Death's warning bell

Explosive Wolf struck with brutal force, and momentum became the price he paid.

With his greatsword still in hand and the force of his swing not yet spent, the last goblin before him had no choice but to draw the shortsword at its waist and thrust at his abdomen.

"[Flame Arrow]!"

A searing streak of fire shot past Explosive Wolf's shoulder and pierced the goblin's eye.

It shrieked in pain and tried to do something more, only for Explosive Wolf to regain his footing and lop off its head.

Beyond the dense trees, more goblins screeched and roared, intent on swarming them.

But the mercenary company behind him moved first, charging into the woods and meeting them at the edge of the camp.

Watching the fight, Tang Qi rose slightly from the wagon and peeked out.

The three prisoners had not been placed inside the camp, so they had only been caught at the fringes of the rain of arrows:

"Looks like wiping out these goblins is just a matter of time."

"From your tone, you weren't seriously counting on them falling to a bunch of goblins, were you?"

Black Snake's tongue remained sharp, but he could not help thinking a little more highly of Tang Qi—

Had this poet not warned them ahead of time, with his limbs restrained, he might well have been struck by that indiscriminate rain of arrows.

Yet it did not seem as though Tang Qi had "spotted" the arrows.

The way he had acted looked more like...

Foresight?

Still uneasy, Tang Qi huddled beneath the overturned wagon and mused:

"If it's just a scattering of goblins, of course they'll get wiped out.

But a scattering of goblins shouldn't even be attacking this camp—

Don't underestimate goblins. Even kobolds know to outnumber their enemies."

"Rua?"

The sentences were too long and spoken too quickly for Kuru to catch every word.

But somehow, Kuru felt insulted...

Black Snake smacked his lips and agreed:

"Let them worry about it. That fellow called Explosive Wolf has some skill. I remember his mercenary company even took part in a defensive war against the beastfolk down south."

"How does he compare to you?"

"What makes him worth comparing to me?"

"Just what I'd expect from someone who made it out of the Great Desert."

As he spoke, Tang Qi hurriedly retrieved the backpack that had fallen to the ground when the ox cart overturned.

Black Snake asked hesitantly, "What are you doing?"

"Getting your shackles open. If things go wrong, you can take the brunt of it up front."

"You're not expecting a scoundrel to play by the rules, are you?"

"No. But I know you can't get out of the forest alone—you definitely can't see through the mist's illusions."

"You make it sound like you can."

"Hmm?"

"You really can?"

Tang Qi's ambiguous attitude only made Black Snake more uncertain.

He watched Tang Qi take a chisel from his backpack and strike first at the shackles binding his legs—

Clang! Sparks flew.

The leg irons remained completely intact.

Black Snake could not help himself. "Don't make me laugh."

Tang Qi felt embarrassed, but his expression did not change:

"Expecting a bard to do manual labor—haven't you got something wrong here?"

"Then you might as well save your strength. By the time you finally hammer these shackles open, they'll have finished off the goblins over there—

Then they'll put me in a sturdier set and slap me with an attempted escape charge. How many years do you think I'll have to serve that Melard?"

Tang Qi could not help asking:

"What if it isn't just a few goblins? What if it's an entire tribe..."

Black Snake dismissed the idea outright:

"How could there possibly be an entire tribe?

With this mist around, these woods simply aren't suitable for a settled community.

In the Twilight Forest, walking corpses and ghosts are more common than goblins—"

Before he finished speaking, the whistle of something cutting through the air sounded again.

A chill ran down Tang Qi's spine, and [Alertness] drove him to shift a body's width to the side.

As he moved aside, a barbed arrow suddenly shot past his shoulder from behind, heading straight for Black Snake's forehead!

"Screw you!"

Black Snake had almost no time to react. Leaning against the wagon, he could only wrench his torso aside.

Thud!

The arrow lodged in the long cangue securing his hands, barely an inch from his left ear.

Black Snake nearly unleashed a torrent of curses.

