The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 261 A Quiet Night in the Forest
With a little force, he tore off a whole chicken leg. The aroma of meat and spices wafted out from the cut, becoming even more intense. Eric wasn't very hungry at first, but the heat made him feel a little hungry.

Eric sprinkled some rock salt particles on it and handed the chicken leg to Natalia.

"Eat it while it's hot."

Natalia took it, glanced at him quickly, and then thanked him.

“His Highness baked this himself, so of course he can be the first to eat it. How does it taste?” Eric asked.

Natalia took a bite of the chicken leg, chewed a few times, and ran her tongue across her lips. "Not bad... I mean, it meets my expectations of myself."

Eric smiled, tore off another chicken leg, handed it to Kasha, and started eating it himself.

Because of his inexperience, some parts of the pheasant were a little dry when roasted, but overall the taste was still very good. Eric didn't think he would have improved it much if he had roasted it himself.

It was completely dark by then.

As night fell, the sound of the wind in the woods became more pronounced, like the crashing of waves.

As Natalia ate, she would occasionally stop to listen for a while. "Listening to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, I always felt like I was still at sea."

“That’s how it is in late autumn,” Eric said, spitting out a small bone. “We might wake up tomorrow morning to find ourselves buried under fallen leaves.”

Natalia glanced at him, then at Kasha, who was starting to tackle another roasted pheasant. "Are we really going to spend the night here?"

She remembered asking that question several times that afternoon.

Eric also remembered that the answer was the same: "If Your Highness wishes to return to the city, we can go back after we finish eating."

“I’m just wondering if it’s necessary,” Natalia said.

Kasha tore off a chicken leg and handed it to Eric, while giving the other to Natalia, but she didn't participate in their conversation.

“If Your Highness needs a reason…” Eric thought for a moment, “I prefer this feeling of being briefly removed from serious business.”

Natalia nodded, said nothing more, and took a bite of the chicken leg in her hand.

"This pheasant tastes really good, it's a pity there's no wine here."

"I heard that Miss Kasha used to brew her own wine when she was a forest ranger?"

"right."

Eric initially thought the three of them might not be able to finish the two whole, plump pheasants, but they eventually ate them all.

A pile of leftover bones from snacks lay on the ground. To avoid attracting wild animals, Kasha wrapped them in leaves and threw them some distance away.

“I just saw some wild fruit, would you like some?” Kasha asked again.

Eric was surprised. "It's this time of year, and there are still wild fruits?"

“There aren’t many left, but we can still find them,” Miss Druid said.

"Let's get some for dessert then." Eric broke off a branch and threw it into the fire. "But there's no rush now, let's rest first."

Kasha said no, and vanished into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

Natalia looked in the direction she had left for a while, but in reality, she had long since lost track of her.

“Don’t worry,” Eric said.

She responded, and after a while, she got up and walked to the horses, taking out the overnight mat from her bag.

"Are there still snakes and insects in the wild at this time of year?" Natalia asked.

Eric shook his head. "There's practically none left. But if Your Highness is worried, there should be some remaining alchemical potions in my horse's satchel."

As he spoke, he got up and went over to rummage through his bag.

The three of them traveled over mountains and seas, while the horses were always taken care of by the church knights, and no one dared to touch their belongings. After searching, they found that quite a few were still left.

Eric scatters one of the packets of slightly pungent powder around the perimeter, claps his hands, and the powder flies around. He turns around to see Natalia holding a water bag and looking at him.

"Go wash it."

"it is good."

As Eric sat back down by the campfire and flicked the water droplets from his hands into the fire, Kasha, who had transformed into a reindeer, returned to the same spot, carrying a bundle of leaves in her mouth.

She placed the clump of leaves next to Eric, who picked it up and weighed it in his hand, finding it quite heavy.

"How many did you pick?"

Kasha returned to human form and sat down as well. "There weren't many. I picked out the ones that tasted the best."

