Chapter 160 Undercover Mission (2) - Fairy Mountains

“It has to be one of these plants we ate in the soup.” Jassin said. He was the elf that got ill during the night when they were camping inside the forest.

They did not face any poisonous enemy, so the reason for him getting ill like that was from a poisonous plant they used as a spice, or one person there had poisoned him.

Arthur believed more in the second option, therefor he kept close watch of all the squad members. An elf, a race that lived off the land, and presumably knew all the herbs around their forest, ate something and fell ill? It did not seem convincing.

The four people with Arthur were Jassin, a slim elf, the one that fell ill, Folen, a guy that barely talk with the rest of them, Siora, a gorgeous woman that tried her best to pull out a conversation with Arthur, and the last one, Laeroth, who was the most suspicious of them all, at least for Arthur.

Laeroth felt tense throughout the entire journey, but that could be because of how important the mission was, and how dangerous it was. Therefore, Arthur was not sure if he was the person behind it.

Perhaps the culprit was neither of them, but someone else that was following them? It was a possibility, but Arthur had sensed no one.

“Let me check your pulse.” Arthur said.

He did not know any healing type spell, but he wanted to try something, and that was to devour the poison from Jassin’s body. Arthur could not create a huge black mouth to devour it, so he tried to absorb the poison by grabbing the wrist of that elf.

One needed tremendous concentration to perform that. At first, Arthur thought he would fail. Whoever he quickly felt the poison leaving Jassin’s body, entering on his own.

Now that he had his wooden essence completed, alongside with the power of his dragon bloodline, these weak poisons could not harm him at all. The moment the poison entered his body, it dissipated instantly.

“I’m feeling well again. Thank you, my lord!” Jassin bowed.

Arthur focused on each one of them to see who had a suspicious reaction, but all of them looked surprised, and placed Arthur even higher in their hearts.

“Let’s sleep here for the night, and continue tomorrow.” Arthur said.

All of them agreed, as that was exactly what they were doing. They shared the tasks of building tents and creating a fire where they all sat around it to chat and eat.

They had stopped only once in these past 4 days to rest, so everyone was tired, therefore it did not take long for all of them to fall asleep.

Arthur went to his own tent, but he did not need to sleep at all, so he kept reading and paying attention to the rest of them. During the night, he heard footsteps.

Who could walk that late? He got up from his tent bed and activated his invisibility spell. After using it for so long, his mastery had increased to a whole new level, and he was confident that few people would see through it.

The person who left the tent was Siora, the only woman in their group. She walked deeper into the forest, with Arthur following closely behind.

All her actions seemed suspicious, therefore Arthur guessed she could be the person behind the poisoning.

“She did not seem like a bad person. Was I wrong the whole time?” Arthur thought.

Siora kept looking behind, trying to see if anyone was following her, which made everything more suspicious. She kept walking deeper into the forest until she finally stopped.

“What is she doing?” Arthur thought, but the moment he saw what was happening, his eyes were wide open.

Jassin, the elf that had been poisoned a few moments ago, was waiting for her, and they kissed each other…

Arthur left before things turned into the other side. He did not want to watch that at all.

He discarded these two of his list of culprits, but that did not mean he would not keep close attention. Now, there were only two remaining.

The other two from the squad did not leave their tents, and were sleeping like rocks. Arthur returned to his own tent and spent the rest of the night reading and thinking about the future.

~~~~

Their journey continued the next morning, and Arthur acted as if he had not seen what happened last night with Jassin and Siora.

The next major part of their journey to reach the Dragon Scale Empire was the Fairy Mountains, a place of great danger.

Countless legends about that place spread throughout not only the Elven Kingdom but to the world. They could circle around it, but that would waste a lot of time, and time was precious.

What if the dark races were preparing for an attack? What if the Dragon Scale Empire is beyond saving after they lost time avoiding the Fairy Mountains? These were things all of them thought, therefore passing through that place was inevitable.

“The Fairy Mountains… we should all be careful from now on.” Jassin said.

Fairy Mountains had that name because of the fairies that lived in that place. Some people thought fairies were inoffensive beings, but that was completely wrong.

They used illusions to play with their victims, and send me to traps. Fairies were the major problem in those mountains, but other beasts lived there, too.

If one gets caught in a fairy illusion, then getting eaten by something else is not a wish hard to come true. Arthur hoped that his magical barrier was enough to protect him from those illusions, and that they did not meet lots of dangers during their time in those mountains.

“All right. We should rest nearby and continue the next day. We need to be at our peak to pass through this place unscratched.” Arthur said.

“I thought the same.”

“I will build the campfire.”

“Let me deal with the tents.”

Everyone helped each other before entering a place that had taken the lives of many elves before them.