The man extended a slight bow as he said, "My apologies for startling you, Elder Lia."

Lia and Turan could see that the young man had quite a benevolent appearance. He didn't seem to be harboring any ill will toward them, nor did he look like some robber or bandit, and both of them heaved an internal sigh of relief.

Joe turned around to see that the young man who had just flown onto the carriage seemed to have something to discuss with Lia. Thus, he immediately realized that there was no way that these people could be bandits, and he was also quite relieved as he continued to focus on driving the carriage.

After the young man landed on the carriage, the group of horse riders around the carriage made sure to maintain their distance, displaying no intention of attacking or drawing any closer.

"Master Erwin sent us here to wait for you, and we've already been here for two days," the young man said with a smile.

Lia and Turan exchanged a glance, following which the former asked, "What does he want?"

"Master Erwin told me to inform you not to be alarmed. A battle between the trade guild and Onen is an inevitability that would've eventuated sooner or later anyway, and he only accelerated the process."

Lia was a smart man, and he immediately understood Erwin's intentions upon hearing this.

By telling him not to be alarmed, Erwin was asking Lia not to overthink the situation. Given how calculating Erwin was, he had naturally already guessed what Lia would've thought about all of this.

A faint smile appeared on Turan's face upon hearing this.

"But even if we instigate a battle between the two parties right away, how does Mr. Erwin stand to benefit from this?" Lia asked with an indifferent expression.

"Master Erwin says that if we want something, we have to strive for it. The Universal Lord won't take care of everything for us," the young man said as he cast his gaze toward Lia.

Turan couldn't help but burst into laughter upon hearing this, and he shook his head as he murmured with an amused expression, "How interesting..."

"Mr. Erwin told you all of this in advance?" Menpo asked with an incredulous expression. He had been listening to the conversation this entire time, and he was in disbelief that Erwin was able to predict all of Elder Lia's thoughts ahead of time.

The young man nodded in response.

"Then where are we going now?" Lia asked. He knew that there had to have been a reason why Erwin had stationed these people here.

"We'll be going to the town of Lomu," the young man replied.

"Alright, then let's go there," Lia replied, not bothering to ask the reasons behind this.

"Elder Lia, will my belongings delay us on our trip?" Menpo asked as he turned to the pair of elderly men in the carriage, then directed his gaze toward the young man with an embarrassed expression. He could sense that Lia was in a hurry to get to Erwin, and he could also sense that Erwin was urgently summoning Lia to see him as well, and that was the reason for his guilt and embarrassment.

However, to their surprise, the young man replied with a smile, "There's no hurry. In fact, it's better for you to arrive later rather than sooner."

It was clear that these were also Erwin's words.

"It's better for us to arrive later rather than sooner?" Turan asked with a surprised smile. "In that case, let's make our way to Lomu at a leisurely pace."

The young man nodded in response.

Lia remained silent and didn't say anything further.

...

Somewhere in the Terarody Mountain Ranges.

A short skeleton was in the process of stealthily searching for something amid the snow and ice.

Meanwhile, Lana was hiding in ambush within a nearby valley, waiting for her prey to arrive.

It had already been several days since she had last had a good meal, and her clothes were extremely tattered, so she was freezing and starving at the same time.

The main problem was that due to some strange reason, there was no way to repel the cold temperatures in the mountain ranges using magic. She had attempted to cast various types of arrays to keep out the cold and the wind on many occasions, but all to no avail. The only thing that she could do was to use fire-attribute spells to warm herself and ward off the cold as much as possible.

Perhaps only after becoming a grandmaster magician would one be able to enter the Terarody Mountain Ranges alone.

Furthermore, what Lana was unable to understand was why there were so few magic beasts in this area. During the past couple of days, she hadn't seen even a single one.

Thus, the sound of footsteps on the snow came as a massively pleasant surprise to her, but her face immediately fell upon identifying her prey to be a skeleton.

There was definitely no way that she could eat something like this.

However, at the same time, she was also rather intrigued by the sight of a moving skeleton, something that she had never seen before.

What kind of magic beast is this? 

She thought back to everything that she had learned about magic beasts in the Terarody Mountain Ranges, but she couldn't think of anything like this.

Furthermore, the skeleton's sneaky demeanor was very amusing to her.

In her understanding, skeletons were already things that were devoid of life, so why was it that this skeleton seemed to be afraid of losing its life once again? could it be that there were magic beasts in these mountain ranges interested in hunting these skeletons as prey?

However, if this were an entity that was devoid of life force, then how was it able to move?

Lana made her way a little closer, wanting to see what this living skeleton was up to.

"I've been searching for almost an entire day, but I still haven't tracked down that ice dragon. Master is not going to be pleased with me," the skeleton murmured to itself in its own unique language.

Lana followed along not far away behind it, but she was completely unable to understand what it was murmuring to itself.

"Who's there?" The skeleton abruptly turned around. It could clearly sense that there was something following it.

In doing so, it discovered an incredibly beautiful red-haired woman with a tall and elegant figure, standing amid the snow and ice without making any attempt to hide herself. She was watching the skeleton with her blue eyes filled with curiosity and amusement.

