Thorn Forest

Thorn Forest.

The cold wind carried the smell of blood, and the moon broke through the shackles of the dark clouds to reveal the battlefield.

Several people were fighting with total disregard for their lives.

Another pack of bear goblins—grey-furred, with sharp tusks protruding from their lower jaws and bear-like faces—let out shrill screeches, raised their wooden clubs, and lunged fiercely at a party of adventurers.

Kateley, dressed in steel plate armor with a round shield in one hand and a longsword in the other, charged back. His thick arm swung the longsword in a fierce downward slash. A faint, almost imperceptible sliver of light emerged, instantly snapping the shoulder of a bear goblin as blood splattered.

Behind him, Clive swung a heavy greataxe and let out an angry roar, calling upon the name of the War God: "Edmund!"

Then he plunged straight into the midst of the bear goblins, and wherever he went, a thick stench of blood instantly filled the air.

A bear goblin skirted around, raising a heavy club to launch an attack, when with a soft thump, a long arrow pierced straight through its neck—Carilla's bowstring hummed.

The battle was fierce, and also brief.

A moment later, the ground was littered with corpses.

"Most goblins are just nuisances, but these bear goblins are born standard warriors. If they couldn't get armor and metal weapons, and couldn't get warrior training, we'd be in serious trouble," Clive panted, coughing up a mouthful of stagnant blood. He had been struck across the body by several heavy clubs; although protected by leather armor, the impact had shaken his internal organs.

He was gasping heavily, his lungs feeling like they were on fire, and his internal organs were protesting. The leather armor on his body was torn in several places, and the greataxe in his hand seemed exceptionally heavy, too burdensome to swing ever again.

"Here, drink a mouthful of holy water." Kateley tossed over a flask of holy water. Of course, it was impossible for the party to have a mage or priest; those people were figures of high status.

Clive hesitated slightly, but considering that holy water did not have a long shelf life, he chugged it down.

"Shouldn't we leave some for Romon?" Carilla asked, unable to bear it. In the distance, a teenage boy lay flat on the ground, unconscious, with blood flowing from both his mouth and nose. This was the result of taking a club like that.

"Carilla, he's already dead," Kateley glanced at the boy and said to Carilla.

Carilla fell silent. In truth, the boy was not truly dead yet—anyone could see that. She thought for a moment and asked, "Then are we still going back to Rika Town? We still owe a hundred silver coins..."

"Carilla, Isku and Black have already fallen. We have to plan for them. Paying a priest for the soul-soothing rites and taking care of their families will both cost a large sum of money," Kateley said with a helpless tone. "We don't have the money to pay back Rika Town right now, fortunately..."

The words following "fortunately" were left unsaid, but which of the three survivors didn't know?

This Romon was a druid apprentice who had wanted to make money to fund further druid training. He had been sweet-talked into borrowing the largest sum of money he possibly could under his identity as a druid apprentice, and had joined this adventure party. The result was running into three consecutive waves of bear goblins, losing everything.

"Let's go. Cut off the bear goblins' ears. Even though it's not our commission, it's a long-standing, valid guild task that can be traded for a sum of money." Kateley paused for a moment and pulled himself together. He was the leader and had many things to bear.

All three of them took out small knives, unafraid of the filth and blood, and cut off the ears of one bear goblin after another. These were the proof.

A moment later, they tidied up the two bodies.

Carilla knelt on the ground, looking at her two comrades. Their faces were twisted, their eyes devoid of luster, holding only regret, pain, remorse, and unwillingness.

Carilla was slightly dazed, and countless past events surfaced in her heart.

"Burn them! It's the same if we bring the ashes back to the priest!" Kateley's voice and body were trembling slightly. He took a flask of strong liquor from his waist pouch, splashed it over the firewood piled around the bodies, and took a large swig himself.

Carilla took out a flint and struck it. Sparks flew, and a moment later, a fire ignited, its glow illuminating a patch of woodland.

As the fire burned and she watched the bodies gradually disappear into the flames, Kateley's voice sounded somewhat like a daydream: "This time we've completed the commission, and our guild record has always been good. Coupled with the fact that I've already reached the fifth-level warrior rank, I think spending some money and pulling some strings to secure the post of deputy captain of the town guard in Embry Town is still quite possible. That way, we can all escape this kind of life."

Although saddened by the deaths of their comrades, at the mention of this, both Clive and Carilla's eyes lit up.

For adventurers, obtaining a good reputation and record in the guild, and then entering service in a city or under a noble to become a stable, official professional, was the very best way out. Besides, it was said that Kateley was even the son of an illegitimate child of the Embry Town baron; perhaps there would even be a chance to secure a knight's title in the future, so that everyone could make something of themselves.

Ten years of hard struggle, how much hardship and difficulty, how many brushes with death, and there was finally an end in sight. At this thought, all three of them felt a bittersweet joy.

A moment later, Carilla used two small pouches to gather the ashes. Then the three turned and left, without looking again at the teenage boy Romon lying unconscious on the ground.

The flames gradually grew smaller, the woods began to grow dim, and the howl of a wolf echoed from far away.

