Chapter 013: A New Discovery
Although Chen Ran spoke casually, there was nothing else he could do in the current situation. For one, he truly sympathized with Lia’s plight, which was mixed with the natural soft spot that otakus have for beautiful women. Secondly, he didn’t know how to get out of this forest either, so he might as well be a bachelor about it and continue on with Lia.
“That’s great!”
Chen Ran’s grand decision clearly moved the innocent young girl before him. Perhaps out of sheer excitement, Lia threw herself at him like a little girl. The force was not weak, and it pushed Chen Ran back a few steps before he could steady himself. Chen Ran quickly felt the astonishing softness pressed against his chest and the girl’s strong, genuine reliance on him…
In this seemingly romantic moment, Chen Ran found that he had no lewd thoughts. All his thoughts melted into a smile at the corner of his mouth. He let out a sigh, reached out his left hand, and patted Lia’s back. “Alright, we should get going.”
“Wait a moment,” Lia said, leaving Chen Ran’s embrace. She took six or seven steps back, then turned around, her back to Chen Ran, and took something out from her clothes. She then pulled out a piece of parchment and, blushing, handed the scroll to Chen Ran.
“This is the destination of our journey. Now that it’s just the two of us, I have nothing to hide…”
Chen Ran took the parchment scroll, puzzled. Looking at Lia’s blushing face and the lingering warmth on the parchment, Chen Ran seemed to guess where this thing had been hidden before…
But this also meant that Lia now completely trusted him.
When he opened the map, Chen Ran’s positioning map quickly scanned it. A large area on the positioning map instantly lit up. However, this area was a rough map of the depths of the dense forest; it still didn’t show how to get out…
After a quick scan of the map, Chen Ran’s gaze soon rested on a spot marked with a treasure chest. He figured that must be their destination.
But what was with the big skull next to it…
Did it mean that rushing in recklessly would end badly…
Forget it, I’ll figure it out when I get there.
With a map, Chen Ran couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. At least now he wouldn’t be running around like a headless chicken. He looked at Lia again, his face full of confidence. “I understand. I’ll take you to that place. Let’s hope we get lucky.”
“Mmm.”
Lia nodded. Her gaze swept over Raul’s lonely grave not far away, and her mood sank a little. She walked over, knelt down, and kissed the earth in front of the mound.
“Raul, thank you for taking care of me on this journey. I hope you are well in heaven. In the next life, you will surely find a girl better than me.”
She kowtowed, stood up, and left.
Chen Ran and Lia once again set off on their adventure into the depths of the dense forest.
After putting on the Tiger King battle skirt that Chen Ran had specially made for her, Lia’s mobility was greatly enhanced, and her abilities took a qualitative leap. She was as agile as a swallow. According to the rough observation of his Eye of Insight, Lia’s original strength evaluation of level 29 had shot up to level 38. If Chen Ran had the materials to make her a decent weapon, her abilities could have been elevated even further.
And with the map, plus Chen Ran’s positioning map’s area scan for magical beasts, Chen Ran led Lia along the edges of various magical beast lairs, getting closer and closer to their destination.
The deeper they went, the stronger the monsters became. The weakest were at least Tier 3 magical beasts, with some Tier 4s mixed in. Even the Tier 2 magical beasts that existed were not to be underestimated; the low-tier magical beasts that lived in the depths of the forest almost all existed in groups.
In this realistic other world, there was no obvious level suppression like in a game, where a high-level person could casually slaughter any low-tier creature. Here, even a fingernail-sized ant with no tier could be a deadly existence—not because of the danger of a single one, but because of their swarming habits. When they covered the ground, their all-devouring, tyrannical style meant that even Tier 4 magical beasts could only flee.
The journey through the dense forest was exceptionally difficult. Chen Ran couldn’t even be bothered to curse the unfair heavens for putting a little level 1 priest in this perilous jungle. Heaven knows, even after nearly half a month of efficient monster grinding, he was only level 10.
Not only was it getting harder and harder to level up, but without a monster-grinding team, Lia alone couldn’t handle the increasingly powerful monsters. They could only do their best to avoid them. Only when it was unavoidable would Chen Ran use his Light and Shadow Arts, an invisibility-type skill, to venture through those dangerous areas. Each time, he was drenched in a cold sweat. One careless mistake could lead to being besieged by an entire monster colony.
Therefore, during these days of travel, Chen Ran felt none of the ambiguity that should exist between a man and a woman alone together.
Every day, they faced the test of death. A single wrong step could lead to unexpected danger. Even when sleeping at night, they didn’t dare to sleep too soundly. It was exhausting, so much so that Chen Ran never even thought about romantic matters. His nerves were constantly on edge, and whenever he stopped, all he could think about was sleeping.
As they were walking, Chen Ran suddenly stopped in front of a cut tree stump.
A broken tree was normal, but the obvious marks of being cut by a tool made him suspicious. A few more steps, and there were several more cut palm trees. These marks at least indicated that someone had been here, and not too long ago, probably within the last month or so.
Chen Ran couldn’t help but ask Lia, who was beside him, “Do you know if there are any tribes living nearby?”
Lia shook her head blankly. “I don’t know either. The map is very old. The original map is at least a few hundred years old and is badly damaged. The one I brought is a copy I drew myself from the original. This dense forest is in a remote part of the continent. Even adventurer teams rarely come this deep. It’s not entirely impossible that something happened in these hundreds of years and a tribe moved here.”
“It would be great if there were people. Maybe we could get some help. Let’s look around nearby…”
Chen Ran observed the positioning map for a while and found that there were fewer magical beasts in the vicinity, so the danger level was not high. He made a prediction based on the monster distribution and then led Lia in a certain direction.
Along the way, no more high-level magical beasts appeared on the map. It seemed that Chen Ran’s prediction was correct; some presence was deterring the magical beasts from entering this area. And the further they went, the sparser the trees became, with faint traces of civilization. When Chen Ran arrived at a place full of small earthen mounds, he finally stopped.
This place seemed to be a cemetery. Neat rows of small earthen mounds were arranged in this clearing, giving it a somewhat desolate feel.
In front of each small mound, there were usually some beast teeth and bones or crude weapons like spears. At the very back, there was a simple stone house that looked like a temple.
Just as Chen Ran was curiously about to investigate further, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet give way, and his whole body couldn’t help but pitch forward…
