When Li Wen finished attending to her real-world needs and returned to the game, the sky in-game had just begun to lighten with the faint hues of dawn.
She glanced at her status.
Her health had dropped to 34%, and her mana remained at 10 out of 20.
That was expected—life and mana didn’t regenerate automatically while offline.
After a moment’s thought, she used a Prayer Spell to restore her health to above 80%, pulling herself out of the danger zone.
At least now, she wouldn’t be killed instantly by a random ambush.
Then, Li Wen left the cavern.
Outside was a forest, dense with unfamiliar flora—even she couldn’t name many of the plants.
Not a single sign of human presence could be seen, so she simply chose what looked like an exit and headed in that direction.
The forest was wild and overgrown, with no clear path in sight.
At times, she had to draw her Bone-Eating Dagger to slash away vines or underbrush just to keep moving forward.
This only worsened her already exhausted physical state.
“You’re not going to get in like that.”
Just as Li Wen hacked down a crooked tree blocking her path, a sharp, grating voice rang out.
She paused and looked around but saw no one.
“Over here! Right here!”
This time the voice came from a clearer direction, closer than before.
Li Wen looked down—and there, hiding in the grass, was a small, green-skinned humanoid figure, barely half a meter tall, staring up at her.
A goblin?
More accurately, it was a sprite goblin, a subspecies of fairies.
They were tiny creatures with distinctive green skin and pointed, elf-like ears.
In the Arthurian Kingdom, they were widespread—occasionally even seen in commoners’ homes.
Some said they were natural thieves and compulsive liars, others claimed they hid stolen gold at the end of rainbows.
But more often than not, people simply avoided mentioning them.
“This is Mr. Bird’s domain. If you want to join the market, you’ll need proof. Otherwise, you won’t be able to enter this forest sealed by magic.”
Sealed by magic?
Li Wen frowned.
“I’m just trying to leave.”
“Then you’re headed the wrong way! The exit’s in the opposite direction!” the goblin said, muttering some fairy proverb afterward.
That made sense.
No wonder the path had gotten harder the further she walked—she’d gone the wrong way.
Understanding dawned on Li Wen, and she gave a slight nod.
“This market you mentioned—what kind of market is it?”
Now that she’d gotten the information she wanted, Li Wen turned her attention elsewhere.
“It’s a fairy market! Mr. Bird is in charge of stopping uninvited guests!”
Fairies didn’t originally have market culture.
This was likely something they had learned from humans and other intelligent races.
Born with innate magical ability and a love for collecting rare and magical items, fairies attracted many extraordinary individuals who would do anything to get a chance to participate.
“So how do I qualify for entry?”
The sprite goblin didn’t seem particularly clever, so Li Wen temporarily gave up on leaving.
She still hadn’t acquired the Book of the End, and she needed access to the Amber Temple.
More than that, she needed magical ingredients to prepare for whatever might come.
If she could find some useful magical tools at the market, even better.
“It’s the enchanted leaf of the black belladonna, blessed by Granny Marsha! Like this one!”
The sprite pulled out a palm-sized leaf from who-knows-where, and Li Wen could see faint bluish magical energy flowing along its veins.
“You have a lot of those?”
“Of course! Mr. Bird is in charge of collecting them. Every invited guest hands over a leaf to me!”
To prove it, the goblin conjured a pile of similar leaves into his hands with magic.
“Ha! I know you want to get one of these leaves from the brilliant Mr. Bird—but I’m telling you, it’s impossible!”
Then he muttered something else in fairy language, clearly agitated and anxious.
“…Well, nothing is ever truly impossible. If you can answer Mr. Bird’s riddle correctly, I’ll let you in!”
Fairies were obsessed with testing other intelligent races—an unfortunate habit they had somehow picked up.
“Alright. Ask away.”
“Hmm… let me think. It can’t be too easy, or Granny Marsha will scold me…”
Li Wen had no intention of actually answering the goblin’s riddle.
So while he was distracted, lost in thought, she quickly slipped a leaf from between his fingers.
He didn’t even notice.
Having Dexterous Hands and Professional Pickpocket as traits was recommended for a reason.
Even in her past life, the top tip in beginner guides had always been to choose those two first.
“Got it! Here’s the riddle: If you don’t speak, you say my name. But you must speak. Yet if you can say my name with words, it would be a miracle.”
“I don’t know.”
Li Wen couldn’t be bothered.
She simply held up the leaf she had just taken.
“But I have a magic leaf. I’ve been invited. Can I enter the market now?”
The goblin paused.
With its limited brainpower, it failed to notice anything wrong.
Instead, it looked downhearted that yet another riddle had gone unanswered.
“Of course. Fairies welcome all friends—except those red-skinned scum from the Pits…”
The leaf in Li Wen’s hand suddenly slipped free, flying toward a massive, ancient oak in the distance.
With a flash of light, a hole large enough for one person to walk through opened in the trunk.
It was deep and dark—its destination unknown.
“Welcome! Welcome!”
Several more sprite goblins popped out from the hole, calling out as they welcomed Li Wen into the unknown.
They hopped over to her, tugged at her cloak, and only when they couldn’t move her did they turn and scamper back inside.
Li Wen didn’t hesitate.
She followed them in.
Unlike the feeling of weightlessness she’d experienced when teleporting in Amber City, this time she only saw a brief flash of light before finding herself in a brand-new world.
This magical forest was filled with bizarre and unfamiliar flora—towering mushrooms large enough to be houses, trees with tendril-like, moist, floppy branches, and flowers with shy, blinking eyeballs growing from their petals.
Fairies of every kind flitted through the air or bounced along the forest floor.
Li Wen wasn’t surprised by any of it.
This place wasn’t separate from the human world.
Fairies were known to use magic to reshape the forests they lived in.
Long before the land was called Arthur, this had been the kingdom of the fairies.
She turned toward the only visible path in the forest. It led to the heart of this world, where flowers bloomed in dazzling colors and plants grew in wild abundance—and already, she could hear the bustling noise of crowds.
Already filled with anticipation, Li Wen found herself even more curious about what awaited her there.
Tftc!