Farma-Wrynn led the group of prisoners through the forest floor. Hal-Wrynn walked beside her. Silence filled the air around them.

“Did you tell them?” Her whisper-like voice quietly echoed through his ears.

Hal-Wrynn looked up at his aunt. For a brief moment, the kiss scene from before flashed through his mind. He couldn’t help but gag. Nobody wanted to see their aunt swapping spit with someone!

He breathed out a sigh and shook his head. “No, I didn’t. They are my saviors. There is no need to heavy their burden, nor do I want them to look at me any differently.” He paused for a moment. “Also, they didn’t ask.”

“…” Farma-Wrynn did not say anything for a few seconds. In truth, to a bunch of outsiders, this ‘secret’ of his probably wouldn’t even matter, but to the squirrels, it was an unspeakable taboo.

Eventually, she nodded her head.

Far above the forest, past where their eyes could see, the glowing sun began to set over the horizon.

She looked up. For a moment, she admired the dim haze that dyed the world in resplendent orange.

“We should probably hurry. I’ve been gone for a week. Hopefully, that place hasn’t burned down yet.”

“… You know, we could always just leave.” Hal-Wrynn whispered underneath his breath.

“…”

“You, me, and Ama. We could just leave and never come back. The world is a big place. We could go beyond the forest or we could even follow Ellis towards the world tree.”

Farma-Wrynn suddenly sneered. “What, you want to ask your little girlfriend to just leave her whole family behind and run off with you?”

“…”

He did not respond.

After a brief silence, she breathed out a sigh. “You know we can’t do any of that.”

Hal-Wrynn smiled a thin smile. “Yeah, I know. This place is our only home, after all.”

Farma-Wrynn did not bother to respond. Instead, she mimicked his thin smile with one of her own. For an instant, melancholy flashed through her eyes, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

Without another word, the two continued onward, their frail silhouettes appeared infinitesimally small within the backdrop of the ever-present forest.

****

The whole ordeal with the kiss did not really attract much attention. In fact, when it had happened, miraculously, nobody had noticed! Grisella was too busy scooping up slime remains, while Wight was preoccupied with nursing Ena back to health. Of course, he used the word ‘nursing’ very loosely in this scenario.

As for Ena, well, her fatigue was apparently far greater than he originally imagined. She passed out shortly after Wight and the wolves arrived.

Either way, nothing happened to him. Ellis simply enjoyed the aftertaste of the kiss with a warm feeling in his heart and a somewhat complacent smile on his face.

As such, time flowed and the group continued their journey.

Eventually, ten days passed since the battle with the Slime.

For Ellis, things had finally reverted to normal.

They were now once again following the river. Their days were filled with constant battle. The only discernable difference was the difficulty. True to Grisella’s words, the monsters here were far stronger than the ones outside.

What’s more, the sheer volume of their enemies was astounding. It felt as if every mile that they traversed came prepackaged with at least one-hundred monsters. Ecologically speaking, there should be no way to sustain such a large quantity of life forms. Still, somehow, this damn forest made it work.

Their progress was slow going, but Ellis was fine with that. He liked their current pace.

Along the way, he finally taught the wolves how to play chess. As expected, they instantly fell in love with the game. It added an extra layer of complexity to their usual Othello games. On top of the constant fighting, their days were filled with nothing but Chess, Chess, and more Chess.

Grisella also devoted herself to her own obsession.

She spent most of her days with her nose crammed into the pages of that magic book. Even during combat, she would never participate. Instead, choosing to hide behind his back while the wolves did all of the heavy lifting.

It was somewhat sleazy, but to her credit, Ellis practically did the same thing. He did not fight. Instead, he left everything to Ena and the wolves. Of course, he brilliantly reasoned his lethargy, citing that the battles were valuable training, and it would pain him to take away such an opportunity from them. Luckily, no one argued with him.

Still, his curiosity was piqued.

On one fine day, while the wolves were out fighting in the front lines, he turned to Grisella and asked, “I’ve been meaning to ask this, but you, you’re pretty weak, aren’t you?”

For a moment, her shoulders trembled. You… you aren’t allowed to say that! She silently roared within her heart.

In her eyes, it was not that she was weak, but rather, Ellis was simply too damn strong!

He was a freak! A complete and utter walking force of nature! Although she did quite well to hide it, in truth, his last battle with the calamity-class monster had left her in shock. The Slime’s attacks had not only been strong, but they were also blisteringly fast. As a spectator, the only thing she could discern from that battle were blurry lines of pink and one tiny grey dot that continually danced through the chaos like a feather amidst a raging windstorm.

His last attack with the spear had been particularly impressive. In all, Ellis had made everything look so easy that it was somewhat difficult to accept the fact that he had actually battled with a calamity-class monster, and not just some run of the mill giant slime.

Thinking about all of this, she couldn’t help but glare at Ellis. It was fine to be strong, but the way he presented himself left a lot to be desired. Humble to the point of irritation, lazy to the point of stagnation, the slacker-vibe that he constantly gave off contradicted with his strength. Then again, an arrogant Ellis would probably be much worse…

Augh! I don’t know anymore!

