There's a big difference between killing animals and killing people.
Alan thought this. He had not believed what many veterans told him before, but now that he knew it for himself, he knew how true it was. It is said that many recruits would vomit and have diarrhea after going to war and killing others. Looking at Alan, it seems that his performance is not too bad. It has only been a day, and the physical discomfort cannot be overcome.
And Alan could not sleep for another reason. The road was far more dangerous than so many had imagined, and if Abel had known it in advance, he would not have entered the forest, let alone Alan himself. But by now, if the decision had been to a retreat, Alan would have been able to walk away from the fungus. But if the two old men at the top were determined to go down, Alan felt he might have to talk. There was nothing he could do about it. He was safer now than going with the rest, and Abel had done him right from the start and had done him a lot of good, and he could only trust that he would protect himself a little more. And being transcendent, there was no question of self-preservation in any case. With him, Alan had a great deal to go on.
'Ellen, how is the wound? When Wood had finished, he asked about the wound he had just finished treating Alan.
"It's almost all right. The poison on the darts is so average that even an Arcane is immune."
"And the face?"
Allen touched the gauze on his face: "The medicine is good, but it hurts a little. I don't know if I will leave a scar in the future."
'I don't think you look like an Arcane to me, Alan. You look like a warrior.'
Alan sat up on the tablet. He could not sleep anyway, so he might as well talk.
"I was much worse than you at Lusg at first. I couldn't even lift my weapon against the enemy. I was dead for half a month. My legs have been soft for half a month. I don't look like you. After a while, nothing happened."
'I can't help it,' said Alan with a wry smile. 'If I hadn't been more aggressive, I'd have had to put up with it. Didn't you say that people die in troubled times?"
"That's why I say you're like a warrior." "The first time Abel went out, do you know how long it took him to get a little better after he saw Shevell kill? A month! A whole month!"
"So long?" Alan was a little surprised.
"Don't think the extraordinary is immune in this matter. It's normal, especially the pampered Arcane. You, though, haven't quite recovered from it yet. Now you can make jokes, and I think you've almost adjusted."
Alan did not answer, and Wood, taking his time, continued to look at his instrument, pausing from time to time to calculate.
"It was an accident, Uncle Wood." Alan hesitated again after a long pause.
Wood glanced at Alan and nodded approvingly. 'If it hadn't been an accident, I'd have collected a sample of the bed and go. It's certainly impossible to throw a technician into a place like this, though not as valuable as an Arcane. Not to mention you, your compound spell is almost a treasure mine." After a pause, Wood seemed to take on an expletive. "Shevel must have sent the techy men into the mountains for the data on this particular terrain, but he may have been too controlling to bring you in any way. You know, it's normal to worry about you hurting the kids on the way back, but you could have taken a detour to Levy County. But this stubborn man, who insists on bringing instability with him, probably feels like crying now."
Alan smiled wryly. It was a disaster far out of his league. The Arcane City, the Otherworldly, the Supreme Arwur, none of which should normally be touched by a young Arcane. According to the ordinary point of the trend, the size of the Deco family is estimated to be a long time before the intersection of the family. But Mr. Roeder had the misfortune to be caught in the gears of fate, and after being crushed to pieces was carried away by the rack to the side where he did not belong.
Wood, who seemed to sense his gaffe, quickly added: "Alan, you have a long way to go. I hope you don't hold a grudge against the family and Abel. It was just an accident."
'It's all right,' said Alan, in a faint voice, but in a tone of reluctance. 'I understand. Abel has helped me a lot along the way, and nobody wants to be in this situation. And I don't have much talent in the use of Arcane art, and I don't think I have much of a way to go."
Wood did not know what to say for a moment, but bent his head and went on working until Alan suddenly handed him a scroll. Wood looked up suddenly, puzzled, and Alan explained slowly, 'There are the instructions for freezing. They're quite detailed. Uncle Wood, you said your son was an Arcane. He could learn if he wanted to. '
'Ellen? Wood was surprised. He had indeed received a request from Abel, but he knew how impossible such a task was, and he had given it up almost instantly. And now, Alan pulls it out himself? Isn't that what an Arcane would put at the bottom of a box? For a moment Wood did not know what to do in the face of Alan's forbearance.
Alan, however, ignored Wood's reaction. 'There's a few simple compound spells in there, which I've worked on myself, but they're all simpler spells, and the more complicated ones he can work on himself if he likes. Of course, if you want to give this to Abel, that's fine. And thank you for your care along the way."
"Don't you? You might not have come."
"Hate, hate me." Alan lay back on the tablet and seemed tired at last. "I had come in with a bit of a gambling attitude. I thought it might be dangerous, but Abel's reward was so great that I couldn't resist agreeing. Now that you're at the table, you're willing to bet. You don't have to worry about me too much. What if everything's gonna be okay? I'm too tough to die!"
"Did he say that?" Abel asked Wood incredulously, the scroll in one hand. When the answer came back in the affirmative, Abel felt guilty. He had a hand in bringing Elu into the forest in the first place, or rather, everyone had misjudged the dangers of the journey and got to this point. Alan's words, both in his heart and in his retreat, were met with sighs, and Abel could not help thinking back to her early adulthood when she had such a heart. For a moment Abel did not know what to do, staring at the scroll in her hand. At last, she put it away with a sigh.
"Abel."
'What's the matter?
After a long hesitation, Wood finally said, "The rest of the way, if I can help it. If you go, protect Alan a little more. '
I will. I owe him. Abel knew very well that the things he had given Alan, perhaps at a high price, were of no real value. They were mass-produced, and the family could always hand over a lot of them, but because he had become a guest, the family had tricked him into going to such a place.
"The family owes him." Wood left, regardless of Abel's reaction.
Abel looked at the scroll again and again for a long time. Finally, instead of opening it, he put it into his bracelet. Then he said in the calmest voice he could, "Shen, how's it going?"
"Very bad." In a flash, Shen emerged from the shadows and spread out the map in his hand. Abel lit a small fireball or spark, and by the faint glow of the light, Abel began to scan the map Shen had brought up and down. At some point, Gordon and Shevell appeared on the sidelines. After a short rest, Shelvey's mind had calmed down, and he had returned to the ease and composure of going into the mountains. His horns had been combed and were not as untidy as before. The crowd watched and listened to Shen's explanation, and gradually their faces turned black.
Shen took two maps, one from the Sellsword display showing only the entrance to the two ends of the forest, and the other from the valley map that Shen had found twenty years before he entered the mountain. The latter was yellowing and the paper was fragile. Shen did not mean to be pitiful. He painted and drew on the map and folded it twice so that the old map could barely fill in the blank space of Green's. At first glance, the terrain of the canyon has changed a lot since the fungus suddenly appeared, with landslides and erosion of the fungus beds crisscrossing the canyon's edges.
On the map, Shinson uses red dots to mark the general position of his team and the areas he estimates he has fought. The procession had proceeded smoothly at first, guided by the river, almost towards the exit of Levy County, but since leaving the Dark River the direction had been one deviation after another, and several adjustments had been of no avail.
The group had strayed entirely off course, and after being outflanked by a recent attack by the Tumens, they were going almost wherever they could. From a high altitude, they had confirmed that they were heading north and east as a whole, with the result that they were now only about a third of the way there. And three days, Shen said is already past the half, about 10 a.m. The suppression of arcane has also produced errors in the alchemist pocket watches that tell the time, meaning they have fallen far behind the process. It will take some time for Xavier to be able to use the Arcana like "Air Burst" again, Abel's energy reserves are almost exhausted, Shen's equipment is damaged, and the team is suffering a lot of casualties...
The end of the road.