Cynthia pondered in silence over the situation for a bit before coming out. "Everyone, stop the caravan for now. Come and see me after that."
The caravan soon stopped, and the travelers quickly gathered around Cynthia. Obviously, Rean and Roan did the same.
Seeing that everyone was there, Cynthia began to talk, explaining, "I just received news that Ukilas Valley has already been occupied by bandits again. Our travel was based on the window created by the Royal Army's clean-up, but we decided to stop for the lake, so we lost it. Now, we have two choices ahead of us. We can either go around the valley, which will increase our travel time to at least three more weeks, and there's no guarantee we won't find bandits on the way either. Or we can go through the valley and fight our way if we get attacked. The good thing is that the army has just passed by there, so there shouldn't be many enemies. Perhaps we won't even need to fight at all."
