Chapter 642 Azure Pine, Warm Currents, and Bizarre Details

The arrival of the adventurers allowed the villagers of Ice Tree Village to enjoy a lively evening, something they had not experienced in a long time.

Perhaps due to repeated warnings from his temporary captain, Uriah, or perhaps influenced by Xia Nan's warning glance, the usually reckless and thick-headed half-orc, Gank, caused no further trouble. After the banquet ended, fully fed and well-drunk, he went straight to the room arranged for him by the village chief to sleep.

By the time Xia Nan finished his night patrol and returned to the wooden cabin, the fool's snores were already thunderously loud, his mouth mumbling meaningless sleep-talk in a tribal dialect.

It was no professional adventurer's inn, just an ordinary village cabin with absolutely zero soundproofing to speak of.

Furthermore, Xia Nan's own hearing had long been enhanced alongside his overall physical attributes. Even when Gank merely turned over in bed, sleeping right next door with only a thin wooden wall between them, Xia Nan could hear it with crystal clarity.

Fortunately, with his current level of bodily control, if he truly wanted to sleep, he could fall asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow, completely undisturbed by outside noise.

Five hours of sleep, from the dead of night to the early hours of the morning.

Before the sky had even lightened, his energy fully restored, Xia Nan climbed out of bed with extreme self-discipline.

He washed up briskly, put on his equipment, and took Fanny out for morning training.

When he finished his daily morning routine and returned from the woods, the sky was just barely beginning to brighten.

On the road, he could faintly see a few villagers who had just woken up heading out to work.

A thought suddenly stirred in his mind.

He specifically told Winter Wolf Fanny to wait for him a short distance away so she would not frighten the locals.

Only then did he approach a woman carrying a bamboo basket who looked as though she was about to head out foraging.

Stepping forward, he greeted her politely. "Hello. My name is Xia Nan. I'm an adventurer who arrived in Ice Tree Village yesterday."

Even though he tried his best to appear polite and approachable, the adventurer status represented by his gear still made the peasant woman before him look extremely uneasy.

She subconsciously took two steps back.

Only then did she reply nervously, bearing a heavy sense of trepidation, "H-hello..."

Seeing her react this way, Xia Nan stood in place and pondered for a moment.

He then took a snow-fluff rabbit he was holding by the ears—an accidental catch during his training that he had planned to bring back for breakfast—and stuffed it directly into the woman's bamboo basket as a greeting gift to express his goodwill.

Clearly not expecting this black-haired adventurer, who looked inexplicably terrifying, to do such a thing, the peasant woman froze noticeably for a second. Then, a slightly stiff but genuinely grateful smile appeared on her face, and her physical and mental tension eased a bit.

Acutely sensing the change in her attitude, Xia Nan asked, "I heard from the village chief that an Adventurer Squad came to the village half a month ago. Is that right?"

The peasant woman nodded.

"How were they? Hosting them couldn't have been easy, right?" he asked.

As far as Xia Nan was concerned, there was nothing special about the topic he brought up.

In his plan to communicate, it was just small talk meant to build rapport.

Hoping to lower her guard further, he had not even touched upon anything related to the squad's unique traits or the banshee yet. But strangely, after he mentioned the Adventurer Squad that passed through Ice Tree Village half a month ago...

The peasant woman in front of him, who had just relaxed a little, suddenly tensed up visibly.

Her eyes darted around, her fingers subconsciously clamping down on the handle of her bamboo basket.

She wore an extremely uneasy expression, as if deliberately trying to hide something.

"I-I don't know..."

No matter how much Xia Nan probed, she merely repeated those words like a robot.

It was impossible to communicate with her.

It was not until Xia Nan stepped aside that she hurried off into the woods, vanishing as if fleeing for her life.

Strange.

Too strange.

Xia Nan frowned slightly.

He had clearly shown enough goodwill, and his brief interaction with her at the start proved that this peasant woman possessed a clear ability to express herself and a willingness to communicate.

Yet the moment he asked that question, the connection they had established completely froze in an instant, making it impossible to take a step further.

What exactly was the reason?

Was it because of that Adventurer Squad that was nearly wiped out, or the banshee that attacked them?

Xia Nan's confusion lasted the entire morning.

As if by some tacit consensus, the villagers of Ice Tree Village kept their lips tightly sealed regarding the incident from half a month ago. Even the most talkative among them turned silent the moment he brought up the topic.

