Exploring Technology in a Wizard World

"Too lazy, they're practically a bunch of corpses!"

Around the same time, during the day, a group of five or six First-level Wizards were walking in a dense forest, and the tall, thin Wizard at the front kept complaining loudly.

Looking back at his companions, the tall, thin Wizard shouted, "See, the exploration mission for the Silent Forest was clearly from last month, but it was delayed until now to assign to us.

Honestly, I completely don't understand why the branch's efficiency is so low. Have they been spiked with high-concentration Hallucinogenic Potion or something? In this case, even if we accomplish the mission, who knows when the rewards will be issued? It might be delayed for half a year.

Ugh, our branch is just too remote, and the Steward is ineffective, which causes this. If it were anywhere else, it would absolutely not happen. I've heard that within our organization, the most diligent Steward seems to be named Ji Burlen, and the most efficient one is named Muse. I am now hoping to get transferred under either of these two Stewards, so that I would have some motivation to work."

A red-haired witch suddenly spoke after hearing the tall, thin Wizard: "The two Stewards you mentioned are both dead, you know?"

"Both dead, how is that possible?" the tall, thin Wizard was taken aback.

"It's true," the red-haired witch said, "It's said that some unknown changes occurred on the East Coast, and both Stewards along with all their subordinates died. The organization has yet to uncover the truth. If you really want to work under those two Stewards, you can apply to go for a spin on the East Coast now."

"Gah..." The tall, thin Wizard's expression froze, and he laughed awkwardly, "Then forget it, actually thinking about it, our branch isn't bad either. Except for slightly low efficiency, less room for advancement, and longer reward issuance time, there's nothing else."

"Alright, stop complaining," the red-haired witch snorted, "The branch's low efficiency now is entirely due to adjustments to the responsible area, resulting in too many tasks and insufficient personnel. I heard the branch's Steward has been applying to Supervisor Long Mei'er to transfer people from several neighboring branches.

If Supervisor Long Mei'er agrees, the situation will soon change, and it will be much harder for some people who want to fish in troubled waters and continue not working while complaining."

The tall, thin Wizard's face slightly changed, looking at the red-haired witch: "Nona, you're not talking about me, are you?"

"Whoever knows that in their heart," the red-haired witch said, glanced once, then quickly stepped past the tall, thin Wizard, heading forward, shouting, "I'm not in the mood to waste time arguing now, I just want to quickly finish investigating this Silent Forest and rush back to the branch to handle other matters, ah!"

At the end of her speech, the witch paused in her steps and suddenly let out an exclamation.

The tall, thin Wizard, whose face had been fuming with anger earlier, heard the witch's exclamation and quickly turned into schadenfreude, then mockingly said, "What's wrong, Nona? You got scared by some little bugs? Or did you suddenly realize that you're only strong in words but quite ordinary in ability?"

The red-haired witch didn't respond, she just very slowly turned around to look at the tall, thin Wizard.

The tall, thin Wizard and the rest looked at the red-haired witch, then their eyes shrank collectively.

They saw the front body of the red-haired witch suddenly bearing a red line, evenly splitting her into left and right halves.

This red line stretched from her lower abdomen all the way to her head, the terrified expression on the red-haired witch's face took on an artistic touch because of it.

Yet the artistic touch lasted just a moment, the next instant there was a constant stream of blood gushing out from the red line, and then, in the enlarged eyes of the group, the slowly turning red-haired witch's body suddenly fell to the sides, her whole being was cut open, with internal organs "whoosh" spilling all over the ground.

Faced with this horrific scene, the group of Wizards seemed stunned, then the second Wizard fell victim.

That Wizard was at the very end of the group, and with a scream of "Ah!" he was unexpectedly sliced open from the waist with no warning.

The lower half of his body "thud" fell to the ground, while the upper half didn't die immediately, enduring immense pain while desperately trying to crawl towards companions for refuge.

But before he could crawl out even a few steps, several "swoosh swoosh swoosh" sounds occurred, and several Wind Blades slashed past, directly fragmenting the upper body.

By this time, the remaining people finally reacted, one shouted loudly, "Enemy attack, defend!"

"Whoosh!"

Immediately everyone waved their hands to cast, preparing to form Energy Shields.

Yet the attack was faster than defense, the Shield was only half conjured when sharp Wind Blades flew in, slicing through bodies like a knife through tofu.

"Plop plop!"

Bodies fell to the ground.

In the end, only one person managed to cast an Energy Shield, precisely the tall, thin Wizard who was complaining initially.

After casting the Shield, the tall, thin Wizard first took a sigh of relief, then glanced around, seeing all his companions fallen to the ground, leaving only him standing alone, his face turned "white" in panic.

"How could this be? How could this be?" The tall, thin Wizard's voice trembled with doubt, "It shouldn't be this way, wasn't it clearly said that the Silent Forest has very little danger, almost no Extraordinary Power present? How come now, how come now it's like this?"

The tall, thin Wizard kept swallowing, looking at the bodies of companions, calling out, "Fick, Xi Ya, Ruth… Nona!"

At this moment he desperately hoped that these people could revive and fight alongside him even if it was his most hated red-haired witch Nona, even if he had to admit that he was just an incompetent peripheral member of the Truth Society.

After all, life is more important than dignity, he hadn't accumulated enough points for Resurrection.

But no miracle happened.

Only there was a "rustling" sound coming from nearby woods.

The tall, thin Wizard collapsed, shrieking "Ah" as he hurled three Blast Fireballs towards the source of the sound.

"Boom boom boom!"

The Fireballs flew out, exploded, unleashing massive noise and scorching fire waves.

Leveraging the spell as cover, the tall, thin Wizard suddenly turned around, applied a powerful Wind Magic to his body, and darted towards the forest's edge.

For him, the lurking danger in the forest, having secretly killed off several companions, was absolutely unmanageable with his abilities.

What he could do, was only return to the branch to request help.

In other words, he could only flee.

Run, run, run!

The tall, thin Wizard ran with all his might, his feet pounding the ground as his whole body darted away rapidly. But the next moment, he felt a pain in his neck, a sharp Wind Blade easily tore through the energy membrane around his body, slicing through.

Then he felt his whole body lightened up and soared like a bird.

Flying, spiraling.

He flew out dozens of meters, a glimpse in the corner of his eyes showed him a headless body wobbling as it fell.

Is that my body?

The tall, thin Wizard thought, then everything went black before his eyes.

"Thud!"

He heard a sound of something hitting the ground.

Is that my head?

This was the tall, thin Wizard's last thought.

Then everything around fell into silence, just like the name Silent Forest.