The mithril mountains sprouted and grew on the horizon like a row of teeth. Quite a lot like teeth, actually; having recently been through the Raptor Steppe, I'd looked quite a lot of raptors in the face, and the mountains bore an uncanny resemblance to their lower jaws.

  I was rather thankful that the mountain range lacked an upper jaw. Walking into the Jungle of Braccus was bad enough already without needing to walk into a giant rocky maw to get there. Thankfully, gravity precluded any attempts to bring such imagery into reality.

  I had, of course, avoided Greyforge. I had no desire to see its residents, and given the reaction of that merchant caravan, it seemed they had no desire to see me. In fact, ever since swinging south, I hadn't passed a single other traveller. That seemed logical; the road that ran from the royal canton to Cargellen Canton was an important trade route for Cargellen's harvests, and merchants had swarmed it the moment it reopened, but south of Harvent Canton was nothing but the mountains and the monster-infested jungle beyond. There would be some traffic between Greyforge and the mithril mines, but nothing beyond that, and with mine output dropping, the regular supply runs were tapering off too.

  With my increased Stats, this return journey proved somewhat faster than my outgoing one, despite not rushing, and on the evening of my third day in Harvent Canton, I reached the ruins of the village of Greystone. I'd headed there almost unconsciously, simply following the route I'd flown in my dream without considering the consequences. Having reached it, though, I realised I'd wanted to visit. It was a small piece of closure.

  As expected, the village was gone. Just like in my dream, there was nothing but a crater where it had once stood. The effect was much like Leo's [Heroic Impact], except on a larger scale. The entire village instead of a single hut. Maybe it was exactly the same Skill, at a higher stage or with higher Stats behind it. There were no signs of who was responsible. Perhaps Grysk Khris, with his artificially boosted level. Perhaps the Unbound. Perhaps the count had other loyal, high-level servants I'd never heard of. I hadn't been here, and whoever was responsible was likely dead already.

  Someone who had been here was Sir Galahad, a fact I knew because of the graveyard. It hadn't been visible from the vantage point of my dream, high above the landscape, but beside the crater was row upon row of small mounds. Some two meters in length, some less than one. Only a fifth were marked with names. Only one was marked by more than a name.

  'Here lies Sir Galahad the Stubborn. In your next life, may you listen to your elders when they tell you to leg it.'

  I smiled despite myself, instantly intuiting who'd written that eulogy. His shattered sword lay atop the mound, the pieces carefully arranged in their correct places. His helm rested at the mound's head, crumpled, with suspicious red chunks crusted around the visor and neck, but still shiny. A fitting memorial to the knight that tied his fate to that of a small, insignificant village.

  "May the gods bring your soul to rest," I said aloud, repeating the phrase used by the king. "May they bring all your souls to rest. Gods know you deserve it..."

  And then it was off again, continuing to follow the route of my dream. Given its apparent accuracy, I was rather anticipating the next point of interest.

  The forest that had previously stood next to the village of Greystone was gone, flattened completely. It obviously hadn't been deliberate—no-one had specifically targeted the forest, in the way the village had been—but rather it had become collateral damage in the fight between the Unbound and the kingdom's army. Some sections were cratered, some scorched. In some areas, felled trees lay almost unbroken, as if something had simply torn them up from the ground and thrown them. In others, the ground was covered by splinters. Others, a coating of ash, deep enough to cover the soles of my boots.

  Most concerning were the areas that had none of those things, the plant life and even the soil simply gone, replaced by a grey, glassy material.

  Everywhere the ground was scarred by impact or by Skill, but however high a level humans reached, would they ever be able to overpower nature? To wound the world more seriously than time? A deep gorge ran through the forest, deeper than any crater or rut left by the fight. A small river ran at its base, too far down for me to reach and refill my canteens.

  And, sitting at its side, dangling her feet over the edge, exactly where she'd been in my dream, was Old Three-eye.

  "Took you long enough," she complained. "You don't half know how to keep an old lady waiting."

  "I didn't realise we had an appointment," I countered. "Why are you still here, anyway? How are you feeding yourself?"

  The enigmatic crone glanced downward. "Plenty of fish in the stream," she said. "I just wish they'd stop pissing in it."

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  "The stream that's, if I'm any judge, a good twenty meters below us. I suppose you must have good Stats."

  "Better than yours, young whipper-snapper," she cackled.

  The thought of her climbing down and grabbing a fish with her bare hands was weird, but given who I was talking to, I couldn't discount it. On the other hand, given her rather tenuous grip on reality, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was visiting her regularly to drop food off and she'd just forgotten.

  "You just thought something rude, didn't you, boy?" she snapped, giving me a sharp glare.

  "No?" I lied.

  She cackled again. "Everyone underestimates Old Three-eye, right up until the point they explode," she declared gleefully.

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not explode at all."

