The forest road was uneven, and the horses inevitably jolted as they rode along it.
That made things tough for Ye Wei'an.
He could feel the soft, warm body in his arms swaying gently with the rhythm. Her fragrant hair occasionally brushed his jaw, making him lose focus for a moment and nearly lose his grip on the reins.
The party galloped onward.
To avoid any enemy scouts that might be lurking nearby, they followed Cain's lead and turned away from the trade road, taking a more concealed path instead.
The party raced along the forest trail for about an hour.
As he rode, Ye Wei'an guided his mount, enjoyed the softness of the body in his arms, and habitually kept an eye on the mini-map in the upper-right corner of his vision.
Suddenly, several red markers lit up ahead, around the area where the road curved.
"Cain, stop!" He immediately pulled on the reins and pointed toward the denser trees ahead. "Something's wrong up there. There may be an ambush."
At his words, Cain raised a hand to signal the party to stop. He looked in the direction Ye Wei'an had indicated, but saw only a quiet thicket and some leaning old trees. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary. A trace of doubt crossed his eyes, but remembering the extraordinary abilities the young lord had displayed before, he chose to trust him.
"Harold," he said in a low voice, "go check it out. Be careful."
"Yes!" Harold dismounted briskly and drew his short sword. Like a nimble cat, he crouched behind the bushes and crept forward without a sound.
Less than fifteen minutes later, he returned, looking both disgusted and relieved. "It's Goblins, young lord. A small group, maybe a dozen of them. They're hiding behind that mound up ahead, and it looks like they're planning to ambush passersby."
Hearing that they were Goblins, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
These little green-skinned creatures were among the weakest humanoid monsters in Faerûn. They were short, cowardly, and greedy.
A lone Goblin might not even be able to beat a farmer with a pitchfork. They were only somewhat dangerous when they banded together in large numbers.
"Young lord, what do you think?" Cain asked Ye Wei'an.
"We might as well clear them out," Ye Wei'an replied decisively. They were only Goblins. There was no reason not to kill them; at least he could earn some experience.
Cain nodded and immediately came up with a plan.
It was quite simple. Cain and Renn would flank them from the left, Harold would circle around from the right, and Ye Wei'an would stay far back with Ailian and throw spells.
Once the fighters were in position, Ye Wei'an waved a hand and fired the opening shot with a cantrip.
"Spellfire Flame."
A beam of blue-white arcane fire appeared out of nowhere above a Goblin who was busy setting a tripwire with his rear sticking up in the air.
"Gah—!"
The Goblin didn't even have time to scream before the intense heat of the Spellfire ignited his head. He quickly fell still.
"Yaku! Yaku! (Ambush!)" The Goblins scattered in a panic, shrieking as they ran in every direction.
"Go!" Cain barked, charging out with Harold and Renn.
The longsword in Cain's hand swept through the air in a half-circle. Its heavy blade cut through the wind and sliced two Goblins' throats.
Harold's shield easily knocked one Goblin flying, and he followed up with a sword thrust.
Renn was even more efficient. He charged straight into the thickest knot of Goblins and took out two with a single sweep of his axe.
The battle was over in a flash. Against trained fighters, Goblins were as fragile as stalks of wheat.
Ye Wei'an sat comfortably on his horse with the little maid in his arms. Whenever a Goblin tried to shoot an arrow from hiding or make a run for it, he sent another Spellfire Flame after them.
Each flash of blue-white fire marked another life snuffed out.
A few minutes later, the forest fell silent again, with only the faint sizzle of the remaining Spellfire burning on the corpses.
A string of experience notifications appeared in his vision, and Ye Wei'an's experience rose straight to LV.3 (764/1800). It was a decent haul.
The only disappointment was that these Goblins were dirt-poor through and through.
Their ragged leather armor reeked of urine and wasn't even worth keeping as loot. Their rusty short swords had so many impurities that they weren't worth smelting into scrap iron.
"Ugh, what a waste of effort." Renn kicked a Goblin corpse aside and cursed under his breath.
