TEOCH 71

The island we arrived at was strangely quiet.

Aside from the sounds we made stepping on grass and twigs, there was no other noise around us. Not a single breeze rustled through the densely entangled branches, and the sounds of insects or birds seemed to have no place here.

In another forest, vines or tree roots might have been writhing and overturning the soil, but there was none of that here. It felt as if the entire forest was holding its breath, staring at us.

We explored the forest for four hours and found five clearings. Including the one we had drawn on the coast, we were able to complete a total of six magic circles. While not a large number, it was sufficient to escape in a crisis.

During our exploration, we didn’t find any notable traps, nor were we attacked by any monsters, so our progress was much smoother than expected.

Of course, that very smoothness made us uneasy.

“No matter how much I use detection magic, I can’t find any monsters. Where could they be hiding?”

“I don’t see any traps either. Honestly, it’s getting to the point where it feels unsettling. Just where are they and what are they plotting that we can’t even see a trace of them?”

“It is a bit unsettling, but it’s better than them attacking us indiscriminately. For now, let’s proceed with caution.”

Damian and Rehas nodded with bitter expressions, and though I pretended to be calm on the outside, I couldn’t shake off my own anxiety. Not finding a single monster in four hours was far from a normal situation.

Two hypotheses came to mind. Either some anomaly had caused all the monsters on the island to disappear, or… they were intentionally hiding somewhere.

‘Logically, the latter is more plausible. Damn it.’

I tried to find traces of monsters by searching through the surrounding bushes and tree trunks. There are plenty of ways to identify the types of monsters on an island without directly encountering them.

After all, as monsters live on this island, they inevitably leave traces, and those traces reveal their characteristics. If I could just find any sign of monsters, it would be much easier to understand what kind of island this was…

But.

‘To think there are no traces of monsters to this extent, could this island be…?’

An ominous guess flashed through my mind, and I let out a deep sigh. No. Maybe there are traces of other monsters somewhere that I just haven’t found yet. I muttered to myself, trying to get a grip.

But I couldn’t completely rule out the worst-case scenario. Among the twelve islands, the only one where no monsters live is the ‘Island of Trees.’ A place where monsters that leave no trace behind live is…

Just then, Damian, who had activated his detection magic, gently tapped my shoulder.

“Rohan-nim, just a moment.”

“Did you find a monster, Damian?”

“No. I didn’t find any monsters, but I found something else during the detection…”

“Something else? What do you mean?”

“You know, the thing that’s on every island…”

As I looked at Damian’s face, he slowly nodded. The ‘thing’ Damian was talking about couldn’t be anything else. It was definitely a quest item. I didn’t know yet if it was an amplifier, a controller, or a gem with ‘defense’ magic on it.

Finding a quest item this quickly was a windfall for us. If we were lucky, we could return to the ‘Island of Trees’ through the magic circle as soon as we obtained this gem. If things went well, it meant we wouldn’t have to go through the island’s collapse or be chased by monsters.

“It’s a very faint magical energy, but since there are no monsters around and the flow of magic is stagnant, it stood out immediately. I think it’s in the center of the island.”

“The center of the island, that’s not too far from here.”

“Yes. Even walking slowly, we can get there within an hour.”

“Things are going better than expected… so well that it’s a problem.”

A mixture of relief and faint anxiety was on my comrades’ faces. They seemed to be thinking the same thing I was. Could this be a trap? No, it must be a trap.

There’s no way things could go this smoothly. Even if we were lucky to find the gem early, not finding a single trap, let alone a monster, while exploring the entire island and finding the gem, was incredibly suspicious. If we went to the center of the island now and something went wrong…

“Ahem, Rohan.”

“Yes.”

“I smell a trap. Am I imagining things?”

“I’m having similar thoughts, but we can’t just not go look for it.”

We looked at each other and sighed deeply. In any case, our purpose for coming to this island was to find the magical tools, and we couldn’t just run away from finding the gem simply because danger might be lurking.

If this were the first playthrough, a strategy like ‘explore the entire island first and then go to the center later’ might have been valid, but now, not knowing when the island might collapse, that wasn’t an option. Once the collapse begins, the ‘return’ magic circles we painstakingly set up will become unusable, and to use them again, we have to find the quest item as quickly as possible to calm the island’s collapse. There was no time to hesitate.

