"This is really terrible."
Miss Galina, standing before Shade, looked down at her boots sunk into slushy snow and mud, then asked Miss Sylvia:
"Where are we now?"
The seven of them gathered together. Shade, carrying a suitcase and a sword on his back, watched as Miss Sylvia made a map of the Pantanar Area float in the air and pointed to a spot in its southeast:
"We're three miles off from the expected location, but still within the plan. The Thaumaturgy Space Perception tells me that we're now in the outskirts of the Gurus Ruins."
Miss Aurora tilted her head for a look:
"6.5 miles to the central lake, about 10.5 kilometers? We need to move faster."
If this had been a plain, the seven of them could have covered 6.5 miles on foot in no more than two hours. But the terrain of the Great Swamp Region was extraordinarily complex, danger lurked everywhere, and the Voodoo Society had certainly set up obstacles nearby. Six and a half miles was indeed a very long distance.
"We can take this route."
Miss Sylvia, wrapped in a brown scarf, pointed to a light gray line on the map. The wind in the swamp was cold but not especially strong, yet the snow falling from the sky was astonishingly heavy:
"The Langma Ancient Road. It was a supply route back when Kasonlik's army was stationed on Lake Heart Island. It's a little farther around, but at least we won't have to pass through dangerous areas."
The Pantanar Area was one of the few places on the Old Continent still designated by The Church as a "danger zone." It was not certain that everything living here was an ordinary animal. According to legend, even mixed-blood dragons lived in the depths of the Great