247 Asking for Help
The jungle was a dangerous place for anyone who dared to set foot in it. Not only the gigantic bugs gave a sense of dread, but the low sunlight, and the sensation of being watched, increased that feeling.
All of them ran through the jungle, avoiding to hit the trees and jumping bushes just to get away from those bugs!
“Why are we always unlucky?” Wisa complained as she ran away.
Despite them having the power to kill those bugs, it was still something that gave them fear, especially for Jane and Wisa, who thought these bugs were disgusting!
There was even a gigantic larva crawling toward them. The liquid around its body made it even more disgusting, making everyone flee even faster from that jungle!
They did not know where to go, but when Arthur used his flight spell to fly above the treetops, he noticed a plain not that far from where they were.
But when he looked behind, the jungle seemed endless! It went on and on until a point where not even his dragon sight could keep up.
“It is a good thing the portal is near the way out. What exactly is this place?” Arthur thought as he went down again, explaining to everyone what they saw.
With their energies refreshed after knowing the way out was not that far, everyone kept going forward, leaving the jungle after thirty minutes of walk!
There were a lot of times that the bugs got too close to them, but Arthur intervened in time, ending their lives before one of them could traumatize his wives.
When they left the jungle, there was a plain, and not that far from it a muddy road with a wooden sign that said ‘Forgotten Forest’ and another one that said ‘Extremely Dangerous, Keep the Distance’.
It was a place that few people had the courage to go into. Arthur had been lucky the portal was just at the edge of that jungle, so there wasn’t any real danger, but that would change if one ventured deeper into it.
“We are finally out of that place! Look at this beautiful sun!”
Different from the jungle where the treetops made it impossible for the sunlight to pass through it, now that they were outside of the jungle, everything was different!
Arthur could not tell why, but the central continent had a different vibe to it. One thing he quickly noticed was the amount of mana in the atmosphere, which was higher than that of the rest of the planet.
“That is why the central continent is the home of all mages! This differs completely from the countryside we came from!”
The eagerness to explore all of it was within all of them.
“Look at that! Isn’t that magical?” Kai said.
“It is just a tree…”
“And that? This has to be something incredible, right?”
“Incredible, let me see, ah… a rock.”
“That creature right there! I have never seen it before.”
Finally, something that caught Arthur’s attention, but when he went to check, the creature was merely a chicken. Well, that was a good sign, as a few moments after they saw that chicken, a village entered their sights.
When they entered that village, it did not go unnoticed, but people soon mind their own business. Sure, a group of cloaked people would catch some attention, but that was it.
It was not an uncommon sight for those villagers, especially considering their village was close to the Forgotten Forest, where lots of mages went to look for opportunities.
What caught the most attention was that those cloaked figures were alive and well, different from most of those who tried their luck inside the Forgotten Forest.
“This is incredible! I am almost sure we are far away from the big cities, yet this village looks bigger than some cities we saw before!” Arthur said as he gazed at all the buildings and the people working on the farms.
A village from the central continent was way different from the villages Arthur saw back at his continent. Maybe the reason for the massive difference was the money.
“This place is way richer than us, so that is understandable. Look, this place even has a branch of an adventurer’s guild! Those things we could only find in big cities!” Wisa said.
The village had over three inns, an adventurers’ guild branch, blacksmithing stores, alchemy stores, enchanting stores, and even a small library with some magical tomes!
It had everything a traveler would need, and even more! Arthur walked through the streets of the village when someone stopped him.
“Are you a mage?” A middle-aged man said.
Arthur was surprised to see someone walk up to him like that. He was sure he had done nothing wrong while inside the village, so what could that be about?
“Yes, I am. Is there something wrong?”
The man instantly knelled after hearing that, begging Arthur for help.
“Please, help me, sir! I have little, but I can pay you for anything! Please, help me!”
“Calm down. Can we talk in a more private place?”
“Of course, of course. Come, I will show you my house.”
Arthur turned around to speak with his wives and friends, who were glad to roam around and explore the village at their own pace.
It was better that way, as each one of them would go toward an area, seeking for more information, and by the end of the day, all of them could merge that information into something useful.
The villager who seek Arthur’s help led the way toward his house, which was not in the middle of the village but farther away, in a farm.
There, inside his house made of wood, his wife waited for him with a seriousness in her face that made Arthur wonder what exactly had happened.
“Mary, I found someone willing to help!”
Mary was the man’s wife, who immediately ran toward Arthur and got to her knees, begging.
“Please, find my daughter!”
“Sr. Mage. Our daughter disappeared three days ago. We asked for help in the adventurers’ guild, but no one heard us, ignoring completely…”
“Sr. Mage, please help us find her. She is a talented youth who will attend the One Hundred Thunder Academy. Can you believe that? She has too much to live…”
When Arthur heard about the place their daughter would go to, he was shocked. Once again, the world threw at him for coincidences.
He would help her anyway, even if he did not know about that information, but now he wanted to do that even more.
“Can you explain how did she go missing?” Arthur said, picking up a wooden chair to sit and listen to the complete story.
“Well, four days ago, someone from the One Hundred Thunder Academy came here to do some recruiting. They do this once after five years, trying to fetch some good saplings from the villages around this area.”
“Our daughter, Elena, passed the test, which brought us an immeasurable happiness that only lasted a day…”
“Some cloaked figures broke into our house the next night, kidnapping her,”
“Please, find her! We will give you anything.”
They did not know that the person they were talking to was basically a teacher of the academy their daughter would go.
“Destiny works in strange ways.”
Arthur set up his mind to help them find Elena, but the first thing he had to do was find some clues about the kidnapping.