Soma and his students kept following the path made out of intertwined branches in the direction opposite to the road. The path kept twisting and crossing over itself time and time again, following it made it feel as if they were walking through some kind of maze. And in fact, it was a maze serving the purpose of misleading anyone that isn’t part of the bandits’ band.

“When in situations like this one where your enemy uses mazes and such misleading means, you have two options. You either destroy your way through the whole thing with brute force, or you take your time to go through the whole thing while leaving some kind of markers so that you know where you have been and where you haven’t”(Soma)

“Using brute force is the fastest of the two, but it comes with the downsides of exhausting yourself and informing your enemy that you are coming for them. On the other hand, the second method takes a lot of time, and you’ll have to make your way through any traps that might be installed there”(Marina)

“We are going to use the second method and follow the path while leaving markers as we go so that we know where we have been. And don’t worry, there will be no traps you’ll need to be careful about. You could say that the Zombies and Ghouls themselves are the traps and because the Zombies and Ghouls are mindless monsters they would have refrained from installing any other traps to avoid having the Zombies and Ghouls activating them by mistake. And as for the markers, I’m going to curve two arrows on the trees that are supporting the path. One arrow pointing in the direction we came from and the other one in the direction of the road. And for that, you’ll need to make sure you are aware of where you came from and of where the road is constantly, that’s why never try to do this by yourself alone and make sure you have those around you do the same thing in case one of you forgets. And make sure to make as many markers as possible just in case you need to go back and confirm your position and the directions. You can also add another arrow pointing towards the north to the marking in case you want to be aware of the general directions since you’ll not be able to figure that out once you are inside this foggy forest”(Soma)

Soma led his students and went on following the path leaving markings of three arrows on every tree that is supporting the path above their heads. Even though the distance between the marked trees is no more than 3m, Soma kept marking them with the three arrows pointing in the three directions: where they came from, the direction of the road, the north.

After 30 minutes of walking, they finally encountered the first Undead since entering the foggy forest. The Undead was a Ghoul, and it was dashing towards them mindlessly. Soma took a step towards it and brandished his sword as a white aura covered the whole blade of the sword. Once the Ghoul was close enough, Soma swung his sword at it, cutting it in half vertically. The Ghoul staggered backward and then started to disintegrate starting from the wound Soma made with his sword. The students were impressed by what they saw as it was their first time seeing an Undead monster being purified by Light Magic. But on the other hand, the Ghoul’s appearance had confirmed Rimi’s and Alice’s suspicions.

“As you saw, Undead monsters are killed by purifying them using Light Magic or Fire Magic. But you need to be careful when using Fire Magic in a forest, you have to avoid starting forest fire at all cost. On the other hand, Light Magic is rare and difficult to master, and more than that it comes with another downside when dealing with Undead in a place that’s teeming with them like this one, namely Light Magic attracts Undead Monsters. Using a strong Light Magic will lead to all the Undeads in the area to come at you from every direction. That’s why what I used was the weak Light Arrow spell. All I did was to cast the spell on my sword and stopping just before launching the arrows, and that caused the sword to be covered with a useless white aura that only works on weak Undead monsters the like of Zombies and Ghouls”(Soma)

“…Interesting…. I have never thought that magic can be used like that…”(Zeek)

After that encounter, they kept encountering more Undeads as they followed the path above their heads, and after 3 hours of walking, they finally reached a clearance in the middle of the forest. At the center of the clearance stood a huge boulder embedded in the soil, and it had a man made cave dug into it. Looking at the size of the boulder, Soma concluded that it has the capacity to hold at least 20 bandits, and that’s only looking at the part above the ground, and looking at the size of the boulder Soma told the students that the underground part of the boulder is way bigger than the aboveground part.

“…How did you know that the underground part is bigger?”(David)

“Simply because there needs to be enough of it underground in order for it to keep it standing even after having people dig through it like that”(Soma)

Soma and the students walked around the boulder to scout the area around it. From what they could see, the sun could pass through the area around the boulder, and that’s thanks to the clearance which made the fog thinner than everywhere else. With the sunlight acting as a natural barrier against the Zombies and Ghouls, the bandits made the place their base. Or that’s what they made it look like, but in truth, the clearance in the forest was man made by the bandits themselves as there was still some evidence of regular cutting of trees around the place all to make the fog thinner in order to prevent it from blocking the sun.

“…Plus, monsters don’t spawn in places where there is more Mana than Miasma in the atmosphere, and places where Mana is more are where people live. They were making the clearance bigger and bigger as more time passed and the number of bandits in the band increased”(Soma)

“Why would they do that?”(Zac)

“…To make it so the Miasma of the forest and the Mana around the base don’t mix together. Miasma and Mana mixing together in an area leads to the spawning of Unique Monsters, and they wanted to avoid that at all costs. And so, they are separating the base area from the forest area by making the clearance all in order to separate the Mana of the base area from the Miasma of the forest and that can be seen from how the fog is way too thin to even be compared to the fog in the forest. And it also helps them by keeping the Zombies and Ghouls from attacking them even at night…. That’s what I think at least”(Zeek)

“You are correct, Zeek! But there is one vital point that you have missed….. how did this band of bandits learn all of this about Miasma and Mana and whatnot?”(Soma)

“….Now that you said it…. You are right! How did those bandits learn of such things?”(Emma)

“There is more to them than what meets the eye”(Marina)