The early evening was warm, and I welcomed the cool breeze brushing against my face as we left the city gates. The guards just threw a brief glance at us as we left the walls of Sural city, and then let us pass without any further inconveniences. I somehow got the feeling that someone was following us, but I had already checked multiple times and could never spot anyone. After following the road for 20 minutes, it led into a forest where the air immediately felt much cooler on my skin. I sped up a bit, getting ahead of my group and climbed up onto a tall tree to get a better look over the area around us.

  I could spot a few small animals like rabbits and squirrels, but nothing that posed any immediate danger to my group. Just as I was about to climb down, a noise in the bushes next to us caught my attention. I readied my bow and aimed at the bushes, ready to shoot at whatever came out. A giant boar jumped out of the bushes and charged towards my party at incredible speeds.

  I tracked its movement and shot the arrow before it could get anywhere near them. For the next two seconds, the sharp sound of my arrow cutting through the air filled my ears.

  As the boar’s neck got pierced by my arrow, its legs gave out under its weight and it crashed to the ground, rolling over a few times before coming to a halt a few meters next to Kuro.

  He looked around the trees and threw me a thankful nod and a thumbs up. I returned the thumbs up along with a confident smile and got down from the tree to retrieve my arrow.

  “Good shot Shizuka”, Kuro praised me as I got close.

  “Thanks, wasn’t bad at all right?”

  I pulled the arrow out of the boars’ neck and threw it to the ground full of frustration.

  “Ahh damn it, the tip broke!”

  That was one arrow less in my quiver, so I only had fourteen left. Hina chuckled a few steps ahead of me and I shot a sharp glare at her back. My frustration at her wasn’t real though, and it vanished in just a few seconds.

  “Kuro, it’ll be getting dark soon. We should think about setting up camp, cause I will not be able to spot anything if we keep walking further.”

  It was hard to see his face in the shadows of the trees but he seemed to be thinking about it.

  “It’s okay if you can’t spot anything, we’ll arrive in thirty minutes and I don’t expect anything to happen anymore.”

  That was my sign that the job was done for today, so I kept walking next to Kuro instead of splitting off of the group again. I attached my bow to the belt that I wore on my back and made sure that it was secured tightly.

  “Kuro, why exactly didn’t you want to sleep in the village? If we had taken another route, we could have reached it by now.”

  It took him almost a minute to answer, but when he did, his voice was almost a whisper.

  “Too many people have already vanished there. We're here to find them … not join them. One of the vanished parties did so on their first night at the village. We need to make sure to be careful.”

  His explanation made sense, but also made me feel uneasy. He was correct, it would be stupid to sleep at a place where so many people had gone missing without apparent reason, but I was also afraid of sleeping in the forest. We continued to walk next to each other silently, until Kuro stopped suddenly.

  “Ryu, Hina, come here. We’ll set up our camp here.”

  We had arrived at a small clearing in the forest. The moon was clearly visible in the clear night sky and shone down on us with its cold light. The quiet rustling of leaves and the gentle murmur of water filled the clearing, mingling with the damp earthy scent of the forest.

  My nose twitched and I could barely hold back a sneeze. We set up our tents and sleeping bags, then built a small fire in front of them.

  “Sooo, who wants to take the first night watch?” I looked around the group, hoping that anyone would volunteer.

  “We might not even need one. Look at this set of runes that I came up with.”

  Kuro produced a couple of pieces of paper with runes on them from his backpack. He put them on the trees around our camp and as soon as he set the last one up, I could feel the air vibrate between them. There was also a humming sound that filled the air.

  “Uhm, so what will happen if I get between two of those runes?”

  The curiosity got the better of me and I approached two of the runes to touch the field of energy between them.

  “Shizuka I wouldn’t do this if I were-”

  But it was too late, my fingers already touched the invisible wall of concentrated mana. The world flashed white and a deafening ring filled my ears. The force knocked me off my feet, slamming my back hard against the ground. I couldn’t move any of my limbs, my whole body felt numb and tingling. I could hear the voices of my friends around me, but it was hard to understand anything with this stunning noise in my ears.

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  “Hey--- are—okay?”

  “Kuro,--- happened--- her?”

  I felt someone tug at my shoulder, but was too weak to respond. My head started spinning and a nauseous feeling flooded my senses.

  The voices and the ringing slowly faded, swallowed by a rising pressure in my head, then everything slipped away as darkness embraced me.

  When I opened my eyes, the forest that had surrounded us, as well as my friends were gone. The air was hot and filled with smoke and the screams of the wounded and dying.

  I looked around and saw the bloodied silhouette of a woman standing in the smoke, her dirty white hair dancing in the wind. Blood trickled down from her drawn blade, her clothes and her face. She only had one deep blue eye, the other was destroyed by a deep wound on the left side of her face. Even though she looked older and really tired, I could still recognize Layla instantly.

  “MORE… I need more… it's still not enough… I'm still not strong enough… I've spent my whole life fighting monsters, devils,gods… So how can someone like you be stronger than me…?”

