CH 223

I knew it when I looked at it from afar too, but now that I’m actually climbing the mountain, I really feel how tough it is.

Someone in the inn where we stayed in the border city called it a natural fortress, and that’s exactly what it is.

The flat road stops at the foot of the mountain, just like we were told when we heard it was impossible to keep going by wagon, and what follows is something with bad footing that can barely be called a road.

The road is also barely wide enough for people to be able to pass by each other. There aren’t any railings either, so if you misstep, you’re slipping off this incline. It’s steep too, so there are a lot of spots where I’m pretty sure someone would get hurt pretty badly if they fell.

And despite all that, people do come and go through this path, so there are a few spots along the way where we can rest.

They’re pretty cramped for groups of people that want to take a break, so I think it’d be impossible to send an army through here.

Humanity, I guess? Anyway, they stopped fighting to join forces against the demon king, but this place might be the real reason why they stuck with it.

Ah, but I think there are other, easier routes, so that might not be it.

“It’s hard to breathe.”

Says Mia while crouching.

As we get higher, our breaths get whiter, and we start to feel cold.

That’s mitigated to a certain extent, because we knew we were going to the Dragon Kingdom, gathered information, and prepared ourselves for it, but we still tremble when the wind blows.

We’re equipped against the cold, but it’s still cold.

“Master, I want something hot.”

Even Hikari, who usually hangs in there and doesn’t complain, is like this. You don’t just feel like eating, do you?

We advance until we find a place where we can take shelter, and I give hot soup to everyone.

When we’re all close like this I can use magic to protect us from the cold, but doing it over a larger area would drain my MP, and I’d have to move it as we moved too, so it’d be pretty hard to control.

Everyone takes the bowls like they’re accepting something important, and drinks the soup with happy expressions. Seeing those happy faces makes me stop moving without even thinking.

“Master? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

Even if it feels out of place, I can’t tell her that this soft atmosphere is making me feel happy.

This environment is harsh, but it’s still more relaxing than the brutal mood in the dungeon.

Although that might change as we advance.

“Is that tree over there the marker we were told about?”

The tree Rurika is talking about has a distorted shape and feels eerie.

The weather is clear, but there’s a dark atmosphere around that spot and that spot alone.

We were told that once we pass that tree, the road gets less steep and wider, and apparently it’s about halfway through the mountain.

Also, if we stray a little from the road, there are a lot of trees growing from the mountain surface, and many different kinds of beings live there, including monsters and people.

I hear there’s even a small settlement in a forest far away from the road.

Map doesn’t show me anything, so at the very least, these monsters and people aren’t within its range.

We also need to be careful about bandits. And although I haven’t heard anything about monsters attacking, there have been reports of sightings.

There really isn’t a whole lot of information, because not a lot of people go to the Dragon Kingdom to begin with.

Apparently these two countries established a relationship hundreds of years ago, but at some point they stopped proactively working on maintaining relations, and they slowly fell apart until we get to present time.

Still, merchants do travel there, after the precious items that can only be found in the Dragon Kingdom.

There’s also a trial that’s said to grant new powers if you complete it. Adventurers travel there because of it, but who knows if it’s real.

“The more I hear about it, the less likely it seems that they took slaves there.”

Would slavers really go out of their way to take slaves over there?

Even if they went through another route, the elevation alone means they’d still need to be prepared to face the cold, and those preparations would be costly.

“That’s true. But there are rumors that the Dragon Kingdom was harboring slaves…”

But they didn’t go there to check because they weren’t sure if it was true, and the path to the Dragon Kingdom is so harsh.

There’s also the fact that this all started with the war against the empire, so it stood to reason that the people they were looking for were taken to the empire. That was the case with Sera too.

“Wasn’t it hard with just the two of you anyway?”

I ask, and they say that they didn’t have that tough of a time looking for their friends in the beginning. But when they went to the Kingdom of Elesya and failed to find them there, and the same happened after they went around a few towns in the Beast Kingdom, they started to feel pretty anxious.

“We were grasping at straws, so we came running when we got that letter.”

How many times have I heard Rurika complain about her struggles? She’s not even drunk, is she?

Sera and Chris are smiling awkwardly, but she’s probably just talking away her worries.

If Eris isn’t there… That thought probably crosses her mind all the time.

“Well then, ready to keep going?”

The sun is still high in the sky, and if we’re going to camp, it should be in a place that’s a bit better suited for us to protect ourselves against the rain and wind. Of course, walking around in the dark is dangerous, so we’re stopping before it gets too dark.

I have magic items with a night vision effect that I bought for the dungeon, so it’s not like we can’t walk in the dark at all, but it still makes our vision worse. Not to mention that it gets colder at night.

And there’s the fact that we’re not used to walking on a mountain path.

The circumstances dictate that we can’t go at a leisurely pace, but we also can’t rush because we might fall, so in the end we have to be careful about our footing as we advance.