(AN: This was intended to be a lighter chapter, for a good, evening read. In my opinion, the chatting parts are quite entertaining, but it depends on your taste too. Have a nice day! :D)

Completing Quests

Hiro’s POV:

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We went towards the guild house, to take up some quests and kill monsters. The most we can do on this level is meditate and collect as many pills or materials as we can. Upon reaching it, we entered the guild house, while we were embracing each other. Since we have been here we knew where to go. But before reaching the counter, we found something unexpected.

Rose was sitting at a table, alone, visibly bored. She was making circles with her fingernails. When we stopped in front of her, she looked up, and then opened her mouth widely. Her wide opened mouth soon turned into an honest and happy smile. She suddenly stood up as she started throwing questions at us.

“What are you doing here? Are you alright? Did you complete dungeon? Where have you been nowadays?-” She was gesturing with her hands and didn’t stop until Alice raised her hand in front of her and said: “Wait, wait, wait! Calm down, Rose. Don’t ask so many questions! Firstly, yes we did complete it. Secondly, we have gone back to Silverleaf school to finish our remaining work, and thirdly, we are here to take up some quests to spend our time usefully.”

Rose finally calmed down and sat back in her chair. We also took a seat to talk a bit. Suddenly Rose realized something. That she can’t sense our strength, even though she had fifty-eight percent of her energy converted. This made her realize that we are above her in strength, even though we only had thirty-five percent converted the last time we met.

“W- What? Why can’t I sense your strengths? Just how much have you gained on the last floor?” Rose said surprised, then she leaned closer to us and used wind magic to cover her voice. “I know that you two aren’t humans, but I’ve never heard of divine beasts who can transform into humans. Just what are you? Or is this has something to do with what you have gained?” She asked as she put her hands to the sides of her mouth, full of curiosity. It was natural since everyone would be curious about what is the prize for completing a dungeon and at such low levels as us, at that.

Both of us felt a desire in us raise. The desire to not tell her anything, only to see her face. Alice didn’t wait as she answered her question which didn’t say anything in the end. “Fufu~ No, our human forms has nothing to do with that. Remember? We were in our human forms when we entered the dungeon, and we are attending Silverleaf school too. Let’s say that we are a rarity in the universe~” Hearing Alice’s sentence which didn’t contain anything new she became dejected.

“Ah, yes, yes. Sorry, I forgot in the heat of the moment that I’ve seen your human forms. Do you not trust me?” Rose said with puppy eyes, and the most self-pitying face she had. “Hahaha, you damned actor. Do you want a beating?” Alice said while she made a threatening hand gesture and then continued to talk ‘seriously’. “We do trust you, but we wanted to tease you. You should have seen your dejected face! It was really funny!”

“It wasn’t funny! You sadistic monsters! You are no better than that Hill Dow guy!” She pounded her fists on the table cutely, as her red hair was waving in the air. We laughed at her once more, then made a serious face. This time I was the one to talk. “If you want to know what are we, then you have to promise that you aren’t going to tell it to anyone.” She nodded upon hearing my sentence and then promised us. After seeing that I continued to speak.

“Okay, the truth is that we are True Divine Beasts, though I’m not sure if you have heard about us.” Hearing me saying that, she made a face, which said it all. She had no idea what were we. I put my fingers on my brows, and Alice cutely started massaging my temples. I couldn’t help but laugh at her actions. “Ehm... You know about the classes of divine beasts, right?”

Hearing my question, this time she nodded. This is so sad! Everyone knows about the normal divine beasts, but there are rarely some people who know about us! “Well, we are above them. Every kind of divine beast has a leader or ‘god’ of its race. We can command every kind of divine beast, as long as it is of our own race. This means that dragons are likely to listen to Alice’s commands while Hydras are going to listen to my orders. Our energies are much stronger than what normal cultivators use. I have Hydra Qi, while Alice has Dragon Qi.”

