Have you ever been a witch? Take this fireball!

Chapter 45 The Outskirts of the Swamp

After Dorothy's words this morning.

Leona's impression of Dorothy has changed.

He went from being a somewhat talented and studious magic apprentice to an arrogant and delusional one.

Elor's impression of Dorothy didn't change much.

He simply showed more concern for Dorothy in his actions.

She became someone who needed to be taken care of.

The original three-person team had Dorothy leading the way to scout ahead.

Now she and Elor have switched places, and Elor is now walking in front.

Dorothy reached out and grasped the hilt of the longsword she was carrying.

"Just by looking at my outfit, you can tell I'm a warrior. And Elor, you know how skilled I am, right? Shouldn't I be at the forefront, warning of the first danger?"

Elor held the staff in her hand, without turning around.

"Both Leons and I use magical perception, which allows us to easily sense where danger is."

As soon as Elor finished speaking, Lyons, who was walking at the very back, raised her left hand.

The temperature around us suddenly dropped.

Leonce exhaled white mist, and several thick ice spikes condensed around her.

As Lyons flicked her wrist, the ice pillars shot out towards a piece of rotten wood in the distance.

Puff puff!

The sound of sharp objects piercing flesh rang out continuously.

"squeak!"

A piercing scream rang out, and a huge mass of flesh churned continuously where the ice pillar had pierced the flesh.

"Milky worms are the lowest-level monsters in swamps. They feed on dead leaves and mud, have extremely low combat power, and can be fought by ordinary people with weapons. They rarely develop magic cores."

As he spoke, Elor drew the dagger from his waist and walked toward the corpse of the swamp worm.

Holding the dagger, she painstakingly cut open the skin of the swamp worm and picked out its demonic core.

Pinch the magic core with your fingers.

"We were very lucky; this swamp worm has a magic core inside it."

Dorothy tapped her head with her finger.

"I can sense magic power too, and my perception ability should be much stronger than Elor's."

"Elor is just concerned about you," Lyons said with a faint smile.

"Yes, after all, didn't you say you were going to help the two of us?"

At this moment, Elor had already walked over.

Dorothy shrugged.

"I thought you two were treating me like an idiot after that conversation this morning."

Elor and Lyons exchanged a glance and laughed in unison.

Elor laughed and shook her head. "How could that be? Besides, I took your words seriously."

"Now I know why Elor is friends with you," Leons said with a smile.

Her gaze toward Elor was filled with tenderness.

Dorothy couldn't understand what the two were saying.

They were clearly hiding something from me.

And it's the kind of thing that they won't tell you even if you ask.

So Dorothy chose to remain silent.

"Okay, but judging from your expressions, you've made up?"

A hint of helplessness flashed in Elor's eyes, and she nodded.

After their conversation in the morning.

It's also clear that Dorothy genuinely wants to help them.

However, it was too dangerous for Dorothy to get involved in matters between nobles.

Dorothy's idea was too naive. Becoming a mage is not something that can be achieved by talking, and the long-standing rules of the nobility are not so easily broken.

Elor didn't want Dorothy to get involved because of her, as she could easily lose her life.

So she and Leonce tacitly chose to temporarily forget about it and happily spend their three years in the City of Apprentices.

Dorothy looked at the two people in front of her, as if she had suddenly realized something and had come to terms with everything.

Silently, he opened his own panel and added the attribute points he had gained today to Wisdom.

[Wisdom: 54+]

Feeling the boost in her mental and magical power, Dorothy raised her right hand.

"Now that you've made up, it's time to work hard and make money!"

……

On their first day in the swamp, Dorothy and her two companions gained virtually nothing because of the Mist Serpent mercenary group following behind them.

The next day, they began to venture deeper into the swamp.

However, they were still on the periphery for a short time, and only three magic cores were harvested in a day.

They were all magic cores from low-level magical beasts.

The harvest was also minimal in the following days.

On the seventh day after entering the Silent Swamp, the three of them had gradually approached the depths of the swamp.

[Wisdom: 59+]

Dorothy looked towards the depths of the swamp.

Her magical senses kept sending dangerous signals, urging her to leave immediately.

"We can't go any deeper."

Leonce nodded in agreement.

"If this continues, the monsters there are definitely beyond our ability to handle."

Elor scratched her hair with her magic wand.

For the past seven days, they have lived like savages, suffering from both the poisonous fumes in the air and unbearable itching all over their bodies.

"We can't go deeper, and those monsters gathered together are too dangerous. In that case, we can only look for monsters that are alone."

In those seven days, they only obtained a little over twenty magic cores from low-level magical beasts.

Selling it would only net her a maximum of three hundred gold coins, which is ten times less than the three thousand gold coins Dorothy wanted.

After thinking for a moment, Dorothy said, "Let's try it when we encounter second- or third-tier magical beasts later. Elor, you can support us. I'll draw the beasts' attention. Lyons, prepare a powerful spell for a sneak attack."

The lowest-level magical beast corresponds to the apprentice level, the second-tier magical beast is the novice mage, and the third-tier magical beast is the intermediate mage.

Although the strength levels are compared in this way, in a one-on-one situation, humans are mostly unable to defeat magical beasts of the same level.

So, just to be on the safe side, Dorothy didn't mention hunting fourth-tier magical beasts.

A level 20 fireball spell has power comparable to that of a mid-level mage.

It's more than enough to handle third-tier magical beasts.

Glug glug~

The sound of bubbles bursting could be heard continuously from the swamp.

As the three pondered, the surrounding fog grew thicker and thicker.

By the time the three of them realized what was happening, visibility in the fog had dropped to less than a meter.

Such an unusual event naturally alerted the three of them.

Leonse frowned and said, "Something's not right. My magic perception has been on the whole time, but I didn't notice this anomaly."

Dorothy's face darkened. "Is this fog poisonous?"

Elor quickly took out a bottle of potion, shook it, and sprinkled it into the air.

The medicine evaporated rapidly in the air.

Elor shook his head and said, "The poison gas is weak; the antidote we drank was enough."

Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief after receiving this answer.

But she remained vigilant.

The being capable of silently bypassing her and Lyons's magical perception to create this dense fog must be a force to be reckoned with.

Leonce began to analyze the thick fog.

"The fog contains a mild toxin, but it is not corrosive; it only reduces visibility. This suggests that the entity that created this fog is adept at ambush, and there is a type of magical beast in the Silent Swamp that fits this description."

"Mist Frogmen, humanoid monsters similar to goblins."

As Leons analyzed the answer...

"Croak~ Croak~"

The sound of frogs croaking filled the air.