When the handwriting in front of him began to blur, Ed suddenly looked up, the light in the room had dimmed, and he had been sitting here for about half a day before he knew it.

Outside the window was Wig's deliberately muffled voice, babbling about the abandoned fields. Isis only occasionally responded to him with a word or two, but he didn't appear to be very impatient.

Ed sat in a daze, in a trance. He hadn't been able to get out of the trivial words.

There were several stacks of diaries piled up on the table, high and low, and he had almost finished turning over a box. Although he began to record his settlement here, he also recalls almost completely many of Muru's experiences from his arrival in Hertland and even from the Eastern Continent. What first immersed Ed was the familiar confusion...... It was the fog that also permeated his heart. However, he was far less devout and persistent than the owner of the diary, and the pain caused by this was much lessened.

But he had to admire this pastor whom he had never met. He crossed the ocean to this strange continent, not a task given by anyone, not even a divine calling, but simply because he burned his own passion in his heart...... But when he was in the midst of confusion, he calmed down and spent his whole life searching for answers.

When Muru set out from the Eastern Continent decades ago, the Temple of Collins was already standing on the lake of Starnestle, and the priesthood of the water god was spread all over the continent, but the power of the temple had not yet grown to a fearsome level as it had been after the Ruttgar Civil War.

As a young man, Muru embarked on a ship that had set sail from the city of Neo. He volunteered to bless and protect those who had traveled to the sea for a living, and who would take years or more to return to their hometowns, and who might never return.

However, after the famous explorer "Sea Dragon" Wilsonjiga discovered the legendary Hetrand continent and successfully returned, the first caravan ready to go to Hertland along that dangerous passage was in the city of Neo, and when faced with new opportunities, merchants always reacted much faster than politicians.

The various stories about the New World are bizarre and sensational. What intrigued the young priest was that it was said to be a continent "forgotten by magic", a continent where any magic would be completely ineffective. The friend of the "Sea Dragon", who was also the mage who accompanied the ship during his expedition, Siya Rossai, did not shy away from this, but happily invited nearly ten mages from the ** Master Tower to accompany the caravan without Wilson participating, in order to find out the reason.

Unlike the more action-oriented mages, for some reason, the clergy chose to watch cautiously, but they did not prevent people like Muru, who had a strong curiosity, exuberant energy, and enthusiasm, from traveling with the ship.

They were not given any orders with obvious intent. After hundreds of years of peaceful development, the temples of the gods are not keen on recruiting new believers. After all, there are so many people, and life is so impermanent, everyone has to trust a few or more gods, in the hope that every step of the walk can be blessed...... Well, there is nothing to fight for between different temples. As Felicity, the only sage at that time, said, "Faith should come from the heart", which means that those who should believe will naturally believe, and those who do not believe will let him go.

No one wants to upset the existing balance...... That could well lead to another danger. The near-extinction that befell the Temple of the Water God decades later seems to prove this.

However, it was a rare opportunity for Muru at the time. He has a devout faith, and he also has quite good talent and origin, and naturally he is also a little proud. In a sense, he was ambitious, hoping that he could achieve higher things and stand in a higher position, such as the side of the Sage.

This would take a long time in the too calm Eastern Continent, but in the distant Hertland, in that forgotten wasteland, there might be another possibility.

Opportunity and danger always go hand in hand. Even if someone has already succeeded, it is not easy to cross the sea. The diary occasionally recalls storms at sea, and Muru, who has been through hardships, still has lingering palpitations.

"It's as if the world itself is holding us back. "And that may have its own point." ”

It took almost three years, with the loss of nearly half of the ships, for the caravan to finally reach the shores of Hertland. A few remained, preferring to stay away from their homeland for the rest of their lives rather than face the same danger again, and the half of the ships that returned with a full load of cargo did not return to Neo.

They disappeared into the sea, leaving no trace. The only clue was a fragment of a message that the mage Thea had somehow sent, and on the parchment scroll in Vilsonjiga's hand, a charred symbol of unknown meaning had been undeciphered.

Ten years later, Wilson "Sea Dragon" once again led another fleet built with more advanced technology to sail and successfully return to and fro, and the maritime trade route from the Eastern Continent to Hertland was finally opened. However, Wilson himself did not return. He died on a ship in search of Thea, and his statue still stands in the most prosperous quays of Neo, silently looking out over the Summer Sea...... and further south.

However, Muru, who chose to stay in Hertland, did not know about this.

The place where the caravan landed was the territory of the Noos. In Muru's opinion, these people are really very similar to the Brie people of Rainbow Bend Island, with the same brown skin, slender and toned body, and frank and enthusiastic nature...... It's just that the skin tone is darker, and the facial features are more angular.

In fact, the Brie have always been vague about their origins, claiming only that they are "children of the sea, children of miracles, from afar, to heaven and earth." Some suspect that they themselves are not very aware of it, and that they may have lost a piece of their history. And the Noua, at least the Noua as Muru saw, could not have sailed far to the Eastern Continent.

The Brie lived by the sea and were almost natural fishermen, sailors, and shipbuilders, while the Noua, who lived by the sea, were good at planting...... The astonishing variety of crops that can be grown in saline-alkali soil is not even described by the word "good at".

They don't have to go to sea against the wind and waves to have no worries about food and clothing, and the navigation technology is naturally so-so. In front of the scarred and still large and sturdy cargo ships and escort ships that came from far away from the city of Neo, they built small wooden boats purely to catch some fish and shrimp to improve their food...... And their neat and beautiful but not very sturdy cabins are simply vulnerable. The priest Follett, who had traveled with Muru, was nearly middle-aged and experienced, and sighed more than once, fearing that the sailors of the merchant ships would be unnecessarily greedy, and that there was only a fine line between the sailors and the pirates.

And his worries almost came true one night.