  I couldn't see who she was speaking to, but her voice was full of fear, exhaustion and pain. She raised her sword, which started glowing in a faint golden light, and got ready to attack again. I could hear a loud roaring sound in the distance, but aside from that, only Layla and her opponent had survived the bloodshed. The muddy ground that I laid on was covered by hundreds, if not thousands of corpses. A few of them were knights of Sural’s army, but there were also a lot of knights from other races as well as adventurers.

  This wasn't just a battle, it was a full fledged war.

  At this point I realized that this was another prophecy, a possible future. Layla’s opponent came out of the smoke and I could see him for the first time. A tall grown man with short black hair in decorated silver armor. His sword was a little longer than Layla’s, but not by much.

  Just as I tried to focus on his face to burn every detail into memory, my vision blurred and the prophecy faded away, leaving me alone in the emptiness again.

  CLACK, CLACK, CLACK. Congratulations, you have met the requirements to upgrade---

  The dark space faded away and I returned to the world of the waking. The first thing I saw after opening my eyes was Hina’s worried face as she leaned over me. I could still smell the smoke of the battlefield in my nose and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue while I was asleep.

  “Are you okay Shizu?”

  Shizu? I’ve had many nicknames in Greenwood but Shizu was something new. I raised my brow at her but only got a shy smile as a reaction.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Can I have some water?”

  Hina handed me one of our goat leather canteens filled with water, I opened it and drank greedily.

  “Easy there. No ones going to steal it”

  Only through Hina’s reprimand did I notice how parched my throat had been.

  “Where are the others? How long have I been out? And what even happened to me?”

  “Hmm, do you want the long version or the short version?”

  She gently took the canteen from me and helped me sit up.

  “The short version is just fine, thank you.”

  I pushed myself upright with both hands, bracing against the ground. My bones, muscles and tendons protested audibly. For the first time after waking up, I glanced around and took in my surroundings. I was lying in one of our two tents, tucked inside a sleeping bag.

  “The boys are outside, they built a fire and are cooking the boar you killed earlier. You’ve been out for… I’d say it was just about one and a half hours. As for what happened to you… I have no idea.” She laughed.

  “You touched Kuro’s mana barrier and boom… white flash, you went flying. Looked pretty painful when you hit the ground. And then you were completely knocked out, we tried everything from shaking you to splashing your face with water, but nothing helped.”

  I reached around to check my back for bruises or cuts but everything seemed okay.

  The smell of cooked meat reached my nose from outside the tent and my mouth was instantly full of saliva.

  “Come on, Shizu. Let's join the others and eat a little. I’m sure you’re just as curious about Kuro’s rune barrier as me!”

  She got up and gently helped me up to my feet. Despite her slim frame, she pulled me up with ease, showcasing the strength she gained by helping her family with their farm.

  We squeezed ourselves through the narrow opening of the tent and joined the others at the fireplace. After all of us expressed our curiosity, Kuro gave in and told us how his runes worked.

  “It’s important that all of you listen closely, because this is based on some very advanced theories.”

  Kuro disappeared into the tent. A few moments of rummaging later, he returned with a book in hand, which he showed to all of us. The title read “Magic theory for beginners and advanced”. I could tell that Hina already felt sleepy because she didn’t understand anything of his explanation.

  He went on for over an hour, but we were all lost after the first five minutes. He showed us a detailed diagram about the interaction of different mana flows and flipped through the pages of the book as he tried to explain it to us. Hina even fell asleep during his explanation, and if I hadn’t slept earlier I would have fallen asleep too.

  All I really understood was that touching the active barrier hurt like hell and knocked me out cold by overloading my brain, which was enough of a reason for me not to touch it again. Just as the topic of the barrier was done for me, Ryu asked an important question.

  “So anything with a brain that touches this barrier gets knocked out?”

  Kuro nodded at first, but then shook his head.

  “No, there’s exceptions. It doesn’t exactly short the brain, but the body’s mana system. It’s like forcibly triggering a mana sickness, while also hitting the target with a strong electric shock. If you don’t have mana, or your mana core hasn't awakened yet, you can pass the barrier with no problems. Also, because we put the runes on the trees of this forest, everything that belongs to the forest can pass as well.”

  Now that was easy to understand. So even though the barrier didn’t shield us from everything, it would keep us quite safe from any attackers.

  Hina toppled over and I caught her just in time, amazed she’d stayed upright for so long.

  It was late and all of us were tired, so I brought Hina into the tent and wished the boys a good night. Even though I wasn’t tired after sleeping just recently, I laid down next to Hina. She looked so peaceful when she slept, I could lay here for hours, just watching her breathe and sleep.

  I could hear the others as they got ready to sleep as well, and the rustling of their tent’s entrance as they got in. Even though I wasn’t very tired, I knew that I needed to sleep to recharge my batteries for the coming day and our quest, so I closed my eyes and relaxed my body.

  I didn't realize when i drifted off but eventually, my body claimed the rest it needed.