Chapter 154: The Mist Mountain Range

Mist Mountain Range!

This is a place where light cannot reach.

This is a place where time cannot erode.

This is a place where the gods cannot cross.

This is…

The place where the divine spirits perished!

……

In the legends of the Frost Crystal Kingdom…

No, in a history far, far older than even the Frost Crystal Kingdom, the Mist Mountain Range has always been a forbidden zone of life shrouded in mystery.

It teems with vast numbers of ancient magical beasts and all manner of dangerous creatures; even Legends could lose their lives within.

It stands alongside places like the legendary Death Desert, the Deep-Dive Sea Abyss, the Dragon Lair, and the Ghost Ship Graveyard — a forbidden land of extremely high danger.

At the same time, just like those places, wherever peril exists, opportunity surely coexists!

Within lie all manner of ancient ruins, harboring all sorts of treasures, even the inheritances left behind from the previous era…

Those treasures slumber quietly within the Mist Mountain Range, waiting for brave adventurers to carry them away — though in most cases, it's the treasures that carry them away, leaving them there forever.

But… men die for wealth, birds die for food.

So long as the potential gains are great enough, it will inevitably attract desperate souls willing to risk their lives.

Not to mention more distant eras — just within the last thousand years, the number of legendary adventuring parties recorded in historical texts alone exceeds ten!

But adding up to over fifty Legends, only three ultimately survived after stepping into the forbidden zone and came back out alive.

And of those three survivors, two died sudden, strange deaths within ten years; only one lived out his twilight years in peace.

Such terrifying records have made more and more people, when their desires get the better of them, sober up and weigh just how much they've got, carefully considering whether to come here and throw their lives away.

And because of the excessively high casualty rate and the excessively low returns, the Mist Mountain Range's standing among those forbidden zones gradually slipped to the bottom of the pile.

Returns too low, risk too high — this thing isn't the stock market; who'd be stupid enough to come here as leeks… ahem.

In recent years, no one brings it up anymore; only some ancient races still remember the legends of the Mist Mountain Range.

But in truth, if one actually came here, one would find the real situation isn't as terrifying as the legends make it out to be.

Although mist shrouds the place day and night, it doesn't reach the point where you can't see your hand in front of your face.

Visibility at the outer edge of the mountain range is around ten kilometers — a thin mist, affecting the view to some degree but nothing severe.

The deeper you go, the thicker the fog; not only is visibility low, it also blocks all manner of perception.

But aside from the dead-end path leading into the forbidden zone, there is also a safe road specially cleared by the Mist Monastery.

It's lined with all sorts of guide markers; as long as you follow the road, you won't encounter any real threat, and as long as you don't stray into the forbidden zone, you won't lose your way.

Simply put, if you don't court death, you won't die.

However, some people are born with a nature that loves to court death.

Just like some dogs that run off the moment you let go of the leash are destined never to be kept in a cage, these people can't be pulled back either.

Kind words cannot dissuade a ghost bent on death.

In such cases, there's no stopping them.

Even though the heat has died down now, every year there are still no small number of brave souls who come to the Mist Mountain Range to adventure and end up vanishing from this world without so much as a fart.

……

Whoosh!

Accompanied by the beating of crimson wings, a gust of wind swept through, scattering the mist within a hundred-meter radius.

Roar!

In midair, the dragon Feiji, having flown to her heart's content, let out a joyful roar, hovered high above, and then transformed into human form on the spot.

"Hmph hmph!"

Meanwhile, another figure who had been surveying the surroundings from atop the dragon's back, upon feeling the loss of gravity, stared blankly at the ground below — still a distance of two hundred meters from the surface.

???

I'm not riding a helicopter either?

Emergency landing?

No.

This isn't the captain bailing out on his own — it's damn Feiji jumping off on her own!!?

"Wuwah!"

Upon feeling gravity's pull on himself, Herbert's eyes went wide.

Holy crap—

At this distance, for him after all this time of settling in, falling like this — wouldn't he end up black and blue all over?

I really don't want to play another resurrection match!

The youth, who did not want to be smashed into "Herbert paste" or "Herbert pancake," wore a solemn expression; at this critical moment, he focused his mind intensely, his thoughts racing at high speed.

"Use the Demonic Body to harden the vital points and torso; the limbs can be crippled, I can just heal them later."

"Then have the Aberrant Flesh shift the muscles to the contact points to increase the cushioning."

"At the very last moment, use Boiling Blood to boost resistance."

"Maybe I can also use Shadow Tentacles to make a simple catch-net…"

But just as Herbert had figured out a whole series of moves and was about to execute them, he was suddenly hugged from behind — and damn it, a princess carry at that!!?

Herbert turned his head and saw a pair of bright, smiling eyes.

Valentina, who had already transformed into her dragon-kin form, was grinning foolishly at him, her smile utterly pure and radiant.

"Hehe! Were you scared just now!"

"……"

Oh, right.

And Valentina is here too, she's so nice—wait, isn't this exactly her doing!?

"……Put me down."

"You really want me to let go?"

Valentina blinked, glanced at the ground below, raised an eyebrow and said: "Are you really sure?"

Herbert fell silent, silently pinched her cheeks and pulled them apart, saying word by word: "Put·me·down—"

"Nyubie ce wo de nyian!" ("Don't pull my face!")

Valentina shook her head, finally escaping the clutches, and smacked her lips.

