"Oh, don't look so glum. Come have a drink."
At the edge of the great rift between the ruins of Cadman City's outer district and its inner city, the Palanor knight stood gazing up at the strange, mysterious, and magnificent "Wound in the Astral Realm." Squinting, he cheerfully handed a glass of wine to Murphy.
Though he wore a smile, Murphy couldn't shake the feeling that the man was laughing at him. Then again, maybe he was just being oversensitive.
Triss had said she wanted to rest, so after a discussion about the Black Calamity, the two men had left and come here to admire the "night view."
Murphy wasn't in the mood to relax.
He looked up at the bizarre scar that stretched across the starry sky, took the glass Palanor handed him, and, sure enough, found a few rose petals floating in the wine.
"You, you..."
The vampire glanced at the handsome knight-lord beside him and grumbled inwardly:
"Were you a rose spirit before you grew into a vampire?"
"Actually, you don't need to worry so much about the Black Calamity. Setting aside the fact that it'll take several more months to build, once it truly takes shape, it'll still spend some time testing our defenses.
"Because of the immense impact of the Fourth Black Calamity, every faction will go all out from the very beginning this time. The best-case scenario is that the gnolls won't even make it past Filthy Swamp before the various races' outriders rout them on the outskirts of the Dark Mountains."
Palanor comforted him in a gentle voice:
"After the bitter lesson of last time, Lord Payn has already decided to move the Bloodsworn Knights' camp to the line running from the barren mountains on the outskirts of the Dark Mountains to Filthy