After a brief respite, they chose to step into the Unfathomed Reach again, sand stretching like an hourglass trail behind them as they reached a grassland’s green rim. From afar, old battle scars still clung to the land, charred stalks like burnt ribs and gouged earth like clawed skin, all whispering the fight’s brutality.

The ache of lost companions rose first, a tide of sorrow rolling through their small, private squads before any words could form. It spread quiet and heavy, a fog no one dared disturb.

The Eleventh District Magic Maiden glanced at Moon Owl; words welled, then she swallowed them with a tight breath, knowing this wasn’t the time. Moon Owl had mourned with earnest stillness, incense-soft grief under steel eyes. In the end she said, voice low as wind over reeds, “You did well. But we don’t have time to stand here in sorrow.” Moon Owl nodded; her eyes reddened like dusk, yet her gaze stayed unwavering, a blade held true.

Illusionary Mist’s eyes held a quiet confusion, a misted lake beneath resolve. She grieved, yes, but more than grief was the unease over the command from above: take a handful deep into the Unfathomed Reach, where luck itself feels like a fickle star if you want to return unscathed.

Last night she laid the new mission before her team, lantern-soft honesty first, then risk. They didn’t refuse; knowledge of danger sat like cold iron, yet guilt over the Nineteenth District Magic Maiden’s death pricked them like thorns. They wanted to do something, anything, to soothe that weight.

So they stood ready on a wind-combed prairie, a green ocean under a gray sky, Monsters’ roars rolling like distant thunder. This wasn’t their end; their end lay in the deepest spine of the Unfathomed Reach, where mountain chains rippled like sleeping dragons along the horizon.

Luck ran kinder than last time. No Cantata Two Monsters along the way, only First Symphony or nameless small fry, the kind Moon Owl could clear alone. Last time, stumbling into two Cantata Two at once felt like drawing twin lightning bolts in the same storm.

The grassland yawned vast and unending, a quilt of green to every horizon. Moon Owl felt it was a burying ground beneath the velvet—exposed white bones like scattered jade, rotting Monster limbs like torn banners. They lay abandoned, returning as feed for plants or plant-type Monsters, a grim cycle under a patient sun.

Monster conflicts churned everywhere, a storm of teeth and roots. For breeding, for survival, for territory, for resources—always for clan strength, a relentless current. Outsider humans stepped readily into that current, oar in hand, eager to steer or snatch.

Moon Owl plucked a few promising plants, petals like lacquer and veins like silver, noted them, then stored them in her space coffer. Good resources: on the market, they become potions with shifting effects, or materials for inscriptions that bite like frost.

Those finds could buy her time and strength—iron in the arm, wind in the lungs—so she could win or survive the next clash. Only now did she grasp why so many went on expeditions; what looked like thankless toil hid rivers of profit under the stones.

Beyond mission targets for Headquarters, nothing else was mandated. If a safety check cleared, the spoils belonged to the Magic Maiden, a tide of wealth she could steer herself.

A Magic Maiden could even skip safety checks by signing liability. If something brought out of the Abyss sparked calamity, she would carry the weight alone, a chain chosen, not forced.

There were shadows too: submit a portion for testing, pocket a portion untouched, skip responsibility entirely. Sell the rest on the black market, and the bowl would brim, gold ringing like rain on tin.

Expedition was expedition: resources and wealth stacked like mountain terraces, far beyond Moon Owl’s old imagining. No wonder, even with the Abyss’s teeth bared, people kept coming, wave after wave. Profit is a tide that pulls stronger than fear.

Illusionary Mist raised a hand, stopping them. Her Spirit Threads pricked forward like spider silk in morning dew and caught a thicket of minds ahead. Likely a Monster colony lay there. The map showed nothing—just grass and wind.

Within their sight, only grass swayed, blades tall as knives softened by breeze. A sweet green scent curled under their tongues, perfume threading memory, and the endless field seemed to bloom with jeweled flowers, a painted spring unfurling.

The dim Abyss flushed with color, butterflies dancing like drifting snow, and the quiet pasture turned to herds of cattle and sheep while birdsong braided the air. Moon Owl drifted a step forward, body ahead of mind, yearning to sink into that gentle dream and lie belly-up in the grass.

“Careful!” Illusionary Mist’s voice cut like a bell, but Moon Owl didn’t hear. The Eleventh District Magic Maiden and Illusionary Mist grabbed her by the wrists, hauling her back like pulling a fisher from a tempting whirlpool. The Eleventh didn’t know the shape of the danger, but urgency kicked first, questions later.

Moon Owl woke from the sweetness. She blinked, the world a ripple, and found everyone staring, eyes hard as stone under rain. She ducked her head and whispered, fragile as reed-fringed water, “What happened?”

