Chapter 60: 52

“Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel any different from before.”

“Of course, after all it’s not like we came to a different place. Plus, the species of monsters still remains the same.”

In the Demon Forest, depending on the species of monsters inhabiting a certain region, its terrain may also change greatly.
That’s the “demonic” aspect of the Demon Forest.

Conversely, the terrain remains the same as long as the inhabiting monsters remain the same.
The collectible harvest also remains the same, and the deeper you go into the same monster’s terrain, the higher becomes the quality of your loot.
Although, there wasn’t any need to concern ourselves with that.

For now, we were collecting loot while practicing magic.

“Line up in your usual positions everyone. Aria will lead, Reno will go ahead in order to scout, and the remaining three will forage for stuff.”
“Got it, I’ll be back!”

Saying that, Reno disappears into the forest.
The other four start performing their tasks as well.

***

“There seems to be a lot we can collect around here.”
“Well, the deeper you go in, the higher the concentration of magic gets making it perfect for foraging.”

Not much time had passed since foraging began, but Kili’s bag already seemed full.
It might be better to give her a bigger one now.

“Since our bags are already filled, let’s go home for today.”
“Yeah, that may be–“
“–Lain nii-chaaan!”

As we talked about returning home, Reno came running towards us.
The other four prepared to start flee at any moment.

We had a code designated for emergency scenarios.
The fact that she didn’t use it, meant it wasn’t an emergency.

Besides, I knew that there weren’t any greywolves in this area, so I waited for Reno to come closer.

“There’s something like a building over there!”
“Building?”
“Yeah! It was mostly covered with moss, but it had a door!”

It wasn’t normal to consider living inside the forest.
At one point, I used to think living in the forest would be like hitting two birds with one stone when taking training into account.
But that turned out to be infeasible in reality.

That’s because everything inside the forest, belonged to the forest.
No matter how robust your house was, it would soon fall apart and not even last three days.
Therefore, it was impossible to build artificial structures in the Demon Forest.

“Aah, it might be ruins. Do you want to check it out?”
“Ruins!?”

There are always exceptions to the case.
For example, a structure that got absorbed into the forest.

Really tough buildings could survive being swallowed by the forest.
All the land which previously belonged to the ancient magician civilization, was similarly swallowed.
If a tough building got swallowed into it, its premises became a part of the forest.

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As such, these places were treated as ruins, and were regularly explored for artifacts and books.
What Reno found might be one of those.

Ruins couldn’t be detected through magic either so you had to physically locate them like Reno did.
Truthfully, I didn’t expect one to be so close-by so I didn’t seriously look for it either.

“Are ruins normally found in such shallow regions of the forest?”

“Ruins form haphazardly, so you could find one technically anywhere.”

Aria questioned me from the side while listening in.
Ruins could be found at any part of the forest.
Or rather, ruins existed outside of it as well.
Though everything was already taken out of them and only the outer structure remained.

“For all we know, a ruin found this shallow into the forest might not even be worth anything. Someone might have squeezed it dry long before us, so do you still want to go in?”

The deeper you went into the forest, the better loot you could expect to find.

There was something called the “Dragon Vein” in the middle of the Demon Forest, and apparently the latter half of ancient magician civilization prospered around there.
That’s why the closer you got to the center, the more chances you had of finding rarer objects.

“You’re right. What should we do?”

Aria asked the other four for their opinions.
Aria herself seemed like she wanted to go, but after losing any reason to do so,she passed the buck onto others.

“I want, to go.”

Sui was the first to say that.

“We might, have to, enter one, later on.”
“…Fair enough. The deeper we head inside, the more likely we are to find more ruins, so it might be better to get used to them with this one. The ruins deeper in are more dangerous, correct?”
“Yeah. There are monsters inside after all.”

Milia agreed with Sui.
Reno and Aria also seemed like they were raring to go in.

“…If it’s not that dangerous, then I guess we can take a look.”

Kili, who hadn’t said anything yet, gave a positive response as everyone’s eyes turned towards her.

“I think it’ll be fine. Greywolves aren’t a problem for us no matter how many there are, and I’ve also been to numerous ruins before.”

I believed it to be relatively safe.
I had stepped into unexplored ruins many times before, due to my work as an anti-demon aristocrat.
The army usually took away all the contents, but I was at least well-versed with traps.
I was confident I could counter anything that came up.

“Alright, then let’s go.”

On Aria’s command, we head towards the ruin found by Reno.

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