When Ritzy and Gerhart woke up, they were surprisingly rejuvenated, considering they had slept out in the open with nothing but half a rock to shield them from the rain and the fact they were too tired from their marching through the forest for a single night’s sleep to be so effective.

Since it was the only reasonable explanation, Mognog guessed it was because of the weird goblin bread they had feasted upon before they slept like babies. They hadn't even woken up because of Mognog. Ritzy and Gerhart had woken up naturally when they were rested enough.

Ritzy and Gerhart didn't have anything to disprove Mognog’s guess. But it was a shame that they had eaten all their goblin bread when they still had quite a bit to go before they reached the other side of the Banta Forest.

But it was fortunate they hadn’t known about the goblin bread’s effects earlier since they weren’t confident they would have been able to stop themselves from eating it prematurely. If they had eaten the bread the first night, they would have had to go the rest of the march without anything to refresh their energy.

They would still have to wander the forest for several days without the bread now that they had eaten it. But considering how spent they were after the river-crossing episode, it was worth having consumed the goblin bread, even if it left them without it for the rest of the march.

Making use of the energy from the goblin bread now would also let them increase the lead they should have gotten from crossing the river moments before it got too wild for anyone with reasonable physical capacity to try and get over it. There would probably be pursuers who would get across it with ease, but they would be from the third or fourth groups. And hopefully, by the time they arrived, Ritzy and Gerhart would be long gone, so long gone that their traces would have been wiped away by the rain.

Of course, Ritzy and Gerhart couldn’t get lax just because the river had most likely given them some more time since it was, at most, an extension to their already short lives. They had to make the most of it and get as far away from Vestor and the Mokond Barony as possible.

But it wasn’t like Ritzy or Gerhart had any intentions of taking it easy now that the goblin bread had provided them with a fresh supply of stamina that would hopefully last them until they reached their target. It probably wouldn’t. Ritzy and Gerhart would still have to find other things to eat, but the goblin bread had given them a good second start.

And Rizy and Gerhart made good use of it as they marched through the forest without stopping.

Well, they stopped when Mognog forced them to because they needed to do something to fix Ritzy’s feet, or they would be damaged so badly they wouldn’t be able to fix it, even with magic.

Gerhart’s feet weren’t nearly as bad, but they made enough salve to put on his blisters as well. With that done, Ritzy and Gerhart were free to march until nightfall, only taking a couple of breaks when necessary since they still had to let their bodies and muscles rest.

They also alternated carrying Mognog to let Ritzy’s arms rest a little. And now that Gerhart didn’t have to carry the swords and arrows they had used to set up a trap, he was practically flying forward through the forest.

Once he got used to it and some treatment for his feet, Ritzy also started moving with more ease than he had at first. But he was still the reason they weren’t moving fast.

But even with Ritzy dragging them down, they still made good pace, and after several days of stalwart marching without incident, the forest finally started changing.

There had been a couple of different trees so far, but they had all been trees with leaves, and the ground had been pretty soft and friendly, and not solely because of the rain. The part of the Banta Forest closest to Mokond Barony and the Shiria Kingdom was leafier and generally gave off a friendlier expression, even if it wasn’t necessarily that large of a difference in the hospitality of the different parts of the forest.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

But the side of the forest closest to the Chitron Kingdom had trees with needle leaves. And the ground was covered in those kinds of leaves that had fallen and dried up but had not become part of the soil. The evergreen part of the forest was a clear sign that Ritzy and Gerhart had gotten close to their target, the border between the Shiria Kingdom and the Chitron Kingdom.

Ritzy and Gerhart were happy about it, even more so when they noticed that there wasn’t as much foot-height vegetation that made their marching a pain. The trees also grew taller and were slightly further apart than some of the trees in the Shiria part were, so their sight was even better.

Advancing into the Chitron side of the Banta Forest made their journey even easier.

But they weren’t entirely happy.

Unlike their footsteps in the grassy, muddy ground of the Shiria side, their footsteps on the needled forest floor didn’t go away with the rain. Their shoes broke needles beneath them and left clear signs that any experienced tracker would be able to follow to chase them down.

And the increased vision range went both ways. Just like Ritzy and Gerhart could see further, so too could their pursuers. Ritzy and Gerhart would be easier to spot now that they were in a slightly more open forest if their footsteps weren’t enough.

But the increased likelihood of their pursuers finding their tracks after losing them due to the river wasn’t the only thing that put a hamper on the two kids’ mood.

Now that they had started getting closer to the Chitron Kingdom’s border, they would also be getting closer to the Chitron Kingdom’s troops. Considering the Banta Forest was one of the areas where the two kingdoms’ borders were the same, it wouldn’t be weird if the Chitron Kingdom decided to patrol it.

Baron Michmond was probably supposed to do something similar, considering he owned most of the land next to the forest. He should, at the very least, have been cooperating with the other nearby nobles to arrange some kind of line of defense against any potential infiltrations from the Chitron Kingdom, even if the frontlines were in another part of the kingdom.

The two countries were at war, so it wouldn't be strange if either of them decided to use a side door to enter the enemy kingdom and cause trouble, even if only as nothing more than to serve as a distraction from the main war.

In fact, it wouldn’t even be strange if either side were to use the Banta Forest to launch guerilla attacks on the enemy kingdom.

Ritzy and Gerhart didn’t know why there weren’t any troops patrolling the Shiria Kingdom’s Banta Forest. But maybe they hoped the forest itself would serve as a natural defense against the Chitron Kingdom, considering the border between the two kingdoms was actually located on the other side of the forest.

The Banta Forest didn’t even stretch its roots to Chitron Kingdom land. All of it was on Shiria Kingdom ground.

The forest would be too much to cross for any troops or armies of enough scale to launch an invasion of Shiria. And smaller troops would be dealt with by the nobles on the other side of the forest if they weren’t taken care of by the monsters inside the forest first.

Ritzy and Gerhart had a hard time believing that the forest was dangerous enough to avert any troops deemed powerful enough to launch an infiltration operation since the only scary things they had encountered so far were Lenny’s zombified corpse and an angry river.

With how long they had been inside the forest and how far they had walked, it wasn’t mere luck that had protected them so far. Neither of them believed it, especially not Ritzy, who was sure he was cursed by a supreme god.

If his necromancy didn’t work, why would anything else go his way?

So, either the forest wasn’t dangerous, or something was keeping the danger at bay. And the only other thing that wasn’t in line with how the forest should be was the rain.

It had rained constantly for several days. It did go from drizzling to the water crashing down like someone was emptying buckets of water on the forest. But, without exception, it never stopped raining.

Ritzy, Gerhart, and Mognog all agreed that there was something suspicious about the rain. But they weren’t in a position to find out what that could be, even if they wanted to, which they didn’t.

Even if they couldn’t find out the details behind the rain, they could guess that it was magic of some kind. And magic on the scale of drowning an entire forest with a constant downpour for several days, almost a week by now, wasn’t something just a common mage one could pick up on the street could do.

Ritzy and Gerhart weren’t too knowledgeable about what the ranks above Adept could do, and Mognog knew even less. But it didn’t feel like just one or two Ranks above Adept would be capable of something like that.

Thankfully, they wouldn’t have to deal with the rain for much longer since they were at the edge of the forest. They only needed to march a bit more to leave it. And then, they only had to cross the border to enter Chitron and escape Baron Michmond’s revenge.