Now that they had only two danger zones to cross, Elena and Tomoe decided to speed up. The next danger zone that they would encounter was a very easy one. This danger zone only had a single super strong beast. But as this beast was a S rank one, for most people this place was more dangerous than the other places. But for Elena and Tomoe, this was one of the easiest danger zones to cross.

The danger zone in question was a rocky short mountain and the S rank beast living in it was a large ape who was able to control the power of wind. As Elena and Tomoe entered this place, they quickly encountered this Ape. It was a rare beast that did not only rely on its body to fight. But it was actually wielding a staff which was a magic item and looked to be made using a rare kind of wood.

Very soon, Tomoe and the Ape started to exchange moves. The ape itself was controlling that wind but the staff he had was able to control lightning. Elena judged that this staff was actually made by a Demigod rank powerhouse. The boost this gave was insane so it was definitely extremely powerful.

But even this boost was not enough to make the ape to breach the gap between himself and Tomoe. After her mental power reached a new height, she had managed to control her power extremely precisely. So even though in the basis of stats she had not made any significant progression but now that she was able to utilise all her stats better than before, she had definitely gotten stronger.

So after fighting for about 20 minutes, Tomoe was able to defeat the Ape without much hardship. This was a decisive victory and Tomoe was very satisfied with her growth. Currently she could try to defeat even the head of their village, which was a very big deal.

Elena told her to not kill this Ape, so she did not. Then as they walked further inside the mountain while leaving the unconscious ape behind, she was soon able to witness the main reason why Elena stopped her from killing the Ape.

It turned out that a group of beastkin actually lived inside this danger zone and the ape beast was like their guardian. The wooden staff weapon that the beast used was also something that originally belonged to this clan of beastkin. Once a very powerful enemy had attacked them and even the powerful S rank Ape beast was not its match.

At that time, in desperation, the ape had tried to wield the powerful staff and managed to successfully get acknowledged by it. After that this tribe had decided to gift their guardian this staff for protecting them. These beastkins were actually born from beastkin slaves, who were brought to the vampire continent illegally. Then during an attack on the illegal slave traders who had brought them here, they managed to run away.

But immediately afterwards the few remaining slave traders started to hunt them down and all those runways were forced to enter this dangerous place. Some of the beastkin actually had slight traces of a legendary beast called Wind God Ape's bloodline, which was also the bloodline that this Ape had. So after seeing them, instead of killing the beastkins, he decided to actually save them.

Those runways slaves were the founder of this village and all the beastkins leaving inside this danger zone called the Wind Highland were descendents of them. The ape beast still had a good relationship with them and were continuing protecting them even after many generations had passed. This was the reason why Elena stopped Tomoe from killing the Ape.

After waking up, the Ape quickly came to check the village and was relieved to see that it was not disturbed. Most high level monsters had higher degrees of intelligence but this ape was a bit different and it did not have a very developed intelligence. But still Elena and Tomoe were able to convince it that they were not dangerous and were able to stay in the village.

They did not stay here for too long though. After resting a little bit and giving a few gifts to the villagers, they decided to leave the village. As the Ape was petrolling this whole area and had taken care of all monsters that could threaten the village, the rest of the journey was very safe.

Just like that the second to last danger zone was also easily crossed.

...

As this danger zone was simple and easy, Tomoe and Elena decided to not take any break and immediately went toward the next one which was also the last. They had also rested quite well in the village so both of them were fine with this.

The last danger zone was not too far away from the fourth one but crossing it would definitely going to a take some time. That was because, this danger zone was extremely vast. The name of this place was Hoedock Swamps and it covered a large amount of area. So even if Elena and Tomoe did not encounter any obstacles, just crossing this area by foot would take them three whole days.

But encountering no obstacle here was almost impossible. Quite a few large cities were located around this swamp, so it was a shortcut for many many routes. So almost every year, thousands of merchants and adventurers had tried to cross this danger zone as it could reduce their travelling time by a lot. While a few of them had actually managed to safely cross it, most of them had disappeared and killed.

The monsters living here were powerful, ferocious and poisonous. There were various natural traps like a deep swamp that could take even a very strong person's life. And there was also a natural occurrence of extremely deadly and poisonous gas leaking in the area almost randomly without any prior signs. All these dangers had taken away thousands of lives every year even though the majority of people avoided this place.

Just as Elena and Tomoe were about to enter the Hoedock Swamps, they came across a large group of people who were also planning to do the same. Getting interested about their reason for entering this dangerous place, Elena and Tomoe talked to a few people and learnt that they were actually part of a large caravan.

This caravan named "Heiti" had managed to safely go through the swamp several times. Obviously they had faced many troubles inside it but after many many tries, they had managed to discover a few routes which were very safe. Not only that but this caravan also recruited many powerful mercenaries and adventurers to take care of monsters which might attack them. This way they had managed to safely cross the dangerous swamp many many times before.

Elena and Tomoe were asked to join the caravan but they rejected their offer. Even though both of them were impressed by them, this caravan would take almost two weeks to cross the swamp. That was a lot of time and they did not need to travel this slowly.

So bidding goodbye to the caravan both of them entered the swamp by themselves.

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