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Suddenly, Terzan revealed herself.
Surprised, Lia and I spoke to her.
"Terzan?"
"What, what's going on?"
"Sothing big happened."
Terzan said with a serious expression.
"A large group of people suddenly started heading towards the priestess's residence."
"What?"
"What do you an?"
"Terzan, tell us more."
Before we knew it, Kaneff had co closer and asked her to explain more.
"At first, I thought it was the village guards patrolling, but at so point, more people gathered in one place. They were all ard."
"The priestess's residence That's where Speranza is right now, isn't it?"
At Kaneff's muttering, my heart sank. Anxiety welled up and I felt like everything went dark.
Terzan spoke to with a troubled face.
"I'm sorry, Sihyeon. I wanted to protect Speranza, but I couldn't use my powers because of the mysterious force surrounding the area."
"Ah"
I didn't have the energy to respond to her apology. I stood up abruptly, trying to compose myself.
"We need to find out what's happening ourselves. It might not be as bad as we're worried about."
"That's the most certain thing."
"I'll go too."
Kaneff and Lia also got up to follow . The drowsiness from just before sleep had long disappeared from everyone's faces.
We first ran out of the room and started searching for the Erul people. We wanted to understand the situation and what had happened. However, strangely enough, we didn't feel any presence inside the building.
What, what's going on?
We were sure there had been guards at the entrance when we had returned earlier
My optimistic thought that maybe we were misunderstanding sothing shattered the mont we stepped outside the building.
"What on earth"
As soon as we left the building, we were faced with darkness so thick that we couldn't see an inch in front of us. It wasn't just the moon and stars being obscured by clouds.
The torch Lia had hastily fetched was useless. The light of the torch seed to be blocked by a wall and quickly lost its strength.
"This feeling"
Kaneff, who had been staring into the darkness, furrowed his brow and muttered.
"There's no doubt. A barrier has been spread around the area."
"A barrier? But wasn't the barrier only spread around the village?"
"I don't know why it's like this either! But this suffocating feeling is unmistakable. The barrier we saw in the forest has spread throughout the entire village. It must be why the communication artifact suddenly lost its connection earlier."
Kaneff stopped mid-sentence and looked at Terzan.
"There was no barrier when you ca back, right?"
"Yeah. It was just normal."
"Soone who doesn't want us to move must be playing tricks Terzan, can you find the way to the priestess's residence?"
"It's difficult for too, within the barrier, boss."
"Damn it"
The unidentified people heading towards the priestess's residence.
The barrier that spread as soon as Terzan returned to where we were.
We couldn't think of it as our misunderstanding anymore. The ominous circumstances were gradually fueling our anxiety.
"What do we do now?"
No one could answer Lia's worried question when, at that mont, a faint voice pierced through the thick darkness.
"Sihyeon! Can you hear ?"
This voice?!
As soon as I heard the voice, I imdiately thought of its owner.
"Anis Anis! We're here!"
"Ah! I found you."
Anis appeared from the darkness, swinging a blue fla. She seed to have hurriedly searched for us, her breath was ragged, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.
Without giving Anis a chance to catch her breath, I imdiately asked a question.
"What's going on here?"
"Phew. I'm not really sure. After I took you all to your accommodations and was on my way back, the barrier suddenly spread. Worried, I decided to return to where you all were."
As soon as she finished speaking, Kaneff stepped forward to ask a question.
"Hey, Erul girl! What's the big secret? Are you targeting Speranza again?"
"I-I really don't know anything about this. If I truly had a secret plan, why would I co looking for you all? We wouldn't be able to escape this barrier easily anyway."
Anis stuttered slightly but calmly defended herself against Kaneff's question. He seed sowhat convinced by her words and backed off a bit.
"Anis, Terzan said she saw ard forces moving towards the Priestess's residence. Mirna and Speranza are in danger."
"Ard forces are heading to where my mother is?"
Anis's face beca conflicted for a mont, and she began to think deeply, pondering sothing. As her thoughts went on, a look of disbelief spread across her face.
"How could this be why?"
"Anis? Anis!"
It took calling her na a few tis for her to snap out of her own world.
"Ah I'm sorry."
"Please explain anything you know. I'm so frustrated and anxious that I feel like I could die."
"We should go to where my mother is first. We don't have much ti, so let's move right away."
She sent her floating blue fla towards the lantern that Lia was holding.
