Lina notice a picture frame on the table, it was a familiar portrait in her childhood.
He took the picture frame with a drawing of a great artist in it and look at it, the people on the drawing was lina, felix and felix's grandfather, Belmont skyrel, there were also the major general of 1st division defense force led by general silas vestrad with a few soldier laughing on the side including silas, the setting on the photo was the 2nd wall of shadevale city.
She remembers his uncle cameon, a great artist and a resident of shadevale city gave this perfect painting of the merriment at the wall to felix as a gift, and felix must have shrink the drawing in a perfect size for the frame to be encased with.
Lina felt emotional about it, reminiscing the fun of the past has been, she was a daughter a knight family, she has a brother that is also serving as a soldier under silas division but they all died defending the place knowing their efforts are futile.
Lina reminisce his father's word in that olden days, but he was interrupted by felix's sudden arrival.
"Lina, are you still here? What took you so long?"
Lina put down the picture frame and was about to pick up the map but felix stopped her saying.
"no, since I'm already here, I'll look at it closely"
"yes, then I shall take my leave"
Lina was about to leave but felix grabbed her arm and spoke.
"don't go yet, why do I feel your avoiding me"
"a-avoiding you? No your just imagining things but why do you need me here I thought you want a clear mind reading the outlines of the map without disturbance?"
"yeah but, I just want you to help me read the syllables in it" felix felt embarrassed about it, since the first day he transmigrated, he strangely could understand the words came from the mouth of his people but because he haven't read much of the original owner's memory, he thought at first he could read it just as he could understand there speech but to his surprised, he felt like an illiterate person who could speak but not read.
Lina was dumbfounded about knowing that he even forgot to read, she couldn't help but think that the damage in the head was so severe that he even forgotten his own language, but he also felt a little guilty with regret about the circumstances of failing to protect the person she love.
"Felix, I never thought you'd even forgot how to read, sigh how hopeless are you"
"I get it, now let's take a look at it, can you tell me where are we now?" replied felix, the reason he also forgot his location on the map was because he haven't found it on felix's memory archive that he constantly read from time to time. Felix knows about the forest and the canyon, but not the entire region in shadevale or the impassable mountains.
"hhmm, where here at a small plane with a forest surrounded by the impassable mountains" she pointed out northest part from the map with the far north has a lot of terra incognita.
"I see, so this is kiltrant forest, I never knew these forest is big, even a big map like these can only cover the northern territories"
"yes, they say the whole alkaid continent is very huge that 4 empires and many kingdoms could fit and exist"
'ohh so this plane is like a supercontinent not inferior to pangaea theory on earth, I thought it was merely as big as Asia, i guess i was wrong, as i remembered i only has 2 map in my possession, the one was the central part of the empire and this map, the northern part, the other map is just as big as a blackboard, there's not enough space around here and it's useless in these situation'
"that's strange, why is the shadevale valley is 4 times larger than this forest even the fallen city could only occupy 1/4 of the place that is blocking the exit from winter pass" asked felix.
"speaking of winter pass, felix do you still remember a rumor about a resident from shadevale city found a dungeon in the area close from impassable mountains?" she remembered something in the past, although it wasn't clearly vivid but since the rumors circulate 4 days before the city fall hence it was considered memories she didn't forget.
"I don't think I have, how can you even remember something that long ago, speaking of dungeon hmm... " felix suddenly thought of something that could have been the one that lead the shadevale city from it's destruction and it might possibly be a burden for him, a big responsibility to bear.
'wait dungeon!! That's it, if I relate it to certain manhwas that I read in my previous life then there might be a huge dungeon break resulting to amass a for God's who know how many ravaging demons that even the high defenses of such city could bear... Sigh what a headache, do I really need to defend the settlement that I will create there while clearing up the dungeons that started appearing in mountainous area? I hope not'
He sigh in resignation, he never fathom the bliss of carefreeness and freedom as an otaku in high-school when he was in the army, joining the military service gives him a lot of trauma and hellish trainings and survivabilities in a life or death situation and after escaping the front lines as a vacation he was then got directly involved in fighting envading monsters in his homeland and after another three more years of killing, defending, commanding, and running away he thought death will grant him freedom although he was ideally wanted to protect his only family members but death is unavoidable he could only wish they will survive till the end.
He didn't know the death he had only gave him much more responsibility to bear, protecting the people, governing and commanding, and other noble lord related situations.
"sigh I give up, I won't have it easy even in another world"
"what does your lordship meant?" lina was puzzle about felix's remarks.
"no, don't mind it can you continue, so this is the barrier located right?"
"yes, this is the arcane barrier that has been here millennium years ago, it was built to restrict monster invasion and reach the cold gate canyon and recently it's seems weakening it needed the city to maintain it's formation and it might won't last a year....!! So that's the reason why your lordship wanted to make haste about the expedition" she was surprised over a sudden revelation.
"right, but there's still enough time to recontinue let's maybe cancel the expedition and go home to resupply... There mig~"
"Greetings milord the scout squads has bear two terrible news and one good news for you" shouts the messenger outside the tent with a pale face.
"come in"
The man got in hastily and kneel while threading the first line of information he was about to report.
"a terrible news... I think I have a bad feeling about this, now speak about the terrible news first"
"milord, the narrow road from from the cold gate mountain was blocked by a giant boulder. The second is, there's a few movements detected in the coldgate canyon cliff region, we presume they're gathering forces to attack at the back" the scout who gave the report was sweating profusely.
"what?!"
...
Extra info:
Coldgate canyon - Coldgate canyon is a cold terrain with steep cliff and narrow roads connecting from the skyrel duchy and kiltrant forest, this terrain has a hidden passage between two impassable mountain and the nation of falmas and firama has already claimed it gaining joint control over the canyon but it has been neglicted since the irregular cold here isn't suitable for settling and only resilient monsters roam here forming many group of bandit. These nation only maintains the road connecting both nations. The unnatural weather phenomenon on this place occurs that the ground level of the cliff region has a balanced temperature specially at a narrow road to kiltrant forest, while the area around the cliff region has a freezing temperature.