Eric opened the leaf, revealing wild berries inside that looked like small tomatoes, bright red in color, with equally smooth skin.

"What is the taste?"

“It’s sweet,” Kasha smiled at him. “It’s a little sour.”

That's just a cherry tomato...

Eric picked one up, looked at it, and put it in his mouth.

As it turns out, this wild fruit looks like a cherry tomato, but tastes more like a jujube. It doesn't burst with juice when you bite into it, but rather it's quite crisp.

"That's really surprising..."

"Hmm?" Kasha tilted her head.

"But the taste is not bad."

Eric grabbed a few and gave them to Natalia, but they each only tasted one—they were still quite full.

Kasha seemed to smell something, got up and circled around, her footsteps landing on the spot where Eric had just sprinkled the alchemical powder to repel snakes.

“There aren’t many insects left by now,” she said after returning. “The snakes will soon be hibernating too.”

“I’m afraid of snakes,” Eric said to her, and the two smiled at each other.

Natalia glanced at them, then looked at the campfire in front of her when Eric looked over.

"How long can this wood burn?"

“It should be fine to leave it overnight.” Eric gestured toward the fallen tree trunk on the ground beside him. “We can cut a few pieces and throw them in the fire; it’ll burn all night. It won’t freeze.”

Natalia nodded.

The mats were laid out beside the campfire, and the three of them sat and chatted for a while before lying down and gazing at the clear night sky of late autumn.

The howling forests bring a different kind of tranquility, like floating on the sea.

Lying on the flat, solid ground, as his attention gradually wandered, Eric also had the illusion that he was rising and falling with the waves.

“I’m thinking about how to bring it up with Sterling when I go back to town tomorrow,” Natalia suddenly said.

Eric's wandering consciousness suddenly returned, and he looked at the starry sky before him. It was still the same starry sky.

“I’m thinking about it too. But I think it’s better to wait until tomorrow morning when I’m more awake before thinking about it.”

Natalia turned her head in the direction the voice came from, but could only see flickering flames. "Is that so?"

Eric took a deep breath. “I think Your Highness should relax occasionally. This is not about being lazy or slacking off, but about being able to focus your energy on the truly important moments.”

Natalia insisted on looking at him, so she sat up and moved forward a bit, only to find that he was also looking in her direction.

"I just feel it's too early to go to bed now, and there's nothing else to do, so it's hard not to think about tomorrow's plans."

Eric looked at her for a moment and said, "It seems that Your Highness has more stamina than I thought; this mountain is no challenge for Your Highness."

“That’s nothing,” Natalia said with a smile, sitting cross-legged. “I crossed the Qifeng Mountains all by myself.”

Eric got up too, saying, "And what about my horse?"

Kasha had recognized the Riel horse that Natalia had ridden, and thus he learned that the horse she had ridden back from the North was his own horse that had been stolen by the demon princess.

Aside from lamenting that a loss might actually be a blessing in disguise, he didn't know what else to say.

“I dismounted and walked through many of the treacherous sections myself,” Natalia said.

Listening to their conversation, Kasha rolled over, lay face down on the mat, propped her chin up, and looked back and forth between them.

“Then Your Highness, please tell us more about what happened back then,” Eric said, getting up to pick up a few more branches, breaking them off and throwing them into the fire. “You can’t sleep anyway.”

Natalia responded, but after thinking for a moment, she shook her head and said, "If I really want to say something, I don't know what to say. During that time, I was just constantly traveling and getting lost. Getting lost was an accident, and being able to get out of that mountain range... was also an accident."

“I’m just glad Your Highness actually made it out. How did you manage to find food along the way?” Eric asked.

Natalia said, "When I decided to cross the mountains to reach Guradia, I was well prepared and brought a lot of dry food with me. Although it turned out that I brought too little, eating one meal and going hungry for another still allowed me to cross the Qifeng Mountains alive."

Eric thought for a moment, "When Your Highness crossed the mountains, did you encounter any tribes of the ancient peoples of the highlands?"

