They continued walking along the coastline. At first, everything was completely calm and peaceful. Only after they left the area covered by the Gatekeeper's aura did they begin encountering ordinary ferocious beasts.
Wolves, tigers, dinosaurs.
All of these could also be found within Lake Mobius. The only difference was probably their size.
The ones on the Dark Continent were far larger.
But size alone was meaningless. Ronin and the others could deal with them easily.
Aside from these ordinary creatures, which could be captured at any time and used as food, the things they encountered most often were insects lurking in the shadows.
The oxygen content on the Dark Continent was clearly a little higher, causing these insects to evolve to enormous sizes.
Even an ordinary-looking ant was almost the size of an adult human.
Fortunately, although these things were strong, they had not reached the level of mastering Nen. Their only advantages were their huge numbers and their tenacious vitality.
At first, Ronin and the others encountered ants, spiders, and moths. Later, they also ran into caterpillars, centipedes, millipedes, mantises, and more.
From monsters that people could still recognize but would feel physically uncomfortable just looking at, to creatures that looked powerful and truly were powerful—even some that had already mastered Nen and also possessed clever hunting methods that gave their prey no chance to activate Nen—Ronin and the others saw all kinds of bizarre beings as they traveled along the coastline.
However, when it came to the dangers of the Dark Continent, most of them still came from sheer size.
No matter what they encountered, it was several times larger than normal. It made Ronin and the others feel like tiny humans who had accidentally wandered into a city of giants.
And once even the plants began growing enormous, that feeling became even more obvious.
In three days, Ronin's group advanced more than a hundred kilometers.
This speed might not have meant much within Lake Mobius, but for Ronin and the others on the Dark Continent, it was already extremely fast.
On one hand, there were too many disturbances coming from every direction. On the other hand, this damned place had no roads at all.
If they wanted to move forward, they had to constantly travel through the forest. That was not a simple task.
Especially because many plants here, while not actively aggressive, had grown parts that were capable of attacking.
Another point was that at night, for safety's sake, Ronin's group would set up simple tents, or sometimes just sleep out in the open.
"So far, the Dark Continent doesn't seem as dangerous as I imagined," Neon said, her mood relaxing slightly.
Before arriving here, she had constantly heard about how dangerous the Dark Continent was. This place even contained the Five Great Calamities that humanity still had no way to solve.
But before encountering those unsolvable problems, Neon felt this place was more like an environment that was somewhat harsh, but still had the beauty of a forest.
For anyone who liked photography, this place would definitely be paradise.
"Please don't say that." Ronin looked at her helplessly. "Every time someone says something like that, something bad usually happens immediately to slap them in the face."
"Sorry," Neon immediately apologized. "But Kurapika told me there was nothing wrong with the fortune's contents, so things should be fine, right?"
"Who knows?" Ronin had not looked at the fortune poem in a long time.
It was not that he had no interest in the fortune poem. Rather, he always felt that once he knew the contents of the prophecy in advance, he would constantly want to make a different choice just to see what happened.
And if he really did that, then what meaning would the prophecy still have?
"Part of the content we obtained from the Mahavi Ruins mentioned that the ancestors of the Kurta Clan split into two groups back then," Kurapika said, shifting the topic. It seemed he did not want to discuss the fortune's contents, and instead brought up something new.
"One group entered Lake Mobius and settled down there.
"That group included both your ancestors and mine. The other group migrated south along Lake Mobius.
"So as long as we keep heading south, perhaps we'll eventually find some traces of the Kurta Clan's existence on the Dark Continent. Even if we can't find anything, we can still take the opportunity to see what the gaseous life-form Ai really is, and what kind of effect the Trinity Elixir has."
At some point, the sky had turned gloomy.
A sudden downpour interrupted Kurapika's words.
Everyone raised their heads and looked up. All they could see were thick clouds, with lightning occasionally streaking across them.
Only after the lightning flashed did rumbling thunder follow.
"Let's get out of the rain first!" Ronin turned his gaze toward Shizuku.
Shizuku nodded. Blinky appeared in her hand, and she forcefully made it gag. The next second, a house was spat out from Blinky's mouth.
That house was none other than Shizuku's home from Meteor City, which Ronin had previously helped her store inside Blinky.
Grass and trees were flattened over a large area. The bottom of the house had long since been modified by Shizuku, and even the walls had undergone some reconstruction.
The floor of the house had been turned into sturdy iron plates. In addition, Shizuku had installed floor heating and tiles over the metal plates. There was also a stove inside the house. As long as enough fuel was added, the room could remain warm even in subzero temperatures.
There was also a small diesel generator in the house. Aside from being a little loud, it had no real flaws.
At least, that was how Ronin and Shizuku saw it.
Even Ging had not expected Shizuku to be able to pull out an entire house. After walking inside and taking a hot shower, he was quite surprised.
"You people really don't look like you came here to explore. You look more like you came here on vacation," Ging said as he sat down on the sofa and casually picked up a small bag of snacks from the coffee table.
"The only problem is that the amount of food we brought is limited. If we could replenish it infinitely, we might really never want to leave." Ronin was eating potato chips.
Outside the window, the rain grew more urgent and torrential, and the sky became increasingly dark.
A series of thudding sounds suddenly entered the house, accompanied by tremors running through the building.
With a slight judgment, they could tell that the thudding came from behind the house, in the direction facing the depths of the forest.
That made everyone inside the house tense up.
Ronin and Ging quickly went to the second-floor war room. Once there, they did not even need binoculars to see a giant wearing some unknown animal hide striding through the rain toward the house with an arrogant, swaggering gait.
That was not the surprising part.
After all, giants existed everywhere.
What truly stunned them was that this giant had Ten around its body.
In other words, this was a giant who could use Nen.
Ronin and Ging became interested at the same time and instantly rushed toward the giant's location.
If they could communicate, that would be best.
If not, Ronin did not mind taking action.
In any case, he would never allow the other party the chance to damage Shizuku's house.
~~~
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