Continue or Leave

Fular had no strength to refute Garen's jab, because he had no idea how to refute it.

Looking at the creature before him, beaten to within an inch of its life, Fular felt like he could barely breathe. Good heavens, the thing was at least twenty-five feet long—over seven meters—and this guy had beaten it into this state with one punch? As for this supposedly being the outer edge of the forest, Fular no longer wanted to say anything about that.

Fular was fairly certain that this thing had been about to reach adulthood and enter the depths of the forest, only to get beaten like this before it even made it in. It was clearly not going to survive. Fular wondered what would happen if a punch like that from this Garen landed on him.

"Maybe my whole body would be smashed to pieces?"

Fular secretly compared his body to that Tree Peak Dragon, which was practically dead already. The answer did not surprise him, but it filled him with bone-deep despair. What kind of monsters are these?

This Garen looked somewhat older than Josh, but he was probably not even half of Fular's age. Yet this guy had killed a Tree Peak Dragon with one punch—a creature that even Fular could not easily deal with. Fular felt as though he had suffered an enormous blow.

"What do you think this thing tastes like? To be honest, I've never eaten the meat of this sort of creature."

Josh did not care what Fular was thinking. He walked over to the nearly dead Tree Peak Dragon, crouched down, pulled out his wand, and poked the creature with it before turning to ask Garen. Dragons were practically sacred and inviolable on the Muya Continent, as well as extremely rare. Dragon-like creatures were no weaklings either, so Josh had never eaten anything like this before.

"I haven't eaten one either, but its meat should be pretty good, even if its hide is tough. I think we can give it a try. We've never had it before, so maybe it tastes good."

Garen did not know the answer to Josh's question either, but he was interested as well. Who would not be curious about dragons? Although the dragons in this world did not seem particularly huge, a dragon was still a dragon. Garen also wanted to try the legendary Dragon meat.

Dumbledore merely smiled faintly at the pair's words and actions, while Fular did not dare say a single word. In his mind, however, he had already classified Josh and Garen as the reckless brute type—who the hell killed a dragon outright and then discussed eating its meat, especially on someone else's territory?

Josh probably never would have dreamed that a wizard who considered himself wise, intelligent, and gentlemanly would also be labeled a reckless brute by someone else.

After spending some time, Josh used magic to carve up the Dragon meat. Naturally, he gave Dumbledore all the materials, such as the Dragon bone, Dragon blood, and Dragon scales. Josh was not an alchemist, so he had no use for them. Then, using a newly developed spell similar to Spatial magic, he compressed all the Dragon meat into a small leather bag, and the group continued onward.

This time, they encountered no more mishaps during their journey. Perhaps because they were getting closer to the heart of the forest, the creatures here were more perceptive. They had likely discovered Josh and the others long ago, yet not a single creature dared attack them.

They sensed danger. In particular, the heavy scent of dragon blood on Josh and Garen told them that this group had probably killed a Tree Peak Dragon. The forest held far more than just Tree Peak Dragons; otherwise, finding food would be a tremendous problem for them.

As they headed deeper into the forest, they saw more and more bizarre plants. This place was a completely undeveloped, purely natural ecosystem. Naturally, it was also extremely dangerous. If Fular had been alone, he would never have come somewhere like this, because any random creature here could leave him scrambling.

The sky gradually darkened, though everyone still had decent stamina. Josh had trained with Garen for several months, so his endurance was not too bad. Ralph and Dumbledore could not compare, but they had brought brooms with them. Whenever they got too tired, they simply sat on them and rested for a while.

Josh wanted to do the same, but Garen had told him, "Rather than sitting on that thing, you might as well train your stamina like I do. If you run into an opponent with especially strong defenses in battle someday, and your stamina runs out before your magic power does, won't you just get beaten up?" So Josh had followed Garen and walked the entire way.

Setting up camp required no effort from Josh and the others. A tent with compressed interior space solved everything. Josh was exhausted to the point that, sitting there, he could not even be bothered to move. Garen knew the guy was tired, so he simply helped roast the Dragon meat.

"Oh, Lord Josh, do you still intend to go deeper?"

