It was as if he was showing his evil side. Indeed, he has brought the soldiers only to protect themselves.
If anything were to happen, they would toss the soldiers and use them as pawns because they were expendable!
Also, Wendy had a similar idea. He had thought about bringing soldiers for that very reason but on seeing Balton actually doing that, he was rather thrilled as if he had made a partner in crime.
"Alright then, let's enter the forest!", Balton announced after laughing and smirking for a while.
He basically wanted to hunt some beasts too and bring them back as some sort of gift. Of course, that would raise his status and that was specifically what he wanted to do.
Many of the soldiers mounted on the horses while others walked on foot. They surrounded Balton and Wendy and walked in the same Circle formation.
If any Beast were to attack, that would first be dealt by the soldiers and they were indeed doing the same.
Many small-sized beasts were being taken care of by them which Balton didn't even care about.
Of course, his aim was in Hunting a bigger beast, but more than that, he had another plan in his mind.
'What if I use the prophecy or whatever the old man said to my advantage?', he asked himself.
This idea struck him when he entered the forest. It was indeed, some idea that could earn him endless fame.
What he planned to do was kill the so-called imaginary beast that the Sage has talked about and spread the rumor, that was the entire empire would acknowledge his might.
In such a manner, it wouldn't take him much longer to become a Grand General!
Of course, he was thinking of a way to somehow spread the rumor by killing such a beast.
'What if I kill some random beast and showcase it saying that it was the mentioned beast?', that was indeed a good idea too.
Since no one had seen the said beast, they wouldn't be able to raise suspicion. And even if they did, it would end soon since there would be no proof.
Regardless, he was thinking cleverly for the first time in his life, Well, it was for his self-interest after all so it wasn't much of a thing to brag about.
'ZZDZ'
Suddenly many of the bushes started shaking vigorously.
All the soldiers were shocked by that. They pointed their swords towards the bushes.
Balton was also startled and so was Wendy. Up until now, it was completely quiet as if it was the silence before the storm.
That was why Wendy was a bit more cautious and now when suddenly the bushes started to move, he was caught off-guard.
"What's going on?", Wendy asked after flinching.
All of them were confused but then all of a sudden the bushes stopped shaking.
"Huh? They stopped?", Wendy was confused even more now.
"Probably wind...?", said one of the soldiers.
Others nodded their heads after hearing that but Wendy and Balton weren't convinced with that.
They were completely sure that something wasn't right here. Wendy knew it thanks to his intuition and clever thinking whereas Balton knew it thanks to his instincts of a fighter!
Regardless, they continued to walk and soon twenty minutes were passed by.
They thought that they were walking along a safe path, but little did they know that they were entering one of the largest and dangerous zones of the fourth largest forest - The Land Of Lost Ones!
They had already reached that place but none of them had any idea. They continued to walk.
? Balton didn't want to go any further since all he concerned about was finding a large and easy prey so that he would be able to kill it easily and take it back.
He thought about going for a bit more since he hadn't found the beast he wanted. In reality, he hadn't even found any beast that was bigger than a dog!
All till now, only small dog-sized beasts had appeared, although of different attributes, they were far too weak and of course, no one would be convinced if those were taken back!
That was why he asked them to keep moving. How we all of them stopped all of a sudden in Wendy's commands.
"Everyone stop!", Wendy raised his voice and ordered.
"Wendy? What happened?"
"Why did you ask then to pause?", Balton asked.
He was already furious because he wanted to end the tiresome journey but now Wendy stopped all of them from moving forward.
"Something is not right..."
"Didn't we just pass through this area a while ago?", Wendy asked.
"Huh?", Balton was puzzled when he heard that.
"We passed through this area already?", he scratched his head a bit and then looked here and there.
But there was nothing significant to notice. Therefore he couldn't really make out if they had passed by this area.
*gulp*
But it seemed like Wendy was sure that they had passed from the area earlier.
"You must have imagined if.", was what Balton said however Wendy didn't agree to that.
But now what could he do when no one was ready to believe him?
Indeed, all he could do was prove them. Therefore he threw a spear which he had been holding all this time towards a tree. It pierced it easily.
A soldier was about to go that was to get the spear back but Wendy shouted and asked him to refrain from getting the spear.
All of them thought that Wendy was behaving strangely. Regardless, they move forward on Balton's command.
An hour passed and they still kept on moving when suddenly Wendy started to feel chills.
Wendy was sweating profusely because when he looked towards his left, he found his own spear on the bark of the tree in the same manner as it had pierced through earlier!
"Sir Balton, you were laughing earlier right?"
"Would you care to explain about this?", he asked while pointing his index finger towards the spear.
"..."
Balton's eyes were widely opened and it was the same for others too.
*gulp*
They all swallowed a large amount of dry saliva while hearing Wendy say, "I'm afraid to say but it seems like we have entered the Land Of Lost Ones!"
"..."
To be continued...
Visit freewe𝑏nove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺 for the 𝑏est n𝘰vel reading experience