After leaving the creek, the group continued advancing.

They did their best to not make noise and avoid drawing the attention of enemies.

After the experience with the woman, Aleen and the girls came to the conclusion that the type of monsters in this game was some kind of ghost.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to alleviate their nervousness.

Although zombies, giant insects, and mutants, were terrifying in their own way, Aleen feared them less than ghosts. After all, movies depict ghost and vengeful spirits as scary beings with many kinds of abilities, from going through walls, until possessing people and killing them in unexpected ways. The number of abilities that ghosts possess in movies is uncountable.

They even confirmed two of those abilities on the wraith they just killed.

Just the ability to disregard physical attacks made the wraith a formidable foe. Aleen could imagine their fate if they face two or three wraiths like the woman at the same time.

And this was a level-three game. That means that the stronger monster was at level-three.

The thought of a monster like that sent chills to Aleen’s back.

While they were walking, they noticed that the number of rusted and destroyed weapons lying on the ground was increasing. Besides it, they began to find remains of dead people scattered around.

The remains consisted mainly of bones wearing strange clothes, but many of the bones were clearly non-human. Aleen even saw the skeleton of some kind of giant.

When the bones began to appear, the eerie atmosphere filling the place turned even creepier. Aleen got the feeling that the bones were waiting for them to turn around to stand up and stab them with their weapons.

But each time Aleen thought that something was behind him, it ended being his imagination.

Moreover, at some point in time, Aya and Lily began to look nervously at their surroundings.

“… Something is wrong here, Aleen. I don’t like this place.” Aya said with an uneasy expression.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Aya is right.” Claire added. “I think it’s better if we change our direction.”

Aleen thought briefly before agreeing with them. “Okay, let’s change our route.”

However, just five minutes after they changed their route, they noticed that something was wrong.

“The fog has become thicker.” Aya said.

Aleen nodded with a heavy expression. If before, they could see a few meters away, now they could see only two meters ahead.

Furthermore, for some reason, he had the feeling that the fog was livelier than before.

At that moment, Lily snarled fiercely and bared her fangs to the fog. “Meow!!!”

“Uh? What happened Lily?!” Aya asked when she saw Lily’s behavior.

But before she could understand Lily’s actions, Claire grunted in pain.

“Urghhh!!!”

Then, a surge of flames jumped from her body.

“Claire!” Aleen ran towards Claire immediately, but the flames attacked him. Surprised, he could only stop abruptly.

But when he was about to attack the flames to reach Claire, something surprising happened.

“iIiiiIItttHHhhHuuUuUrRRRRrTtttRSss!!!” A shrill scream of pain sounded from the surroundings. At the same time, the fog surrounding the group receded at a frantic pace.

Under Aleen's startled gaze, many deformed faces appeared inside the fog and began to scream fearfully towards the flame surrounding Claire.

“““NoOoooUUuuuuoooOO!!!”””

There were faces of men, women, elders, children, humans, and monsters. The number of faces could be counted in the hundreds.

The fire surrounding Claire grew enraged after hearing the screams. It transformed into a gigantic bird of fire filled with power and majesty. Then, it attacked the fog with overwhelming power.

In an instant, all the fog in twenty meters was burned thoroughly.

The fire screeched in pride and looked at the fog further away with an expression of disdain. It then turned towards Aleen and Aya and glared them fixedly before moving its gaze away and returning to Claire’s body.

Instantly, the flames surrounding Claire began to disappear.

When the flames disappeared completely, Claire fell to the ground unconscious.

Aleen and Aya quickly ran towards her and realized that she burning due to the fever.

“Damn it!” Aleen cursed angrily and punched the ground.

“… What do we do?” Aya asked while looking vigilantly at the fog that was slowly filling the space burned by the flames.

Aleen thought for a moment and stared at Claire. He then gritted his teeth and lifted her. “I’ll carry Claire on my back, we’ll continue searching for a safe place.”

“… I fear there is not a safe place in this game.”

“I know, but we must try.”

“Mm.” Aya nodded.

They departed immediately and continued searching for a cave or something they could use as a refuge, but after walking for five minutes, they found a place where the ground and the grass had been burnt due to a fierce fire.

Aleen looked at the ground with a surprised expression. “Run!” He immediately shouted at Aya and ran in another direction.

But after running for another minute, they saw the burnt ground once more.

Aleen’s expression turned pale.

However, he quickly realized that it was not the only thing that was wrong.

The trees, they seemed closer than before.

Aleen hurriedly looked around to confirm his guess, but then, he discovered something even more frightening.

At some point in time, the place had been completely surrounded by trees.