Perhaps after spending the day together, Fular had realized that Josh was not as difficult to approach as he had imagined. During their rest, he took the initiative to ask Josh. In truth, he was extremely worried, because almost no one had ever entered the depths of the forest and returned alive. Who knew what was inside?

"Of course. The purpose of this trip is to catch dragons. Naturally, we can't let this chance pass us by. Besides, don't you want to go in and take a look?"

Josh rubbed his legs as he answered. He was now deeply regretting his decision. What madness had possessed him to agree to walk with a warrior like Garen for an entire damn day? His feet were nearly numb now. It felt even worse than running fifteen kilometers back in university.

"But no one who enters the depths of the forest has ever come back alive!"

Fular grew anxious. Honestly, today's journey had already far exceeded his expectations, because they had not encountered any danger at all along the way. He had originally thought they might run into groups of magical creatures. It would have caused considerable trouble, but it would at least have shown these people that this forest was not so easily conquered.

For that reason, he had specifically prepared several defensive items. If things went badly, he planned to use them and then have Ralph take them away with Disapparation. But who would have thought that they would encounter a nearly adult Tree Peak Dragon at the outer edge of the forest, only for Garen to knock it dead with one punch?

After that, it had turned into a leisurely journey. From daylight until nightfall, the path had been so quiet that Fular began to wonder whether he had brought them to the wrong place. This was not some tourist resort—it was Hungary's most dangerous Dark Forest!

"And, Lord Josh, the deeper we go, the stronger the interference with magic becomes." Fular swallowed and continued explaining. "I know Hogwarts has a magical barrier that forbids Disapparation, but that barrier was created by people. Deep in the forest, this kind of magical interference occurs naturally. That means that if we run into serious trouble after entering the depths, we will have no way to escape!"

"Naturally occurring magical interference?"

Dumbledore frowned. This was the first time he had heard of such a thing. He had visited Hungary before, but he had never been interested in Hungary's Dark Forest. He had assumed it was probably similar to the Forbidden Forest behind Hogwarts, but now it seemed that was not the case.

"So what?"

Josh shrugged. He was still confident. Hogwarts did indeed have a magical barrier that prevented Disapparation, but it targeted pure magic power without Magic elements—in other words, it targeted wizards. It had no effect on him.

He had tested it before. Without infusing his Void element, he truly could not use it. But once he added the Void element, the barrier seemed not to exist at all and could not stop him. Josh had never told Dumbledore about this.

"If you're really worried, then leave once we reach the boundary between the forest's deepest area and its central region. Leave the rest to Garen and me."

After thinking it over, Josh made that decision. It was not that he did not want to tell Dumbledore that Disapparation might change after adding Magic elements; he was mainly afraid it would not work. After all, his Magic elements possessed spatial properties, allowing him to use Disapparation to ignore barriers that interfered with wizards. But Josh did not think others could necessarily do the same.

"How could that be? Don't forget, I was once a Gryffindor too!"

Dumbledore blinked and smiled, becoming the first to reject the decision. Though he was already over a hundred years old and had been headmaster for many years, Dumbledore had graduated from Gryffindor. It had been many years since he had encountered anything that made him feel such mystery. Not even Voldemort had given him any sense of novelty, but now that feeling had returned.

It might be reckless and impulsive, but he was a Gryffindor. He had always loved adventure; otherwise, he would not have joined Gryffindor.

"Bloody hell."

Fular shook his head helplessly. He wanted to leave, but if he abandoned these three in the Dark Forest and went off on his own, he would probably not be far from getting fired. And one could imagine that if these three truly ran into trouble here and never came back out, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic would come looking for trouble with this country.

Although the Minister of Magic in the United Kingdom was dissatisfied with Dumbledore, Dumbledore still represented the United Kingdom's prestige in a sense. Not to mention the unknown great noble who had appeared out of nowhere and possessed a meditation method they all coveted but had no way to obtain.

If they ran into trouble in another country and died, there was no need to think twice: the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic would definitely take corresponding action. When that happened, Hungary's Ministry of Magic would not be able to explain its way out of it. That would not be a good outcome.

Fular had no choice. No choice at all. Though he cursed these three fools in his heart and wished they would just die, they absolutely could not die in Hungary!

So he could only continue leading the way, guiding Josh and the others into the deepest reaches of the forest.