Fortunately, around noon...

The hunter who had been in close contact with both the annihilated Adventurer Squad and the banshee that attacked them—the man who had served as their guide at the time—finally returned to Ice Tree Village.

The hunter's exact name was unknown; the villagers only called him "Old Sonny."

The wooden cabin he lived in was located on the eastern edge of the village.

It was not noticeably different from the other houses in the village. Thick, solid logs served as the load-bearing pillars and walls, and the roof was covered with a layer of frost-white thatch.

Knock, knock, knock!

As the temporary captain of the Sulfur Dragon Breath squad, Uriah walked at the very front of the group and knocked heavily on the door.

"Coming! Coming!"

He did not keep the group waiting long. Accompanied by a flurry of hurried footsteps, the crude, heavy wooden door was quickly pulled open from the inside.

Appearing before Xia Nan and the others was a middle-aged man with a weathered face.

He wore patched, coarse brown clothes. Among ordinary people, his height would be considered above average. He had a large frame, but his normally sturdy build now looked somewhat sickly and emaciated.

Noticeable strands of silver were mixed into his dark brown hair. He had a long, thin face with sunken cheeks, making him look as though he were just recovering from a severe illness, though one could still make out his sharp and well-defined features.

What drew the most attention, however, was the bizarre scar on the man's face, stretching from his left eyebrow to his temple and almost reaching the root of his ear. It looked like a mark left behind after a sharp object had lightly grazed him, slicing through flesh before healing.

Strangely, the color of the scar was an extremely rare, lifeless grayish-white—like a dead branch burned to ash deep within a fire pit.

Buzz.

The instant Xia Nan's gaze locked onto the scar on the man's face, a faint warm current that only he could feel seeped from the wooden sword Azure Pine on his back.

He could not be any clearer on the special effects of this rare-grade blue blade. How could Xia Nan not know the reason behind this sudden rush of heat? 'An undead creature?'

Clearly, someone had already given him a heads-up when he first returned to the village.

Although the hunter, Old Sonny, showed the same awe and trepidation as the other villagers toward the adventurers at his door, he did not seem very surprised. He simply bowed respectfully, stepped aside, and invited them inside. "My lords, please come in."

Feeling the faint warmth coming from his back, Xia Nan's expression remained unchanged as he temporarily suppressed his thoughts.

Following his teammates into the room, his gaze swept carefully over his surroundings.

The furnishings were simple. At a glance: a fireplace, a coat rack, a dining table... the crude furniture completely stuffed the already small room. Suddenly, as if sensing something, Xia Nan turned his head and shot a look toward the inner room.

The heavy door curtain had been pulled back just a sliver, revealing a face with delicate features.

Clearly having been specifically instructed by her father, Sarah did not come out, obediently staying inside the room.

Seeing Xia Nan look her way, she did not speak, but simply curled the corners of her lips and blinked at him.

Then, she completely dropped the curtain.

The encounter at the banquet did not seem to have affected the young girl at all; her bright and generous demeanor was exactly the same as last night. Wait!

Exactly the same...

As if picking up on an anomaly, thoughts churned in Xia Nan's mind.

That brief glance just now... Sarah seemed to still be wearing the ear-covering felt hat she had worn when she met him last night. Under normal circumstances, in a freezing environment like Ice Tree Village, wearing a felt hat for warmth was completely reasonable.

But right now, she was indoors in a room warmed by a lit fireplace. There was no reason to keep such a heavy, thick hat—one that completely covered both ears—pulled tightly over her head.

Suddenly, realization dawned on him.

A silent epiphany struck Xia Nan's heart.

The felt hat covering her ears; the delicate features that shared similarities with her father yet were distinctly more refined; the skin that was much fairer than the other villagers'; her tall and superior bodily proportions...

An idea—purely a guess, yet inexplicably credible—surfaced in his mind.

"I've already heard from the village chief why you lords are here."

"Please ask whatever you wish. As long as I know, I absolutely will not hide it," Sarah's father, the hunter Old Sonny, hurriedly said in a loud voice, his expression a bit nervous as he likely noticed Xia Nan's gaze directed toward the inner room.

Unaware of the hunter's thoughts, and even feeling quite satisfied by the middle-aged man's initiative, the half-orc Gank arrogantly lifted his chin and asked bluntly, "So you were the one who guided them that day?"