The painted scene peeled away; green plants still swayed, but the honeyed scent hung like a hook in the soul, tugging her thoughts toward sleep. It pulled again, velvet and poison, and Illusionary Mist snapped her awake, voice like a slap of cold lake water.

“Hold your breath! It’s toxic!” Illusionary Mist barked, and the team sealed their lungs, chests tight as drums. Her Spirit Threads lashed the meadow like flicked silk blades. At the instant of contact, the grass twisted, skittering aside like a school of fish, dodging the cut.

“Those are Spirit Threads? This thing has a mind.” The Eleventh sharpened her stance, a blade posed on wind, though she’d already inhaled too much. The field ripened again into a flower sea. She shook her head hard, then bit her tongue; pain rose like iron smoke and cleared the haze.

She swung a wide arc, wind infused with Mana roaring like a river. The front row of plants tore free, roots ripping with wet pops. The vegetation shivered in fear, then surged together, pulling their root-masses out of a black mire like serpents rising.

Stench hit like a slap. Inside the dark sludge floated decayed flesh and bare white bones, bone ladders slick with slime. The plants crept along the skeletons and gnawed the meat, patience sharpened like teeth.

That sweet fragrance was their lure, a hunter’s violin: dream with perfume, beckon prey into the trap, drown them in mud, then corrode them a bite at a time. Beauty first, rot beneath.

It wasn’t strong. See the stage, and the trick breaks; you can push through or go around. The Eleventh recommended a detour, and Illusionary Mist agreed. She staked a warning sign in the earth, a silent lantern for those who would scout later.

Sign set, they moved on. The long ripple of hills rose from the horizon like dark waves, and when the folds pressed close, they knew they’d reached the mission’s true start—deep Unfathomed Reach, the map’s unknown.

“Let’s go. From here on, be careful.” Illusionary Mist led, feet soft over the first slopes. The trees here grew strange, black and twisted like charred hands, nothing like those of the Surface Realm. The Eleventh collected fallen branches, dry and tough; she said they were fine materials. She needed them to craft a good magitech device, brass and rune singing together.

They didn’t cut living trunks. Better to avoid springing some old mechanism or waking a tree Monster with sap for blood; some tree Monsters nest inside their kin. Pick branches, keep breath low—safer for Magic Maidens.

But there are exceptions.

“Fourth-Generation Lord Caris, paying respect to the Prince. The Surface expedition has arrived. They’re competent. Seven Fifth-Generation Blood Clan can take them.”

The Prince sat high on a gilded throne, a Third-Generation Blood Clan whose power pressed like winter. These past decades, Surface Magic Maidens kept disturbing his peace; anger flared, battles followed, and both sides bled, a duel that cracked more than pride.

Now he waited, rigid as a statue, guarding against other Blood Clan alliances while offering tempered counsel to his next generation, steel wrapped in velvet.

Caris, a Fourth-Generation talent, had gathered scattered houses with daring and sharp politics, risking herself to draw threads tight until the tapestry held. He valued her, made her a Lord, and granted his name as banner so she could move freely in this slice of the Abyss.

“Humans… again.” His voice spilled like cold wine. “They stole my Blood Chalice back then. Now they want my land? Greedy, insatiable.” He snarled; pallor flushed with fury. The cup crushed in his fist, fresh Blood splattering like dark rain.

Caris heard that fury and sank lower, forehead near stone, silence held like breath before thunder. The Prince waved her up and spoke, words slow as oil.

“I attended the alliance council. Something new brewed in the Abyss; it’s promising. We decided to send our strong hands to the Surface Realm. They’ll lie low and open Abyssal passages.”

A bat at his side poured fresh Blood, ruby in a crystal stem. He cradled the tall glass, swirling it gently, a red galaxy turning.

“Surface humans hold the gates to our lands, while our vassals struggle to reach the Surface. It’s unfair. Infiltration will be hard. I’m sending you. You’re my most trusted child.”

Joy flickered in Caris’s eyes, a star peeking between clouds.

“Honored, for the glory of the Blood Clan.”

“Caris will take her leave. Those humans look tricky.” Her brow trembled, a ripple under calm. Those humans had felled a Sixth-Generation Blood Clan in a blink; the Fifth-Generations stayed their hands, but the likely outcome was heavy Blood Clan casualties, their line cut clean.

With the mission pressing like drumbeat, Caris knew she should strike the field fast and end them, pruning danger to save the grove.

“Granted.” The Prince flicked his sleeve like a storm starting. Caris launched without hesitation, black wings unfurling like night itself. She shot from the ancient castle toward the near hills, an arrow loosed into the dark.