I can evolve everything

The return journey was no easier than the journey there.

The three returned to the rocky highland where the skeletons had once besieged them, and there they found the four surviving adventurers huddled together.

The adventurers were clearly in a state of extreme fear; the slightest rustling sound would make them jump up and wildly swing their weapons.

When Karen's tall figure emerged from the mist, the tower shield warrior named Gareth almost cried out, "Thank God... my lord, we thought you wouldn't come back."

"Stop crying, it won't save your life."

Karen gave him a cold glance, her gaze sweeping over the pitiful state of the group.

"Can you still walk?" Karen asked.

"Yes...yes!" The thief gritted his teeth, helping the unconscious female mage to her feet. "We can crawl out."

"Then let's get moving."

Karen pointed to the way they came.

"The sun is about to set. Stay close to us if you don't want to get lost."

Over the next two hours, Ryan and his group slowly approached the edge of the swamp along the same route.

The terrain of the Misty Swamp was already rugged and difficult to traverse, and with the added burden of caring for the injured adventurers, progress was extremely slow.

Renn was tasked with covering the rear.

He helped Gareth, whose leg was broken, and they moved forward slowly.

"Hang in there, big guy," Ryan whispered, looking at Gareth's pale face. "Don't fall asleep."

"I...I know." Gareth gasped for breath, each step sending shivers down his spine as the pain from his broken leg made him break out in a cold sweat. "Thank you, little brother. Really...when we get to town, I'll treat you to the best ale."

"Let's save our lives first."

The team moved slowly through the gray mist.

As time went on, the light in the swamp grew dimmer.

The sunlight faded like the receding tide, and the gray fog took on a bluish-black hue.

Faint roars began to drift from afar.

"Speed ​​up!" Karen, who was walking at the front, urged. "Night is about to fall."

In this world, especially in the regions near the North, night is not just the disappearance of light.

It is the moment when the magic tide reverses.

Shadow creatures that lurk underground during the day, or mutated monsters that fear sunlight, will take over the surface at this time.

For travelers without the protection of city walls, traveling at night in complete darkness and without any precautions is tantamount to suicide.

Finally, as the last glimmer of light on the horizon was about to be swallowed by darkness, the group emerged from the swamp.

"arrive."

Ella let out a long sigh of relief and plopped down on a large rock.

"If I keep walking like this, my boots will practically grow onto my feet."

The edge of the forest ahead marks the boundary between the Misty Swamp and the outer wasteland.

Stop.

Karen stopped at the foot of a sheltered rock face. He looked up at the sky, where the North Star was faintly visible through a gap in the clouds.

"Sir Knight, it's less than a three-hour walk from here to Ironwood Town."

Gareth was helped to sit down by Raine. Looking at the scattered lights in the distance, he spoke with some urgency, "If we speed up, maybe we can reach the city gates before they close..."

"and then?"

Karen turned around and looked down at him.

"Crossing a dark wasteland without any light?"

The old knight pointed into the distance.

"Awooo—"

Just then, a long wolf howl came from the depths of the wasteland, followed by a second and a third howl, which then merged into one.

Judging from the sound, it wasn't an ordinary wild wolf; it was a dire wolf, a species unique to the north.

Gareth's face turned pale instantly, he shrank back, and stopped talking.

"All sorts of monsters, and packs of dire wolves." Karen unsheathed her greatsword, clearly intending to spend the night there. "Their noses are sharper than a dog's now; they can smell the blood from your wounds from three miles away."

"Camping in place".

Karen gave the order.

"Raine, go gather some dry firewood nearby. Ella, clear a space. As for you guys..."

He glanced at the adventurers who were slumped on the ground.

"Just don't die. Treat your wounds yourself."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Half an hour later, a bright orange campfire rose at the foot of the rock wall.

The firelight disc player dispelled the surrounding chill and created a small safe zone in the darkness.

Ryan sat by the fire, holding a peeled twig in his hand, stirring the iron pot that was placed on the fire.

The pot contained oatmeal, two pieces of dried salted meat, and a handful of dehydrated vegetables.

As the water temperature rises, a rich aroma of food gradually fills the air.

The four adventurers sat around the other side of the fire, their eyes fixed on the iron pot, their throats bobbing.

