Chapter 473

The sky gradually darkened. The ancient castle stood at the edge of sparse woods. Looking into the distance, they could see the moon slowly rising over the horizon, while the village, whose faint outlines had still been visible by day, had vanished into the night. Silence reigned all around.

"There's definitely something wrong here," the apprentice ranger said. "At this time of year, the wilderness shouldn't be this quiet."

"Undead monsters give off negative energy. No living creature likes it. Aside from the very few mutated Demonic Beasts in the Ash Forest to the northwest, even ordinary Magic Beasts deliberately avoid the range affected by negative energy." The apprentice priest knew these matters quite well. "But... when we came here during the day, there were clearly quite a few wild animals around."

"Yeah. I'd been planning to catch a couple tonight and roast them." The apprentice ranger could not help sighing. "Now we'll have to eat dry rations."

"Maybe the negative energy was suppressed by sunlight during the day," the apprentice priest guessed. "Once night falls, the negative energy grows stronger. That's why they say large numbers of undead Demonic Beasts often roam the Ash Forest at night. It's incredibly dangerous."

"Undead? If they're just skeletons and the like, what's there to be afraid of?" The burly apprentice warrior chuckled. "Just find a thick club and smash them with one blow."

"One or two skeletons certainly aren't frightening. Even ordinary farmers can deal with them." Yui smiled faintly. "But they say that the skeletons in the Ash Forest either do not appear at all, or appear in groups of at least a hundred. On every Polar Night, there may even be skeleton armies numbering in the tens of thousands. Do you think you could beat a hundred skeletons?"

The apprentice