The forests of the human kingdoms and the forests of Midgard truly have many differences after all.
If Sigrdrífa were to describe it, it would probably be like the feeling of being in captivity—capturing wild animals and doing one's utmost to recreate a suitable living environment for them, yet that still has a decisive difference from pure nature.
Only elves born of nature and destined to return to nature can perceive the distinction.
Reflecting on her experiences since coming to the human kingdom, Sigrdrífa couldn't help but sigh at the fickleness of fate.
With sacred beasts constantly suffering from human poaching as the primary trigger among various incidents, the elven race held an extremely poor impression of the human race. The elven race already possessed an exclusionary mentality by nature, which only further intensified their negative evaluation of humans.
When leaving Midgard, Sigrdrífa had also harbored certain prejudices against humans.
Even after actual contact with humans, Sigrdrífa's views hadn't changed. Humans who defiled sacred beasts for their own selfish desires—their crimes were truly unforgivable.
Until the day she encountered Anastasia, Sigrdrífa developed new thoughts.
She had expected a wicked woman who coveted the sacred beast's horn, but instead found a maid caring for an injured young girl all by herself. Hearing Lily's cheerful laughter, she instead felt a sense of guilt, as if she herself would be the villain for eliminating Anna. Later, when caught by Anastasia, who could have done unspeakable things to her, Anna not only released her but also returned the sacred beast's horn.
"I chose to stay by Anna's side, but it's not because I want to be constantly cared for by Anna..."
Hidden among the forest wilds, Sigrdrífa drew her dagger, a cold gleam flashing in her dark-as-night eyes.
On the shadowy forest path, three adventurers carried torches as they conducted their search.
Adventurers had the same appearance as NPCs, but their public panels showed obvious differences. Simply selecting someone to view their panel made distinguishing between adventurers and NPCs quite easy, unless disguise skills were used to fool others.
"Did you find anything on your side?"
"Nothing... Say, is Amaryllis really in this forest?"
"I think the probability is much higher than her hiding in town."
"Even if she's not necessarily in this particular forest, if we happen to run into her, we'll strike it rich, heh heh..."
They're looking for Lily.
Since these were adventurers who could resurrect, there was no problem with being a bit heavy-handed.
The three adventurers weren't wearing heavy armor. Anna had said there were no bandits or fierce beasts near Baron Hurst's territory, so they dared venture into the mountains at night based on these factors.
I won't let you succeed.
[Night Vision] was a racial talent of moon elves, particularly renowned among moon elves who were said to merge with the night itself. In Sigrdrífa's field of vision, there was no difference in visibility between night and day—in some ways, it was even clearer.
Without any intentional concealment, Sigrdrífa simply walked around to the rear of the three adventurers. The three remained completely unaware. With the environment's enhancement, Sigrdrífa's [Silent Steps] skill performed to its utmost.
Going any further would bring them close to the cabin's perimeter. I won't allow you to harm either Anna or Lily.
"Stay alert, don't miss any rustle in the grass. We..."
The leading adventurer looked around, casually glancing behind him.
Then he froze completely. Behind him lay the corpses of his two companions.
One had fallen about ten meters away, the other's body even farther.
"........................"
No—that's not... Wait? When did this happen?
Since adventurers could resurrect after death, the leading adventurer wasn't shocked by seeing his companions' corpses.
—If not for that casual backward glance, he wouldn't have noticed that his two companions had already departed this world.
Dead adventurers couldn't use private messaging functions with other adventurers in neutral and dangerous zones, so they couldn't use private messages to notify others... But even so, there was no reason they should have been silently...
"—?!"
His vision suddenly turned black and white.
[System Notice: You have died. You will resurrect at the nearest revival point in 24 hours]
[Damage Received: Throat Slash (Lost 100% HP)]
[Damage Source: ??? (Unknown)]
Sigrdrífa sheathed her dagger. The first strike after emerging from [Stealth] dealt extremely high damage. Unarmored units struck in vital points could be described as "one blade, one small friend."
Adventurer corpses didn't disappear immediately after death, but Sigrdrífa had no interest in looting or corpse camping—there was little point in that. The old Sigrdrífa would have definitely stopped here, but thinking of those she now had to protect, Sigrdrífa believed she had other matters to attend to.
"O Nature Goddess... please guide me to remove the evil marks left by invaders in the forest..."
Several red lights appeared in her daylight-clear vision. Sigrdrífa quickly came to the base of the nearest tree, where she found an extremely well-hidden small magic circle set at the tree root.
To Sigrdrífa, Baron Hurst's forest was no different from a backyard garden, but to humans, this forest was quite substantial in scale. Recklessly entering the forest at night without some purposeful search method would be impossible.
[Coordinate Mark]—a coordinate set at a certain location that maintained itself for a fixed duration. The one who set the coordinate could sense the direction of the mark's location no matter where they were, establishing direction to proceed straight toward the coordinate.
It was probably both to ensure they knew which areas had been searched and to avoid panicking and losing their way if they encountered danger, allowing them to find the correct path out of the forest.
While learning [Coordinate Mark] wasn't easy, once mastered, it was quite convenient to use. Not all skills had consumption costs proportional to their learning difficulty.
Sigrdrífa casually destroyed this [Coordinate Mark]. If they resurrected and retraced their path, that would be problematic. Dead adventurers couldn't share coordinates, so they wouldn't be able to find where they were attacked.
Moreover... they never even saw Anna and Lily. From their perspective, they had simply taken a wrong turn and accidentally died on the spot...