"Let's see… according to the map, we should be just outside the capital called Tenin." Shiro muttered as she flipped through the map.

"Is everyone ready to leave?" Shiro asked as she turned around with a smile.

In front of her was a crater where the monster truck should have been and sat around the crater were the victims who were healed by Silvia. While their physical nausea may have been healed, their mental strain was not.

Hearing the collective groan of pain, Shiro couldn't help but laugh as she pulled out some refreshments for them. Aka, some juice.

"Well I'll let you guys rest for a bit before we go. We managed to cut the trip short using both land and air." Shiro smiled while getting Nan Tian to help her pass the drinks around.

While they were all recovering, Shiro stood on top of the hill and looked towards the city of Tenin.

Beneath the light shining down from the sky was a temple of sorts that had the crest of a tree etched into the surface while the rest of the city was built around this temple.

The city itself was similar to current modern cities when it comes to technology but compared to Asharia, it was far behind. There were no skyscrapers or tall landmarks as the tallest thing here was the temple. Shiro remembered reading in the book that the author had mentioned the temple being a place of worship for the people here so having anything taller than it would be blasphemous. After all, it was also known as the place to talk to the gods.

Looking at the layout of the city, Shiro narrowed her eyes as she activated her rune and created a small drone.

Sending it to the sky, she closed one of her eyes so that she could see through the drone's eyes.

"Is something wrong?" Nan Tian asked as he noticed Shiro scouting out the city.

"I wouldn't say something is wrong. Rather something is bugging me. Like you see the start of a pattern but can't find the rest." Shiro replied.

She wanted a birds eye view of the city so that she could guess what this feeling was.

Watching the drone fly higher, Shiro glanced down towards the city and smiled.

"No wonder I felt that something was bugging me." Shiro chuckled as she dismissed the drone.

"This entire thing is a giant magic circle and it seems to be representative of a tier 8 one too. Each of the 'layers' of the magic circle is represented by the loops of the city. The roads circling the temple is the cut off point for each layer. With the temple in the centre, the magic circle is looping around the temple. I'm guessing the runes the author found are runes that were meant to be in this magic circle." Shiro smiled as she printed off an image of the city so that Nan Tian could see what she meant.

Looking at the image, Nan Tian raised his eyebrow in surprise.

"So you're saying that if we were to look for the runes around the city, we'll be able to fill out these layers?"

"Yup. Though some of the runes in the book are incomplete so we'll have to check through all of them to make sure they're correct. This is a good chance for us too since we can just relax and spend our time looking for runes while everyone else goes to the temple for the trial." Shiro smiled as Nan Tian nodded his head.

"Don't you want to enter too? Even though you're not a healer or cleric you have plenty of healing skills no?" Silvia walked up as she had overheard their conversation.

"I mean… I do but runes are more fun I guess." Shiro scratched her cheek.

"You really like runes now don't you?" Silvia raised her eyebrow as Shiro shrugged.

"Well yeah. Of course I do. I mean with runes I can access the power of the gods early."

Hearing this, Silvia couldn't help but shake her head as Shiro was thinking about how to break the balance of power again.

However, she was also happy about this since this was much better than what Shiro was doing before.

"Well alright. See if you can partake the trial when you can since it's still beneficial." Silvia chuckled as Shiro nodded her head.

"Sure I'll do it if I have time after looking over the runes. You seem knowledgeable about this country so do you want to lead the other's to the trail while me and Nan Tian find some runes?" Shiro asked as Silvia thought about it for a moment before glancing back.

The moment she did, she was assaulted by the expectant stares, begging for her to lead them instead of Shiro.

Sighing heavily, Silvia facepalmed before turning towards Shiro.

"Alright, I'll do it. I'll contact you if anything happens."

"Perfect." Shiro smiled.

Watching Silvia lead them towards the temple, Shiro glanced over at Nan Tian.

"Shall we visit the outermost layer first? There are a few runes here that I couldn't decipher. There's a chance that the runes are incomplete like the ones that we saw in the mist so I want to double check." Shiro asked as Nan Tian nodded his head.

"Sure. Do you also want to bring back some delicacies for Yin? Not many get to visit Vrish' Lir after all. The cuisine here might be interesting for Yin." Nan Tian smiled as Shiro thought about it for a moment.

"That's true… alright. I'll buy some food for me too then. I'll be honest, I'm quite curious too." Shiro chuckled as the two of them made their way into the city.

However, when they arrived, they realised that all of the buildings seemed to be empty.

"That's strange… Looking at the pictures the author took there should be a bunch of people roaming around." Shiro furrowed her brows while flicking through the book.

"Hmm… Let me call Silvia."

Bringing out her phone, Shiro gave Silvia a call as she waited for her to pick up.

"Calling so soon? Did something happen?" Silvia's voice rang out.

"Yeah why is there no one here?" Shiro asked.

"I'll be honest, I have no idea either. This place should be filled with people right now but I can't sense anyone. The road to the temple doesn't seem to be well maintained either." Silvia replied with a frown.

"Should we continue to the temple or should we meet up?" She asked as Shiro thought about it for a moment before opening her mouth.

"Let's meet up. Since we don't know what's happened here it's best that we stick together. Let's meet in front of the temple. I'll send some drones to scan the runes for me since there's no one here but while it's doing that, let's see if we can find any survivors or at least any remains of people being here." Shiro replied as she tapped her finger in the air. Suddenly, tens of drones appeared around her.

Giving them the command, Shiro watched as they dispersed themselves to the rest of the city.

"Alright I'll meet you at the entrance of the temple. Hopefully we can still do the trial." Silvia sighed deeply before ending the call.

Walking through the city, towards the temple, Shiro glanced into the homes and saw dried up food along with empty seats.

It was as though things here were frozen in time with the residents being removed from the pictures.

"This isn't exactly what I hoped to see when coming to this city. How long do you think this place has been left untouched?" Nan Tian asked as he traced his finger along the walls and picked up a bunch of dust.

"It can't be long considering news of this hasn't spread to the port village. But the evidence here suggests otherwise." Shiro frowned since some of the walls were threatening to crumble with the slightest touch.

"It's strange."

"Mn, let's keep going. We don't want to keep-"

Before she could even finish her sentence, they both saw a cloud of dust erupt out in the distance.

Noticing that it was towards the direction of the temple, they both dashed towards it without hesitation.

###

A few moments ago…

After ending the call with Shiro, Silvia glanced around her and noticed something strange.

Runes started to appear in the space around them as she felt a bad feeling in her heart.

"I swear, everywhere we go it's always combat after combat. We come to a nice country full of knowledge, no one's f*cking here and it's combat again! Get your f*cking ass out and let me get a good look at the d*ckweed that's trying to ruin my holiday!" Silvia gritted her teeth as a dark red aura flared around her.

Activating all of her combat buffs on herself, she glanced around and locked onto the mana signal she could sense.

Reaching out, she managed to grab the person's ankle and slammed them against the floor in front of her.

Stomping down on their spine, she twisted her foot and snapped the spine in half, disabling them for good before grabbing the person by the back of their neck to see who it was.

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