“We both have inherent memories, which contains powerful skills, curses, martial arts. Though we don’t really need the last one, like you humans because we have numerous, and quicker minds, so we can control all of our body parts at the same time, making martial arts quite useless for us. We are also stronger than three-star divine beasts, but I’m sure that you have realized that. Oh, we also learned our professions from our inherent memories.”

Her mouth was shaped like a big O letter. Alice started poking her stiff face with her finger, but Rose didn’t react. She soon came to, and finally closed her mouth, and put her hand on her forehead, which had sweat trickling down on it. She looked up, straight into our eyes, saying: “Well, I didn’t expect that… So literally you are the kings or gods of your race? But what if a - let’s say level eight dragon were to descend? - could you command such a monster too?”

“That’s a good question~” Alice said as she was fiddling with her blonde hair. She threw it over her shoulder and leaned forward on the table to continue. “It depends on, you know? Our subjects are usually feeling a lot of admiration and attachment towards us, which makes it easy for us to control them. What we can be sure of, is that they can’t kill us as long as they are using Dragon or Hydra Qi, because we can control those better than anyone. Even if a level ten, three-star dragon were to shoot an attack towards me, which was made up of Dragon Qi, I could simply turn it back towards the offender itself.”

“How they react upon hearing our commands, would depend on how much they can resist their admiring and serving feelings, and also on their personality. If a dragon were to be way too cruel and evil, then it’s more likely that it wouldn’t really listen to my commands. So my answer is that we might be able to control even such a high-level cultivator. This is because usually, they feel as if they would be looking at their gods, making it hard for them to disobey us. But like I said, nothing can be sure.”

“It’s not like we have met a dragon or a hydra in person. This information is coming from our inherent memories, and we have met only a half-dragon - half-elf in reality. She indeed liked me very much, and she felt great just because she was in my close proximity. She was really clingy…”

Alice finished her long monolog, but Rose didn’t seem to be bored by what she said. Rather she looked to be really interested in it. She processed the new information in her mind and sighed loudly. “*sigh* So that’s why you are advancing so quickly? I guess you won’t stay in the fourth realm for too long. You guys are really unfair. Would you tell me how much you have advanced in such a short time?” Rose said dejectedly.

“Listen, we have advanced so much only because we have collected so many pills. Though it’s also true that we really aren’t going to stay here for hundreds of years like others.” Alice answered her, to soothe her sadness, though that last part was really unnecessary… “Do you mind if I go with you? I mean, I’d like to make a party with you and complete quests.” Rose offered up her help, with a hopeful face, making it clear that she wanted to come with us.

“No, we don’t. You can come if you want to.” Alice answered her with a gentle smile. Hearing that, Rose jumped up from her seat and said: “Let’s go then! What are we waiting for?!” She has got herself all fired up. We smiled at each other then nodded at her words. We followed her to the counter and she started looking for the ‘right’ quests. I grabbed a stack of paper, full of quests and put it on the counter. “W- What? I don’t think that we can finish so many quests in a month!” Rose immediately shouted, becoming worried. Seeing that I didn’t react to her words, she looked at my weak point called Alice.

But unluckily for her, my weak point was also my strongest point! [Nice one my love!] I said to her through our bond. [Fufufu~ Who do you think you are dealing with? It’s me! Your perfect lover!] She sent back as a smile slipped on her face, unknowingly. Rose also noticed it, and her face quickly became red, just like her hair. “You evil couple! No! Stupid couple! You are doing it once again! What is this ability of yours? Whenever you look into each other’s eyes, I have a feeling as if you would be talking!?”

She questioned us with a mix of curiosity and wrath. I answered her question in a straight way. “We are soul bounded, so we can talk through our souls, we don’t need to use our mind powers to do that.” Hearing my explanation she answered unbothered. “Well, I expected that much. I was able to see you being lovey-dovey for quite a long time… At this level, something like that is quite rare, and you are visible, crazily in love. Have you ever argued at least? Or something?”