The lantern's light turned blue, gradually pushing back the surrounding darkness.
"This should do. Follow ."
We relied on Anis's blue fla and the lantern to make our way to the Priestess's residence.
The darkness of the barrier felt so dense that it seed to block all our senses, but Anis led us without hesitation.
If we hadn't t Anis and had set out on our own, we might have been lost in the darkness, experiencing sothing truly terrible.
Unable to calm my worried heart, I asked Anis the sa question again.
"Anis, what on earth is happening right now?"
She hesitated for a mont before answering, biting her lip firmly.
But in the end, she couldn't ignore my desperate gaze and slowly opened her mouth while staring into the unseen darkness.
"When I first heard about the ard forces moving, I thought soone was targeting Speranza. If that were true, my mother would have spread the barrier to protect Speranza."
A plausible story.
And it was one of the situations we had been on guard for.
"But sothing's strange. If it was simply to protect Speranza, she wouldn't have spread such a wide barrier to cover the entire village. Spreading a barrier around the area would have been enough."
"So?"
"This barrier isn't for protecting Speranza. It's ant to prevent soone from moving easily. For example"
Anis's gaze shifted to and the other mbers of our group. Kaneff, who had been quietly listening to the explanation, spoke up with a cold expression.
"You're saying that the Priestess who has Speranza with her is behind all this?"
"I can't believe it either but the only person who can spread a barrier is the Priestess."
Speranza's grandmother was behind all this?
The image of Mirna holding her granddaughter and shedding tears ca to mind, making my head spin. Even now, I couldn't think of those tears as fake.
-I want to be with my granddaughter just for tonight.
Mirna, who had held Speranza and pleaded with so earnestly.
Should I have refused her request then? Because I trusted her too easily, Speranza
Tch!
The painful thoughts were interrupted when soone firmly grabbed my shoulder.
"Stop worrying about it."
"Boss"
"Whatever happens, all we need to do is take down whoever is in our way and get Speranza back."
Terzan and Lia chid in as well.
"That's right. I'll find Speranza faster than anyone."
"Don't worry too much, Sihyeon."
"Thank you. I'm back to my senses now."
As they said, it was not a ti to worry. Now was the ti to focus all our energy on rescuing Speranza.
I steadied my wavering heart and burned with determination in my eyes.
"We'll be at my mother's residence soon."
As soon as Anis finished speaking, the Priestess's residence erged from the darkness.
In front of it, nurous Erul Tribe mbers were wandering around ard.
"Those people don't they seem strange?"
As Lia said, the movent of the Erul Tribe mbers was odd. Everyone had a half-conscious expression on their faces, moving sluggishly like zombies.
Even the guards who had been guarding the place like a fortress were in the sa state.
"Wait, isn't that Daur?"
"Uncle?"
Daur, like the other Erul Tribe mbers, was wandering around with a vacant expression on his face.
Anis quickly approached him and shook his body, trying to talk to him.
"Can you hear ? Snap out of it, Uncle. Uncle!"
"Ugh intruders"
-Chaeng!
"Uncle?!"
Daur drew his weapon without recognizing Anis. One by one, the people around him also started to draw their weapons.
"Intruders"
"Intruders"
"Can't any of you recognize ?"
"Anis, get out of there for now."
I pulled Anis's arm as she was confused. anwhile, the ard Erul Tribe mbers slowly approached us.
"Well, this works out. We didn't plan on talking anyway."
Kaneff, followed by Terzan and Lia, prepared for battle. Anis, holding my hand, cried out desperately.
"Right now, they're not in their right minds. Please refrain from using excessively powerful attacks. I beg you."
Her outcry made Kaneff's cheek twitch as if he wasn't happy with it, but he soon gave in and issued an order with a resigned expression.
"Everyone, just subdue them moderately."
"Don't worry!"
"Especially you, Terzan! Be careful. Put away that vicious weapon quickly."
" "
Unlike Lia's energetic response, Terzan reluctantly put away her bizarre weapon, looking quite disappointed.
When a simple dagger appeared in her hand, Anis let out a sigh of relief.
CH 378-387 (Speranza & Sihyeon) $2CH 388-397 (Happy Birthday my dear daughter) $2CH 398-407 (Subduing the Angels) $2CH 408-417 (Farm family, Assemble) $2CH 418-424 (The END) $2
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