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Suddenly, Terzan revealed herself.
Surprised, Lia and I spoke to her.
“Terzan?”
“What, what’s going on?”
“Something big happened.”
Terzan said with a serious expression.
“A large group of people suddenly started heading towards the priestess’s residence.”
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
“Terzan, tell us more.”
Before we knew it, Kaneff had come closer and asked her to explain more.
“At first, I thought it was the village guards patrolling, but at some point, more people gathered in one place. They were all armed.”
“The priestess’s residence
 That’s where Speranza is right now, isn’t it?”
At Kaneff’s muttering, my heart sank. Anxiety welled up and I felt like everything went dark.
Terzan spoke to me with a troubled face.
“I’m sorry, Sihyeon. I wanted to protect Speranza, but I couldn’t use my powers because of the mysterious force surrounding the area.”
“Ah
”
I didn’t have the energy to respond to her apology. I stood up abruptly, trying to compose myself.
“We need to find out what’s happening ourselves. It might not be as bad as we’re worried about.”
“That’s the most certain thing.”
“I’ll go too.”
Kaneff and Lia also got up to follow me. The drowsiness from just before sleep had long disappeared from everyone’s faces.
We first ran out of the room and started searching for the Erul people. We wanted to understand the situation and what had happened. However, strangely enough, we didn’t feel any presence inside the building.
‘What, what’s going on?’
We were sure there had been guards at the entrance when we had returned earlier

My optimistic thought that maybe we were misunderstanding something shattered the moment we stepped outside the building.
“What on earth
”
As soon as we left the building, we were faced with darkness so thick that we couldn’t see an inch in front of us. It wasn’t just the moon and stars being obscured by clouds.
The torch Lia had hastily fetched was useless. The light of the torch seemed to be blocked by a wall and quickly lost its strength.
“This feeling
”
Kaneff, who had been staring into the darkness, furrowed his brow and muttered.
“There’s no doubt. A barrier has been spread around the area.”
“A barrier? But wasn’t the barrier only spread around the village?”
“I don’t know why it’s like this either! But this suffocating feeling is unmistakable. The barrier we saw in the forest has spread throughout the entire village. It must be why the communication artifact suddenly lost its connection earlier.”
Kaneff stopped mid-sentence and looked at Terzan.
“There was no barrier when you came back, right?”
“Yeah. It was just normal.”
“Someone who doesn’t want us to move must be playing tricks
 Terzan, can you find the way to the priestess’s residence?”
“It’s difficult for me too, within the barrier, boss.”
“Damn it
”
The unidentified people heading towards the priestess’s residence.
The barrier that spread as soon as Terzan returned to where we were.
We couldn’t think of it as our misunderstanding anymore. The ominous circumstances were gradually fueling our anxiety.
“What do we do now?”
No one could answer Lia’s worried question when, at that moment, a faint voice pierced through the thick darkness.
“Sihyeon! Can you hear me?”
This voice
?!
As soon as I heard the voice, I immediately thought of its owner.
“Anis
 Anis! We’re here!”
“Ah! I found you.”
Anis appeared from the darkness, swinging a blue flame. She seemed to have hurriedly searched for us, her breath was ragged, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.
Without giving Anis a chance to catch her breath, I immediately asked a question.
“What’s going on here?”
“Phew. I’m not really sure. After I took you all to your accommodations and was on my way back, the barrier suddenly spread. Worried, I decided to return to where you all were.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Kaneff stepped forward to ask a question.
“Hey, Erul girl! What’s the big secret? Are you targeting Speranza again?”
“I-I really don’t know anything about this. If I truly had a secret plan, why would I come looking for you all? We wouldn’t be able to escape this barrier easily anyway.”
Anis stuttered slightly but calmly defended herself against Kaneff’s question. He seemed somewhat convinced by her words and backed off a bit.
“Anis, Terzan said she saw armed forces moving towards the Priestess’s residence. Mirna and Speranza are in danger.”
“Armed forces are heading to where my mother is
?”
Anis’s face became conflicted for a moment, and she began to think deeply, pondering something. As her thoughts went on, a look of disbelief spread across her face.
“How could this be
 why?”
“Anis? Anis!”
It took calling her name a few times for her to snap out of her own world.
“Ah
 I’m sorry.”
“Please explain anything you know. I’m so frustrated and anxious that I feel like I could die.”
“We should go to where my mother is first. We don’t have much time, so let’s move right away.”
She sent her floating blue flame towards the lantern that Lia was holding.
The lantern’s light turned blue, gradually pushing back the surrounding darkness.
“This should do. Follow me.”
We relied on Anis’s blue flame and the lantern to make our way to the Priestess’s residence.
The darkness of the barrier felt so dense that it seemed to block all our senses, but Anis led us without hesitation.
If we hadn’t met Anis and had set out on our own, we might have been lost in the darkness, experiencing something truly terrible.
Unable to calm my worried heart, I asked Anis the same question again.
“Anis, what on earth is happening right now?”
She hesitated for a moment before answering, biting her lip firmly.
But in the end, she couldn’t ignore my desperate gaze and slowly opened her mouth while staring into the unseen darkness.
“When I first heard about the armed forces moving, I thought someone was targeting Speranza. If that were true, my mother would have spread the barrier to protect Speranza.”
A plausible story.
And it was one of the situations we had been on guard for.
“But something’s strange. If it was simply to protect Speranza, she wouldn’t have spread such a wide barrier to cover the entire village. Spreading a barrier around the area would have been enough.”
“So
?”
“This barrier isn’t for protecting Speranza. It’s meant to prevent someone from moving easily. For example
”
Anis’s gaze shifted to me and the other members of our group. Kaneff, who had been quietly listening to the explanation, spoke up with a cold expression.
“You’re saying that the Priestess who has Speranza with her is behind all this?”
“I can’t believe it either
 but the only person who can spread a barrier is the Priestess.”
‘Speranza’s grandmother was behind all this?’
The image of Mirna holding her granddaughter and shedding tears came to mind, making my head spin. Even now, I couldn’t think of those tears as fake.
-I want to be with my granddaughter just for tonight.
Mirna, who had held Speranza and pleaded with me so earnestly.
Should I have refused her request then? Because I trusted her too easily, Speranza