I laughed at her question and both of us answered, perfectly at the same time. “Never~” She shook her head, but she couldn’t help but smile upon seeing us like that. “So would you mind to care about me too?” At this time the receptionist became quite annoyed by how we were chatting in front of the counter, instead of taking up some quests and leaving or something. If I’m the one at fault, I’m not going to be annoyed by such remarks. I wouldn’t like a case like this to happen either if I were to be in his place.

“Sorry. We are going to take all of these quests.” I handed over the papers and after a short while, he said that we can leave. Our first destination was on this planet, and we had to kill a hive of Ravaging Terror Bee, which was causing havoc in an area of twenty kilometers. This kind of monster was living in a hive, and they were tiny targets, but deadly, which made it hard for cultivators to kill them. “But how are you going to complete so many quests?” Rose was still worrying about it, though even if we wouldn’t be able to finish some quests, we can still finish most of them. But this whole thing was irrelevant because we were sure that we can finish all of them.

We soon reached the place where the hive was. Those bees were at the fourth and fifth stage making this into a hard mission because it would be hard to eliminate them and not even someone at the eighth stage would be safe without a good, full body armor. But we didn’t have to care about that. Both of us sneaked up on the hive, then used Space Breath in two lines. The stupid little bees were sucked into the broken space and died in one fell swoop. We walked back to Rose who had her mouth wide opened.

“Is this skill from a dungeon?” She questioned us with great excitement, but Alice quickly crushed her excitement. “Don’t be stupid. Dungeons aren’t giving out skills at the level of True Divine Beasts. This ability is originating from my dragon race.” Rose put her fingers under her chin and after a bit of thinking, she looked at me with inquiring eyes. “Haha, okay, okay, I’ll show you. Don’t look at me like that.” I quickly summoned my clones, which she hadn’t seen before.

“What the hell is this? Although I can’t sense your exact strength, but I can clearly feel that all of them are real, and have the same strength as you!” Rose said as she has gone up to one of my clones and poked my face… then my arms. “Hey! Don’t touch my man!” Alice shouted at her, which startled the entranced Rose. She jumped back in surprise at the sudden noise and both of us laughed at it.

“Ha-ha… -monotone voice- you are so funny. But wait, Hiro too used your Space Breath. Does this mean that you too can use his-” She wasn’t able to finish her sentence because there were already two of Alice. “-Cheat!! Even a single one of you is way too powerful, yet you dared to bond and use each other’s abilities? You are so unfair!” Rose’s whining wasn’t annoying and it only livened up the mood, but she soon realized something. “Hey! Now that I think about it, you completely diverted the subject last time to your race, and you didn’t answer my initial question of how powerful you are!”

Rose looked at us seriously as she said: “How much?”

“Seventy percent.” Alice answered her question just as seriously as she was fiddling with her hair and was looking at the ground.

“.... I’m not going to remark on your abilities anymore, let’s just leave this place.”

Since we had tons of memory crystals, we have recorded the scene, so we had our proof of completing the quest. We left the place and went towards our next target, which was still on this planet. There was a pack of wolves, called Spirit Hounds. They were incorporeal monsters because their bodies were made up of energy. You could completely see through their bodies, which made it hard to fight against them and coupled with their good teamwork, they were really dangerous monsters.

They lived in a dark, damp, forest. The trees didn’t have leaves on them, and they were completely dry and withered. There were dark gray clouds over the forest, and we have seen swamps numerous times. This place smelled really bad. But we had to clear them out because there was a city close by, and these monsters attacked it regularly, causing many death cases. We used our mind powers to search for them, but we unexpectedly found nothing!

“Is this because they don’t have bodies? I mean our mind powers are quite similar to radars. If there is nothing to reflect it, then we can’t find them. They are surely hiding their cores very well.” I said, thinking about how to find them.

“Yes, but there had to be a reason why no one has killed them after all this while.” Alice remarked on my words, and she was right on her words. I transformed into my monster body after a long time, and roared with a tremendous voice, shaking the ground under us. Rose fell to her butt, and Alice didn’t forget to laugh at her, which caused Rose to be enraged once again. Alice jumped on my back to escape from her fists. I saw her stop for a moment, thinking on what on what to do, but in the end, she also jumped on my back and started wrestling with Alice.