The skeleton was completely rooted to the spot. It wasn't that it had never seen a human before, but it had never seen such a stunningly beautiful human. If it had any saliva, it would've definitely been gulping at the sight of Lana.

Looking at the large patches of delicate skin that were visible beneath her tattered magician's robe, the blue flames in the skeleton's eye sockets were beginning to dance with entrancement.

Lana watched the skeleton with a cold look in her eyes, and her expression was far colder than the temperature around her. Never did she think that she would still be able to encounter a pervert even in a place like this.

However, she wasn't in a hurry to attack. Instead, a sinister smile appeared on her face as she looked at the skeleton with an intrigued expression, trying to see exactly what made it tick. She could clearly sense that the look in the skeleton's eyes was a type of lust that was unique to men, and that was quite interesting to her.

However, she was unable to identify any difference between this skeleton and the skeletons one would find in tombs. It was completely devoid of skin and flesh, as one would expect, and aside from the eerie blue flames in its eye sockets, there was nothing remarkable about it.

Lana could sense that there was a ball of feeble magic energy within the skeleton's body. However, as far as her knowledge in magic went, she wasn't aware of any way through which magic energy could bestow life force upon inanimate objects. Even her teacher, Mistress Faye, had told her that such a thing was impossible.

However, the skeleton before her was very much like a living being, capable of thought and speech, and that was very perplexing to Lana.

The more the skeleton was scrutinized by Lana, the more insulted it felt, and a hint of killing intent surfaced within the blue flames in its eye sockets.

"Insolent human!" it roared in a furious voice, but it had no vocal cords, so Lana could only assume that the sound was coming from those two balls of blue flames.

Lana couldn't understand what it was saying, but she could clearly sense that it had become enraged.

That was because one of its skeletal hands had detached from its body and was piercing directly toward her eyes.

Lana sidestepped in an agile manner to evade the skeletal hand, and right as it was about to fly past her, she immobilized it with her magic.

She then used the completely attributeless Shaved Purple Gem staff to support the skeletal hand for careful inspection. However, she was unable to find anything remarkable about it. For Lana, this staff was no different from a club that could only be used as a melee weapon, so she certainly had no qualms with using it as a display stand.

Lana had been able to trap the skeleton's hand with ease, but it was unable to summon its hand back to itself, even though it was trying to do so with all its might. Thus, it could only look on helplessly as Lana continued to inspect its hand.

"Not only do you possess life force, you're also able to use magic to control your own body. That's very interesting," Lana murmured to herself as he scrutinized the skeletal hand, completely oblivious to the fact that the owner of the hand was trying to summon it back with all its might.

After confirming that there was nothing special about the skeletal hand, Lana grabbed it before springing up into the air, landing directly in front of the skeleton.

"What were you looking at just now?" Lana asked as she leaned down and looked directly into the two balls of blue fire in the skeleton's eye sockets. She then clasped a hand to her own waist before tapping on the region between the skeleton's legs with her other hand.

Of course, the skeleton had nothing down there, so Lana's hand was tapping directly onto its pelvic bone.

The skeleton was so startled by Lana's scrutiny that it hurriedly retreated a few steps before tumbling onto the ground. It hadn't anticipated this human woman to be so powerful, and in addition to that, it had never seen anyone with her degree of beauty. With her captivating face leaning in so close to its own, it almost forgot to breathe, but what it had forgotten here was that it didn't even need to breathe.

"You think I'll let you live after you've seen so much of my body with those perverted eyes of yours?" Lana asked as a cold smile appeared on her face.

The skeleton seemed to be able to understand what Lana had said, or it had managed to read her expression. In any case, it was so frightened that its teeth began to chatter as its jaw clattered up and down in fear.

Lana couldn't help but burst into a fit of amused laughter at the sight of the skeleton's comical display. What a good set of teeth you have. I would've thought some of them would've fallen out given how vigorously they're chattering.

However, Lana wasn't in a hurry to take the skeleton's life. Of course, it was still yet to be seen whether it had any life force.

There was not a single other living being in this vast land of snow and ice. If she were to kill this skeleton, then she would be left alone again to starve and freeze.

Thus, Lana was feeling rather hesitant. She didn't want to not even have someone to speak with. However, she also wasn't fully confident that she would be able to capture the skeleton and keep it under her control, so she was grappling with a slight dilemma.

While she was hesitating, a bone-chilling aura suddenly surged toward her from behind.

Her brows furrowed slightly upon sensing this, but right as she was about to turn around and retaliate, she was struck down by a skeletal hand that was glowing with blue light, falling unconscious to the ground.

Having starved for the past few days, Lana's energy reserves were very depleted, and as a result, she had become far less sensitive to the surrounding environment, to the point that she only detected an assailant when it was right behind her.

"Master, you've finally arrived!" the skeleton said with a dazed expression as it stared up at the newly arrived creature.

"Useless trash! How could you let yourself be restrained by a human?" This creature was also a skeleton, but it was far larger in stature than the skeleton that Lana had been speaking with. Even among humans, it would've cut quite a tall and imposing figure.

Veins of blue light were circulating all over the joints on its entire body, as if they were meridians, but of course, they were still far removed from skin and flesh.