. Pakan gave a booming laugh, lamented the missed opportunity, and waved him on.

After tethering his horse at the entrance, Shan climbed the tower, remembering the grief on their faces.

'Losing a companion...'

Losing someone dear was not an unfamiliar experience. Two people in Willow Village who had shown him kindness had lost their lives during the bandit attack. He had even witnessed one of those deaths himself.

Yet at the time, their deaths had not felt all that sad. Why was that?

Perhaps because it had happened more than half a year ago, he struggled to understand why he had not grieved. Perhaps his mind had been filled with the exhilaration of using violence against others for the first time. Or perhaps he had not liked Priest Ador and Selina as much as he thought.

His own heart was surprisingly difficult to understand.

One thing, however, was certain: he would be terribly sad if Roden died.

If someone killed Roden, Shan would kill not only the murderer but anyone who had given the order, all the way to the very top. Even if that meant killing a king.

"Roden."

"What?"

"Don't die."

At Shan's sudden remark from farther up the stairs, Roden looked bemused, then chuckled.

"I'll be careful, sir."

* * *

From the watchtower's roof, they confirmed that the north, which had been swept by sandstorms on their last visit, was now an awkward mixture of marshland and snowfields.

After a brief discussion, they chose the snowfields. Unlike the marshes directly north, the snowfields lay northeast, closer to their destination. They also reasoned that their winter clothing would make the weather easier to endure.

Before long, however, Shan began to wonder whether they had made a mistake. The cold on the snowfields was beyond imagining.

"Ugh..."

Cold seeped through the extra layers of coats they had deliberately put on, and the biting wind seemed to slice at his face. Just a few steps left him shivering, chilled to the bone.

Willow Village had bitter winters too, so Shan had thought himself used to the cold. This was on an entirely different level. Compared to this place, winter in Libert and Pendia might as well have been spring.

When even the horses could barely take a few steps in the cold, Roden took potions from the baggage and handed them to his companions.

"Drink some of this."

"What is it?"

"Cold-resistance potion. I was going to save it if the cold was bearable, but there's no chance of that... We'll freeze to death in less than an hour at this rate."

Bringing these was precisely why they had chosen the snowfields over the marshes in the first place.

Shan took a sip and marveled that it truly was worth its steep price. The sensation of warm blood coursing through his body, driving out the cold, was wondrous.

"Wow..."

"It certainly pays to have money."

"Indeed. To think a single potion costs dozens of gold coins."

Vent and Zerpo, who had also drunk their potions, brushed powdery snow from their furs.

Green Eyes continued through the blizzard, drinking more cold-resistance potion whenever the effects wore off. Fortunately, perhaps because it was so cold, they scarcely saw even the ice spirits and yetis said to be common in such regions.

For roughly a day and a half, they traveled by day with the aid of the potions and warmed themselves at night in old Altoan ruins, burning heaps of dried cow dung. They managed to cover a distance that had previously taken three days in almost half the time. They were somewhat familiar with the route, but their grueling, nearly running pace was what made the difference.

Once they were completely clear of the snowfields, Shan looked back and shook his head in disbelief.

"Let's never go anywhere snowy again."

"It isn't normally that bad. That place was particularly cold."

Despite Zerpo's correction, he looked every bit as sick of it himself.

Half a day after leaving the snowfields, they crossed the buffer zone between changing regions. Soon afterward, the compass stopped working again.

Unlike last time, Shan and Roden sighed with relief.

"Thank goodness..."

"If it's a compass region, there won't be anything else."

Only when a person could feel relieved at a compass failing to do its job could they truly call themselves an explorer.

Fortunately, finding their way without a compass was not difficult. From this point onward, the territory was truly unknown to them, but they had worked out a rough route by comparing the Altoan expedition's journal against Count Shedil's gift.

They pressed on through one ordeal after another: battling monsters, making a wide detour when environmental changes erased a stone bridge from their intended route, spending half a day shooting down a flock of dozens of harpies one by one...

As they crossed a high, rugged mountain, Zerpo spoke wearily.

"I knew those Altoans were capable, but they were better than I thought... It's impressive that they made it all the way here and back. Though luck must have played a large part too."

