52. Reconnaissance
"Alright, from here on we're walking."
After a brief rest, Shiro stood up.
"From now on, handle any monsters we encounter along the way as a trio—this is for training. If things get dangerous, me and Mitoka will step in," Shiro told Shestia and the others.
Even though they’d entered the forest, the riverbank was still relatively easy to traverse.
The plan was simple: follow the river west for about two hundred kilometers, reach the vast grasslands, cross them north to south, turn west just before re-entering the woods. After that, it’d be deep forest.
Go another four hundred kilometers west, and you’d hit a different river. Follow that one south. After roughly one hundred kilometers south, you’d reach a cliff.
That cliff was the edge of the uplifted basin formed by the Great Miasma Explosion at MagiCentral. It stood nearly a hundred meters high.
Even inside the forest, everyone had decent physical ability, so they moved quickly.
Shiro watched Shestia and the others fight along the way, analyzing their combat style.
When distance was involved, Shestia would use her ice-element destruction magic to dispatch enemies to a degree.
Albert handled most of the physical combat with his sword, while Aria dealt with close-range threats using her sword and short-range magic, aided by fire and wind.
Shestia could use basic healing magic of the holy attribute, so she mostly stayed in the rear.
Large monsters were handled by Shestia and Aria’s advanced magic.
Their party’s weakness? They struggled against medium to large-sized monsters where magic didn’t land well. The Giant Hedgehog was a perfect example. Worse still, they had no way to counter monsters that attacked from range—like the Giant Hedgehog.
"Who’s handling reconnaissance?" Shiro asked.
“That’s me—about two hundred meters. And Aria too. She’s about the same,” Shestia answered.
“Two hundred meters… so around three hundred? That’s a tricky range,” Shiro mused.
“Exactly how do you activate the skill, though?” Shiro asked suddenly.
“Just… I sense it,” Aria said.
“Right. Intuition?” Shestia added.
“Wait, you can sense enemies within two hundred meters just… intuitively?” Shiro blinked.
“Shiro, they’re saying ‘intuitively,’ but try looking through mana sight,” Mitoka pointed out.
As Mitoka suggested, Shiro watched the two perform reconnaissance. He saw faint veils of mana spreading from them, vanishing around three hundred meters out. Just using sensation alone—this level of precision was, in its own way, impressive. Shiro nodded, then pulled out the usual translucent dummy to demonstrate how the scan skill worked.
“The scan skill requires willpower 170—yeah, that’s serious mental focus. So try concentrating deeper than usual. Imagine the thin membrane spreading out, like I just showed,” Shiro explained.
The three of them—Shestia, Aria, and even Albert—practiced mimicking it for about thirty minutes.
“Shiro, there’s a forest wolf over there… about three hundred fifty meters?” Shestia said.
“Yeah, I can tell. Maybe fifteen of them?” Aria replied.
“Hmm, I can feel it too. Don’t know the exact number,” Albert grunted.
In just a short session, all three had expanded their scan range dramatically.
“Wow, all three of you are impressive. That’s a real skill upgrade. Keep training like this, and you’ll keep expanding your range. Albert, you couldn’t use this before, right? In that sense, it’s even more impressive,” Shiro admitted, genuinely impressed.
The forest wolves were eradicated by Shestia and the other two. On either flank, Aria and Shestia unleashed magical barrages. Albert, enhanced physically, charged through the center and cleaved them in twain.
“We’ve gotten stronger, haven’t we?” Aria murmured.
“Strong,” Shestia said.
“Yeah. Definitely leveled up from before,” Albert added.
“That’s right. Shiro’s teaching style’s really effective,” Mitoka praised.
“Ah, you’re picking it up nicely. Keep it up!”
Shiro gave them all a nod of approval.