Suddenly, a speck of bright light fell, illuminating the dim branches and leaves. It was a small golden horn. Within the small horn, a layer of golden light was revolving. After turning a few times in the air, it spotted the unconscious person on the ground, and instantly flew over, plunging straight into his body.

Immediately, the boy's body shuddered, instinctively resisting, but the power of the small golden horn was formidable. A ball of golden light tightly enveloped a tiny white soul, continuously devouring it.

"Ah, ah, ah... Heaven, you're playing with me, I refuse to accept this, ah, ah, ah, ah!" A moment later, this body gave a fierce jerk and let out a huge roar, a kind of fluctuation rapidly spreading to the surroundings.

If they hadn't been in the forest, and if there hadn't been nobody else around, this shouted phrase in Chinese, along with the fluctuations it carried, would have at least scared several people or even alarmed the temple.

The boy sprang up abruptly, his limbs flailing wildly. Qian Pinji gradually regained consciousness, breathing heavily and deeply.

"Eh, I'm not dead?"

Qian Pinji looked around using the dim light filtering through the gaps in the branches and leaves. He saw that the surrounding land was a mess, with some embers still burning on the ground, and further away, a heap of scattered corpses.

Seeing this, Qian Pinji felt a momentary daze and slumped down by the edge of the campfire.

Qian Pinji wanted to raise a hand to rub his face and try his best to wake himself up, but he looked at his own hands and froze for an instant. His hands—to be precise, the hands he now had—were clearly not the ones he was accustomed to.

These were a pair of young and rough hands, bronze-colored, covered in thick calluses, with large, strong knuckles, differing vastly from Qian Pinji's originally fair palms.

Qian Pinji was suddenly alarmed, frantically looking around. Spotting a small stream a short distance away, he hurried over and used the water as a mirror, looking at himself by the light.

Qian Pinji discovered that this wasn't his face either. The deep-set eyes and high nose of this young man didn't even look like an oriental face, but rather resembled a European on Earth. However, he indeed looked very young and handsome, with the face of a teenager.

There was an idiom called touching the scenery to trigger emotion, which meant activating information at the level of long-term memory through external images. Qian Pinji felt a wave of confusion in his head, and a large amount of memories that seemed bizarre to him surfaced one by one.

"I am in Rika Town, named Romon? A shop assistant, a druid apprentice?" His mind was somewhat unclear, and he sat in a daze like this for a while before gradually pulling himself together. "No, that's not right. I am not Romon, I am Qian Pinji. Damn it, I've traveled through time!"

"I am Qian Pinji," he affirmed to himself, thinking for a moment. "At the same time, I have absorbed Romon's memories."

The two closely touching souls accepted each other and, with Qian Pinji taking the lead, re-unified into one. In reality, he now fully possessed the teenager's emotions and memories.

"Ah, ah, ah, I've traveled through time, I'm not dead, that's great, I'm alive." Discovering this fact, his mood gradually calmed down. His youthful studies and social education made him understand the importance of accepting reality. Moreover, the repeated indoctrination of internet reading also made him accept the fact of time travel quite easily.

And, most importantly, he was alive!

In this world, I am now Romon, a druid apprentice! Romon pressed his lips together in silence and checked his condition.

Outside, a long, drawn-out howl of a wolf cut through the distant forest, giving one a harrowing and eerie feeling.

The newborn Romon shivered instantly, his legs going soft, and after being stunned for a long time, Romon finally snapped to his senses, suddenly remembering one thing, and hurriedly searched about: "Where is my Shennong Horn? Where is the Shennong Horn?"

The Shennong Horn was his greatest asset.

Having suddenly arrived in this unfamiliar world, even an otaku who had long since gotten used to it countless times in novels and animations could hardly bear it all at once, and if he lost the Shennong Horn as well, what would he do in the future?

He suddenly felt a bit suffocated, turned and ran, rushing right to the side of the campfire, even plunging into the pile of corpses, ignoring everything as he fumbled around on the ground, only to find nothing.

He did not know how much time had passed before he calmed down, albeit with a despair of calm, but right at that moment, a stir arose in his heart, and an esoteric piece of information abruptly appeared within his mind.

Romon froze on the spot, his lips moving mutinously, yet he could not utter a single word for half a moment. He involuntarily opened his mouth wide, and then ripped off his clothes. Sure enough, there was a tattoo of the Shennong Horn on his skin.

The Shennong Horn had attached itself to his body, which instantly turned his mind to mush. Staring at this tattoo, it took him a long time to calm down before he reached out his hand and touched it.

Instantly, a beautiful space resembling a landscape painting unfolded before him.

Pulling himself together and looking closely, he discovered that the space was still the same size, roughly two acres or so. The stream within the space was still there, with small fish swimming in the clear water, and the surrounding apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, and various other plants were all present.

Only the Light Orb thirty meters high in the sky, which originally had been like a small sun, now seemed incomparably dim, as if it were about to go out at any moment.

Startled at heart, Romon quickly returned to his body, opened his eyes, and then bolted outside, running straight to a forest clearing to welcome the light of the sun.