Chapter 506 — Rebecca's Hunt

It was a dark age. The once-glorious light of civilization lay scattered on the ground, and the iron chains of theocracy and royal power bound both land and people. Far off there was the demon tide upon the wasteland; near at hand there were the savage beasts of the wild. To survive was a matter requiring immense courage and effort.

But it was also an age of "innocence"—an iron aristocratic order upheld an iron "aristocratic spirit," and the rule-makers, drunk on their own "glory" and "orthodoxy," stubbornly enforced dogmatized morals and regulations. The existence of the transcendent had established the law that "power triumphs over wisdom," and everyone was accustomed to settling matters of high and low on the open battlefield by sheer strength; schemes and machinations beyond that became shallow, half-hearted things, stagnating for a thousand years without progress.

So people of this era, anywhere outside the battlefield, were fated to be outmatched by an old schemer who had been hanging up in the sky for hundreds of thousands of years.

Naturally, Gao Yang himself rather thought that every one of his plans was quite upright and honorable...

Heidi had studied under Gao Yang for two years now, yet she still often failed to follow the Xuanmai Sect's way of thinking. It took her a moment to catch on: "You... intend to do business with the Eastern Legion and the Royal Army at the same time?"

"They have gold coins and resources, and we have industrial products. It is a highly profitable trade," Gao Yang said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Heidi hesitated. "But the Eastern Legion has very likely already been secretly colluding with the cultists... If we sell potions to them, would that not amount to helping those Wanmingji heretics..."

Gao Yang looked at Heidi. "First, do not forget that even before the civil war broke out, some of the Cecil Chamber of Commerce's retailers had already made contact with the Eastern Legion. A small-scale potion trade has been going on all along; it simply was never expanded. Second... do you really think that if we sell potions to the Eastern Legion, they will truly come out ahead?"

Heidi thought for a moment, and the vanished faces of the last batch of "friendly trade partners" to whom Cecil had dumped industrial products surfaced in her mind...

Ah, the grass on Viscount Carroll's grave must be a foot tall by now, mustn't it? And Earl Horsman's corpse still seemed not to have been pieced back together completely...

"Broaden your horizons, loosen your thinking," Gao Heng said unhurriedly—though the Heidi before him was already an adult, he had lately, perhaps because he was constantly being addressed as "Ancestor," grown ever fonder of lecturing people. "Do not cling to immediate profit; there is great learning in the balance between gain and loss."

"I understand," Heidi said, nodding repeatedly with a serious expression. "I will go contact Patrick."

"Have Patrick organize a group of sufficiently clever yet relatively low-profile merchants to handle this matter. We must do business with everyone, but certain business cannot be conducted too ostentatiously," Gao Yan nodded. "In addition, send someone to the weapons design bureau to study how 'export-model weapons' ought to be made..."

...

While Gao Yang and Heidi were discussing plans for the Cecil Duchy's "foreign trade," deep in the dense forest west of Xuanyao City, a special company was moving swiftly and cautiously among vines and undergrowth.

In all manner of stories, ancient forests shaped over hundreds and thousands of years are invariably fraught with peril, and the deeper one goes, the more so it becomes. In those regions untouched by human civilization lurk countless terrifying legends that parents use to frighten their children—bloodthirsty wolf-beasts, uncanny witches, trees that walk, and cruel hags. It seems every thing capable of striking dread into ordinary hearts dwells in the forest's depths, ever ready to devour anyone who enters.

The true depths of the forest were of course not so absurd and bizarre as the tales described, but there were indeed no few dangers here. Beneath the vast shadows cast by towering ancient trees, wild beasts and venomous insects were the principal inhabitants, and in certain more peculiar regions—near a magical focus, for instance—there even lurked monsters and spirit-creations that could give pause even to well-trained soldiers and knights.

So to move through such a place, one had to be exceedingly careful.

A warrior clad in black light armor trod over thick fallen leaves and dry branches to the observation point, pressed a hand to the side of his fully enclosed helmet, and adjusted the mode of his tactical goggles. A moment later, the warrior signaled to the comrades behind him: "Clear."

One after another, the black-armored warriors emerged from behind the undergrowth. Next came Su Jilin, likewise in light armor but bareheaded, and behind Su Jilin, ducking out after him, came Rebecca—clad in a short mage's robe suited for movement, an iron staff in hand.

"Ha—" Rebecca stepped up onto a rock protruding from the ground and, gazing at the situation in the distance, let out a breath. "I really have never been this deep before..."

Su Jilin glanced at the viscountess but did not remind her to mind her safety—when they had first entered the forest he had said once, "Mages have frail constitutions, so do not stray from the warriors' protection," but after witnessing the girl club a lunging forest wolf to death with a single swing, he had realized: the women of the Cecil family were indeed as formidable as they had been seven hundred years ago.

This girl, a mage by all appearances, once she donned mana armor, could probably outfight everyone present except himself...

"Stay alert, rotate the observers—shield-bearers, keep watch," Su Jilin instructed the subordinates beside him, then glanced down at the talisman in his hand—the surface of this magical item from his homeland was beginning to shimmer with a faint radiance, which meant the company was already very close to the forest's magical focus. In this position, the likelihood of encountering monsters would rise considerably.

Then he looked toward Rebecca—today's operation had been initiated by this young viscountess, and so the objective naturally had to follow her wishes.

"We are not far from the magical focus now, are we?" Rebecca hopped down from the rock and came to Su Jilin's side. "Whoa—your pendant is glowing!"

"Strictly speaking, we are already within the area of influence of the magical focus," Su Jilin nodded. "The monster you are looking for should be somewhere nearby."

"Mm, I heard it was in this area too..." Rebecca nodded, then sighed. "It really is better to be grown up... When I was small, my father and aunt never let me run deep into the forest..."

"The deep forest is dangerous; it is no place for children," Su Jilin said earnestly. "Even we silver elves do not permit our children to run freely into the forest's heart."

Rebecca pursed her lips and strode on ahead. "Anyway, back then my aunt spun me a whole pile of stories to frighten me, saying the forest hid this and that... witches, wizards, ghosts and goblins, fallen elves and mages, trees that could run and jump, bears bigger than houses, and so on..."

Su Jilin ordered the company to move on and, with a faint smile, glanced at Rebecca walking beside him—this descendant of a friend might have a somewhat unconventional mind, but her childhood had not differed much from anyone else's; she too had been raised on ghost stories told by her elders. As an old friend of Gao Song, he could never quite suppress a touch of elder's affection when he looked at Rebecca, and now he could not resist asking: "You must have been rather frightened after hearing all that?"

"Huh?" Rebecca blinked, then shook her head. "No—after hearing them I ran off into the forest to play."