“Couldn’t we just be as careful as possible? If we have to find it anyway, it would be better to go straight for it without wavering.”

“But we should at least have a minimal strategy. It could be dangerous if we don’t decide in advance what to do in case of an emergency.”

“Hmm, but I don’t even know what to decide right now. We don’t know what situation awaits us at the center. Rohan-nim, are you still not sure what kind of monsters are on this island?”

“I’m not certain, but I have a rough idea. This is probably the ‘Island of Spirits.’”

“Spirits? You mean the fairies that live in old trees and rocks?”

“Those are the fairies, Sir Rikiel. However, since this is the demon world, they are more ferocious than the spirits of the human world. Although their physical strength is weak, they are smarter than the monsters we have met so far, so they will be quite tricky to deal with.”

To think we had to run into spirits of all things. I let out a long sigh and contemplated our future strategy. The spirits were tricky opponents even in the first playthrough. They weren’t exceptionally intelligent, but they had enough intelligence to coordinate attacks with primitive strategies, so if you hesitated even a little, you could easily be surrounded by dozens of them.

Of course, their health and attack power were weak in return, but fighting an opponent that used intelligence to form strategies was more exhausting than fighting strong opponents.

“They’ve probably already received orders from the Harpyia. It’s highly likely they were told that we were coming to this island and that we are looking for the gem. So they will wait for the moment we arrive at the center of the island to look for the gem and attack us.”

“Then we can counterattack at that moment. The key is to escape before they fully form their ranks?”

“That’s about right. If we can escape in time and use the magic circle, we might be able to get off this island safely without experiencing its collapse.”

If we couldn’t escape the island before the collapse, things would get quite complicated, but even so, since we would have obtained the gem, we could stop the collapse quickly, so it wouldn’t be a losing deal.

I steeled my resolve. It’s not like I’ve only fought spirits once or twice. If I just teach my comrades the tricks that are helpful in dealing with spirits, we should be able to get off this island safely. No, we must.

“Well then, let’s head to the center of the island for now. I’ll explain the details on the way.”

I took a deep breath and started walking towards the center of the island.

Not yet knowing what would happen to me, and to my comrades, there.

We reached our destination without encountering any monsters, just as before.

The place we arrived at was a small, shabby clearing. The area around the clearing was messily strewn with leaves and broken branches, and in the very center, a familiar-looking gem was floating in the air.

Of course, I wasn’t foolish enough to rush into the clearing and grab the gem. I immediately glanced at Damian, who nodded and cast his detection magic.

“Monsters are swarming in from all directions! There must be hundreds of them… It seems they surrounded the edge of the island while we were moving to the center?”

“I had a feeling that would happen…! Please maintain the detection magic for a moment!”

I immediately brought up the map window to check the current situation. Thanks to Damian’s magic, the current locations of the monsters were revealed on the map. I couldn’t help but be shocked that the situation was more serious than I had thought.

‘I thought there would be a hundred at most, but to think they mobilized all the monsters on the entire island!’

Counting only those within the range of the detection magic, at least 400 to 500 monsters were closing in from all directions. Their movement speed was quite fast, and their formation was tighter than I expected, so it seemed dangerous if we didn’t get out quickly. It looked like we had to move as fast as possible. Otherwise…

“We need to retrieve the gem immediately and move. If we draw a magic circle here before we encounter the monsters, we should just make it in time.”

“That’s going to be difficult. That clearing, it looks empty on the outside, but the inside is a minefield of traps. It’ll take a while to disarm them all!”

Rehas said this as he threw a small twig. The twig, which seemed to be flying without any obstacles, suddenly stopped in mid-air and burned up with a crackling sound.

The individual traps weren’t that powerful, but if several were triggered at once in a hurry, their power would be multiplied due to a synergy effect. If the traps had been set on the ground, Rikiel could have somehow flown and retrieved it, but with the traps set in mid-air, even that was difficult.

I tried throwing a twig a little higher, but unfortunately, the result was the same. It seemed we couldn’t get that gem without disarming the traps one by one.

“About how many traps are there?”

