Chapter 6: The City of Fog

The door swung open.

Gray mist quietly flowed out, spreading around, rising to knee height, like the veil of a ghost or a dancer, gradually blurring the seams and contours of the walls and floors. The piled corpses of human-faced spiders turned into dull patches, and the corridors on either side seemed to narrow. An ominous silence and oppression pressed in from all sides, enveloping the two in the midst of the corpse pile, the thick fog making everything in the darkness appear to sway.

The mist chilled the whole body.

"What do you think this means?" Jeanne licked her lips, staring straight at the archway shrouded in gray mist. Dark-brown blood dripped from the sword's blade, splattering on the ground, bursting, staining several split pale faces in the center red.

Salser absorbed the last bit of the spirit, stood up, and shook his head, "No use asking me; my knowledge has limits. The deeper we go, the more it diverges from the records."

She glanced at Salser, “You first, then?”

"Please, after you." Seriously, If someone’s got to go down, it ought to be you.

"Mr. Salser," Jeanne smiled, but the expression looked particularly twisted on her face, “You wear the title of my guardian knight like some ill-fitting armor. Pray tell, do you even recall what a knight’s sworn duties are, or shall I educate you?”

"Don’t try to exploit the circumstances," he said with a cold laugh, "We have no connection whatsoever."

"Get in there for me!"

Jeanne grabbed the Dark wizard's collar and threw him into the doorway with one hand.

The fog-covered entrance swallowed the Dark wizard like a monster's gaping mouth. A faint stench passed through the corner, stirring the mist, brushing past her damp face tinged with eerie moisture, like a low, silent breath. Several minutes passed while it remained silent. Jeanne, feeling impatient, frowned and directly thrust the sword in. With a swoosh, the air began to swirl tightly around the blade, agitated, as if reacting to any slight movement.

"You almost stabbed me!" When Jeanne tentatively stirred the mist with the sword, a hand suddenly reached out and pulled her violently into the door.

The mist suddenly trembled for a moment, then quickly calmed down, continuing its silent spread, licking the corpses on the ground.

......

"Oi, you—have you seen this place before?"

Jeanne felt cold all over—the temperature here felt like deep winter, and her clothes were already worn out.

"Do you think I'm a walking encyclopedia?"

Salser sighed, turned around, and looked back at the door that should have led to the other side—it was empty, even the gray mist was gone. Then he looked around but couldn't see any entrance—only three old, faded brick walls, as if mocking him, standing in front to form this narrow, eerie street corner. The darkness here was indescribable—and completely different from the damp prison, the corners were also piled high with household garbage, the pungent stench and the foul smell of rotten meat were unbearable.

"Could this be the Warren of some unknown evil god? This damn place ain’t nothing like the real world—and I still can't communicate with the power of my Lord," Jeanne shivered, barely flexing her stiff limbs, "Oi, Dark wizard, you got enough tricks up your sleeve to whip up a coat, or am I gonna freeze here?”

"I've never heard of such a spell." Salser exhaled lightly, not expecting much from her, "Why not venture forth and investigate? At least ensure that we can survive. Should we perish within the Warren, our souls shall be forever barred from the mortal realm.”

"......Can you conjure some flames?"

“My mana reserves are limited. I shall not deplete them to sustain a mere fire enchantment, not until you are at death’s door from the cold.”

With such a heartless reply, Salser saw—she unreservedly rummaged through the garbage pile, kicked away half a human corpse crawling with flies; under a mass of unknown creature's organs, she pulled out a greasy, oily rag, wrapped it around a stick, and thus completed an unlit torch.

That was a rotten, smelly garbage pile, even maggots could be seen burrowing in and out, making one not want to get within a meter of it.

"I'm a bit intrigued about what kind of life you've lived," Salser watched intently as Jeanne completed that object, and took the broken stick from her hand tainted with the smell of decay, “In a manner of speaking, you are quite extraordinary.”

Jeanne rolled her eyes.

"Done." Salser casually conjured a flame, lit the crudely made torch, and handed it back to her, "Would you require any further assistance, Your Honor Inquisitor?"

"Keep that spell tight to hide our presence, don't let those disgusting monsters ambush me," Jeanne took the torch and said, "No delusions of a swift escape here. We’re in for the long haul. Survival’s our priority—every cautious, calculated step counts."

The flickering flames warmed her stiff limbs slightly.

"That's it?" Salser asked.

"That's it." She replied flatly.

“Then, you shall guide us.” He started to take advantage of the friendly atmosphere.

“Let me lay it out plain for you—as your superior, it’s almost always the guardian knight who charges ahead and bites the dust,”

“I had believed our friendship had advanced to the stage where you would be the one to guide us.”

"Friendship? Don’t kid yourself." She said so.

Dealing with this woman is quite the challenge, Salser shrugged, then turned and walked out of the alley.

Jeanne followed behind, the thin mist coiled around the air beside them. He burned the collected souls to maintain the spell to hide their presence and tracks. Semi-transparent gray lines formed irregular arcs around him, visible only to him. Each line emerged from the depths of his soul, extended along the eyeballs into the nearby air, probing for subtle vibrations, and other information related to the surrounding environment.

This was a deserted city. The sky overhead was a deep gray, as if covered with a layer of heavy dust, there was no stars, yet the sky emitted a dim, pale cold light in silence. The contours of everything seemed soft, as if shrouded in fog, like the colors of an oil painting dissolving in water—vague shapes of houses, walls covered with curled jelly-like sunken holes and protrusions; trees were deformed, thick branches densely packed on the trunks, like many human limbs nailed to the same stake; the muddy road underfoot felt like a black carpet, flabby and even a bit disgusting.

On the empty, silent streets that seemed like a gray-filtered picture, a gray bird with only one leg, about half a person tall, with a serrated beak, slowly approached. It moved very slowly, barely moving its body, slow enough to be nauseating and panic-inducing.

"......Do you think that thing is safe to eat?" Jeanne asked him, her appetite seemingly greater than her fear of this bizarre world.

“I must ascertain that it is, indeed, fit for consumption—and that it bears no face upon any portion of its anatomy,” Salser licked his lips, he also wanted to satisfy his appetite, “Provided there are no peculiar toxins present, we shall have sustenance for the evening.”

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