Aurora Knight Camp…

At one glance from outside of the tent, things were normal and peaceful but when you took a look inside, there were 7 people sat in the camp, 6 of them were boring with the killing intent, no one spoke, the atmosphere was cold and gloomy. Furthermore, their facial expression showed every phrase inside their mind…how to murder…how to kill…or how to assassinate…

Besides that, if you focused carefully on their face, you would see a lively blood vessel pop up on the corner of their forehead plus as they clenched their teeth too hard, made their jaws became so tense. They were being tolerated as much as they could.

 

Finally, one of the seven people took in a deep breath loudly and then released it, she repeated it a few times before she spoke:

“I’m not…Mad even a little bit” she spoke through gritted teeth, with a smile not yet a smile, she paused then she pushed up her glasses for a bit, she continued, “Like I told all of you, Tomorrow, we will go into the Dark Magenta Forest according to today’s meeting plan”

Instantly after she finished speaking. She tried her best to cool down her burning mind. Because the speech reminded her of that shitty meeting. It was too damn difficult to restrain her anger. 

She held the back of her neck while closing her eyes, and her veins were jumping on her forehead, cool down, cool down...cool down, my ass!!! She was goddamn pissed off, she poked her tongue in her cheek, eventually, she had to force herself to cool down her anger once again…take it easy…take it easy…

The captain observed the vice-captain's condition quietly, he guessed that she would break out of her leash anytime soon. When she was under the control of anger, she became a mad dog…geez…just thought about it, the captain already felt tired.

Captain glanced at his team members thoughtfully, then he said:

“Dark Magenta Forest?...well, all we can do…just try to survive and come out alive, that’s good enough?”

All the 6 members turned their heads at the same time toward their captain who sat in the deepest part of the tent, they wore the same expression ‘if you don’t have a plan to help out, please stop your dejected speech  or you die’.

Captain read his team members expression, he raised an eyebrow then he said:

“What? I just speak the truth, that Dark Magenta Forest, no one ever come out from there ALIVE”

All members' faces became hollow blank, what did they expect to hear from their dumbass captain? 

The man with green eyes and light brown hair, rubbed the sword on his waist without rise his head up, San asked his captain:

“So we all need to go together?”

Captain: “Yes…well, for me, I plan to leave some of us here if something unexpected occurs, we will be able to report to the base but they insist that we all have to go together by the reason, a lot of people can save each other in dangerous situation…such a bizarre reason, isn’t it?”

San: “…”

The atmosphere in the camp grew heavier. Everyone fell into their thought after hearing their captain’s words. It was too ridiculous for them to comment. Those people were too talented at spouting nonsense with a straight face. 

What? Helping each other in a dangerous situation? Fuck their ass. Such a lame excuse, just told them directly go and drop dead in that damn fucking forest, it was much better. Those bastards could do anything freely to them, just because their duke wasn’t interested to involve with this mission. 

Their team was too unlucky, their first mission became their graveyard. Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!

The girl with the ponytail, pink hair as her head hanging down. She spoke in an undertone to her captain with the sorrowful voice, she talked slowly, feared that her tear would fall down:

“I…I have a dad and two sisters and one brother If…If anyone survives, please give them a look…I’m the weakest, my chance of surviving is too low”

Vice-captain: “You-you won’t die…no…we won’t die…Ah! Captain! Because you speak like that, everyone loses their fighting spirits”

Captain: “…hm?…but it’s true”

“…” Vice-captain’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch, remembered…he was your captain!

Captain: “Go to rest early and prepare your mind for dyin…oops!”

Vice-captain swung her hand as fast as she can to shut up her captain, she stood right next to him and she tried her best to control her body from killing him by instinct, her captain’s mouth was just too sweet to attract a few punches.

Vice-captain: “Go, go, go” she chased all the members out of the camp, the more they listened to their captain, the more they lost hope, it was ten times better to leave than continued to listen to his reality talks.

Unhesitatingly, 5 people turned their back, left the tent without uttering a word, they were glad to be chased out.

 

Early Morning…

The sun hadn’t completely raised up, yet, all of the knights of Novaculata had ready rode on their horse, all of them had an eye-catching dark circle under their eyes and with a lifeless expression, on the way to the Dark Magenta Forest. 

They left without anyone notice, if they saw those bastards before went into the Dark Magenta Forest, they swore, there would be a bloody scene, if they didn’t die, those trashes were dead, no other possible outcome. 

The knight of Novaculata rode on their horse to the Dark Magenta Forest with straightening back. The complaining and fear weren’t helped, in the end, it was still their duty, death or alive, was depending on their ability, if they were alive, it was their honor, but if they died, it was their shame. Regardless of their unlucky, they still bore the name ‘Novaculata’ on their shoulder, <<The Diamond Sword of The Moonlight Kingdom>>, never afraid of death, never turn back and never stop pushing forward, destroy everything in their way. They had to get it done like a ‘Novaculata’.

 

Dark Magenta Forest…

One by one, the knights got down from the horse, they silently gulped down several times as they looked toward the Dark Magenta Forest.

The real appearance of the Dark Magenta Forest was ten times worse than rumor. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

The smell of blood and death was way too strong for their nose, it caused them to feel dizzy by the scent. They couldn’t help but slightly shiver, their heartbeat was also accelerated out of their control, their breather started to rapid, and moreover, they could felt their back covered in sweat. The tear almost busted out of their eyes, how could they survive from this? Too many people had died in there. 