A feeling of frustration welled up in her heart.

“It wouldn’t kill you to show off your powers for a bit.” Ellis’s words interrupted her train of thought.

“Show off?”

“Yeah, I still don’t really know just how strong you are.” Truth be told, he was just curious. Magic fascinated him and not being able to use it sucked. At the very least, he wanted to see it in action. Unfortunately, Grisella never once participated in battle. This left him feeling somewhat frustrated.

She let out an awkward cough. Glancing up at him from the corner of her eye, she stated, “I’ve been preoccupied.”

Ellis raised his brow, “preoccupied with what?”

She proudly lifted the book in her hands up for him to see. With a bright glint in her eyes, she smugly stated, “space magic.”

“…”

It definitely sounded impressive, but he was still somewhat skeptical. He had seen her gush over that book for a few months now, but never once had he actually seen her perform any magic. Ena knew a thing or two about it too (space magic), but the most that she could do was remote locate a few things outside of her field of vision.

“I can see your skepticism, but that’s alright. The best way to convince someone of something is through demonstration!”

With that, Grisella proudly raised her hands in the air. For a moment, the cloak behind her billowed in the air. He couldn’t help but admit, she looked kind of cool.

Ellis took a step back and watched with rapt eyes.

All of a sudden, magical runes materialized all around her. Ellis did not recognize the runes, but that was only natural. He knew quite literally nothing about magic. The runes exuded out a deep purple glow.

“…”

“…”

A few seconds passed. Those seconds turned into minutes. Eventually, a full ten minutes had gone by. In all that time, the most that had happened was the slight twitch she performed towards the end of the ten minutes.

“There! Did you see it! I totally did it!” Without warning, Grisella suddenly exclaimed. The excitement in her voice was palpable. Ellis also noticed the large amounts of sweat dripping down from her face.

“See what?” He furrowed his brow in confusion. As far as he was concerned, nothing had happened.

“Spatial displacement, of course! Teleportation! That is an amazing feat, especially for someone like me with less than a year’s worth of study.” She raised her nose high in the air. “I truly am a genius.”

“Teleportation? Since when did you teleport?”

“Look here.” She pointed to the ground. “I moved from here to here. You can clearly see the footprints.”

“Ah, you’re right.” Looking closely, he noticed that her footprint had indeed moved by about two inches to the right. Ellis glanced up. “Is that it?”

She nodded her head. “That’s it.”

“…”

For a moment, he stared blankly at her self-satisfied expression. He could not bring himself to say anything.

****

After another five days passed, the group finally ran into the second calamity-class monster.

“Are you sure that’s the right one?” Ellis couldn’t help but ask. The doubt in his voice was palpable.

The creature was vastly different from what he originally expected. It was a small and diminutive bipedal monster with a mushroom cap covering its upper head.

“Yes. My eyes are never wrong.” Grisella grimly stated as she glared at the creature with both fear and frustration.

“Kyu?”

“Right, it does look weaker than the other one.” Ellis nodded in agreement with Ena’s remark.

“Just because it looks like that, doesn’t mean you should underestimate it. You can never judge a book by its cover!” Grisella felt that Elli should understand this phrase the best. After all, his whole existence was a total sham!

“Still…” he furrowed his brow.

Right now, the group stood on top of a large hill. Lately, the terrain had undergone a drastic change. The flat forest that he had grown used to had been replaced by a collection of hills. Some were like towering mountains, while others barely counted as an incline. Even the river moved up and down these hills, seemingly defying gravity just to get to its destination.

Ellis had checked beforehand, but these hills were not actually hills. The first ten feet or so was comprised of dirt and soil. If it was just that, then he wouldn’t have cared so much, but much to his surprise, anything deeper than ten feet was actually composed of a material reminiscent to the trees of this forest.

In other words, these hills were actually giant roots. Ellis took this as a sign that they were getting close to their destination.

We should be really close to the world tree by now, so it’s only natural for stronger enemies to appear, but this thing…

The group stood in front of a remote-viewing artifact known as a Looking Glass. They were using this artifact in order to sneak a peek at their next enemy.

It goes without saying, but the artifact originally belonged to Grisella. In truth, it was really just a circular mirror held aloft by a triangular stand. Reflected on the mirror’s surface was the figure of a certain green-skinned midget.

“Now, are you sure that’s the thing that stopped you in your tracks?” For what felt like the umpteenth time, Ellis asked again.

“Yes.” She nodded her head in bitter frustration. “I know how it looks, but trust me, in some ways, this thing is more dangerous than the slime.”

“No, it’s not that I don’t believe you, just that…”

It was really difficult for him to stomach such a truth. Those spindly limbs, that ugly face, that green skin… to think, the next calamity-class monster would be a goblin…

First a slime, then a goblin, just what the hell is wrong with this world!?