"Brand, where are we actually headed?"
The metal fittings of two warhorses clanked as they trotted through the forest, one behind the other. The female knight on horseback tightly gripped the reins with one hand and turned her head anxiously to look at the surrounding scenery. The static forest resembled an oil painting, its deep background seeping with a refreshing green atmosphere, while sunlight pierced through the tree canopies, scattering like light veils upon the ground covered with fallen leaves.
The forest was silent, with only the soft sound of hooves on dried leaves and the eerie clang of metal, which made one’s hair stand on end.
Frey’s face looked a bit pale. Although the injuries she received from Laurena were minor and not severe after Melia’s treatment, the long journey on horseback following blood loss was still somewhat exhausting for her.
"Tired?" Brand turned back to glance at her and asked with concern.
"No, but... but the sky is getting dark. If we keep going forward, we won’t be able to return to Shafelund," Frey said with a worried tone. She didn’t understand why Brand suddenly asked her to accompany him to Shafelund, and even venture deep into the Glahar Mountains.
—Just a bit further, and we’re in the Black Forest.
"No problem," Brand smiled on the horse’s back, seemingly indifferent: "When night falls, we can camp outdoors. With me around, are you still worried?"
But Frey’s face suddenly turned red: "But... but... but we only have one tent."
Brand just liked this future Valkyrie’s demeanor, so he didn’t rush to respond. Only when Frey glared at him fiercely did he start to laugh: "It’s actually a trick; we’re almost there."
Frey breathed a sigh of relief, only to realize she had been teased. She took a deep breath, struggling to suppress the urge to punch that grinning face — but saw that Brand had already tightened the reins, letting out a soft sigh as his warhorse stopped. Brand carefully sized up the surroundings, as if confirming something. Then he dismounted with a ’hwa’ sound, clutching his sword hilt and dragging his cloak as he slowly moved forward.
Seeing Brand like this, Frey had no choice but to cast aside her initial angry expression, feeling somewhat curious. She watched him rustle through the fallen leaves to reach a tree — she naturally couldn’t recognize the scholarly names tagged in thick documents, but she knew these giant trees with murky trunks were commonly known as Ghost Trees among the Erune Mountain People. "Brand, what... are you looking at?"
Brand looked up at this ebony tree, a species he knew very well, as if reuniting after years apart, feeling a faint sense of familiarity. He silently contemplated some things, about the past. Some things were forgotten, yet the memories still flashed like shining fragments in his thoughts, reminiscent of picking seashells from a sea of sand.
Then he shifted his gaze, finding that familiar location where there lay a nearby gray-white boulder. This boulder looked like a leaning giant egg on the ground. His gaze traversed the uneven surface of the rock, pausing after every upward glance. On the third pause, he saw the star-shaped, forked crack.
Then he finally replied: "Nothing. We’re here, Frey."
"Here?" Frey couldn’t help but raise her head to look around. After half the afternoon, the light in the mountains grew increasingly dim; she saw only the open space formed by dark green tree crowns, twisted tree trunks, and intertwined root systems — the forest, from this perspective, seemed more like a semi-enclosed cavern, intertwined tunnels leading in all directions.
Unlike other places in Tonyger, the Harager Mountains rarely had the black needle-leaf forests common to Golan-Elsen and Jandener, but rather vast swathes of evergreen broadleaf forests, as though a mysterious magic nourished this ancient forest underground.
"What is this place?"
"This should be the boundary of the Black Forest in this direction," Brand stepped forward, parting a large patch of shrubbery. He discovered it was almost the mountain top, looking eastward from here; the black ridges stretched from south to north through the mist, resembling faint dragon spines. He reached out his hand, fingers extended, gesturing in that direction: "To the east, is the Eternal Song Forest, you might have heard of it?"
"Chablis Mountains?" Frey asked curiously. The Chablis Mountains were a famous landmark in the Southern Territory of Erune, with the eternal beautiful scenery of the Eternal Song Forest always being a traveler’s dream destination; hence even in Buqi, she had heard of it before.