They were surpassed by the overwhelmed pressure from the Dark Magenta Forest.

In contrast, the captain looked up indifferently at the huge weird forest in front of him. His brow knitted for a bit, what could they do? They had to go in there anyways.

The captain: “Release the horse, we will go in there by foot”

All of the knights collected their wildering idea back in one place. Just the moment they heard their captain’s words, they were at a loss for words, their captain was too relaxed even facing the life-threatening Dark Magenta Forest.

Vice-captain’s mouth twitched, she said powerlessly:

“Captain, do we still need to go in?”

Captain didn’t answer, but he gave her a look ‘why not?’.

Vice-captain and everyone else’s last hope was trampled down by THAT looked mercilessly.

All of the knights closed their eyes, followed behind their captain into the Dark Magenta Forest.

***

<<Dark Magenta Forest>> was quite distinguished from any other forest. Normally, a forest was an area of land dominated by trees, rather than trees, Dark Magenta Forest was dominated by giant purple vines. It was just called forest by the people, in the reality, it was just a bunch of giant vines which covered a big area and it was extremely violent. The purple vines were huge, strong, hard, and flexible. Its whole body was covered in sharp thorn, even worse, it was immensely poisonous.  

Nearly 10 thousand people who went there were devoured alive by those vines over the past 50 years. In fact, there were some survivors, however, they mostly received heavily injured, some got their organs damaged, and some lost parts of their bodies limp, more importantly, all of them weren’t able to survive long after out of the Dark Magenta Forest, one month at most, they would die due to the poison, the incurable poison of those purple vines. 

The vines caused this place to become a prohibited dangerous area that no one wanted to come across. Despite it, the prohibited dangerous area, why did it have so many dead? 

Strangely enough, sometime the forest somehow tempted the travelers, making them subconsciously walked into its mouth. 

That was just a small cause of death, the majority cause of death was the human nature, challenging the impossible. Of course, it wasn’t for nothing, there was a rich reward waiting for them due to it was an infamous challenge in the underground market, as long as you were able to survive 24H in there, the reward would be yours. 

Actually, as the years goes by, the reward kept on rising, obtained the reward, you could live luxuriously for the next 25 years. The shortcut to becoming wealthy. Risky and yet worthy, challenge accepted. The reason why in the last 50 years, in the prohibited dangerous area had many dead. Don’t worry, the challenge was still on.

 

The rescue team weren’t stupid to carelessly walk into the Dark Magenta Forest without specific information, behind this nightmare forest was hiding the castle of the Demon Lord, Noctis.

This information was just confirmed a month ago by the Lucidum Church. The hero team and the knight teams were ordered by the king to work together, went to rescue the youngest prince of the Moonlight Kingdom, Prince Moonlit. 

This rescue mission had to hide from the public eyes, so there weren’t many members in each team.​ They also had to be low-key in order to not attract any unnecessary attention or the Demon Lord would be alarm. 

To make sure, things would work out, each team got maximum members by 5-12, everyone disguised themselves then moved around as a mercenary group, under the guild mission. 

They didn’t travel together, their arrival time was variant, even their camp was quite far away from each other, everything was planned cautiously. Unfortunately, they had minus zero teamwork even worst their team, the knight from Novaculata, with the lack of members, skills, and supports, they were the first team send off to death. 

How? By dealing with the first obstacle before reaching the Demon Lord’s castle, the Dark Magenta Forest. Their luck conveyed by the heaven, it was too great which made them speechless. 

***

While all knights were walking, they secretly counted their steps in their mind…one, and two…three…

Whoosh!!!

In the flash, one of the giant purple vines, went straight to attack the pink hair girl, it aimed for her head as if it had an eye. The nearest knight, San quickly pulled out his sword to counterattack the violent vine in the hope to protect the pink hair girl, however, the vine before it came to contact with the sword, all of a sudden, changed direction unpredictably and flexibly, once again it went after the pink hair girl’s head at the back.

The pink-haired girl was also fast, she had already used the time that her subordinate delayed for her to get into the ready-to-fight posture, her eyes filled the determination to go all out with it. Naturally, the vine chose the pink hair girl as its target, so it deliberately shot toward the girl’s head. 

FLOP!

The vine almost reached the girl’s head, it abruptly stopped in the midair in front of the pink hair girl. It fell to the ground, the weird green liquid kept flowing of its body, even so, it didn’t stop moving as if the fish were out of the water. It was so damn disgusting.

The captain swung his sword to get rid of the green sticky liquid from his sword, he glanced at the pink hair girl from the corner of his eyes then he said lazily:

“Fine? Move on?”

The knights: “…”

They were indeed shocked by the sudden attack of the vine but it seemed to be normal for their captain, he even cut it effortlessly. To be honest, it was kind of odd, they strangely felt something off about their captain. How could he react so fast and even more he could cut off the vein in the split second? As they remembered correctly, the difference between them and their captain was just a small gap, thus, was their captain secretly training his swordsmanship to reach another level? What was going on?

The pink-haired girl was also curious as the rest, but Panna chose to swallow all her questions, it wasn’t the right time for question & answer.

Panna: “I’m fine, captain”

The captain received the answer from Panna, he didn’t reply or even bother to give her a second look, he turned his back then he continued to walk into the deeper part of the Dark Magenta Forest straightway. 

***

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