Noa led the team toward the voice.

Sure enough, the only thing that popped out there was a deep-blue slime.

The little creature was curled up beneath a rock, lying still as it warily examined these two-legged beasts with tails.

Perhaps one of the team members looked too intimidating, because the slime seemed frightened and shrank deeper into the crack between stones.

Helena crouched down, slowly extended her hand, and spread her fingers to show she wasn’t holding any weapon.

Then she spoke gently:

“Don’t be afraid, little one. We’re here to help you.”

As she spoke, Helena also noticed that although this slime hadn’t been caught by illusion magic, it had a small wound—probably scraped while escaping.

The slime seemed to sense Helena’s kindness and cautiously edged closer.

It sniffed Helena’s fingertips, then gathered the courage to rub against them.

Just as Helena had thought, slimes might not be very intelligent, but they were intelligent enough to judge whether someone was good or bad based on behavior.

In the end, the deep-blue slime lowered its guard and slowly wriggled out from under the rock.

Helena immediately treated its wound.

“Hey, Captain—when are we going to keep searching for the thief?”

“Yeah. Healing a normal slime like this is just wasting time.”

“This is basically playing house like children.”

While Helena worked, several impatient team members began urging Noa to move on.

“Every slime we’ve encountered on the way here has been knocked out by illusion magic—except this one,” Noa explained calmly. “So I think if we can build trust with it, it may be able to give us clues.”

A few members nodded in understanding.

But Tucker—and the few clustered around him—scoffed openly.

“Exactly, exactly. Go on, girl—ask this low-grade slime for clues. You’d be better off hoping I can take down a Dragon King in one move.”

The exaggerated remark drew laughter from that group.

Noa’s tone and expression didn’t change.

“Slimes have basic communication and guiding ability. So yes, it can provide clues. And you’d better really be able to knock down a Dragon King in one move.”

Seeing Noa’s confidence in this chance encounter, those people stopped pushing—at least for now.

They could just wait for her to embarrass herself.

They’d been in the Adult Dragon Division for a long time and had completed dozens of missions.

They had never once seen anyone let a slime lead the way.

Wasn’t that just childish fantasy?

Noa didn’t bother explaining further.

Always trust your judgment.

That was something her mother had taught her.

Of course, that didn’t mean she could be stubborn about everything—because Leon’s lesson had always come with the second half:

Only trust your judgment if you can bear the consequences of being wrong.

Noa might doubt whether she was a qualified leader.

But she never doubted her own strength.

“Alright,” Helena said, breaking Noa’s thoughts. “Are you okay, little one?”

Noa snapped back and looked at Helena.

“How is it?”

Helena cradled the deep-blue slime in her arms and walked over.

“The external wound is basically healed, and it seems clear-headed. And…”

As she spoke, the slime in Helena’s arms wriggled toward the clearing they’d just come from.

Helena smiled.

“And it looks like it really sees us as companions.”

For it to show such obvious empathy and emotion, its intelligence had to be above the average level of its species.

Helena carried it to the unconscious slimes.

The little creature cried out, “Moom, moom,” sounding anxious.

But when none of its companions responded, it stopped calling.

Then it lifted its round head and looked up at Helena.

“Moom… moom moom…”

Helena stared blankly for a moment, then smiled with a frown.

“I don’t think the academy ever taught slime language…”

After “mooming” for so long with no response from these long-tailed, two-legged beasts, the slime looked like it was about to cry.

It struggled out of Helena’s arms, hopped down to the ground, and approached a target that seemed more responsive.

Hop, hop, hop—it moved toward them.

“Moom!”

Noa raised an eyebrow and pointed in the direction the slime was moving.

“It means… it wants us to follow it that way?”

The little creature bobbed its jelly-like body in a nod.

“Moom moom!”

Then it wriggled onward.

Noa led the team after it.

“No way. It really can lead us?”

“Our team leader’s got some skills—she can even communicate with a slime.”

“Tch. Stop sucking up. How do you know that little thing isn’t taking us to find it food?”

The team atmosphere was clearly not united.

The division between the two sides became more obvious by the minute.

One side trusted Noa. They believed this girl might be young, but she was capable, and worth following.

The other side, led by Tucker, refused to accept her. They opposed her at every turn and silently waited for her to make a mistake.

Noa noticed it too.

But now wasn’t the time to address that. Every minute wasted increased the risk that the divine relic would be gone for good.

She only hoped that at the most critical moment, they wouldn’t turn on each other.

