Ichiro's powerful hooves trampled the mud, continuing to advance along the road. Large puddles were scattered here and there and repeated about every hundred meters, hindering the path.

Unconcerned about this detail and aware of the fact that as he moved away from Goldhaven he would encounter more and more different biomes, Yoichi rode his horse forward, hoping to find the crossroad marked on the map.

In just two hours, Yoichi was far enough away from the capital that he could no longer make out the typical trees and vegetation he was used to seeing. In that semi-flat area, the vegetation was thick and lush, but darker, lower plants prevailed, with broad leaves and roots poking through the muddy soil.

His gaze was drawn to the lights of several villages scattered throughout the territory. They were not marked on Ryutaro's map and had probably only recently been built.

Many people chose to live in the villages near the capital because even though they worked in Goldhaven, they couldn't stand the chaos of such a large city.

Each village was protected by one or more fields of Crimson Lotus, which judging by their bright red color, partially illuminated by the artificial lights coming from the villages, did not seem to have suffered from the plague of the Blackblood.

Guided by the moon, Yoichi opened the map again, not knowing how to cheat time and realizing that that stretch of road was monotonous and devoid of demons to discover.

On it, beyond the three-way junction, a blurry ink blot prevented him from seeing what was drawn underneath. The blur covered the very area just past the crossroad, along the northern direction he would have to travel to reach Oakenfair.

Yoichi felt like a lost child, riding alone in the night and aware that despite Kenji's incredible power, he still knew very little about the magic world around him.

He had learned most of the information about demons and their biomes from Enatsu, but it would not be enough for him during his adventure. As Shioko advised him, he would have to keep his eyes open once he was away from the Crimson Lotus fields.

After his experience at the Blackvault Mines, he vividly remembered that the most aggressive and wild demons attacked humans precisely during the night hours. This time, however, his friends were not there to help him and he would have to rely on his strength only.

Finally, after hours of traveling from the gates of Goldhaven, the fork in the road drawn on the map appeared before his eyes, dimly lit by a torch attached to a wooden pole.

Yoichi hesitated no longer and approached, massaging Ichiro's neck and encouraging it to continue.

The villages that dotted the Goldhaven province like a constellation around the white walls of the capital were now far away and, along with them, the Crimson Lotus plantations. There was a strange, ambiguous silence in the air as if the one in front of him was an invisible gap dividing the safe zone from the more dangerous one.

The three-way junction corresponded exactly to the one drawn on the map. In the center, a signpost was embedded in the ground. Above it, the torchlight that illuminated the area was protected by a small wooden cube, useful to keep it from going out under the action of the wind.

With some awe, Yoichi approached the signpost and began to read the handwritten directions on the wooden beams. They were wider in the middle and narrower on the sides and pointed left, forward, and right.

'Ambershire County'

'Stonebreak Passage'

'Boneside Swamp'

These were the three names indicated on the south, west, and north arrows respectively. Consulting the map once more to make sure it wasn't wrong, Yoichi pointed his finger at the old parchment, simulating going down all three roads.

"The one leading to Ambershire is definitely not the right one; the same goes for the one toward the Stonebreak Passage. I don't need to cross the mountain range to get to my destination," he reflected aloud, feeling isolated in absolute silence. "The only road left is the one that leads to the Boneside Swamp. This must be the place that has been erased from the map," he reasoned.

His hands lowered the old parchment and his gaze peered over the edge of the map. Faced with this vision, Yoichi felt a cold thrill run through his body, and for a moment his teeth chattered with fear.

Unlike the other two roads, which didn't seem too different from the environment behind him, the one leading north was dark and gloomy. It went right into the woods he'd been looking at for several miles and followed the direction he hoped he wouldn't have to travel.

"Fuck," he stammered, uttering the word as quickly as a hiccup. The road beneath Ichiro's hooves had already been unpaved for more than three miles, but even so, its condition was still decent thanks to its proximity to the capital and other population centers.

The road north of the crossroad, however, consisted of a kind of rut in the damp, muddy earth, lined with thorny plants and shaggy foliage, without a shadow of a flower.

"A swamp, huh? You could have told me, Takamori-Sada... I could have worn better boots," the young tamer muttered, rolling up the map and letting out a long sigh. Inside himself, he knew that traveling during the night was a very dangerous thing, but he was also sure that if he didn't take advantage of every free moment, he would never make it back to Ambershire in time.

He spurred Ichiro on, and the horse, initially unconvinced that it was going in that very direction, began to walk through the mud. The Boneside Swamp was a fairly large swamp that bordered much of the Bronzeforest.

The forest lake was indeed fed by a few surface water streams and many deep water flows, most of which originated from that highly inhospitable place. If the Bronzeforest was a place where life glowed with a thousand colors and cute animals, the Boneside Swamp was the exact opposite.

Especially at night, it was the ideal place for demons who did not like cold and dry environments and fed mainly on amphibians and reptiles.