The group moved along the main road of the Great Forest in a formation that had already become routine.

Zilu and Yuki were at the front, one guiding, the other keeping watch. Behind them walked Mark and Alice, followed by Ely.

Aria walked a little further back alongside Rose, who moved with her hands behind her back at her own pace.

The giant trees rose on both sides of the road, their enormous trunks and twisted roots crossing over the path in some places.

Sunlight barely filtered through the canopy, giving the forest a greenish, shadowy tone that made it hard to know exactly what time of day it was.

Mark walked in silence.

His legs moved automatically while his head was somewhere else.

’If I really do manage to recover things from my account...’

It was something he had been thinking about for a while now.

Spells, abilities, equipment, items. Everything he had accumulated over his thousands of hours playing Eternal Conquest Online.

If all of that really existed inside him, blocked or sealed as Rose believed, and if he really managed to unlock it, then his capabilities would change completely.

He would stop being a low-level necromancer who depended entirely on his subordinates to survive, and would become probably one of the most powerful individuals in that world, just as the reincarnated ones who had come before him had been.

That sounded good.

But what came after that was the part he didn’t have as clear.

’What would he do then?’

The obvious answer was the Demon Lord. That woman knew he was a reincarnated person, had let him go for reasons he still didn’t understand, and sooner or later she was going to show up in his life again.

That was problem number one and the one he absolutely had to settle first.

’But after her, what?’

Mark frowned slightly as he walked.

Because the problem didn’t end with the Demon Lord.

If he recovered his powers and became incredibly strong, staying under the radar stopped being an option, sooner or later someone that powerful was going to stand out, whether he liked it or not.

And it wasn’t just him.

His group was made up of people who were not exactly unknown.

So discretion had an expiration date.

’Most likely sooner or later the other humans will turn against us...’ Mark thought. ’Not because we did anything wrong, but because an extremely powerful individual who answers to nobody is exactly the kind of thing that makes any country, kingdom, or institution nervous.’

Mark imagined the scene.

A guy appearing out of nowhere with the clergy’s lost heroine, the missing Grand Inquisitor, and a centuries-old vampire, all following his orders without question.

And much as what he wanted most was to live in peace, he was aware that from the outside they would see him as a threat.

’...No point worrying about those things right now,’ Mark thought, shaking his head slightly. ’First I need to recover my powers, then I’ll figure out how to deal with everything else.’

Then he let out a sigh heavier than he intended.

"Is something bothering you, my lord?"

Alice’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned in her direction.

She walked beside him with her back straight and hands at her sides, but her green eyes were fixed on him with an expression of concern.

"Or perhaps you would have preferred someone else walking beside you?" Alice added, lowering her gaze slightly.

"Nothing like that," he replied quickly. "I was just thinking about something."

"Are you sure?"

"Completely sure, Alice."

Alice looked at him a moment longer, somewhat doubtful, but eventually nodded once and looked ahead again.

The spot of walking beside Mark that day had been won by Alice after a rock-paper-scissors duel against the others that had been surprisingly intense.

Ely had lost in the first round against Aria, which resulted in a tantrum of considerable proportions.

Aria then lost against Alice in the final, which resulted in an even bigger tantrum.

And Rose had refused to participate, saying she didn’t lower her dignity to games of chance, which everyone interpreted as meaning she didn’t know how to play.

"Although..." Alice said after a moment of silence, "since you mention it, may I ask you something, my lord?"

"Go ahead."

"You noticed it too, didn’t you?"

’Noticed what?’ Mark thought, confused.

Alice looked toward the trees on both sides of the road.

"We’ve been walking through the Great Forest for almost a full day," she said in a tone that had grown more serious. "And everything is very quiet."

Mark looked around and immediately realized Alice was right.

The forest was unnaturally silent.

No birds, no buzzing insects, no sounds of animals moving through the vegetation.

Just the sound of their own footsteps on the ground and the occasional creak of a dry branch underfoot.

"We haven’t been attacked by any beasts or semi-humans since we left the village," Alice continued.

"That’s true..." Mark replied, frowning. "That is pretty strange."

Then Ely, who was walking behind them and had apparently been listening to the conversation, spoke.

"It’s probably just because winter is coming," Ely said in a carefree tone. "The forest beasts must be getting ready to hibernate."

Alice turned her head slightly toward Ely.

"That makes sense for the beasts," Alice conceded. "But it doesn’t explain why we haven’t seen any semi-humans."

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

"According to the map Sarah gave us," Alice continued, "we should be close to a war troll settlement located right in the middle of the main road."

Mark remembered that detail.

When they were deciding which route to take, Sarah had marked that settlement on the map with a note that said "AVOID" in large letters underlined twice.

Zilu had firmly opposed taking the main road precisely because of that.

Mark remembered how Zilu had stood in front of the group with her ears completely flat and a panicked expression while waving her hands back and forth.

"No, no, no," Zilu had said with a trembling voice. "We can’t go that way, war trolls are extremely dangerous, they’re enormous and violent, they attack anyone who passes through their territory no matter who it is."

To which Aria, who was sitting filing her nails with one of Yuki’s daggers she had borrowed without permission, had replied without even looking up.

"Don’t worry about that, Zilu," Aria had said with a tone of disinterest. "They’re nothing but insects compared to us."

Zilu had looked at her with a complicated expression, but after seeing what the group had done to a military camp, she had reluctantly ended up accepting.

Mark returned to the present.

"If according to the map we’re close to that settlement," Alice said, "we should have seen some kind of activity, patrols, territorial markings, something."

He stayed thinking for a moment.

Alice was right, if they were near their territory and there was no sign of activity, something had happened.

Mark was about to say something when Yuki’s voice resonated inside his head, making him stop.

"Master," Yuki said through the mental link.

"What is it?"

"Something is approaching our position quickly."