The elves quickly led us into the forest and soon we were surrounded by trees.
Then all of a sudden, they stopped and Moon turned to look at me, as if she was waiting for instructions.
However, I didn't even know where we were, so it wasn't as if I could give any instructions.
But with the way that they were looking at me, I couldn't just remain silent. So I gave a cough before asking, "Where are we right now?"
Moon quickly said, "We're not that far from the village, perhaps ten minutes away."
Three black lines appeared on my head when she said this.
That didn't give me any information since I didn't even know where the village was in the first place.
So after thinking about it, I asked, "How about in relation to the pond that you met us at, where are we in relation to that?"
Moon shook her head and said, "That pond is at the very edge of the forest while we're currently right in the center, so it's quite far away from here and isn't considered a good landmark to use in this situation."
I had already guessed this, but it hit harder when she said it to me.
After all, we had taken a magic portal to the elven village, so it wasn't as if we were that close to where we had been before.
Finally, I just asked, "Can you show me a map of the forest?"
When the elves heard this, all of them revealed wary looks as they turned in my direction.
That also included Moon and the two blonde elves who were with her.
Seeing this, I just calmly waited for them to speak again.
After staring at me for a while, Moon gave a nod and said, "Alright, we'll get you a map."
The other elves were surprised, but since it was her who had said it, there wasn't anything that they could say.
One of the elves had an unwilling look on her face as she took out a map from her bag. Then as she handed it to me, she made it very clear that she wasn't willing to do this with the look on her face.
I still took it without a single expression and took a close look at it.
It was a very simple map, but there was no doubt that it was an effective one. It showed me all the things that I needed to know about this forest.
First there was the village which was right in the center of the forest and then there was the pond where we had been that had been at the edge. Judging by the distance between them, it seemed like it would take several days to travel that distance if we didn't use that portal.
But this still didn't give me the information that I wanted.
So I asked, "Where is the area where magic is disappearing. Can you show me on the map?"
Moon nodded and came to my side. She reached over my hand to point out the areas where the magic was disappearing on the map.
When I looked closely, I found that there was a bit of a pattern.
We didn't see it at the edge of the forest because there was nothing at the edge of the forest. At the same time, we didn't see it when we were in the elven village because there wasn't any here.
It created a certain pattern, the shape of a ring around the elven village that cut off the center of the forest.
No matter how one looked at it, this seemed like it was done intentionally…
Or if it wasn't intentional, there must be some kind of reason for this still.
It couldn't just be a coincidence.
But to get any information, I would still have to see the area itself to know what it was like.
So I turned back to Moon and asked, "Can you take us to the affected area?"
Moon looked a bit hesitant at first, but she nodded in agreement in the end.
When the other elves saw this, they all revealed worried looks which confused me.
It was as if they were afraid of going to that place…
But why would they be afraid of going to that place?
It wasn't as if there was anything dangerous there, it was just that the concentration of magic energy wasn't as high.
So there shouldn't be anything that would worry them like this.
But I soon found out the reason why they were worried.
As we headed there, Moon and the elves moved slowly, as if they were wary of something.
Then all of sudden, Moon raised her hand to stop us.
As we stopped, I asked, "What's wrong?"
Moon pointed in front of us and said, "It's right in front of us."
I looked in the direction that she was pointing in and found that there didn't seem to be anything strange. That is until I looked more closely at the plants and trees that were in front of us.
They still had a bit of green, but there was also a bit of yellow in their leaves and their stems seemed a bit bent.
It was as if they were slowly dying because of a lack of nutrition.
This must be the magic being drained that they had mentioned earlier.
But just watching from afar wouldn't give me any clues, so I wanted to get closer.
When I took a step forward, Moon suddenly grabbed my hand and asked, "What are you doing?"
I looked at her with a confused look and said, "I'm going to take a closer look to see if I can find any clues."
Moon had a worried look on her face that confused me when I saw it, but in the end, she said with a nod, "Alright, I'll come with you."
As soon as the other elves heard this, they all revealed worried looks as well.
There were many of them that wanted to say something to stop her, but she just raised her hand to cut them off. Seeing that determined look on her face, they all closed their mouths and swallowed their words, silently accepting her conviction.
Then at the same time, they turned to glare at me as if they were blaming me.
But I didn't know why they would do that.
Of course, on our side, Cecilia wouldn't let me go alone either.
So it was the three of us that made our way over towards the dying plants.
As we came closer, even someone who was ignorant about magic could feel that there was something different about this place. It was like there was something different in the air that made it smell strange.
It was like there was a freshness that was missing with the nature of this part of the forest.
In short, it was like something was missing.
Finally, when we came up to the plants, I could see clearly that they were dying.
But before I could do anything else, I suddenly heard a thumping sound.
When I turned around, I saw that Moon had fallen to the ground.