Chapter 63: Tone it down a bit

“Feeling better now?”

Elise let go of Peiya’s hand, her voice gentle.

“Mm, much better. Thank you. Let’s keep moving.”

Peiya looked around at the terrain. The emotions she felt just now came quickly and faded just as fast.

In a dangerous area like this, she had to stay focused on the surroundings. It wasn’t that she was cold-hearted, she just had to be responsible for both herself and Elise.

Peiya gathered her magic power and carefully observed the area. While analyzing the terrain, she also guided Elise to stay alert for monsters nearby.

To make this mission successful, Peiya had locked herself in the library for days.

Her goal was to collect as much information as possible.

By studying the natural environment of Mount Kael and reading adventurers’ notes, she tried to predict which monsters might mutate.

In simple terms, she memorized the map.

She knew almost every type of monster that could appear in each area.

For example, right now…

Peiya pointed toward a stream in the distance.

“Near the Weir River, there are rogue monkeys. Be careful, they throw mud, and it carries toxic gas. Wait… there’s something dirty hiding in the corner.”

A light appeared in Peiya’s hand, a holy-type blessing spell. She sent a “reverse healing” attack toward the shadowy monsters trying to ambush them.

Small monsters couldn’t handle this kind of reversed effect.

They were instantly “healed to death.”

On one hand, small monsters had almost no resistance to opposite-element magic, so they could only take the hit.

On the other hand, Peiya’s blessing was a forced effect. It could bypass normal rules.

Elise already knew this. She had experienced it before when Peiya healed her.

But seeing a healer instantly kill monsters still made her frown.

Strange… really strange.

But then again, this was Peiya.

When two strange things come together, it somehow starts to feel normal.

Elise raised her hand and instantly defeated the monkeys throwing mud at them. Even the river froze, forming broken pieces of ice.

Peiya walked over to the fallen monkeys and carefully checked their skin color and the marks on their claws.

“The claws don’t show unusual wear, so their minds should still be normal. But the skin color is a bit dull, it looks like they’ve been slightly affected by mineral infection.”

She checked a few more monkeys. The results were about the same.

Then she went to the river and examined the water, especially looking for dead fish.

Seeing nothing but floating ice, she touched her chin and fell into thought.

No dead fish meant the source of infection wasn’t in the water.

These monkeys liked to throw mud as an attack, but she had already checked the ground. There were no signs of contamination.

The plants were growing normally. If they were infected, small crystal-like structures would appear inside the plant fibers.

In history, a painter once recorded what fully crystallized plants looked like. They resembled plants made entirely of crystal.

Because of that, they were also called “terrible amber.”

Living beings infected by this mineral disease would slowly lose their life while suffocating.

Sometimes, Peiya even wondered if the final stage of this disease was turning all living things back into minerals.

That idea matched the description in books about the “origin and end of all things.”

After picking up and examining a few stones, Peiya stood up.

“Let’s go. There’s nothing useful here. We probably need to enter a more dangerous area.”

“Okay… By the way, was that healing magic just now? I didn’t know support magic could kill enemies.”

“It’s just elemental countering. But honestly… I’m also confused why my light magic is so much stronger today.”

It shouldn’t be like this.

She had never really trained her light magic before, she wasn’t even part of the Church. In the past, her light magic was barely as useful as a flashlight.

But what she showed just now… was on a completely different level.

Its power was already close to that of high-level mages who specialize in light magic. Peiya couldn’t help but feel confused, where did she suddenly get such strong control over light magic?

After Peiya mentioned it, Elise also noticed something different about her today.

If she had to describe it… Peiya felt a bit different than before.

But what exactly?

Elise couldn’t help but lean closer and sniff lightly.

“It smells like sunlight… very strong, but not unpleasant.”

“H-hey, if you suddenly come this close, I’ll get nervous…”

Peiya looked flustered. Recently, Elise would just do things without warning, like opening a door whenever she wanted.

“Then next time I’ll tell you in advance, okay?” Elise smiled playfully, not looking serious about the mission at all.

“If you keep acting like this, the Ice Bear King will feel completely unnecessary. It’s probably still watching us from underground.”

After the Witch’s Heart and Victoria, even the Ice Bear King had somehow become the next “target” of Elise’s teasing.

“Then I’ll listen to you. What should I do now?”

Peiya rubbed her temples, trying to calm her messy thoughts.

“We’re about to enter a deeper area. These are potions I made, they can resist the poison from the minerals.”

Before setting out, Peiya had already thought about the possibility of poisoning.

So she prepared these potions in advance. After drinking them, low-level contamination wouldn’t affect them much.

As for going deeper, Peiya had other methods prepared.

But since she had always been short on money, she tried to carefully control her use of potions and avoid wasting them.

The moment they stepped into the deeper area, Peiya felt waves of roaring sounds echoing in her ears.

Luckily, her body didn’t show any strange reactions, so the potion was probably working.

She focused on the trees around them. Unlike the lush greenery at the entrance, the deeper they went, the more the tree trunks turned grayish-white.

In the distance, there was a pale sun giving off a cold white light. Even though it looked like midday, there was no warmth at all.

This area was called the “Disaster Forest” by scholars. It was said that the infamous Calamity Witch once awakened here.

The main monsters here were Bloodthirsty Bats hiding among the trees.

Some magical beasts, due to their habits, had gradually developed resistance to sunlight.

“Are bats the main monsters here?” Elise also noticed movement nearby.

But she didn’t rely on knowledge, she sensed it through elemental energy. The ice-like power inside her made it impossible for small monsters to hide.

“That’s right. Not just bats, there are also annoying trickster foxes. But I don’t smell any fox scent yet, so they’re probably deeper inside.”

Just like before, Peiya killed a few monsters and crouched down to check how badly they were affected.

Since these were stronger monsters, the magic cores they dropped were more special.

Peiya quietly put the cores into her pocket and used a branch to examine the fallen creatures.

“As expected. Compared to the area we came from, the infection here is much clearer. Look, the wing membranes and skull areas show signs of being corroded by toxins.”

She crouched and poked the thin membrane under a bat’s wing with a stick.

She didn’t dare touch it directly, bats were known to be dirty.

There were rumors that adventurers who touched bats with bare hands would fall seriously ill the next day.

“Do you want me to go catch a fox too?” Elise asked softly.

Peiya stayed silent for a moment, then shook her head.

“This should be enough. I think I can roughly figure out where the Ice Bear King is.”

She took out the map she had prepared earlier and began marking the locations of the monsters they had encountered.

At the entrance, there were almost no signs of infection.

As they went deeper, plants started to look strange, and some animals showed early signs of crystallization.

Then near the Weir River, the monsters showed mild infection.

Peiya connected these areas with lines, marked them, and grouped the other monster movements.

Slowly, a rough spherical shape appeared on the map.