Chapter 100: THE RUINED CHURCH AT THE EDGE OF THE FORSAKEN FOREST

Arthur hadn’t exaggerated. The Forsaken Forest really was a dumping ground for the world’s leftovers.

The moment I crossed the northwest border of the plains, the air changed. Green grass gave way to cracked gray earth, and the trees rose without a single leaf, their branches curling like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. A thin mist hung knee-high. The map in the corner of my vision marked the zone in dark purple, with a small label that irritated my eyes.

[Danger Zone: Forsaken Forest (Recommended Level 36-40, Undead-Type Dominant)]

Undead were the worst enemies for my build.

I crouched behind the roots of a dead tree and checked my status. Level 35, 120 HP, and a rifle reload speed of 15 seconds. I could take down an Ironbeak Ostrich with a single shot, but fighting a horde pouring endlessly out of the mist was clearly not a situation I liked. On top of that, there was a type of enemy I couldn’t touch at all.

The first ten minutes in the forest proved it.

From within the mist, a translucent figure drifted slowly closer, a woman in tattered robes. Her face was just two empty holes, and her long hair swayed without any wind. A name hovered above her head.

[Wailing Specter Lv. 38]

I immediately raised my Musket V2 and moved my finger toward the trigger. Then I stopped. I remembered this monster’s description from the compendium I’d read in the library: Immune to physical damage. It can only be harmed by magic, holy energy, or enchanted weapons.

My lead bullets were purely physical. Ordinary arrows were the same.

The only magic weapon I could use to attack was Piercing Gale Arrow, and that skill was a poor fit for a place like this. It needed casting time, hit only a single target, and its MP cost was far too steep for hunting a countless horde of ghosts. True, Incantation Compression cut casting time by 15 percent, but trimming a little off a huge loss was still a loss.

There’s no point in fighting. I have to avoid it.

I held my breath, activated Stealth (Lv. 10) and Slow Walking (Lv. 30), then slowly backed behind a large tree trunk. Together, the two skills made my steps nearly silent and blended my presence into the shadows. I simply stood still, forcing myself not to move, while the Specter floated past my position at a distance of less than five meters.

The two empty holes in her face turned toward me. My heart, or rather the algorithm imitating my heart, pounded hard.

She paused for a second. Then she drifted away, vanishing into the mist with a faint wail that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

“Thank you, Stealth,” I whispered, barely audible. “Of all the skills I’ve taken, this is one of the biggest lifesavers.”

I didn’t avoid every monster in the forest.

In the second hour of the journey, I came across a group of Rotting Ghouls and Bone Soldiers patrolling a narrow path between two rock cliffs. Both types had physical bodies, so they should have suited my weapons. I decided to give it a try, not because I needed to, but out of curiosity about whether fighting them was worthwhile.

The result was disappointing.

I hid on top of a boulder, aimed at the Ghoul walking at the front, and pulled the trigger. The lead bullet slammed into its head and blew the rotten skull into fragments.

Ting!

[System: You defeated Rotting Ghoul Lv. 37. EXP +38]

Thirty-eight EXP, from a bar that needed 70,500 to level up.

I frowned, then waited a full 15 seconds to reload. During that pause, two Bone Soldiers were already running toward my boulder, swinging rusty swords. I drew the Spellweaver’s Dirk from my waist and thrust it into the gap between one’s ribs. The small blade slipped into the hollow of its ribcage, and the Bone Soldier collapsed into pieces.

[System: You defeated Bone Soldier Lv. 36. EXP +31]

[Item Drop: Rusted Iron Fragment x1, Cracked Bone x2]

I looked over my loot flatly. A rusty iron fragment and cracked bones. Even as basic alchemy materials, their value wasn’t enough to cover the price of one lead ball and one shot’s worth of gunpowder.

I killed three more just to be sure, and the results were exactly the same. Double-digit EXP, junk drops.

“Not worth it,” I finally said, wiping the dirk’s blade with a cloth. “Ammo cost, risk, and time all outweigh the gains. If this counts as farming, the efficiency ratio is terrible.”

I sheathed my weapon and decided not to waste ammo on ordinary undead anymore. From now on, I would fight only when there was no other way. The rest of the time, I would sneak.

It was the right decision. I spent the next three hours walking in silence, slipping between Ghoul patrols, waiting for Specters to pass, and occasionally using Wind Walk to leap over chasms or cross open areas quickly. Arthur’s map helped enormously. The monsters’ red dots were clearly marked, and the safe routes saved a great deal of time.

After a journey that felt far longer than three hours, the trees finally began to thin out.

Beyond the thick mist, at the end of a path almost swallowed by dry weeds, a large silhouette stood. I slowed down, peeked from behind a tree trunk, and lit a little light from the lantern stone in my hand.

A ruined church, just as Arthur had said.

The building was far larger than I had imagined. Its walls were made of grayish-white stone, now blanketed in black moss and creeping roots. Part of the left wall had already collapsed into a heap of rubble. The roof had holes in several places, exposing the night sky. At the front, two tall pillars supported an arched gate whose doors had come off their hinges and lay slanted on the ground. At the top of the roof stood a half-broken bell tower, its bronze bell hanging crooked from a rotting rope.

Strangely, there wasn’t a single monster around the church. Thick mist surrounded it, but no Specters floated, no Ghouls patrolled, and even the howls of the forest suddenly went silent. It was as if an invisible boundary kept the creatures away.

Interesting, I thought. Either this place really is safe, or there’s something even scarier inside.

Through a gap between the trees behind the church, I caught a faint silver glimmer, like light reflecting off a perfectly still water surface. Mirror Lake. It was only a few hundred meters from here, exactly as Arthur had described.

