Unfortunately for the trio, and annoyingly for me, there would be a few obstacles that the single thread of fate would force them to face. If I paved a path for them with my abilities, then the map would no longer lead them to the correct destination.

In fact, the destination itself would shift, moving far beyond what I considered safe to browse through.

This, I was sure of.

So, I had no choice but to continue traveling with them. I watched as they navigated traps I could have disabled beforehand, fought monsters I could have snuck past in the blink of an eye, or crossed obstacles I could have flown over.

It was, in a way, amusing.

...And mildly endearing.

***

"Kuvie!" Clementine yelled as she rushed to the edge of a cliff, barely catching her friend’s hand as Kuvie grabbed an unconscious Reazue before the Werebat plummeted to his death.

A huge, bloody gash had torn open Reazue’s wing, and a faint poison was spreading through his bloodstream.

"Hnggg!"

Pulling the weight of two adults, Clementine’s muscles worked overtime to give her the strength to hurl them back onto solid ground and away from the maws of a magic ravine.

—Thud.

Suddenly, the gravity around the three of them returned to normal.

Kuvie sighed in relief.

"That was close..."

Clementine could only nod, feeling fatigue weigh on her shoulders.

After a few minutes of silence, the Snakespawn finally had enough strength to speak with a steady breath.

"Reazue has been paralyzed..." Clementine tasted a drop of the Werebat’s blood and began analyzing the poison that plagued him.

Then, with scrunched brows, she altered the toxins in her fangs before sinking them deep into Reazue’s neck.

"!!!"

The Werebat’s body jolted as a dose of venom and anti-venom poured into him. The venom from Clementine’s right fang ate through the paralyzing poison. Then, the corresponding anti-venom ate through her earlier venom, as well.

In the end, after excruciating pain that Reazue would have felt had he been awake... the Werebat’s body settled down, no longer a few steps away from cardiac arrest.

"Hah..."

Clementine and Kuvie heaved a breath of relief. The Satyress caressed the Werebeast’s face, still reeling from that near-death experience.

They were all inches away from never seeing the light of day ever again.

***

Sitting beside the unconscious Reazue, my mouth watered at the smell of stew.

The Snakespawn, Clementine, was as good at cooking as she was at medicinal alchemy—every ingredient she put in was measured to the gram.

Mana swirled around the pot, dicing vegetables and cutting meat into sizeable chunks.

Damn...

The stew was enough to tempt me to lift my invisibility and join them. Why did food have to smell so good?

Why was an apothecary’s cooking so enticing?

I wanted a bite so bad... but alas...

My Gift told me that appearing in front of them would already alter their <Fate>. The reason for that was a little beyond my mana reserves at the moment, so I was waiting for my mana to regenerate.

However, that did not mean that I could not deduce a possibility.

’These guys are pawns too.’

That map they carried? It was probably a seed someone planted long ago, awaiting the right people to use it.

Therefore, there was a high chance that I would directly appear on their radar. At that point, the plan I was still trying to figure out would instantly lose its foundation.

It would become nigh-impossible to flip the table at that point.

Especially if alerting those big names would instantly expose my identity to the <Primordial Dragon Empress>.

All I could do now was munch on my own dried rations, still deeply hidden in invisibility.

Crunch.

I dampened the surrounding sounds with the Werebat’s shadow, using the shade to muffle the noise of my consumption.

Clementine and Kuvie were chatting about their plans after this trip, giggling lightly at each other’s dreams.

Apparently, Kuvie wanted to open a flower shop, selling magical flowers that instilled a sense of calm into anyone in their vicinity. It was a plant that her parents had studied, passing down a few seeds they had successfully made through many experiments.

All Kuvie needed now was the correct mix of fertilizing water, with just the right acidity and trace minerals—something that Clementine would help her with once the Snakespawn revived her family’s apothecary laboratory.

And to do that... Clementine needed enough artifacts to help her cook up her family’s recipes. Normal alchemical tools were incapable of handling the methods that her clan would pass down.

"I guess that’s why they failed, in the end."

The fact that only expensive tools and enchantments could handle their techniques meant that their methods were not optimized.

Unfortunately, their complex techniques had long become a part of their bloodline’s identity, and eventually the Vielour Family’s pride.

Thus came their downfall after being unable to keep up with their family’s rapidly climbing fame.

"More treasure for me, I guess!"

Having already looked into the location of the Vielour Family’s legacy, I couldn’t help but grow excited.

After all!

There was a <Trait> hidden in the deepest portion of their legacy, accessible only to an heir who could revive their bloodline’s glory.

And, aside from that <Trait>, there were many rooms of preserved raw materials, several high-grade alchemical artifacts, as well as a few exotic resources.

I also checked:

"The map that Clementine had is definitely not enough to unlock all the rooms..."

However, I was fairly confident of being able to loot the entire place as long as the initial lock was undone the correct way.

Once Clementine and her friends successfully unlocked the legacy, it would anchor itself, and no disturbance would get it to move.

I chuckled.

"Even if I forcefully break into every room, nothing will change."

But I didn’t need to do that.

After all, with my Gift as well as the <Archmagus> Daimyuon’s knowledge stuck in my head, unravelling the enchantments would be a piece of cake.

Not to mention, I also had the <Wyrm With No Name> slumbering within the <Sword of Light>.

That irascible guy probably had a few tricks up his sleeve.

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