"The 'U' of Urgeross? Really?" Yoichi asked himself, sharing his amazement with Kenji. The burning from that small wound was gone and the scar had healed completely, leaving that indelible mark on his skin.

Yoichi put on his boot again, keeping in mind that time had begun to flow normally again in the real world. The village of Oakenfair was still far from his location, and as long as the sun shone high in the sky, finding his way out of the Boneside Swamp would be easier.

​​

He grabbed the amphora and made sure he had left nothing important in the cave. The remains of the carnivorous plant that inhabited that inhospitable place seemed to date back several hours, but in reality, they had only been there for a few minutes.

There's no more time to waste, now that my main mission has been completed, I must devote myself to finding Shusaku, Yoichi pondered. He walked out of the cave, followed by Kenji.

The swamp looked completely different during the day than it did at night. The plants and shrubs looked decidedly more harmless and less spooky, even though they were covered in the same mud and surrounded by swarms of large, noisy insects.

Since he came out of the Tear of Therion, no writing from the Demon Pet System had appeared in the cave. Yoichi's two quests were still active and waiting to be completed.

Finding Shusaku and forging a weapon was one of them. The reward of that quest would grant Yoichi maximum proficiency with his chosen weapon.

"All right, Kenji. I hope the journey goes smoothly from now on. If all goes well, I'll summon you when we're near our destination, but be ready for more surprise attacks," the young tamer suggested to his Oracle. "Something tells me that even after the swamp there are dangers ready and waiting for us" he added.

"Screek!" Kenji confirmed, its red eyes smiling.

"Ildriss," Yoichi said, recalling his demon and switching it with Ichiro. The Inoshuma was summoned in the next instant and, with its usual majesty, took form from the stream of air expelled from the yellowish Demon Tooth.

In addition to Ichiro's Demon Tooth and that of the mysterious Hikigotsu, there was only one other empty spine ready to be used. The young and inexperienced tamer had no information about the frog demon, and to summon it, he had to wait until its healing was complete inside the magical thorn.

Carefully, Yoichi inserted the Tear's amphora into one of Ichiro's saddlebags, taking the opportunity to pet its golden coat. Immediately afterward, he jumped into the horse's saddle, starting to follow the dirt road that snaked through the swamp.

The sunlit ponds looked putrid and sticky. Within them, numerous groups of tadpoles swam carefreely. Are they normal tadpoles or Hikigotsu pups? Yoichi asked himself as he continued riding north.

The dense marshy vegetation became less and less dense, and the uneven road began to lower in elevation, becoming a steep descent. The Boneside Swamp that bordered the Bronzeforest stood in a sort of natural basin enclosed between two hills.

At a determined pace, Ichiro sank its mighty hooves into the dirt path, following the only direction allowed. Yoichi pulled out Ryutaro's map to pass the time.

Before looking down at the ancient parchment, he looked up, trying to find a landmark to geo-locate himself. Unfortunately, the swamp offered no dwellings or monuments, and the only landmarks were the mountains that flowed one after another to his left.

"We should be about here," he affirmed, reasoning aloud and pointing a finger at the map. "During the day we should be able to move faster because the threat of wild demons is reduced. What's this?" - His fingertip pointed to a small village at the edge of the swamp.

Due to the darkness of the previous evening, many details on that faded map were not clearly visible. During the day, however, the sunlight allowed the lone traveler to spot even the most imperceptible inkblot.

"Grim... Grimbrook," Yoichi read aloud. He was only able to partially recognize the handwritten characters on the map, guessing the other letters logically. "That place is marked on the map with the village symbol. Maybe we could stop there to stock up on supplies, and who knows, maybe there's someone there who knows Shusaku. Even though we're a long way from Oakenfair, I might get lucky for once," he pondered, rolling up the map again and getting back on the road.

In less than an hour, Yoichi and Ichiro emerged from the Boneside Swamp, finding themselves in a wide valley that skirted the ubiquitous Southborne Mountains. As long as Tentochu's largest mountain range was to his left, Yoichi knew he was heading in the right direction. To the east, however, the valley stretched beyond the horizon, whose visibility was reduced.

At the furthest point his eyes could reach, the sunlight was reflected by a kind of thin fog typical of coastal areas. Suddenly, the path that had led Yoichi out of the swamp disappeared, swallowed up by the ground.

In its place, an iconic meadow consisting of wild grasses spread freely everywhere. The Goldhaven traveler was lulled by that apparent tranquility and, crossing his legs over the saddle and loosening his grip on Ichiro's mane, found a new way to pass the time.

He didn't want to waste a single second of that trip and his desire to learn new things was like that of a child exploring the world for the first time. On the other hand, even though he had awakened in Lumya's world in the body of an eighteen-year-old man, Yoichi had the same experience as someone who desperately needed to learn.

The Nightblades warrior spent more than two hours flipping through the book titled "Fundamentals of Demon Taming". Whenever a sentence caught his attention in a particular way, Yoichi folded the top corner of the page so that he could find that information again without effort.

Ichiro's hooves suddenly made a different noise, treading on a hard, flat wooden surface. That sound alerted the ears of its tamer, who looked up past the leather cover of the book he had inherited from the gatekeeper.