"Highland ancestors?"

Natalia paused, then shook her head. "I've seen some tribal ruins, but there's no sign of anyone living there anymore." "Your Highness is not so lucky. As far as I know, there are still at least two or three tribes of the Highland Ancestral People living in the Qifeng Mountains," Eric said.

Natalia looked at him: "Does Your Highness think that the ancestors of those tribes who were unwilling to come down from the highlands will help me?"

"Yes, they just don't want to leave there, it doesn't mean they've cut off communication with the mainland."

Eric spoke with certainty because he had indeed met the Highlanders from "The Crown of Thorns" and had done their quests.

“Moreover, Your Highness and I are both descendants of the early inhabitants of the Highlands,” he added.

Natalia hugged her knees and smiled.

“Thousands of years ago, Your Highness’s ancestors and I might have been neighbors, and even hunted together on that wild land,” Eric added.

Natalia stared at the fire for a while, then looked up and asked, "Your Highness mentioned those highland ancestors. Do you think we can win them over to join the fight against the demons?"

“I just thought of it.” Eric shook his head. “They are too few in number. Rather than letting them come down from the mountain, we should provide assistance and send our people up there to prevent the demons from completely taking over the area.”

Natalia responded, then thought for a while, but said nothing more.

The night is getting darker.

Natalia and Kasha lay down again, while Eric got up and chopped two thick pieces of wood to put into the fire. Once the fire was burning, he lay down again.

When he yawned and snapped out of his gazing at the starry sky, he realized that the other two people by the fire had stopped moving.

He closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep amidst the slight chill and the warmth pulsating around him.

After an unknown amount of time, Eric heard a rustling sound coming from the side.

He opened his eyes, and Kasha dragged her cushion to lie down beside him.

He stretched out a hand, and after she placed it on his, he closed his eyes again and fell into a peaceful sleep.

The night slowly passed.

Natalia woke up the next morning feeling cold.

She curled up in a ball, the cold still seeping in. She opened her eyes; the fire in front of her had long since died down, though a wisp of white smoke still rose, but she could no longer feel any warmth.

Natalia sat up, her gaze quickly falling on the two people sleeping in each other's arms on the other side of the embers.

"..."

They were probably quite cold, so they held each other tightly. Kasha nestled against Eric's chest, almost burying her entire body in him.

Natalia rolled her eyes upwards.

Before dawn, she got up, picked up some leaves and twigs, and threw them into the embers of the fire, but they didn't ignite. The wisp of smoke that had been rising from the fire completely died out.

"..."

After staring at it for a while, she took out a spell scroll she was carrying and her gaze fell on the flame-shaped mark in the corner.

"—That's a scroll of advanced Flame Cloud Technique. It can burn this mountain to the ground. Using it for heating is too extravagant."

"……I know."

On the other side of the embers, Eric, who had just woken up, raised a hand and placed it on the pile of leaves and branches. He muttered a few words, and a ball of holy flame suddenly ignited.

The leaves are flammable and quickly catch fire, producing a bright flame.

Natalia put away the scroll, hugged her knees, and looked at the fire.

Eric got up and rubbed his arms. "It's so cold... such a big piece of wood, I thought it would burn until morning."

Natalia glanced at him, then her gaze fell on Kasha, who was still lying there.

"Can we go back now, Your Highness?"

“Let’s go back,” Eric said. “Wait until this fire burns out.”

Natalia said nothing, got up and went to the horses, took a few dry biscuits, then found a clean twig, picked them up, and roasted them over the fire.

Eric then threw the wild fruit that Kasha had found the day before into the fire, poked it a few times with a branch, and buried it with the hot ashes.

Natalia watched the whole thing, and only asked after he finished, "Is it okay to eat it like this?"

"I don't know, let's give it a try." Eric flicked his wrist, and the branch in his hand picked a dry biscuit from her branch, flipped it over, and continued to roast it over the fire.

