The air fell silent, and everyone focused their attention on the old hunter, waiting for his answer.

"There should be other people ahead of us, and there are quite a few of them."

The old hunter ignored everyone's gazes, looked at Natalia with a serious expression and spoke in a deep voice.

Um?

Everyone's eyes became serious and no one questioned him. After all, no normal person would act aimlessly in this situation. Moreover, he had been a hunter for most of his life, so it seemed that he had discovered something.

Hearing his words, Livia quickly lowered his head and looked at the ground, and his perception was always directed to the ground. At the same time, he also sensed that the weak sensing fluctuations had a slight collision with his perception.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at Honasan, and Honasan also looked at him. The two looked at each other, and finally Honasan nodded at him imperceptibly and withdrew his perception.

Natalia turned her attention away from Honasan beside her and Livia on her right, and looked at the old hunter in front of her. She asked with a serious face, "Are you sure?"

Although I didn't question what he said, I still had to confirm what needed to be confirmed.

The old hunter nodded solemnly. "I have been a hunter for so many years. I am confident that I will not make a mistake. There are a lot of footprints on the ground that are covered by fallen leaves."

Natalia's eyes narrowed, "Hona-san, take some people to clean up the floor!"

"yes!"

Honasan knew the seriousness of the matter, and quickly called over three guards. He even took out tools from the bags behind them and started to clean the dust and leaves on the ground.

Livia took two steps forward and shoveled away the leaves on the ground, revealing two or three shallow overlapping footprints.

"This..." Anders beside him looked at him in surprise as he suddenly moved, and then looked at the footprints revealed by his shoveling away the leaves with even more surprise.

At this time, everyone began to check the ground, except Natalia and the old hunter who stood still and watched the actions of the people around them.

After a while, Honasan walked back to Natalia with a serious face and reported: "Sir, there are indeed a lot of footprints!"

Natalia nodded and looked at the old hunter again.

"Looking at the footprints, it was probably a day or two ago."

As if he had guessed what she was going to ask, the old hunter spoke quickly.

"One or two days?" Natalia lowered her head and began to ponder. "That's impossible. We have asked the nobles around us, and none of them would come recently. Otherwise, they would have come together a long time ago..." Honasan frowned and murmured in a puzzled voice.

So that's how it is. I was wondering why they would hire some ordinary people to help with such an important matter, even though they are all good among ordinary people. It turns out that they can't find other nobles and extraordinary people recently.

Although the voice was very subtle, even the old hunter who was very close to him could not hear it clearly, but Livia's hearing was far superior to that of ordinary people. He heard his words clearly and thought to himself.

"Can you guess how many people there are?"

Although Natalia was also confused, she did not dwell on what Honasan said, but frowned slightly and asked seriously.

The most important thing now is not to worry about other things, but to find out as soon as possible the direction and number of the group of people who passed by a day or two ago, and then make plans after figuring it out.

Honasan lowered his gaze to the ground again, was silent for a moment, and then shook his head with a bitter expression.

"Sir, I can't tell, but I think there will be at least ten people."

The old hunter did not answer, but turned back and walked a few steps, looking carefully at the ground swept by the guards and the crowd. It seemed that this matter was a bit tricky for him as well. After all, the group of people in front had covered up their whereabouts, and after a day or two of damage caused by the footprints they left, it was really difficult to accurately distinguish how many people there were.

Except for Natalia and Honasan, everyone else slowly retreated to the outside, making room for the center while keeping an eye on their surroundings.

They couldn't tell the difference, so instead of stopping him and wasting time, it would be better to give him space to observe carefully and make the difference. After all, if even the old hunter who has been studying this for almost his entire life couldn't tell the difference, let alone them.

This is also the reason why Natalia specially asked someone to invite an old hunter who had long stopped hunting. Of course, it was also because the old hunter himself had difficulties at home, otherwise he would not have taken the task at such an old age as he had been retired for several years.

Seeing this, Livia also followed the crowd and retreated, pretending to be alert. Although his perception spread to the farthest point and he did not find anyone else, in order not to stand out, he decided to follow everyone's actions.

Everyone just waited quietly, keeping an eye on their surroundings.

“Livia, I feel like our luck might be a little bad this time.”

Caius slowly approached Livia and whispered.

Hearing this, Livia glanced at him and said nothing.

"There are only a few people coming to the Gray Monster Forest in a year. This time we came here and actually encountered someone who had been there a day or two ago. I have asked around and found that there are at least five or six roads leading to the Gray Monster Forest from all over the Rising Sun Plains. How come we happened to encounter someone else on the same road? I guess...

This is either bad luck or someone is setting a trap for us!

Of course, that's not necessarily the case. After all, I have asked about Viscount Natalia in Songkani. She has no enemies, either in her previous family or in the family she married into. And because she has no power and doesn't stand on the same side, basically no one cares about her family. I think it must be a coincidence."

Seeing that he did not reply, Caius solemnly told Livia a lot of things he had analyzed.

Listening to his words, Livia felt helpless. Although what he said made some sense, if it were put into a novel, it would be like raising a flag and hoisting an iron flag.

"Well, it's useless for you to analyze so much. It's better to wait for the old hunter to analyze it, and then wait for the Viscount to make a decision."

Livia said calmly with a blank expression.

"Well……

That’s true.”

Caius looked a little embarrassed. He felt that what Livia said was correct. Now that they had come here, it was impossible for them to return just because of some speculation. That would be a waste of time.

Um?

Livia felt someone suddenly walk away from behind him, and he glanced over and saw Anders, the archer who had been beside him before, suddenly turned around and walked towards his two companions.

I think he must have heard what Caius said and wanted to go back and discuss it with his companions.

He just glanced at him briefly without paying much attention to him, and moved his sight back to the old hunter who was half-squatting and looking at the traces on the ground, studying seriously. After all, as a witcher, he naturally had to know these things. Now he relied entirely on his extraordinary perception.

I think everyone should have their own ideas about this. After all, even Caius can analyze so much, so others can naturally analyze something. But these are actually useless. The most important thing is to see what the employer, Viscount Natalia, thinks.