“It should be somewhere nearby,” Lia grumbled, looking around once more. As so often these last few nights, it was only Lia and myself out here. Alex had decided to remain behind and perform some experiments on the somnus grass, as we had dubbed the grass that constantly spread magical sleeping gas, in an attempt to harness its effect, while Luna and Silva simply couldn’t keep up with us. It was a major cause of annoyance for my canine companion and I did not doubt that she’d repay that annoyance by running Lia and me to the ground once we were back out in the open but for now, she was sulking. Sulking and praying, as she worked with Luna to improve their divinely granted abilities. How exactly that worked, I had no idea but it involved a whole lot of kneeling in front of the statue Luna had created while releasing copious amounts of Astral Power. Doing so was fairly exhausting, causing the two of them to sleep through the night and nap for large portions of the day.

“Agreed, we have a fair idea how quickly we were moving and kept the direction constant, so we know where we are. Now, if only the world could agree with what should be here,” I snarked back, knowing that Lia was just as annoyed with our circumstances as I was. To be fair, I was more intrigued than annoyed, though that was slowly shifting as the many questions the forest’s state posed couldn’t be answered. It was incredibly dissatisfying to search for answers and come up without any, or rather, with answers that made no sense.

We had done pretty much anything we could come up with, we had circled the forest and learned that it was almost ten times the size it used to be before the change, which was fascinating in and of itself, but nothing impossible. Greatly increased maturation for plants, why not, we had seen it before, even if none of the Nature Mages we had seen could get anywhere near the magnitude needed to grow the forest.

No, the impossibility came when we compared what was around the forest, especially the road. It went into the forest and vanished without a trace, so far, so good, but when travelling to the other side of the forest, it emerged back out of it, just as broken as its counterpart.

The only problem? When comparing the kilometre markers, the distance covered before the change and after the change hadn’t changed. What was a distance of three kilometres before the change had somehow, impossibly, turned into a distance of roughly twenty kilometres.

That was the point where I began to get a headache. To make matters worse, when we compared the features around the forest in the other directions, the effect was identical, at least by our reckoning. The various farms and towns in the distance were where they should be in relation to the forest, but the forest was larger, which just couldn’t work, not unless somehow the world had been enlarged. Even imagining the effect and trying to come up with reasonable explanations made me wish for something alcoholic and I hated anything that impaired my mind.

Maybe I was at fault. There had been moments during which I complained that living near the farm was getting a little mundane, now, I couldn’t do so any longer. A forest that was larger than it could be, without any detectable magic involved was a mystery to be solved, even if we had so far no idea where to even start.

Which was the cause of our current expedition, looking for a place to start. There used to be a few buildings and businesses within the boundaries of the effect and we were trying to find one of them. The restaurant ‘Waldhof’ to be precise. It was founded by German immigrants a few decades prior and gained enough fame to be marked down on the map thanks to its traditional German cuisine, or so they claimed.

The important part was that the restaurant was also a hotel and the proprietors lived there, hopefully giving us another data point, namely what had happened with people within the scope of the effect that changed the forest. Had their presence changed anything, was there any clue as to what had happened, anything that might give us an idea of how the increase in area had been accomplished?

Which brought us to our current problem, we couldn’t find the damn place. Nor had we found anything hinting at human habitation in the area, it was as if the entire forest had been replaced with something more primal.

“Want to try a search pattern? Concentric circles, that kind of deal, trying to find anything that looks crafted?” Lia asked, crouching a little as she studied the ground far beneath the branch she was on.

“We could, but I doubt it’ll help. Haven’t you noticed, there’s nothing in the entire forest? No roads, no paths, no garbage, and nothing from before the change. Ignore the roads and paths for now and even the buildings. There’d be garbage. No matter how well-meaning people are, no matter how many signs are posted and how much clean-up is done, there’d be some littering, some plastic wrappers or aluminium cans lying somewhere, no, it’s all pristine wilderness,” I could only shake my head, the conclusions my mind was drawing getting progressively more outlandish.

“So, what will we do now?” Lia pushed and I decided that her idea might have some merit. If nothing else, it would give us a good idea about this area of the forest and allow us to draw some sort of conclusion from it.

“Look around, I guess,” I admitted with a grin, “We’ll use your idea, we might stumble across something useful. I doubt it’ll be what we’re here for, but who knows, I might be surprised.”

Lia chuckled at my words before her legs coiled beneath her and she launched herself forward, showing just how physically powerful she was. Where I needed magic to accomplish something similar, she could brute-force the movement and leap from tree to tree.

Focusing, I activated Draconic Leap, pushing the muscles in my legs to their limits, before pushing off myself. For a moment, there was the weightless sensation I loved so much but from prior experience, I knew I’d fall short of the distance needed. Reaching out with my magic, I gripped the wind, pushing myself up while drawing the air above me to the sides, decreasing the pressure above me while giving myself some extra lift. My technique was very much a work in progress, and I was slowly progressing with it. My Wind Magic had gained a few levels during our exploration of the forest and was now level twenty-four. Similarly, constantly improving the temple cum shelter with Luna had increased my Earth Magic to seventeen and my Crystal Magic to twelve.

Repeatedly using my special ability and Wind Magic was a little exhausting but it was the only way for me to keep up with Lia. Or rather, I was moving as quickly as I could without exhausting myself, while Lia was moving along. Going by prior experience, I knew that she could move even faster, to the point that I’d need repeated shadow steps to keep up and at that point, I’d soon keel over. While I could emulate a lot of her physical skills with my magic, I was far less efficient. Or maybe it was more a case of me doing something far more exhausting by repeatedly teleporting while she was simply jumping, even if she was jumping at insane speeds.

Either way, in our current situation I was forced to focus on moving and tasting the air as I was looking for magical traces, while Lia focused on the physical world and keeping us safe. Sharing responsibilities was quite useful, both of us using our specialities and after a while of moving, I noticed a change in the air, an incredibly faint scent that might be magical or not. I couldn’t tell but I was able to get a rough direction.

Calling out to Lia, we followed the scent and after a few more minutes, the two of us stopped and I almost tumbled from the tree I had landed in.

Before us, sitting in the middle of a clearing, was something I hadn’t expected at all. Namely, a homely building, looking fairly undamaged if a little overgrown. A bush partially covered the door but the sign sitting above it was still easily visible between some vines. The Waldhof, the hotel we had been looking for.

“Well, looks like you were right,” I admitted with a huff. My earlier headache was back and it had brought reinforcements. How in Hecate’s name did this accursed forest work? The building was here, but there was no road, nothing but a building sitting in the middle of a clearing.

“At least we’ve got something interesting,” Lia snarked back and I could only huff again. Interesting, yes, but also impossible, incomprehensible and utterly frustrating.