It was hard to appreciate when they had all been cut down so quickly, but they had undoubtedly been excellent warriors and explorers. Then again, even a reasonably skilled knight would struggle to last a single exchange against Shan. Wasn't it cruel to use him as the standard?

They finally reached their destination a full twenty-five days after leaving Shedil. Exactly half remained of the food and water they had thought so plentiful.

"We're here!"

"At last..."

Every member of the expedition looked haggard. It was only natural after so long traveling through monster attacks and all manner of bizarre environments. But the joy of finding their destination was strong enough to overwhelm even their fatigue.

Shan promptly stepped onto Roden's shoulders and climbed up to look ahead.

"It's a city!"

"That's right. That's the place those Altoans found."

Old buildings and ruins left by the Altoans were exceedingly common in the Demonlands. Most, however, had been stripped by explorers ages ago, leaving nothing but bare shells.

By contrast, a city this deep within the Demonlands remained untouched, with many relics still inside. Most things had naturally deteriorated into worthless junk over the years, but some, preserved by special conditions or magic, were called artifacts and traded for staggering sums.

After catching his breath, Roden called out brightly.

"All right, let's go take a look!"

The nameless city was considerably larger than they had expected. Its walls enclosed an area kilometers across, which meant it must have housed at least tens of thousands. It seemed comparable to Shedil, perhaps even larger.

"Could this be Asiluv...?"

"Absolutely not."

Zerpo firmly cut Shan off. Unlike his usual cynical gaze, his eyes were filled with deep interest as he surveyed their surroundings, but he had not lost his composure.

"The capital of an empire larger than the entire Arman Alliance could hardly be this small and shabby. However much time has passed, it would have been large enough to house at least several hundred thousand people."

The suggestion that over a million people might have lived there was impossible to grasp, but on reflection, Shan had felt the same when he first visited the capital, Hasra. If a city of a hundred thousand existed, why shouldn't there be one of a million? Food and such could simply be handled with magic.

A short while later, Green Eyes entered the city's outskirts on full alert. As expected, monsters lurking throughout the city soon realized fresh prey had arrived and emerged.

[HISSS!]

"Wow, this is no joke..."

Snakes large enough to swallow a small child with room to spare slithered out of the buildings and surrounded the expedition. Rather than a few fangs like ordinary snakes, these monsters had sawlike teeth for chewing up their prey. They scarcely ever appeared outside the Demonlands or near its edges and did not even have a proper name. Now there were dozens upon dozens of them.

According to the journal, these creatures had prevented the Altoan expedition from entering through the main gate. They had slipped in through the sewers instead and spent days gathering artifacts on the outskirts like petty thieves.

Of course, overwhelming force made such methods unnecessary.

"Wait here!"

After confirming that Roden and the other two had formed a defensive ring around the horses, Shan launched himself forward with a one-handed sword in each hand.

The snakes immediately attacked the prey charging straight at them, but to Shan, their movements were far too direct. His eyes flicked left and right, tracing every attack. Then his swords moved independently, slicing through the necks of the oncoming snakes.

Dual-wielding was not, ordinarily, a particularly practical technique. Each swing was naturally slower and weaker than one delivered with both hands, and the human brain and body were poorly suited to coordinating two swords.

Yet Shan's mind divided its attention perfectly, as though he had two brains, responding differently to attacks on either side. His left hand severed the head of a snake dropping from above while his right thrust into the jaw of one lunging straight at him. Meanwhile, his otherwise unoccupied feet kicked away snakes attacking from below or used their heads and bodies as footholds, springing through the air again and again as though he could fly.

Watching from behind, Roden drove back an approaching snake with a blow to its head from his war flail, then gave a disbelieving laugh. Had he charged in like that, he would have killed one or two before being torn apart.

"Honestly, no matter how often I see it..."

"I can't imagine anyone else in the world doing that."

Vent and Zerpo laughed in disbelief as well, apparently sharing his thoughts. Even after seeing it time and again, that kind of martial prowess simply did not feel real.

The snakes finally decided to retreat when their numbers had fallen below half. The four surveyed the dozens of snake corpses strewn across the city entrance.

"Can we get anything useful out of these?"

"Hard to say. I've never seen them before... We'd have to take one back and study it properly to find out."

"Then let's leave them."

