Hidden Reprieve, Egress Haven.

The small town in the middle of a lush forest was thriving. Yet, the atmosphere was heavy and somber, as though the inhabitants were not only depressed but also in despair.

Why wouldn't they be?

The Damnedling Army had now grown to over three hundred and fifty members, and Caleb wouldn't be able to increase their numbers no matter how badly he wanted to.

The remaining graves where Visitors were buried were dangerously close to the Gravewarden and his elite deputies. It was simply impossible to dig them up without losing more than what they would gain.

Thus, Egress was stuck.

The cemetery raid operations had ceased around a week and a half ago, and while the Damnedlings had found a page of the book of The Five by using their free time to scour this entire side of the Underworld River, they now had nothing else to do but wait.

The problem was that there was a high chance they were waiting for nothing.

After all, from what they confirmed from the supply sentries of that day, Daru had only taken enough sustenance for two and a half weeks at most, mainly due to the harvest limitations and the growing population of Egress Haven.

Around a month and a half — at a forgiving estimate — had already passed since he had left.

There was very little chance that he was still alive.

They tried contacting Daru through the white ribbon, but the connection broke the moment he crossed the river.

So, Caleb, Lesha, and the other S-ranker, Gris, whom they managed to dig up at the cost of more than a dozen members near the heart of the cemetery, could only stay at the meeting shack and brainstorm about what to do next together with the party leaders.

Only, it has been five days since they last thought of something meaningful to do.

It was strangely Gris who was the most desperate to leave Limbo, and in all his unwillingness to stay, his suggestions were just as desperate as he was…and dangerous.

Something like challenging La Filosa and Rocante.

His reason was that with their numbers, they could defeat the horrors. Granted, they would be sacrificing a significant portion of their members.

However, Gris the Serpentkin was clearly not thinking straight, and he wasn't very smart, either.

The reason why Caleb and Lesha were hesitant to do dangerous things was that lost troops could not be replenished anymore.

They've run out of graves to dig.

Even if they were able to slay La Filosa and Rocante, managing to obtain their relics, how would they kill the other three next?

After all, by then, they would be lucky if at least half of them remained.

But how would they even reach the other side of the river, in the first place? This was the reason why despair was slowly settling in.

They…needed not just a Visitor, but a strong one that would succeed where even an anomaly of an S-ranker failed at.

The safest bet would be an SSS-ranker.

But where the hell would they get an SSS-ranker? Not to mention, Limbo was quite vast, so even if someday, an SSS-ranker arrived, how could they be sure that the said once-in-a-decade Visitor would survive the unforgiving realm before they were armed with enough knowledge to survive.

Just a casual misencounter with one of The Five would be a death sentence.

The problem lies with what Nando had admitted around two weeks prior, giving away a bit of knowledge he was withholding due to how sincere Ascalon had been asking back then.

That the old man had not encountered a Visitor that surpassed the levels of The Five.

Perhaps it was designed so by the Divine or the Profane, but that was the case, which meant that the older the bladeborn Visitor was, the less talented they would be.

Nando, for one, was a mere E-ranker, and he had apparently never touched the sword since he was in his mid-thirties.

It was quite a mystery how the ancient fart ended up in this god-forsaken realm, but the old man wouldn't share his story no matter how hard they tried to force it out of him.

Even Lesha's cunning, or Aesyn's shy charm, didn't work.

Nando had been and was still frugal with his knowledge, and everyone had long known and accepted that he would share only what he wanted to.

*BANG!*

Caleb slammed the table, finally unable to bear the heavy atmosphere.

Although Nando was technically the core of Egress, he was the leader of the army, and it was rather torturous to be forced to do nothing by their circumstance, far more so than grasping at the thinnest of threads of hope.

This was the perfect moment to say something like: "No, this won't do! There must be something we can do!"

Unfortunately, he had already said that multiple times, and quite frankly, they further lost meaning the more he said them.

Caleb could only grit his teeth, allowing despair to further settle in.

They've already waited for a long time, and they had already resolved themselves to wait for a longer time, taking into account the possibility that Daru would fail.

What they underestimated, though, was the upkeep of the Damnedling Army.

There was no going back once they've saved someone.

Egress would have to feed them, and while the number of field hands also grew, the yields…were failing to keep up.

This wasn't a problem in the past.

In fact, even now, this wasn't too much of a problem, as, even though their reserves were being slowly whittled down, it would last them for at least another year before a wretch was forced to go hungry and thirsty.

But this was where the core of their anxiety-inducing situation lay.

How could they guarantee that within that time frame, someone stronger than even Daru would stumble upon the god-forsaken realm, meet them, and save them all from their gray fate?

If forced to give an estimate in percentage, Caleb would immediately say that there was less than one percent chance of such a thing happening — mere wishful thinking; a darned pipe dream.

To make things worse, they could only wait, as doing other things could only prove unfruitful, further hurting their less than one percent chance of leaving Limbo without being forced to take dark, drastic actions to manage the town's population.

'Damn it…damn it!!'

Nando was also inside the meeting shack, and the old man — now with a head of surprisingly lush white hair — was silent.

He was responsible for accumulated knowledge of the realm, but he was helpless when it came to combat.

The ball was in the hands of the young'uns.

Every passing second worsened the atmosphere and everyone's morale. Gris' desperate suggestions weren't helping, either.

It was then that the door of the meeting shack creaked open.

Everyone inside instinctively turned to look, their faces reflecting their moods and the grimness of their future…until they realized who it was who entered.

"What? Is there…something on my face?"

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