Cain flicked the blood off his sword, sheathed it, and returned to his horse.
When he looked at Ye Wei'an again, the respect in his eyes had deepened.
During his service with the Purple Dragon Order, he had worked alongside War Wizards before.
In his experience, the destructive power of low- and mid-tier War Wizards was no less than Ye Wei'an's.
But beyond that, they were practically clueless.
This young lord Ye Wei'an... was a complete anomaly.
Despite his young age, he was frighteningly versatile. He could cast powerful attack spells, wield healing divine magic that only Clerics could master, and even use interrogation methods that no one could understand.
Now he could also sense an ambush before it happened...
Among the Wizards he'd met, anyone capable of such a feat had been a renowned veteran.
And young lord Ye Wei'an had only studied at the Battlemage Academy for four years. He was still a magic apprentice, and some people even called him "mediocre"!
If this was what a mediocre magic apprentice looked like, he wanted a dozen of them.
"Your spell was truly astonishing, young lord," Cain said sincerely, his manner even more deferential than before. "Please continue to guide us along the way."
The party's power structure had quietly shifted.
Before, Ye Wei'an had merely been traveling with the party and had to follow Cain's instructions along the way. Now he had truly become the party's leader.
And so, the rest of the journey went so smoothly that, to Cain and the two fighters, it seemed almost unbelievable.
Ye Wei'an rode at the head of the party, handing the reins to Ailian in front of him while focusing most of his attention on the mini-map. Every so often, he called out directions:
"Go around that marsh to the left. We'll take the hills to the west."
"The canyon ahead is too narrow. There may be falling rocks. Let's take the gentle slope to the south."
Many of the routes he chose strayed far from the paths Cain remembered as relatively "safe."
At first, Cain couldn't help feeling uneasy.
But what they encountered next dispelled all his doubts.
Once, Ye Wei'an insisted they detour around a seemingly flat clearing in the forest.
Later, Harold looked back and saw that the shadows across the clearing were faintly covered in a sticky sheen under the sunlight. They were giant spiderwebs.
On another occasion, the party abandoned a shortcut and spent an extra fifteen minutes climbing a slope strewn with loose stones.
As they paused for a brief rest at the top, an unnerving roar and the loud crack of splintering trees rose from below. Through the woods, they caught glimpses of a huge, shaggy figure rampaging in fury. It looked like an Owlbear—a powerful magical beast with a bear's massive body and an owl's sharp beak and claws, fiercely protective of its territory.
The mini-map could show not only enemies, but terrain as well.
For example, a hollow that looked like nothing more than a thicket could actually be a muddy bog deep enough to trap a horse's legs. A slope covered in fallen leaves that seemed solid might conceal loose, slippery rocks beneath them.
Such terrain was hard to spot with the naked eye, but it was all plain to see on the mini-map.
What baffled Cain most was that every time young lord Ye Wei'an seemed to take a longer route, they would eventually emerge from the woods onto a road Cain recognized—and he'd find that they had not only avoided every potential danger, but had arrived much faster than if they had obediently followed the "safe" roads he knew!
"Sir," Harold asked Cain during a rest stop, unable to contain his curiosity. "How does young lord Ye Wei'an do it? Have you traveled these roads before?"
Cain slowly shook his head, his gaze settling on the young lord up ahead, joking around with the little maid.
"No. I'm familiar with a few established forest paths. To stray so completely from known trails and avoid every danger in unfamiliar country..." He paused, his voice filled with deep admiration. "Even the most experienced Scout or Ranger would need to scout ahead repeatedly. They couldn't possibly do it like this... as if they were following a map with everything marked on it."
He thought back to his time with the Purple Dragon Order.
Those War Wizards could use spells to scout specific areas, but they could never do it for so long, so efficiently, or plan the best route this way.
"This isn't something magic alone can do," Cain finally said in a low voice. "It's... a gift beyond our understanding. Following young lord Ye Wei'an's orders is the best way to keep us all safe."
Renn took a swig of water and muttered, "I've got a lot of faith now... the young lord really can flush out the mastermind hiding in town."
Before you continue