Vent shook his head at Zerpo's answer and made the suggestion. Ordinarily, they would have taken one back to sell, if only for research. But right now, a city almost untouched by explorers lay before them.

* * *

The snakes they had driven off must have been the dominant monsters here, for they encountered no others as they explored the city. Occasionally, a few snakes hissed and glared at them, but a single threatening gesture with Shan's sword sent them slinking meekly between the buildings.

"Scared you, didn't we, you little bastards!"

Apparently amused, Vent muttered in an uncharacteristically flippant tone, then cleared his throat in embarrassment.

After surveying their surroundings, Roden looked back.

"Any idea where we should start looking, Zerpo?"

"Let's head farther in first. There usually isn't much of value on the outskirts."

As in modern cities, the outskirts were generally home to the poor and ordinary citizens. There were exceptions, such as Shedil, where the count's castle stood at the edge, but cities were usually laid out so that the farther one went from the gates, the nobler the residents became. Naturally, more precious objects would be found where those people had lived.

With only four people searching a city larger than Shedil, even lingering at each building's entrance would take weeks. While they could move about freely, heading straight for the innermost district was their surest option.

"Wow..."

Shan kept exclaiming in wonder as he looked to either side of the broad street. This place was nothing like Delephon, the Mountaintop City, or the other Altoan buildings they had passed along the way. Though most things were rotting away, display stands, flowerpots, and other objects remained inside the buildings, giving a sense that people had once lived here.

Compared to this, the other cities, already stripped of all such objects, were little more than collections of model buildings.

After entering the central district, they had to fight several more battles like the one at the entrance. These were somewhat more dangerous, however. Before, the snakes had been gathered in one place, allowing Shan to charge in; now they sometimes attacked from all directions.

Whenever that happened, Roden drew their attention from the most dangerous position to protect Vent and Zerpo. In the process, he was bitten once on the forearm and once on the shin.

"Are you all right? Can you stand?"

"Ugh, this is nothing..."

Trying to put on a brave face in response to Shan's concern, Roden attempted to stand, but the pain was alarmingly intense. The creatures' jaws were so powerful that, even through chain mail, his bones ached and his skin was bruised black. Had they bitten bare flesh, they would surely have severed the limbs outright.

"Hold still a moment. O Goddess, here is one who is wounded and seeks your mercy..."

Fortunately, shortly after Vent's prayer, the condition of Roden's bitten arm and leg visibly improved. He was not completely healed, but the dark swellings faded as though a long time had passed, and he could walk without limping again.

"Thank goodness..."

"Thank you, Father."

"No need to thank me! I'm the one who should apologize. You were hurt protecting me. Let's see... Fortunately, they don't seem to be venomous."

Now in his early to mid-forties, Vent was not yet old, but he was at an age when decline as a warrior was inevitable. And he was not even a warrior who constantly honed his weapons skills and trained his body; his main calling was the priesthood.

They spent several more hours moving onward and resolving such minor troubles. When they finally reached the heart of the city, the atmosphere changed dramatically. The buildings grew taller and more ornate, and wondrous sights appeared: fountains that still worked perfectly and trees with softly glowing leaves.

"We couldn't take that fountain with us, could we?"

"Probably not..."

Their disappointment was brief. At last, they reached an enormous mansion that seemed to have belonged to the city's ruler or someone of similar standing.

"Let's check this building first, then work our way clockwise from here. Mark the entrance of any building someone's already searched..."

Listening carefully to Vent's instructions alongside Zerpo, Roden noticed Shan tilting his head beside him.

"Pay attention. If you don't keep us safe, we could all be in danger."

"The snakes are gone."

"What?"

"They were hanging around the buildings until a moment ago. But now that we're farther in, I can't see any at all."

Shan's eyes narrowed as he murmured, just as they always did when he encountered an enemy or faced danger.

As though something had heard him, a tremendous crash rang out from inside the mansion.

"What's that...?"

"It can't be."

THUD! THUD!

The heavy booms grew steadily louder, as though something was coming toward them.

A moment later, something resembling a huge, elongated boulder peered over the mansion wall. Considering that the wall stood at least five meters high, the creature's sheer size was dizzying, almost impossible to imagine...

At the sight of its face, Zerpo cried out in a near scream.

"A cockatrice!"