“There are a hundred of them packed into that small space. It’s a lot, but they’re the type that disarm just by being touched, so they’re not tricky. But…”

“What is it?”

“For traps laid out to buy time, they seem strangely sloppy. Something feels off.”

“This is the best the spirits of this island can do in terms of traps. Anyway, let’s move quickly. Disarming the traps and escaping is the priority right now!”

“Should I surround them with flames and set them all off at once?”

“No, if you do that, the traps will create a synergistic effect and cause a large-scale explosion that will harm us. We have to break those one by one! For now, you maintain the detection magic!”

Rehas looked skeptical but just shrugged without saying more. Well, it should be fine. As I just said, the spirits’ trap-setting ability was only this good, and more importantly, the spirits’ intelligence wasn’t advanced enough to create overly complex strategies.

No matter how smart they were, they were only outstanding among the monsters in the first stage. They probably thought this level of traps was sufficient. And in reality, it was effective enough to slow us down.

I was anxious, but we had to move quickly now. We picked up stones and twigs rolling on the ground and diligently threw them, and each time a stone hit the air, a trap broke with a loud burst of flames.

Even with five of us working diligently, breaking the traps one by one took a considerable amount of time. Damian, who was maintaining the detection magic, shouted as if to rush us.

“They’re moving faster than I thought! In a few more minutes, they’ll have us completely surrounded!”

“Understood! Rehas, most of the traps have been cleared, right? I’ll just push through the remaining ones with my body!”

“Wait, Rohan! There are still quite a few traps left…!”

“We have to take the risk now! If they start attacking us all at once, it will be even more dangerous then!”

I checked the map window in the corner of my vision again. The red dots on the map were already densely surrounding us, to the point where if we didn’t escape right now, we would be attacked. Since it had come to this, I thought it would be better to take the risk and get that gem quickly.

‘Even now, it’s touch and go. The probability of escaping safely even if we get the gem and flee immediately is low, but once they enter this clearing, there will be no chance to escape!’

If we got nothing here, there would be no hope. I had reinforced my armor not long ago, so even if I was engulfed in flames, I wouldn’t get severely burned, and with the parasites in my left arm, right leg, and body, I figured I could break through if I was careful with the rest of my body.

“Everyone, wait here! I’ll be right back!”

“Rohan, wait! Looking at it again with the ‘Spider’s Eye,’ something is strange! It’s better not to go…!”

It seemed like Rehas was shouting something, but I was in such a hurry that I just ran. The thought that the closing encirclement of monsters was more urgent than any potential danger pushed me.

I ran towards the center of the clearing, covering my face as much as possible with my parasite-infested left arm. I gasped for breath as I felt a few untriggered traps strike my body.

But I was still okay. I was hit in the areas where the parasites were, so they would recover quickly. We weren’t in combat with the monsters yet, so if I could just get that gem and immediately draw the return magic circle…!

But I should have realized sooner what Rehas was shouting from behind me.

“Damn it, Rohan! The gem itself was a trap! I should have noticed sooner!”

The moment I reached out my unharmed right hand and grabbed the gem, an alien energy pressed down on my whole body. Surprised by the sudden situation, the information of the gem I had just acquired appeared before my eyes. Only then did I realize what Rehas’s warning meant.

[Item Acquired: Fake Gem]

[A gem received by the forest spirit Dryads from the Harpyia Charon. It looks identical to the gem the hero’s party is searching for, but its effect is completely different. It contains magic that puts the person who acquires it in a ‘petrified’ state for one hour. A person afflicted with ‘petrification’ is bound by the earth’s curse and cannot move from that spot.]

An unknown magical power erupted from the ground, binding my whole body like chains, and the sensation of my muscles turning to stone started from my toes and was creeping up to my calves. I tried to stab my leg with a blade to get out, but the petrification energy quickly crawled up to my thighs, and even the hands holding the sword began to stiffen. As a panicked Rikiel and Rehas tried to run towards me, Damian shouted in a tearing voice.

“Rohan-nim, the monsters are coming!”

A group of Dryads, forest giants in the form of trees, and Gnomes, forest dwarves in the form of rocks, were already swarming towards us. My comrades’ faces turned pale.