Knights and Magic Wand -
Chapter 410 - 410 195 Ines's Plea for Help
410: Chapter 195 Ines’s Plea for Help 410: Chapter 195 Ines’s Plea for Help After taking a few sips of the bitter tea from Seralir and reinvigorating her spirit, Ines hurried out of the military tent and mounted her horse.
She summoned the cavalry guards and immediately rushed to the location where Orad and his troops had disappeared.
Near Panglos Forest, northwest of Kantadar, dozens of West Bay Knights and scores of Horror Wolf Cavalry set out from the captured towns of Kantadar, thundering across the wilderness until they reached a highland.
It was here that the splendidly dressed Orland Cavalry finally halted their advance.
“…That damn Stormhawk, time and again it attacked the army’s horses and livestock in the camp at night.
In a fit of rage, Lord Orad swore to shoot it down himself and took more than a dozen men to track it, but they have been delayed in returning.”
“We dispatched hundreds of riders from the camp to search along its claw prints…
however, several knights ventured a bit further and mysteriously disappeared in the blink of an eye.
No trace of them remained,” explained the visibly anxious Loman Knight, who tried to stay calm while soothing his restless mount, pointing into the distance.
Ines spurred her horse forward through the crowd and, with clear eyes, scrutinized the plains surrounded by woods, asking carefully, “What do you mean, vanished all of a sudden?”
“Your Highness, I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just…when we came to our senses, they were gone without a trace.
We did not see when our companions disappeared; no one witnessed the moment they vanished.
It’s truly bizarre,” came the strange reply.
Listening to such an odd response, Ines once again surveyed the scene in the distance.
Further afield, it looked as if cloaked in a hazy blur like a mirage caused by extreme heat, yet it wasn’t nearly hot enough for that at this time of year.
“Your Highness!”
A young Magician clad in robe armor rode up beside the princess and warned urgently, “We mustn’t get any closer.
The concentration of magic power here is alarmingly high.
Ahead may either be a widespread spell trap set by a powerful Spellcaster, or…
I’m not quite sure…”
The young Magician hesitated, lacking in experience.
“Tell me your speculation; whether it’s right or wrong, I will judge,” Ines encouraged her Northern Magician in training.
Encouraged by her words, Magician Harvey boldly continued, “Given the description provided by these Lord Knights, if it’s not a trap set by Wizard Kantadar, it’s probably an unmarked Cursed Land.
It’s quite possible, considering we’re not far from Nightmare Forest.”
“Cursed Land?” a Knight nearby asked in confusion.
“Hasn’t the curse of Nightmare Forest disappeared?”
“Maybe some remnants are still left on the Kantadar side,” another West Bay Knight interjected without waiting for the young Magician to answer, conjecturing.
With a slight frown, Ines turned back to the Loman Horror Wolf Knight and asked, “Have you inquired with the locals about this place?”
“Not yet…” the Loman Knight replied sheepishly.
“Then go now!
Do you want your lord to wander forever on the Despair Plain?” Ines’s lovely voice chided, filled with anger.
She turned her warhorse around and ordered a nearby Knight, “Leave Scout Riders to search the area and keep watch in shifts, but do not proceed further north from the highland underfoot; the rest follow me back to camp.”
Without lingering on meaninglessly, Ines led her soldiers back to their quarters.
Sitting on the bouncing saddle, the young girl fell into deep thought.
It wasn’t the upcoming battle that troubled her.
She had always considered Orad’s forces as icing on the cake; even if these Horror Wolf Cavalry remained here searching for their missing lord, it wouldn’t cause much variation in her campaign strategy.
Yet, the mysterious disappearance of the son of the Eastern Border Duke under her watch was certainly troublesome for the future.
If the eldest son was missing without a trace, alive or dead, how would Duke Loman exploit this incident?
Ines didn’t want to be embroiled so quickly in the disputes between the East and her father; it was too soon, she wasn’t ready…
Touching her forehead with her fan, the girl sighed.
This troublesome individual, dead or alive, at least if there was a body to show, it’d be easier to explain,
But if he had unwittingly wandered into what was supposedly Cursed Land, how would she find him now?
The disappearance of the searching Horror Wolf Cavalry attested to the feared reputation of the legendary Cursed Land.
The miserable Living Corpses they had cleared through Nightmare Forest during the army’s previous passage had plainly shown the world what fate befell those who set foot within its bounds.
Now that the incident had occurred, even if she offered a bounty to brave men in the army to explore, it would be pointless…
after all, no one could…
Hmm?
The three heroes who crossed Nightmare Forest…
The legend she had heard previously in Thorny Flower Territory suddenly sprang to Ines’s mind.
“Harvey, has anyone ever entered and returned from a Cursed Land in history?” she asked her Magician, turning back to him.
“Your Highness, disregarding those fabricated folktales, as far as I’m aware…
there’s no record of such in the Society,” Harvey shook his head confidently.
“In the records of the Society, has there ever been an instance of a vast Cursed Land like Nightmare Forest dissipating?”
“…it seems there hasn’t been one either,” Harvey admitted awkwardly.
Ines nodded and asked no further.
Regardless of whether the folk tales exaggerated the knight’s deeds, she had to send a letter to inquire.
There wasn’t much time to be delayed by this sudden turn of events…
…
Orland Calendar, July 11th, the temperature was gradually rising.
The half-month-long southern patrol comes to an end.
On the return journey of the Avalon Knights, no longer needing to display martial authority, the troops removed most of their heavy Armor of the cavalrymen and infantry and loaded it onto the transport carts pulled by the warhorses at the safe passages guarded by the Thorns Flower family, to conserve the soldiers’ energy and speed up the return to the city.
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