Huh? There's a magic school here.

Delia Lawson and her squad members gazed at the temple entrance, silently praying for their safe return. Of course, if it was truly difficult, then Steven Ellis's return would be ideal; the others, no matter how close, were just colleagues. As for why? I can only say that adults understand, and I suspect many minors understand too!

Just moments ago, Delia Lawson's team and Steven Ellis's team had a disagreement, mainly because neither captain wanted their loved ones to take the risk. In the end, Steven persuaded Delia to go in first, and then join Delia and her group as reinforcements in the second wave. Of course, these are minor details; let's talk about those who entered the temple.

Darius led the Auror squad into the dark temple. Although light shone in from outside, it only reached a short distance from the entrance, leaving the temple completely shrouded in darkness. In the distance came the sounds of spellcasting and the muffled thuds of drumsticks striking the ground. To get a better view, Darius had to use his wand to launch the spell "lumos" into the air as a signal flare.

Instantly, a blue-white light filled the entire antechamber of the temple, allowing Darius and the Aurors of Steven Ellis's team to see the space clearly. The antechamber was actually quite spacious, with only two rows of stone pillars neatly arranged on either side. The walls were covered with oil paintings of a certain young woman—yes, all sorts of oil paintings! Darius instantly understood that the paintings belonged to the deity of this place. However, when Darius and the others tried to see the woman's face clearly, they always felt that the features in the paintings were shrouded in a hazy mist, making them difficult to discern.

Just as everyone was about to get closer to see the other person's face clearly, a scream came from the back of the front hall.

"Ah! My hand! Don't worry about me, hurry back and tell the adults what's going on here!"

"Dore, take him back! I'll hold them off!"

"No, Anthony! You're injured too, you guys go back! I'm staying!"

"I must say, you guys are really good at getting emotional! Since none of you want to leave, I'll take my leave first. You can clean up this place! Shadow Stealth!"

"Huh? Where did that guy go? How did he just disappear like that? He was just here a moment ago!"

Just as the three Aurors who had followed them were wondering what was going on, Darius had already led the Aurors through a side door in the front hall into the corridor.

"It should be a variant of the Illusionary Body Curse, or rather, a type of Illusionary Body Curse found on the Karen Continent!"

Upon hearing Darius's voice, the three Aurors who had been following him immediately showed delight.

"Sir!" X3

"Alright, your mission is complete! You can go out and rest now. The main force is outside! Tell the people outside what happened here later, so they can be mentally prepared when they come in to reinforce!"

As he spoke, Darius cast a spell of Obstacles to block the stone giant's attack for the three of them. That's right, the one attacking them now was the same guy as the four soldier statues outside the temple.

"Yes, sir! You must also be careful, these big guys ahead are quite troublesome. Their skin is too thick, and ordinary spells can hardly harm them."

Anthony, Dorrey, and the wizard with the missing arm slipped out of the corridor during the gap left by Daris and the Aurors' attack and began their retreat. Meanwhile, the two stone giants in the corridor had already changed their target to Daris and the others who had just entered.

A barrage of pulverizing spells slammed into the stone giants, forcing them to stagger backward. The two stone giants were now covered in wounds from the spells, but they seemed oblivious to pain or danger, continuing to attack the intruders before them.

Finally, after one of the stone giants, Darius, struck its leg with an explosive spell, the over three-meter-tall stone giant collapsed with a thud. A cloud of dust rose as it fell, and then the stone giant began to crawl, attempting to attack the intruders. Seeing that this method was effective, all the Aurors focused their fire on the legs of the other stone giant. Soon, both of the other stone giant's legs were broken, and the two crawling stone giants were no longer a threat.

Darius and his Aurors easily blasted the two stone giants to pieces, and two bright, crystalline orbs rolled out from their bodies. Darius didn't have time to investigate what they were, but he guessed they were the stone giants' power source. Darius ordered his Aurors to collect the orbs and then prepared to continue on their way.

However, they hadn't gone far when they saw sculptures identical to the two stone giants they had just encountered appearing on both sides of the corridor. They realized that what they had seen earlier was only the beginning. Darius fired a flare with his wand and discovered that there were four more sets of these sculptures in the corridor. It seemed that if they wanted to go deeper, they would have to destroy these four sets of sculptures. Fortunately, they had already found the stone giants' weakness. Destroying these stone giants shouldn't be a problem; it would just take some time and effort.

Then Darius led the Aurors on their monster-clearing journey. Their skillful teamwork meant they destroyed a group of stone giant statues every ten minutes on average, and they also collected two glittering crystal balls every ten minutes. However, just as the dozen or so of them had eliminated the last group of stone giants, they didn't notice that the dust rising in the air was slightly different in color than before. Because the change was so subtle, no one noticed it.

Then a bizarre scene unfolded: as the group reached the exit, their movements slowed until they froze completely. Darius and the others fell into a deep sleep, at which point Darius found himself awakened.

"Ben, get up! Ben, you absolutely can't sleep here, you'll freeze to death! Wake up, your younger siblings are waiting for you to bring food back! If you die here, they'll have no way to survive!"

As Darius gradually awoke, he had completely forgotten who he was, only remembering that he was a farmer named Ben. He was originally a local farmer, and the lords had told him that this was the northeastern part of the Lionheart Empire on the Divine Grace Continent. He knew nothing else; after all, he was just a farmer tilling the land for the lords. His life had been decent; as long as he worked hard, he could support his younger siblings.

It seems that fate thought they were living too comfortably, so it wanted to cause them some trouble. Before they knew it, the weather began to turn cold; summer seemed to be gone forever, leaving only an eternal winter.