While he was still hesitating about whether to politely refuse, Agatha's next words made him realize he was overthinking it.

He was thin and weak, without armor or weapons, and although he was a mage, he was clearly still a novice. Agatha was not the kind of unreliable person to ask him to clear out an evil cave or anything so difficult. Instead, she wanted Ethan to help her gather some herbs near the camp.

“The darkness is drawing closer, and the Rogues are under increasing pressure. Now the Rogues are forced to shrink back and defend the camp, and they don’t even have enough people to go out and collect supplies. As a result, there are fewer and fewer herbs available for making potions, so I need to replenish a large amount of herbs to make more potions.”

Agatha herself couldn’t leave the camp. Not just her—even the lower-ranking sisters were strictly protected inside and not allowed to go out casually. So these tasks could only be given to others.

“Collecting herbs?”

It didn’t sound too hard? He could take this task.

Seeing that Ethan was interested in helping, Agatha gave a detailed description of the herbs she needed, even taking out a few drawings to help Ethan identify them.

“But you need to be careful. According to the patrolling Rogues, the number of dark creatures near the camp is slowly increasing, and even some local animals have started to be corrupted by dark forces. So even staying near the camp is no longer absolutely safe.”

Ethan nodded, so he didn’t plan to go too far from the camp—otherwise, if something happened, he wouldn’t even be able to run away.

“I’ll write a note for you. Take it to Katherine, and she’ll help you prepare some weapons for self-defense.”

“Thank you for your trouble.”

Taking the note, Ethan left Agatha’s tent and walked toward where Katherine was—the tall, strong woman stood right in the center of the camp, more conspicuous than anything else there.

He walked up to Katherine, handed over the note, and Katherine recognized Agatha’s handwriting at a glance: “You’re going to help Agatha collect herbs?”

Ethan didn’t answer, since he couldn’t understand her, but he still took out another note and handed it over. It was one of the sentences Agatha had written for him earlier.

Sure enough, when Katherine saw the line “I need to earn the reward to go home,” she understood. She didn’t bother saying anything more about how dangerous it was outside. After giving a few instructions to the Rogue beside her, she stood there and sized up the young man in front of her.

At this point, Ethan couldn’t understand a word the tall woman was muttering, or he would have been quite frustrated.

“Too weak!”

“Looks seriously lacking in strength!”

“With a build like that, even light leather armor would be a burden. Just prepare a light weapon for him, forget about armor.”

“Really should get some proper training—someone like this, any of my Rogues could take on ten of him.”

Ethan, who couldn’t understand a thing, still felt that Katherine’s gaze seemed a bit unfriendly, but after receiving a short sword and a small shield, he still thanked her.

“Wish you a safe return, young man!”

This sentence Ethan understood—before he set out, Agatha had specially taught him this phrase and even said it to him herself.

“Thank you again.”

He sheathed the short sword at his side, carried the small shield in his hand, and walked out of the camp slowly but resolutely.

To say he wasn’t afraid—how could that be possible?

Even though he had a second chance at life, in both his previous and current lives, he had never faced a situation where he had to fight on the front lines, let alone against monsters mutated by dark forces.

“I’ll have to face all this sooner or later—I absolutely can’t chicken out!”

Taking a deep breath, Ethan finally left the camp, and with the Rogues calling out “Wish you a safe return!” behind him, he headed toward the nearby woods.

The Blood Moor—that was the area where the Rogue camp was currently located.

Although it was called a moor, there were still quite a few plants and animals, but their colors looked rather unnatural. Maybe this was a concrete sign of the dark power’s growing corruption of this world.

Ethan didn’t know—even the herbs Agatha needed were being corrupted by dark forces. Now, every time she made a potion, she had to use purification magic to remove the dark energy within before she could continue. Potions made this way were much less effective, which was one of the reasons they were running short.

“As long as I don’t go too far, I shouldn’t run into any monsters, right?”

The Rogues went out on patrol every day, clearing the area around the camp to prevent monsters from gathering and attacking. So as long as he didn’t go too far, it was normal not to encounter any monsters.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck was not on Ethan’s side. He had just walked far enough that the camp was barely out of sight when he spotted the first herb he needed—and at the same time, saw two zombies, still wearing tattered clothes and moving stiffly, wandering in front of the herb.

“Zombies… only two, and no other monsters.”