“Tch!”
The painful thoughts were interrupted when someone firmly grabbed my shoulder.
“Stop worrying about it.”
“Boss
”
“Whatever happens, all we need to do is take down whoever is in our way and get Speranza back.”
Terzan and Lia chimed in as well.
“That’s right. I’ll find Speranza faster than anyone.”
“Don’t worry too much, Sihyeon.”
“Thank you. I’m back to my senses now.”
As they said, it was not a time to worry. Now was the time to focus all our energy on rescuing Speranza.
I steadied my wavering heart and burned with determination in my eyes.
“We’ll be at my mother’s residence soon.”
As soon as Anis finished speaking, the Priestess’s residence emerged from the darkness.
In front of it, numerous Erul Tribe members were wandering around armed.
“Those people
 don’t they seem strange?”
As Lia said, the movement of the Erul Tribe members was odd. Everyone had a half-conscious expression on their faces, moving sluggishly like zombies.
Even the guards who had been guarding the place like a fortress were in the same state.
“Wait, isn’t that Daur?”
“Uncle?”
Daur, like the other Erul Tribe members, was wandering around with a vacant expression on his face.
Anis quickly approached him and shook his body, trying to talk to him.
“Can you hear me? Snap out of it, Uncle. Uncle!”
“Ugh
 intruders
”
-Chaeng!
“Uncle?!”
Daur drew his weapon without recognizing Anis. One by one, the people around him also started to draw their weapons.
“Intruders
”
“Intruders
”
“Can’t any of you recognize me?”
“Anis, get out of there for now.”
I pulled Anis’s arm as she was confused. Meanwhile, the armed Erul Tribe members slowly approached us.
“Well, this works out. We didn’t plan on talking anyway.”
Kaneff, followed by Terzan and Lia, prepared for battle. Anis, holding my hand, cried out desperately.
“Right now, they’re not in their right minds. Please refrain from using excessively powerful attacks. I beg you.”
Her outcry made Kaneff’s cheek twitch as if he wasn’t happy with it, but he soon gave in and issued an order with a resigned expression.
“Everyone, just subdue them moderately.”
“Don’t worry!”
“Especially you, Terzan! Be careful. Put away that vicious weapon quickly.”
“
 
”
Unlike Lia’s energetic response, Terzan reluctantly put away her bizarre weapon, looking quite disappointed.
When a simple dagger appeared in her hand, Anis let out a sigh of relief.