"Forward!"
"Keep moving!"
At the head of the Holy Iron Chain Knights, a thin old man with a slightly stooped back rode on a short-legged farm horse. Wearing a set of battered armor he'd apparently dug up from somewhere, he led the knights deeper into the dense forest, strutting comically as if he were the commander of the whole group.
"We're almost there!"
"Pick up the pace!"
"Look!"
"It's getting foggy here. The place we're headed is just ahead!"
As they went along, he noticed the people behind him were falling behind, so he came to his senses and urged them on from horseback.
That's right!
He was the guide Priest Hops had found in the village: a decrepit old man whose family had suffered persecution at the hands of the elves of the Misty Valley. He'd volunteered, unafraid of death, and was happy to lead this equally fearless group of Holy Iron Chain Knights to the "Misty Valley."
"..."
The knights' deputy commander, Asan—a burly man with a fierce face and a mass of muscles—didn't answer the old man's calls. Instead, he first glanced around, then looked at the faint fog drifting through the surrounding forest and furrowed his brow.
"Serpico..."
"Be careful!"
"Something around here doesn't seem right..."
"I can sense something ominous!"
"Look at that fog..."
The bushes and trees outside were thick, but here they were gradually withering, and the trees themselves had taken on strange shapes. It was already afternoon, yet fog still hung all around them. Asan couldn't shake a trace of unease and apprehension.
"Something ominous?"
"Don't be ridiculous!"
"It's just ordinary fog. Maybe it's because this place is in a valley?"
Asan's concern seemed to leave Serpico, a young knight and the order's clerk, rather unconvinced.
"Hey!"
"Uncle, the path here isn't