As the sun rises, the woods gradually become brighter.

After a while, Kasha also woke up, but after getting up, she buried her head in Eric's arms and kept her eyes closed.

Natalia looked at Eric, who was looking at the dry biscuits hanging on the branches.

"It's ready to eat."

The hard, dry biscuits became much softer after baking. They were still a bit hot to the touch when they were first taken off the oven. Eric blew on them a few times, but still felt like he couldn't hold them properly, so he squeezed them back and forth between his two hands.

He suddenly remembered something, took out the two pieces of rock salt from Kasha's pocket, tapped them a few times, and used a dry biscuit to catch the tiny salt crystals that fell.

Feeling that it was about time, he folded the biscuit and handed it to Natalia.

She looked at him, took the biscuit, and handed him the other two that were hanging from the branch.

Another flurry of rapid movements with both hands, each hot to the touch.

Kasha, who was leaning against him, became sober and then helped him hold the dry biscuits while he sprinkled salt.

The outside wasn't so hot anymore, but when you took a bite, the heat still filled your mouth, accompanied by a slight saltiness that melted into your saliva. Natalia chewed the biscuit, raised her eyes, and looked at the sky above the forest that was gradually turning a bright blue.

"The greatest significance of spending the night in the woods is probably that it made me realize that even dry biscuits can be delicious."

Eric smiled but didn't say anything.

After finishing the dry biscuit, he dug out the wild fruit buried in the hot ashes; the outermost peel was already somewhat charred.

He washed it with water, took a bite, raised an eyebrow, and said, "It tastes even better now."

Natalia and Kasha also tried it and had the same feeling.

After eating the wild fruit, it was time to return to the city.

Natalia led the horse around, and Eric and Kasha extinguished the fire completely before mounting their horses and preparing to descend the mountain.

Perhaps because she was thinking about something, the return trip took much shorter than Natalia had expected. She felt as if she had just drifted off into a daze, and when she looked up again, she was already in the governor's mansion of White Horse City.

Governor Sterling was in the carriage at that moment, seemingly about to head out.

"Your Highnesses are back." He didn't ask them what they had gained from their trip out of the city to climb the mountain.

“Governor Sterling, are you heading out?” Eric asked.

Sterling nodded. "There's something I need to take care of."

“Then you go ahead with your work.” Eric bowed slightly. “When you return, Princess Natalia and I have something to discuss with you.”

Sterling glanced at him and Natalia and said hello.

The governor's carriage quickly left the governor's mansion. Natalia looked at Eric and asked, "Has Your Highness already decided how to talk to Sterling?"

“I have a general idea,” Eric replied. “Let’s talk about it before he gets back.”

"it is good."

Back in their room, on the terrace, Eric discussed their story with Natalia, who made a slight adjustment to one detail, and the two quickly reached an agreement.

“Sterling should easily understand this explanation, and even if he feels that Memphis might distrust him, he will accept this approach,” Eric concluded.

Natalia nodded slowly and then said, "Although this is the ideal situation."

"The rest depends on how well we perform on the day."

Eric looked at her and said, “But having met so many difficult and unreasonable nobles and wealthy merchants along the way, Sterling is actually quite easy to talk to. It shouldn’t be a problem for Your Highness.”

Natalia smiled and looked at him, "We can't rely on each other alone."

"of course."

Eric looked down at the Governor's Palace courtyard, raising his gaze to look into the distance.

"Sterling shouldn't be back for a while, Your Highness. Would you like to take a shower first? I remember you said you felt quite uncomfortable on the way back."

Natalia responded and left the terrace to take a shower.

She went into the bathroom, took off her robe, and smelled it before throwing it into the laundry basket.

Aside from a faint smell of sweat, the main scents are those of the forest and the earth, as well as the unique fragrance of burning wood.

The scent left behind by those riding on horseback and sitting in front of and behind him yesterday has been completely masked.

(End of this chapter)