Then he realized that this arrow's trajectory was completely different from the earlier volley—

It had come from directly ahead!

Thump, thump, thump—

An enormous shadow emerged from the white mist.

From a distance, its gait looked unsteady, but even its footsteps on the muddy ground sent powerful tremors all the way to Black Snake:

"Damn that jinxing mouth of yours! Can nothing good ever come out of it?"

Arrows flew toward them again from afar. Tang Qi grabbed the bewildered Kuru ahead of time, tossed that small, frail body over to the other side of the wagon with one hand, and used the other to vault across:

"Since when did a reasonable analysis count as jinxing things?"

Black Snake had nowhere to go, but fortunately, he was agile enough to use his long cangue as a shield and block the arrows, looking for all the world like a hedgehog.

But he knew he had no time to worry about appearances—

"ROAR!!!"

A harsh, furious roar shook the forest.

Two similar roars immediately answered from the direction of the camp.

Before the mercenary company—

Two giants, each a full seven feet tall, with iron collars around their thick necks, burst through the drifting mist and charged toward the camp.

They smashed through everything in their path, including thick trees and goblins crushed accidentally underfoot.

Their companions' blood and flesh splattered across their thick calves, which looked like masses of tangled roots.

Their bloated bellies were covered in scars and festering sores. They breathed mist through long, pointed noses, and the slightly bent spiked clubs in their hands came crashing down right before the mercenary company!

BOOM!!!

Beneath the crash came the anguished cry of a young mercenary who had failed to react in time.

He was a recruit who had joined the company only recently.

That meant he had little experience.

And now, that had proved fatal—

The blow knocked his helmet away, crushing his skull along with it in a spray of crimson blood.

"[Grease Spell]!"

With the situation suddenly dire, New Star had no choice but to chant an arcane incantation, forcibly transforming the ground beneath the other approaching troll and making a pool of black sludge surge from the damp earth.

The sludge was exceptionally slippery and covered an area ten feet across.

The second troll lost its footing in a moment of carelessness and fell flat with a thunderous crash.

It tried to struggle, only to smear the slippery grease all over its body, making even getting up extremely difficult.

Given a moment to breathe, Explosive Wolf hurried back to the mercenaries and roared:

"They're trolls! Everyone, form up!"

Explosive Wolf could not understand it.

These ugly giants, whose minds held nothing but hunger, should never have appeared in the Twilight Forest, a place with more dead people than living ones—

They could not stomach those putrid corpses.

Yet here they were.

"If I'd known there'd be this much trouble along the way, I'd have fucking turned the job down from the start!"

Now he had to consider demanding extra pay once he returned to Dragon Gold City, from Lord Mel, who was busy hosting balls in his manor.

Meanwhile, the third troll was trying to flank the camp from the other side.

Right before the three prisoners!

It even had two identical heads.

Without giving Black Snake a chance to curse, it lumbered toward him and brought its spiked club crashing down.

BOOM!

The sacks of flour on the wagon were smashed to pieces, and the bursting powder almost blended into the white mist.

Tang Qi's [Alertness] gave him advance warning, forcing him to snatch up the small lyre Catherine had lent him and his backpack, then throw himself forward onto the ground.

Things changed so quickly that he could no longer remember how many times [Alertness] had saved him.

But only now did he realize that this feat offered him more than the gift of foresight.

It also brought fear he could not escape—

[Alertness] made his perception of danger extraordinarily keen.

Yet the prickling itch all over his body, like countless needles, and the pounding of his heart had stayed with him all this time.

His body could not stop trembling!

His hands shook so badly that he could barely hold on to the things he carried...

Even lying on the ground, he could hardly move!

This was completely different from what he had felt in the kobold cave.

He understood that [Alertness] was sending him a signal.

A well-trained goblin army.

Three ravenous troll "slaves"...

Creatures that should never have appeared in the Twilight Forest, and the terror this danger brought.

To him, it was like the tolling of death's warning bell!