After reviewing the task list, Makarov asked only one question.
"The two of you together?"
"Is there a problem?" Mira asked back.
The old man glanced at her, then at Lin Yuan standing beside him, and suddenly chuckled before stamping the guild seal on the back of the commission.
"No. Remember to bring the person back, and while you're at it, don't demolish too much of the canyon."
"To whom was the second half of the sentence addressed?"
"You two."
That afternoon, the two boarded a train bound for northern Fiore.
The commission comes from the Northern Chamber of Commerce. In the past month, three caravans have disappeared while crossing Echo Canyon, with no goods, vehicles, or guards ever returning. The six mages dispatched by the guild have also lost contact; their last message simply stated, "Wrong road."
"No distress calls, and no combat logs." Lin Yuan looked at the mission sheet. "Why can a direct commission be upgraded to S-Class?"
"There are two A-rank guards in the third caravan," Mira said. "They didn't even have time to cast a message True Magic."
She took out another hand-drawn map from her bag. It marked the time, route, and last known location of the three caravans entering the canyon.
This information was not written on the order form.
"Have you investigated this?"
I was originally planning to go alone.
When did the investigation begin?
"Before accepting the mission yesterday," Mira put away the map, "I didn't know you'd suddenly fall back from another world before we set off. S-Class Mission doesn't just stand still and wait for someone."
Lin Yuan finished looking at the map and handed it back to her. "It's more useful than the mission sheet."
I'll take that as a compliment.
The next morning, the two got off the bus in a small town on the south side of the canyon.
The head of the Northern Chamber of Commerce was already waiting at the inn. Mira didn't rush into the canyon, but first checked the names of the three caravans, the weight of their goods, and their departure times. She then called over each of the grooms she had seen before to ask them questions.
Lin Yuan sat beside her and listened for half an hour, and found that her problem was completely different from that of two years ago.
In the past, Mira was more accustomed to directly confronting and eliminating the enemy. Now, she will first confirm whether there are any moles among the missing persons, whether the three teams are carrying the same cargo, and whether the disappearances actually occurred in the same location.
After the last groom left, Mira pushed the list in front of Lin Yuan.
"What did you see?"
The three caravans did not carry any common goods, nor were they branches of the same merchant guild.
So it's not that someone is specifically stealing a particular item.
"It might not even be a person."
The two stood up at the same time.
Echo Canyon is less than ten miles from the town. The towering cliffs on both sides are so narrow that only one horse-drawn carriage can pass through at its narrowest point. The wind blows through the cracks in the rocks and carries the sound of footsteps far away, which is how the canyon got its name.
As soon as he entered the canyon, Lin Yuan spread his spatial perception forward.
Rock walls, roads, and several side paths hidden behind crevices gradually emerged. There were no world rifts here, nor any coordinate misalignments like those of a moving castle; the space at least several hundred meters ahead was remarkably stable.
Lin Yuan pointed out the several forks in the road he sensed one by one. Mira spread out the map to check. Two of them were marked as dead ends on the old map, but the third one had no record at all. Near the entrance, there were still some tire tracks that were half covered by sand.
She hammered numbered nails into the three forks in the road. Lin Yuan confirmed that the third road was still passable at its deepest point, so the two continued forward along the ruts.
The tracks became intermittent after entering the fork in the road, and in several places even suddenly veered towards the rock face, as if the driver had seen something at the last moment. Mira examined the scattered rubble along the way and found that the dust on it had been swept away by footsteps in the same direction; Lin Yuan, on the other hand, sensed the way deeper into the road and confirmed that there was no collapse ahead, nor any trace of large magical beast activity.
The two left marks along the way and continued deeper into the canyon following the remaining tire tracks. Echoes kept coming from different forks in the road, sometimes sounding like wheels rolling over stone, but when they followed them, they found only an empty rock wall.
Half an hour later, the first missing carriage appeared around the corner.
The wheels were stuck in the rubble, but the wooden crate full of cloth was intact. The reins were still tied to the front of the cart, but the horses were gone. There was no blood or damage from True Magic battle.
Lin Yuan crouched down to examine the ground.
The footprints of a dozen or so people left the carriage and headed deeper into the canyon. Their steps were steady and calm, as if everyone had simultaneously decided to abandon the cargo and move forward on their own.
The two followed the footprints into a narrow fork in the road.
Footsteps soon came from ahead.
Lin Yuan stopped. In his spatial perception, two people were walking towards them from a hundred meters away, their speed, stride, and even the distance between them were strangely familiar.
Dark red magic appeared behind Mira's shoulder.
The footsteps are getting closer.
At the corner, a black longsword was first extended. Immediately afterwards, a person who looked exactly like Lin Yuan stepped out.
Behind him followed another Mira.
There were still them ahead in the canyon.