For someone who has struggled on the brink of life and death all day, a hot meal is an incredibly delicious delicacy.

"Give."

Ella served everyone a bowl.

"Thank you... thank you, Knight." The young female mage had woken up. She held the warm wooden bowl, tears streaming down her face.

After a few sips of hot soup, the adventurers' complexions finally regained some color.

"Tell me about it."

Karen leaned against the rock wall, half her face hidden in the shadows, only her eyes fixed on the campfire.

"You guys don't look like well-trained adventurers, but you're definitely not newbies either."

The old knight's attitude was not friendly at the moment, and his tone of questioning was more like interrogating a criminal.

"What kind of mission would be worth taking such a big risk to venture deep into the heart of the Misty Swamp?"

Gareth didn't mind, put down his bowl, and gave a wry smile.

"For money, my lord. What else could it be for?"

The burly man sighed and slowly began to explain his situation.

"Three days ago, we received a commission at the Adventurers' Guild in Ironwood Town. The commission wasn't posted on the bulletin board, but rather through a middleman who specializes in black market business."

"The mission is strange: we don't need to hunt monsters or gather materials. We just need to go to a designated coordinate point deep in the swamp, confirm the whereabouts of a shipment, and draw a map of the surrounding terrain."

"goods?"

Raine caught the word, stopped stirring the porridge, and looked at Gareth.

What kind of goods would be worth transporting into the swamp?

"We find it strange too," interjected the thief beside him. He was a thin man, and he was wrapping his bleeding arm in bandages.

"But the client offered too much. A deposit of ten gold coins! Even just the deposit would be enough for each of us to get a new set of equipment. He said there would be twenty more after the deal was done."

"Greed is the quickest path to the grave." Ella rested her chin on her hand, her red eyes gleaming brightly in the firelight, as if she had seen through everything. She spoke slowly, "Usually, these missions with inflated rewards and vague details are either suicide missions or scapegoating. Clearly, you belong to the former."

Gareth nodded without refuting.

"We were blinded by money. Following the map given to us by the middleman, we found the coordinates. It was a subsidence zone deep in the swamp."

At this point, Gareth lowered his voice, as if recalling the previous scene.

"We didn't see any contact person there. We did see a horse-drawn carriage stuck in the mud."

"A carriage?" Karen leaned forward slightly.

"Yes, a four-wheeled carriage. The carriage is enclosed and covered with a thick black cloth. The wheels are deeply stuck, indicating that the load on the carriage is very heavy."

"But how could a carriage possibly get into a place like the Misty Swamp, and there are absolutely no tracks around the carriage."

Gareth swallowed hard.

"We wanted to go check if there were any clues. But as soon as we got close, the muddy water around the carriage started to boil. A horde of zombies slowly crawled out from around us, one after another. If it weren't for that strange knight who came to our aid, we would be dead by now."

"Then, on our way back, we encountered a group of unkillable skeletons, and then it was you knights who came to our aid."

"Something's not right," the skinny thief added, "but when I got close to the carriage, I smelled a very strange odor."

"What does it taste like?" Ryan pressed.

"The smell of spices." The thief was quite certain of this. "Although the swamp stinks, my nose is very sensitive. There's a smell of preservative spices near that carriage."

Spices. Preservatives. Heavy cargo.

Raine and Ella exchanged a glance, seemingly both guessing what was going on.

The information I gathered from the guild mentioned "the dead coming back to life".

Now, this carriage, which has inexplicably appeared in the swamp, is loaded with heavy goods covered in spices and is being transported to the depths of the swamp, where there should now be a large number of undead creatures.

The clues seem to be slowly coming together.

"Besides the skeletons, what else did you see?" Ella suddenly leaned closer to the female mage and asked with a smile, "Like... did you sense anything was amiss?"

The female mage, feeling nervous under Ella's gaze, shrank back slightly and whispered:

"I...I'm not entirely sure. I think I sensed a fluctuation of magic before the battle began."

She looked up and slowly recalled, "It felt like there was a pair of eyes watching us. Like we were marked by something."

"Someone is controlling those skeletons," Karen concluded.

This is different from ordinary wild undead creatures.

Wild undead usually wander aimlessly and will only attack when attracted by the presence of living people.