  "Then are you sure you're heading the right way? You'll see much death on that side of the mountain."

  I frowned as I parsed that. It wasn't like I could die multiple times, so the 'death' presumably wasn't my own. "I see much death on this side, too," I pointed out.

  "True. One could say that you bring death with you," she said, grinning a grin that contained more gum than teeth.

  "One can say a lot of things. Look, as interesting as this banter is, do you have any real advice for me?"

  "Hah. So it's advice you want, is it? And here I thought you'd come simply to give a lonely old woman a spot of company. I gave you your advice on our last meeting. Don't blame me if you didn't listen."

  "You did?"

  "I told you not to trust the gods! And yet here you are, following their whims and willingly walking into the untamed wilds, where no human has business being."

  "They seemed to have a good reason. And the king and the Enshrouded apparently agreed. And I'd quite like the world not to end, even if it's centuries away."

  Old Three-eye cackled again, my response apparently amusing her. "So na?ve," she said, then sighed. "No matter. That former lover of mine will realise his mistake when you return."

  I blinked. "Wait, former lover? Who?"

  It couldn't possibly be the king, could it? Then the Enshrouded? That would make a twisted sort of sense, actually, given his personality. Maybe they picked their stupid nicknames for each other.

  "You're thinking something rude again," she said, not answering my question. "My Name is the truth, as is his. What else can they be?"

  I hesitated as I scanned over that statement. Something about it had been... odd. A small incongruity, and a feeling of wrongness, but despite replaying it in my mind, I wasn't sure where the problem was. It was nothing more than another of her random possibly-wise-possibly-unhinged statements, wasn't it?

  "So you think me heading into the Jungle of Braccus is a mistake?" I asked, trying to get a straight answer from her.

  She fixed me with her gaze, which was rather unnerving. Until now, she'd simply glanced, or looked only briefly, rapidly returning to staring down into the chasm below. This time, she stared right into my eyes and held it, leaving me with a strange urge not to blink.

  "I don't know," she admitted eventually. "Perhaps it's a mistake, perhaps it is not. It matters little, because you're going to go either way. You didn't come to me for advice in the first place. You came for reassurance. Well, I have none to give you, little harbinger. Your timing is no coincidence, and there's worse still to come. Your very existence heralds great changes, but the consequences are beyond me."

  "Well, thanks for the chat then, I guess," I said. Perhaps I hadn't learned much, but it was nice to meet a friendly face before heading out of the kingdom. "Goodbye, and good luck. And I'm sorry about Sir Galahad."

  She didn't respond, so I set off, following the trail of destruction. It wrapped around the entire mountain, so it seemed to be the easiest way to cross to the other side. I didn't exactly want to climb the peak.

  "... Advice," came a mutter from behind me. "Know yourself. Respect yourself. Be yourself. Do not forget yourself. Let your certainty be a shield that even the sharpest spear fails to pierce."

  I stopped walking, but no more seemed to be forthcoming.

  "Thanks, I think?" I said, turning around.

  Old Three-eye wasn't there.

  "The heck?" I added, looking around, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

  No, there was one place I hadn't checked...

  I peered over the edge of the gorge, and sure enough, she was down at its base, the stream up to her knees, with a silver fish tightly held in one hand. She looked up as I stared and flashed me a wink and another gummy grin.

  I just sighed and left. That woman was weird. And quite possibly an ex-lover of the Enshrouded, a thought whose imagining left my mind rebelling. I wasn't sure what her advice meant, either. My best guess was that it was another warning against letting the memories of the Seeker possess me. I wasn't the Seeker. I was...

  What nickname would I give myself?

  [Hero] and [Chosen One] were just System things. Marks to obtain. They weren't me, as such, and I would never actively call myself the Hero or the Chosen One.

  Sheesh, now she had me think about stupid nicknames. I didn't need one. I was Robin of Cargellen Canton, son of Paul and Cathy. That was all the identity I needed.

  And so I followed the ruined forest as it wrapped around the edge of the mountain, thankfully without hitting any cliffs or unmanageable slopes. As night fell, the Jungle of Braccus came into view below me. With the failing light, there wasn't much I could see, but there was plenty I could hear. The sounds of creaking trees were audible even far above the canopy, but even they were drowned out by an occasional roar. Not loud from this distance, but given how far that distance was, from close up I imagined they'd be ear-shattering.

  I had no idea how I'd deal with the B and A-rank monsters in there, and while I wasn't completely unprepared, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to find my way when surrounded by tall trees in every direction. Even if I found my way to the tower without getting eaten or lost, it was protected by the mental barrier and hidden by illusion. And even if I got inside, how was I supposed to stop the collision?

  Then, assuming I miraculously managed all that, I still needed to find my way back.

  And yet, despite all that, Old Three-eye hadn't told me that this mission was a mistake. That was simultaneously reassuring and utterly horrifying.

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