CHAPTER 72: IN THE TALL GRASS

The Field of Abandoned Shadows.

That was the territory’s true name, though I was the only person in this world who knew it. Because no one who entered had ever returned, this territory was regarded as a nightmare. Yet, truth be told, it could be relatively easy to cross, provided one knew the crucial information beforehand.

Just as the name implied, this entire region was a field of shadows. Even during the day, the sun never penetrated this territory, keeping the whole area perpetually in darkness. For this reason, anyone who stepped into the territory without a source of light to actively drive the shadows back was instantly consumed by them.

As we stepped into this territory with our torches lit, we could visibly see the darkness on the ground recoil. The shadows immediately retreated a few meters around us. Even the shadows our bodies should have cast failed to appear.

It was as if we were within a small protective bubble of light.

From time to time, we could see some of the surrounding shadows try to force their way into the bubble, only for the infringing edges to turn into wisps of black smoke, forcing the shadows to instantly retreat.

"Let’s keep moving..." I whispered to the party members before beginning to move between the grasses.

The others followed close behind me and Aika, sticking really close to each other.

The deeper into the territory we went, the more the darkness seemed to be thicker and more oppressive, so much so that we were forced to raise our torches higher to expand our bubble of light.

Another thing we noticed was that the entire territory was cloaked in an absolutely eerie silence. We couldn’t hear any sounds, not of insects, not of the wind, not of any other creatures.

And so, none of us dared to speak as we had discovered that if we made even so much as a whisper, the shadows at the edges of our light bubble instantly grew agitated and riled up, causing them to ripple violently.

We kept walking in tense silence, doing our best to ignore the shadows’ constant movement as much as possible.

Time passed by incredibly slowly...

Since no one except me could truly tell the time, my companions couldn’t tell if an hour, two hours, or even more had passed. We just kept moving as fast as we could.

And just like that, a whole day passed in silent walking.

At this point, I could clearly see the exhaustion on the faces of my party members. It wasn’t just from the strain of maintaining the light’s focus and the sheer mental tension, but also from hunger and thirst. Some of them even began wobbling from time to time. Finally, Dion was the first to halt. He bent over, clutching his knees and breathing heavily from exhaustion.

Every other person stopped as well, and their expressions were all grim.

I then signaled to everyone that we could only rest for just fifteen minutes.

That was the best I could allow; I did not want us to linger in this territory for long. We sat on the dry ground, catching our breaths.

However, after less than seven minutes, I quickly urged everyone to get up. I could feel a shadow vastly different and far more powerful than the others watching us.

The party members tiredly stood up. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Everyone sensed the presence as well, and because of this shared urgency, they didn’t argue. We quickly began walking again.

An hour passed, then another... Until a second full day passed in tense, silent walking.

At this point, even I felt like I was going to die of exhaustion.

I had a few stamina elixirs in my inventory, but I couldn’t use it here. We were going to need those elixirs far more when we got to the Bridge of Nothing.

I also couldn’t give out food. I remembered from my previous knowledge of the game that I had died almost instantly after eating in this territory for a reason I never understood, and I could not risk my party members dying too.

And so we pushed through our exhaustion and hunger.

When our torches had almost completely burnt out, Aika pulled out another set from the inventory and distributed them. We all ignited the fresh torches and kept moving.

On the third day, Ino fell to the ground from exhaustion. Dion quickly ran to her and held her in his arms as she slowly dissolved back into the tattoo of a panther on his arm.

Celeste, too, looked like she was on the verge of collapse, but I could see her clearly trying her best to hide it. As for Evelyn, Julius was piggybacking her.

Then right while I was examining my party members, I could feel the shadow of the being that had been watching us get closer. It felt like the bubble of light from our fire torches was suddenly shrinking as the darkness slowly forced its way closer.

I quickly tugged Dion and signaled to the others that we needed to move as fast as possible. We dragged our exhausted selves and quickly began moving as fast as we could.

While we were moving briskly, I looked to my map screen and saw that, aside from the blue dots in the center, the entire area was red. It didn’t even appear as red dots. Instead, it was just a surrounding red haze that kept creeping closer to the blue dots.

I quickly looked away and began jogging and the others followed behind me.

Then, barely a few minutes later, we finally burst out of the endless grass and skidded to a stop at the edge of a chasm so vast it was impossible to see the end of it.

When we all stopped at the edge, we immediately collapsed flat to the ground in utter exhaustion. For a moment, it was silent, save for our ragged, hoarse breathing. Since the shadows couldn’t leave the territory of the green grass, we didn’t need to worry about them lunging out to get us here on the edge. We just lay sprawled like corpses.

Then, after a minute or so, Evelyn chuckled. The sound grew into a full laugh before she finally gasped out, "Ahhh... we made it."