But the skeletons were clearly lying in ambush and surrounding the area in an organized manner.

There must be a manipulator behind this, someone like a necromancer.

This is most likely why Baron came to the swamp.

"What does the person who commissioned you look like?" Ryan asked.

"Didn't see him," Gareth shook his head. "It was a hooded middleman, trading in the shadows of the guild. He sounded like a man."

The trail seems to have ended here.

"Okay, stop asking."

Karen interrupted Ryan's thoughts, and he stood up and added a piece of firewood to the fire.

"Knowing too much won't do you any good. Take this deposit; you risked your lives for it. Once you get back, don't make a big fuss about it, or you'll probably run into danger again. Understand?"

"I understand! I understand!" Gareth nodded repeatedly.

He was already incredibly lucky to have escaped with his life, and he had no desire to get involved in any more conspiracies.

He realized that this pool of water was completely beyond their ability to handle.

Late at night.

Exhausted and wounded, the adventurers quickly huddled together and fell into a deep sleep in the warmth of the fire.

Gareth even started snoring.

Karen was on guard duty for the second half of the night and was currently leaning against the rock wall with her eyes closed, resting with her greatsword resting on her knees.

Ryan and Ella sat by the fire, preparing to take turns keeping watch for the first half of the night.

Ella poked at the embers with a twig, her brows furrowed, looking utterly bewildered.

"I don't understand," she muttered softly, as if talking to herself, or perhaps asking Ryan.

"What can't you figure out?" Ryan added a handful of firewood to the fire, watching the flames leap up.

“That carriage,” Ella pointed in the direction of the swamp, “Raine, we walked through that swamp this morning too. A four-wheeled carriage loaded with heavy loads, how did it get in? Did it fly in? Unless someone laid a road under the swamp, or used some kind of levitation magic… but that would be too expensive.”

Renn nodded: "That certainly doesn't make sense."

"And those adventurers," Ella glanced at Gareth and the others, "a ten-gold deposit just to get them to draw a map? And then they did nothing but get attacked by a bunch of ambushing zombies and skeletons?"

She shook her head, clearly doubting its authenticity.

"This doesn't make any sense. If the mastermind wanted to use them to transport goods, they should have made them bring the truck out. If they just wanted to kill them to cover their tracks or use them as sacrifices, why go through all the trouble of issuing missions, providing maps, and paying them to lure them to that specific location? Wouldn't it be easier to just do it outside of town?"

"Unless..." Renn didn't have any clue at the moment, and casually made a guess, "Something changed in the middle. Maybe the person who commissioned the mission and the necromancer who controls the skeletons in the swamp are not in cahoots at all. They were just sent to scout the situation. Or maybe these adventurers are 'goods' for some necromancer deep in the swamp."

"Then who commissioned this task?" Ella scratched her hair in frustration. "There are loopholes everywhere, and everything here feels strange."

"Don't think about it anymore." Ryan sighed. "There's too little information. The origin of that carriage, the identity of the middleman, and what Baron actually knows... these are all mysteries."

Ella pursed her lips and threw the branch into the fire.

"I hate this feeling. It's like walking blindfolded on the edge of a cliff."

She looked up at the sky; dark clouds obscured the stars, and only the occasional howl of wolves could be heard in the distance.

"Speaking of which, this is probably the difference between adventurers and knights," Ella said, unable to understand it any longer. She changed the subject, her tone tinged with a touch of melancholy. "They encountered such a bizarre thing and could only accept their bad luck, grateful to be alive with their deposits. But us..."

"And we... we risk our lives for what we call our duty. Although sometimes I think it's even more foolish, that we could have stayed out of it, but instead we insist on jumping into the mire. But at least we have the right to choose."

Raine was momentarily stunned by Ella's abrupt change of topic and didn't know how to respond. He simply remained silent for a moment and then nodded.

"Maybe."

He instinctively placed his hand on his chest.

There, the knight's badge was as cold as iron.

"You should get some sleep," Raine said to Ella, pulling his cloak tighter. "We'll switch shifts in a few hours. The real trouble will probably begin when we get back to town tomorrow."

The firelight gradually dimmed, and the cold winds of the North howled outside the rock walls.