"Tch~"

After a not-at-all-romantic bout of playful brawling in midair, the hungry dragon young lady finally obediently set Herbert, whom she had been princess-carrying, down on the ground.

……I don't want to be obedient at all!

When there were still ten meters left to the ground, Valentina tossed Herbert out.

Catch you later!

Fortunately, a height of ten meters was nothing to Herbert; he easily adjusted his posture in the air, then landed lightly on the ground with a "superhero landing."

Thud!

"Ha."

After his knees touched the hard ground, Herbert let out a deep sigh, muttering silently in his heart.

"That hurts…"

It seemed that as long as he couldn't learn the double jump in a day, even ten meters couldn't be taken lightly.

Valentina landed beside Herbert, raised her arms high, and stretched her body vigorously.

"Mmm~~~ha!"

Compared to Herbert's whole-body soreness after sitting for so long, she had been thoroughly nourished during this period—the nourishment of freedom.

As the saying goes, going to work is like being in prison.

Once Valentina no longer had to serve her sentence in prison, the office-worker smell completely vanished from her entire being.

She had completely let herself go during this period, the whole person quite cheerful, glowing with health.

Eating well, sleeping soundly.

Both eating well AND sleeping soundly!

With no one else's gaze around here, she simply hugged Herbert around the waist from behind, resting her chin on his left shoulder.

The two were not far apart in height, and she herself had a tall and slender figure, so doing this was completely effortless.

"Herbert~ what are we doing here?"

Is it to do some loving things?

A being newly tasting the forbidden fruit is like this—the initial period is when desire is at its highest—additionally, for dragons, the scale of this period might be longer than many people imagine.

Wanting to suppress such a partner is an extremely energy-draining affair.

But Herbert hadn't come here this time to fool around with her in the wild—at least, that shouldn't be the main purpose.

"We came this time to take a look…… where are you putting your hand?"

After lightly swatting away the greedy little hand that was secretly reaching for the food to help itself to a buffet, Herbert turned his gaze to look around.

"This place will be my territory in the future. We came this time to see if there's any suitable place here that can be developed……"

Herbert recalled the scene he had seen from above earlier, and quickly sketched the details he had noted down into his handbook.

His hand was very steady, and he was quite skilled at drawing; he easily sketched out a rough topographic map of the Misty Mountains.

The Misty Mountains were vast; even the portion explored by the monastery accounted for only one-tenth of the entire area, possibly even less.

The remaining ninety percent was all in unexplored territory shrouded in thick fog.

After he finished drawing and raised his head, he found that the fog that had been blown away by the dragon wings earlier had silently crept back around them at this point, looking completely unchanged from not long ago.

Herbert raised his palm, squinted his eyes, carefully sensing the composition of the fog, and quickly arrived at an unexpected result.

"Oh?"

Relying on the Sea Demon Queen's affection, he possessed quite outstanding water-element affinity, but no matter how he called out to the fog, he couldn't stir it in the slightest.

The composition of this fog was not water vapor, but some kind of special substance he couldn't comprehend.

"Could it be smog?"

As Herbert thought this, he suddenly thought of something and called out to his ever-silent classmate, the Jester.

"Nie Nasha! Nie Nasha! It's your time to show your might!"

【"Mm?"】

It's time to perform the real technique.

"Get to it! Isn't this your happy old home?"

Herbert, with a hungry dragon pendant hanging off him, held his hands up toward the fog ahead, slowly pushing them apart to either side, waiting for the astonishing sight of the fog being invisibly parted before his eyes—

"Open!"

And then……

Naturally, nothing happened.

Herbert:?

Nie Nasha:?

Valentina: "Huh, huh…"

While Herbert was drawing his map, Valentina had already wrapped her arms around his neck, locked her legs around his waist, and hung on him like a koala, sinking into a sweet slumber.

For Herbert's performance art, the God of Humor expressed confusion but was deeply shaken.

【"What are you doing?"】

"Of course I'm waiting for you."

Herbert kept a stern expression and said in a low voice: "What are you still waiting for? Reveal your true form at once!"

What time is it now, and you're still pretending here?

There's no one else here!

At last, Nie Nasha understood Herbert's meaning—he hoped She would reveal Her divine miracle.

But for this expectation, She could only respond helplessly:

【"I know you really want to see me control these mists, but unfortunately, it's impossible~"】

"Huh!? Why not?"

【"It's just impossible~"】

Nie Nasha also felt deeply helpless:

【"This is indeed the ruins of My divine realm, and the drifting mist here is connected to Me, but… it's too close to the monastery."】

【"Protecting you from harm within this mist is already My limit. To make the mist move, unless… you want to draw out that fellow."】

"Oh, alright."

Herbert immediately tugged at his lips, deciding not to discuss this deeply frustrating topic anymore.

You really are an invincible old geezer—

But this minor setback would not dampen Herbert's enthusiasm.

Whether or not Nie Nasha helped was merely icing on the cake; Herbert himself possessed an advantage no one else could match.

The greatest cause of death for adventurers in the Mist Mountains is getting lost.

They lose their way in the mist and eventually die in various horrific ways.

But Herbert… would never get lost!

With the 【Siren Queen's Devotion】, he would never lose his sense of direction!

He had just tested it—he could walk through the mist even with his eyes closed, still moving according to One's Own Thoughts.

With this ability, Herbert could establish his own base deep within the fog, where no one else could come!

"So, the first step is to find a test site."

(End of Chapter)