They lit a campfire.
Gauss handled the ingredients while Alia set water to boil.
Lunch today would be a stew.
In this bitter cold, nothing soothes the spirit like a pot of steaming soup.
Gauss had wanted to add some frost-snake meat, but for Alia's sake he didn't; he simmered a simple carrot-and-lean-pork broth instead.
"Mmm—"
Cradling the hot bowl, Alia felt the last trace of chill chased from her body.
"At last we can go back and rest for a while."
She couldn't help stretching; the fatigue of days on the move washed over her. Still, it was a kind of happy ache.
Plenty of ordinary folk have hard lives and never see the rich rewards adventurers do, she mused. One should be grateful.
Thinking that, she rubbed her cheeks and pushed her fingers up her mouth to force a smile.
"What happens to all these wild monsters after we leave?" Gauss asked, curious.
"Hibernate, maybe—or migrate south where it's warmer. The stronger tribes always find a way," Alia said, setting down her bowl. "I've heard the snows around here don't usually reach deep into the Jade Forest."
"Like there's an invisible barrier at the forest's heart that holds back the cold?"
"Maybe… Then why would those ogres rather wage war on humans for winter provisions than migrate?"
"Could be the Green Dragon Queen's will?" The question hit a gap in Alia's knowledge, so she hazarded a guess.
But it wasn't without reason. Big or small, most things in the Jade Forest fall under the shadow of its true sovereign, the Green Dragon Queen.
That fully grown green dragon—strongest single creature in the forest—founded a monster kingdom, the mightiest such power in the region.
It's said that a century ago the realm raised border towns like Grayrock precisely to hold that dragon at bay.
A hundred relatively quiet years have passed; Grayrock's residents and adventurers have changed over and over, but that adult green dragon remains the town's deepest dread hanging overhead.
A century isn't so long to a dragon.
Dragons—ancient-blooded, terrifyingly powerful, long-lived, winged reptiles—are broadly divided into metallic and chromatic kinds.
In most human records, the chromatic, the Five-Colored Dragons, are painted as greedy marauders, while the metallics are given somewhat more favorable traits.
But either way, dragons wield power and gifts far beyond the mortal run, and are counted among the world's mightiest beings.
Born magical, they grow stronger simply by surviving the years.
Even those with only a touch of draconic blood—the dragon-blooded and dragonkin, like drake-kin gnolls and wyverns—show greater strength and lifespans than common races, a testament to draconic superiority.
The Jade Forest's green dragon is said to have lived nearly six hundred years.
An unimaginable age to ordinary humans.
After eating their fill and resting a bit, the two set off toward camp.
Their tracks stretched across the snow.
Ulfen, the gray wolf, seemed to sense they were "going home," capering excitedly around them and leaping in and out of the drifts.
The ravenfolk camp lay near the forest's edge, not far from the adventurers' encampment.
Before long, the outline of the temporary camp on the Jade Forest's border came into view.
But before they were close, Gauss sensed something wrong.
A strange mist shrouded the camp; an acrid stink rushed up to meet them, tightening the throat, deeply unpleasant.
"Cough—cough—"
He quickly pulled two gas masks from his pouch, handed one to Alia, and only then did breathing feel bearable.
A bad feeling rising in their chests, they hurried in—and were stunned by what they saw.
The Winter Hunt camp that had been orderly in the morning was unrecognizable now.
Ground, wagons, palisades—many places were pitted and eaten away, sunken in broad corrosive craters.
Their two little tents had melted into pools of tarry black sludge.
All across the central clearing lay people, sprawled and unconscious.
Priests and others with healing magic or methods were hard at work treating them.
More shocking still were the maimed bodies—half-dissolved by strong acid—clearly beyond any hope of saving; the dead were not few.
What happened?
Scanning the camp, Gauss spotted members of the Iron Arm squad he'd met days ago.
They must have gone out this morning too, but returned earlier than he did—maybe they knew what had happened?
Gauss and Alia headed their way.
"Captain Quake, do you know what on earth happened here?" Gauss asked directly.
Iron Arm was missing their druid—likely pulled away to help heal—but the others looked unharmed.
"Gauss, it's you two. Good thing you went out this morning…" Quake's face was grave.
"A venom wyvern hit the camp not long ago. It dropped out of the sky and unleashed its breath."
"It was so sudden many resting here had no time to react. Adventurers doused head-on by the venom—over twenty died on the spot. Many ordinary camp followers died too, and the lingering toxic fog knocked more unconscious. Thankfully, spells have dispersed it now."
"Guildmaster Eberhard is fighting the wyvern—they've already pushed into the forest."
Gauss and Alia traded a look; each saw shock and a chill of afterthought in the other's eyes.
Who would have thought that going out early spared them from disaster.
Especially Gauss—he recalled how he'd almost told Alia to stay in camp this morning. Then he thought of that puddle of melted tent fabric and felt a wave of fierce relief—and dread.
Good thing he hadn't said it. If anything had happened to her, he'd have carried the guilt a long time.
Taking in the ravaged camp—misery everywhere—Gauss felt his scalp prickle.
Serenity and catastrophe, separated by only a few hours.
"Captain Quake, has anything like this ever happened during past Winter Hunts?"
"No. Not in any I've done," Quake said, shaking his head.
Creatures of that tier don't usually leave the depths of the Jade Forest alone. That environment suits them better. If it's come out again, what does that say?
At least as far as ordinary people are concerned, it's not promising.
"From here on, for the next few years… the Jade Forest is likely to be turbulent again."