Deep in Thin Mist Forest.
The chirping of insects mingled with the "sha sha" of a breeze brushing through the woods, echoing faintly in the air.
The dense canopy blocked the blazing sun overhead. The light was dim, with scattered patches of brightness falling across the soft ground carpeted in fallen leaves.
Silence.
Aside from the mist between the branches and leaves being noticeably thicker, it seemed no different from the outer regions.
It was even quieter, as if it were only an ordinary, common stretch of dense forest.
But if you stayed there a little longer, or continued deeper in...
The massive shadows that occasionally swept through the darkness of the thickets, the dark giant scales embedded in the surfaces of tree trunks, the cold gazes from unknown places in the blind spots of your vision, and the half of a pale skeleton jutting from the roadside meadow would tell you why adventurers, who had always placed money above life itself, would rather toil back and forth each day between filthy, barren Goblin Nests than walk two more days to come here and earn hundreds, even thousands, of times more Gold Coins.
"Crunch."
A heavy, hard iron boot came down steadily and lightly.
It mercilessly crushed the tender sprout that had drawn nourishment from the soil and only barely forced its way out between the gaps in the fallen leaves.
On the dark, damp ground, it left behind a deep footprint.
A man clad in full Heavy Armor, holding a reddish-brown longsword, walked silently at the very front of the party.
His face was hidden beneath a streamlined iron helm, impossible to make out clearly.
Only a pair of grave, resolute eyes, reflected through the hollowed openings of the iron mask, stared down the dark, profound path ahead.
Behind