I was tempted to head straight there. But I held myself back. Rushing in unprepared was a recipe for disaster, and the riddle of the starless night was still unsolved. Besides, this church gave off a sense of safety, at least for the time being.

I stepped through the slanted gate, and the air changed.

It was cold and damp outside, but inside it felt hushed and empty. Thick dust covered the cracked marble floor. Rows of wooden benches were half rotten, some collapsed into splinters. Heavy cobwebs hung between the pillars, and the smell of old earth pricked my nose. At the far end of the room stood a large stone altar, its surface covered in a finger-thick layer of dust.

“Okay,” I muttered, rolling up my robe sleeves. “If I’m going to stay here, this place at least needs to be livable.”

Cleaning this church turned out to be far harder work than I’d imagined.

I opened my inventory and took out all the cleaning supplies I’d bought in Silvergrass Village: two palm-fiber brooms, one large rag, three wooden buckets, and a bottle of homemade cleaning solution. I’d brewed the solution from Gale-Weed extract and a little dilute sulfur solvent, then diluted it again. Gale-Weed absorbs airborne particles well, so it lifted dust and neutralized the damp smell at the same time. For an Advanced Alchemist, brewing laundry soap with an added effect felt a bit excessive, but I just don’t like doing a job halfway.

I started with the floor.

Sweep, dump the dust, pour on the solution, scrub with the rag. Repeat. Dust billowed, spiders scurried, and old hardened nests fell apart in pieces. Virtual sweat soaked my back, and my arms began to ache. With my STR at only 17.5, hauling broken benches to the corner felt like weightlifting.

One hour passed, then two, then three. I wiped the carvings on the walls, dusted the stained glass windows, most of which were already shattered, and swept small rubble into one corner.

In the fourth hour, while cleaning the stone altar, I found something.

Beneath the thick layer of dust, a carving appeared in the center of the altar’s surface. I rubbed it with the rag, and slowly its shape became clear: a crescent moon, with fine lines circling around it like ripples on water.

I stopped moving.

A crescent moon. The same as the emboss on the cover of the ancient book in the library.

My heart beat a little faster. This church was connected to Selene. Whether it was part of the lost temple or one of the remaining places of worship for her followers in the Dark Age, the connection couldn’t be a coincidence.

I checked the system window. The quest log for [Cleansing the Forgotten Temple] showed no change, no progress marker. That meant this church wasn’t the temple in question, or at least not the main target.

“But it’s still part of the puzzle,” I murmured, wiping my forehead. “There’s no other reason for this place to stand right next to the lake the manuscript mentions.”

I resumed work with a different spirit, no longer just making a place to stay, but caring for something that might truly be worth caring for.

After eight hours of game time, the church was only half clean.

I stood in the middle of the hall, leaning on the broom handle, and surveyed my work. The front and the right side were tidy: the marble floor gleamed faintly, the broken benches were cleared away, and the stone altar was spotless, the crescent carving now clearly visible. But the back, the collapsed left side, and the upper floor of the tower were still covered in dust, rubble, and cobwebs.

“This building is too big for one person to clean in one night,” I sighed. “I have to give up for today.”

I glanced at the digital clock in the corner of my vision and realized something that made me blink. My online time was almost four hours. Eight hours of game time equaled two hours in the real world, so the session had already been quite long. It was time to log out. Mira must have started worrying, and Doctor Karin had reminded me many times that my real body needed regular rest even though my condition was improving.

The problem was, logging out in a place like this wasn’t a wise decision. My avatar would remain in the game while I was offline, and this forest was full of monsters. I usually used the “Silver Moon” inn in StoneBrook as a safe log-out spot, but the trip back would take far too long.

I opened my inventory and took out a thick, cream-colored roll of cloth.

[Camp Tent (Basic) – Consumable Item]

[Effect: Creates a Temporary Safe Area (3-meter radius). Monsters cannot enter the area while the player is logged out. Duration: 12 game hours.]

I hesitated over whether to use it inside the church, but finally decided to choose the cleanest and most sheltered corner: an alcove in the wall to the right of the altar, where the roof was still intact, and the floor was already swept clean. I spread out the tent cloth, drove the stakes into the gaps in the marble floor, and activated the effect.

Ting!

[System: Temporary Safe Area created. You may log out safely.]

A faint blue circle of light appeared on the floor, surrounding the tent and the entire alcove. I placed two bottles of homemade repellent at the two corners as an extra layer of protection, just in case the tent’s effect wasn’t enough to block invisible beings like Specters.

After making sure all my gear was neatly stored in the inventory, I sat cross-legged inside the tent and gazed at the dimly lit church outside. The lantern stone’s light reflected off the marble I’d cleaned, casting soft shadows on the walls. The crescent moon on the altar glimmered faintly.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I’ll solve this starless night riddle, find that lake, and open the temple the Developers hid behind all these damned literary puzzles.

I smiled crookedly, opened the system menu, and pressed the Log Out button.

Ting!

[System: Saving data… Log out successful. See you again, Syl.]

The world faded to white, and the sounds of the forest vanished as if pulled from my consciousness.

My eyelids opened slowly.

The white ceiling of my room greeted me, along with the soft hum of the capsule beginning to open. Warm air brushed my face, and the familiar aroma of jasmine tea drifted faintly from the side.

“Welcome back, Young Master.”

The gentle voice made me turn my head. Mira stood beside the capsule with a tray in her hands, and her warm smile instantly drove the remaining fatigue from my body.

“Today was longer than usual,” she said, handing me a cup of tea. “I’d started counting the time to call Doctor Karin.”

I took the cup and sipped slowly. The warmth spread all the way to my fingertips.

“Sorry,” I said with a smile. “I was cleaning a church.”

Mira blinked, then laughed softly. “Cleaning… a church?”

“It’s a long story.”