Led by the slime, Noa’s team wove through layers of shrubs, then through a narrow winding path, crawling through countless hollow trunks along the way.

The terrain of Cold Mist Forest was inherently complex. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that without this slime, they could search for a week and still never find the place these people were hiding.

And that raised a problem of its own.

“Tch. Trusting your gut is a waste of time! That little thing dragged us to a place this remote. There isn’t even a shadow of a person. What thief are we supposed to find here?”

“Captain, the complex terrain in Cold Mist Forest might not affect us, but it’s different for you. You can’t fly. If you get lost in a place this deserted, no one will ever find you.”

…

The discussion continued, but Noa’s focus stayed on the slime.

When they reached a clearing, the slime suddenly stopped.

Noa raised a fist, signaling everyone to stay quiet.

“Moom… moom…”

Noa glanced at the slime, then spoke in a low voice:

“Helena. Hold it first.”

“Okay.”

Noa then parted the grass with her hand and peered ahead.

In the distance, a campfire burned on the grass.

Two figures sat around it, speaking in low voices.

The fire’s heat dispersed the fog nearby, allowing Noa to barely make out their features.

A man and a woman.

The man was filthy, hair wild, beard untrimmed, with shackles and chains around his hands and feet.

The woman had long black hair and a blank expression. By the firelight, she seemed to be studying an object in her hands.

Noa narrowed her eyes.

The thing in the woman’s hand... was unmistakably Mevis’s bracelet.

“Found them,” Noa murmured.

She pulled back, turned to the team, and said quietly:

“It was those two who stole the treasure here. I’ll go over first and see if we can talk. If...”

“Talk?” Tucker suddenly cut in. “Didn’t you see the man’s wearing anti-magic shackles? They stole the forest’s treasure. Our mission is to take it back. Talking or not is the academy’s job after we return.”

Noa had thought he would come up with some new absurd angle.

But it was the same as always: charge in and fight first.

A hopeless teammate—Noa was starting to feel like the only victim of an ELO matchmaking system.

Even so, Noa stuck to her judgment.

Those two hadn’t harmed anyone—not even a single slime.

Based on that alone, Noa was almost certain this task could be resolved without violence.

Reality proved she had been too optimistic about dragons.

“Now,” Tucker said, “you few come with me. We’ll go up, take them down, grab the bracelet, and the mission’s done.”

With that, he pulled his hand back, and several people moved to follow him.

Noa hurried to stop him.

“Tucker! Even if we’re going to use force, we need an approach first. If you rush in like this... By the time you finish planning, they’ll be long gone with the bracelet.”

Tucker stood up and waved his hand.

“Move!”

As soon as he spoke, Tucker led his group straight through the brush, launching a rapid ambush toward the two by the fire.

Noa, Helena, and the remaining members watched from behind the grass. One of them asked:

“Captain, should we go help too?”

Noa bit down lightly on her lower lip.

This kind of reckless attack could drag down the entire team…

“Tucker, stop. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) That woman...”

But before Noa could think of a way to cover for them, she saw it happen.

The moment Tucker’s group got close, they dropped like puppets with their strings cut.

One second they looked ready to charge.

The next, they collapsed to the ground without warning.

Noa’s eyes widened, and she immediately understood.

“Illusion magic…”

“Who else is there?!” the woman snapped, turning her head and locking her gaze directly onto Noa’s group.

“This is bad!”

Noa’s instincts screamed danger. She tried to pull the remaining members back to a safe distance.

But a magic circle bloomed beneath their feet in an instant.

The circle flared with light.

Noa’s vision went black.

In the final second before her consciousness dissolved into chaos, she realized, she had been dragged into illusion magic too.

When Noa opened her eyes again, she was standing in a blizzard.

The endless white snowfield was stained red with blood.

When she looked farther ahead, her dragon pupils constricted sharply, and the sight nearly made her vomit.

A ruined holy body of silver dragonkind.

Family members collapsed in pools of blood and snow.

Wailing filled the air, unending, as if accusing Noa of helplessness.

It felt like a nightmare.

Everything in front of her was clearly unreal—hazy, insubstantial...

Yet the psychological pressure and emotional impact were several times stronger than anything in the real world.

That suffocating sense of powerlessness surged like a flood, almost driving Noa mad.

Just as she was about to break and scream, a cool female voice sounded behind her.

“Don’t be afraid, kid. I’m here.”

As the words fell, the illusion around her shattered like glass.