"Yes, my lord." Catching Xia Nan's gaze shifting toward him out of the corner of his eye, Old Sonny breathed a subtle sigh of relief.

Then, he began to recount his experience from half a month ago to the group.

"I remember there were a total of six adventurer lords just like yourselves. It seemed they had just finished some quest and were planning to return to Bloodcast Keep. But from what those lords said, they had lost a bundle containing some of their supplies and their map during a previous battle, so they needed a guide familiar with the nearby terrain to lead the way."

Rime Forest covered a considerable area. Inside, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but thick layers of snow and rime-covered trees coated in ice crystals. There were almost no landmarks that could be used to determine one's position.

Even for veteran adventurers who had already attained a Class Level, if their professional abilities did not provide relevant bonuses and they had lost their map's guidance, it was incredibly easy to get lost within it.

"It was fine for the first leg of the journey right after we set out; we didn't run into any trouble."

"But later on, the fog in the woods grew thicker and thicker."

"I initially suggested we rest in place for a bit and wait for the fog to clear before moving on, but one of the lords in the party seemed anxious to get back, so we had no choice but to continue pushing forward through the fog."

Just as impatient as the anxious adventurer in Old Sonny's story, the half-orc Gank grew annoyed after listening for so long without getting to the main point. "And then what? You guys ran into that banshee?" he interrupted.

"I-I don't know," Old Sonny replied, his reaction identical to the villagers Xia Nan had questioned this morning, though his face showed no obvious signs of trying to hide anything.

Instead, as if speaking from the bottom of his heart and gripped by lingering trauma, he said fearfully, "The fog in the woods was too thick at the time. I couldn't see a thing."

"I only heard the lords in the party shouting things like 'Enemy attack!' and 'Prepare for battle!' and then came wave after wave of bloodcurdling screams."

"I hid behind a nearby tree trunk and didn't dare move a muscle. It was only when the area went completely dead silent that I bolted and ran toward the village."

As if noticing the hidden gaps in Old Sonny's story, Uriah suddenly raised a finger and pointed at the very conspicuous grayish-white scar on the man's cheek. "And this? Where did this come from?" he asked.

"I was just getting to that, my lord," Old Sonny said, slightly tilting his head to present the scar stretching from his eyebrow to his ear root to the group.

"During the battle, I was huddled behind the tree. I didn't even dare to raise my head and look in the direction the noise was coming from."

"Later, when I fled, I just kept my head down and charged in one direction to get out. So as for what exactly attacked those lords, I really don't know."

"This wound must have been left behind while I was escaping."

"It felt like an exceptionally freezing wind brushed past my ear. I didn't have much of a reaction at the time, but when I got home, I realized that half my body had completely lost all sensation."

"Fortunately, I might have just been grazed in passing, so the injury wasn't overly serious. I took some medicinal herbs from the woods and lay in bed for a week, and then I was able to get up and walk again."

No wonder the wooden sword Azure Pine released a warm current. It seemed the scar on Old Sonny's face truly was left by the banshee.

Xia Nan mused.

His facial expression remained unchanged, but he vaguely felt something subtle in his heart.

Just now, he had not participated in the exchange between the hunter and his teammates. Instead, he had amplified his Perception, carefully observing the facial details of Old Sonny as he spoke. However, the results he obtained were not entirely clear.

What he could be sure of was that the man had not fabricated any lies.

On the other hand, that did not mean what he said was the whole truth of the matter.

He might have omitted things, or perhaps twisted certain details.

'Tsk, tsk...'

Combining this with the behavior of the Ice Tree Village residents over the past two days, a glimmer of thought flashed through Xia Nan's eyes.

As his pitch-black eyes shifted, he first cast a glance toward the inner room where Sarah had just shown her face.

Then, he turned his head and looked at the hunter, Old Sonny, standing in front of them.

More precisely, he looked at the patched, coarse cotton coat the man was currently wearing.

He had already noticed something when he amplified his Perception to observe carefully earlier. It looked like an ordinary old garment that had been worn for a long time, but the fine stitches were incredibly precise. Every thin thread was tightly woven, with no visible knots or breaks to be found. It did not look at all like the craftsmanship an ordinary peasant woman in this remote village could possess.

Suddenly, he opened his mouth and asked, "That's a nice coat you're wearing. Who wove it for you?"

Old Sonny's expression suddenly froze.