“I didn’t transform into my monster form to become a mount you know? I just used my roar to locate them…” I told them with my mind power, with zero reaction… Whatever. I don’t care too much about it. I quickly flew over where I felt the resonation from. My roar caused them to fear me, so they shook for a moment, which in turn, caused their control to be released. That single moment was enough for me to locate their whereabouts. I quickly reached the place and I transformed into my human form. This time I also activated my battle form, to make things quicker and easier.

Alice and Rose both landed on their feet. “WHAT!? You didn’t fell on your butt!? How can that be!?” Alice didn’t forget to bully Rose, who turned her head to the side with a “hmph”, then she wanted to charge into the pack of wolves. But before she was able to Alice stopped her and threw her new weapon and armor towards her. “Catch this. It’s a present for entertaining us all the time, with your stupidity.” Rose wanted to shout back at her with her red, flustered face, but as she caught her new equipment, her words were stuck in her mouth.

It was nothing too out of the ordinary. It had only three enchantments and inscriptions on it, and it was made from a high-grade metal… Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary. Rose stutteringly thanked and tried to refuse with stupid reasons. “T- Thank you, but I- I can’t accept something like this… I- I’m not worthy of it-”

“Shut up already, would you? This is a present, and it’s rude to refuse a present!” Alice stopped Rose’s stupid monolog. While they were talking I summoned my clones and took on the wolves. I didn’t peek on Rose, who forgot about her surroundings, and started equipping her new set… Alice’s arrow was pointing towards my way… No, exactly at me… Of course, she has done it out of fun. She knows it better than anyone how much I love her. I wouldn’t care about other women’s body. I needed only hers.

I somersaulted in the air as my body turned into six. My clones landed right next to me and then I charged towards the rushing wolves, who forgot all about their fear. These wolves were at the sixth, seventh and eighth stage, but I had 8,36 Crypt in my battle form which made it easy for me to fight with them. The pack leader was at the back, carefully commanding its pack, which was made up of twenty Spirit Hounds. This meant that it was three against one, for each of my bodies.

I thrust my spear forward, towards the incoming Spirit Hound. Another one was running at me from the right, while the last one came from behind me. This tactic was used on all of my clones. This formation was like a mirror. The hound in front of me, jumped into the air to bite down on my head. They were only about 1,50 meters tall, so these weren’t such huge monsters as the usual ones. I also jumped into the air, with a rotating kick, as I thrust my spear towards the hound, coming from my right.

My feet were covered in scales so when I struck the hounds at my front and at my back, both of them flew to the side, with a bloody mouth. I’m sure that some of their teeth fell off. The one, which was behind me landed on its feet, while the one, which was in the front, crashed into a tree, close by, smashing it into pieces. I was able to pierce the body of my original target, but my spear simply went through its body. Seems like physical attacks are no good. But luckily for me, I had my Hydra’s head always ready when I fought! When I struck its body, I also released those energy attacks towards it.

It didn’t need more than three of such attacks to be killed. My Hydra’s Heads quickly ate up its incorporeal body and then crushed its core. This scene also repeated itself at all of my clones, except one, where there were four against me, so I wasn’t able to kill any of them. I guess I’ll have to play the defensive game with that one. Or not… I simply called forth my Hydra’s Descent, and upon releasing it, it cleared out a huge area. The trees disappeared without a trace, the ground exploded and about fifteen more Spirit Hounds immediately died because they weren’t able to evade.

I don’t like wasting time and holding back. I’d rather kill all of them in a single move. Of course, I could transform, but I didn’t want to. Maybe at the next place… I ran towards the remaining four Spirit Hounds, only to see Rose jump before me, and take on the one which was at the sixth stage. A dragon shaped arrow also flew past my right ear and pierced my original target, the pack leader. I looked back at Alice, who was looking at me with her tongue stuck out. We left the remaining hounds to Rose since all of them were at the sixth and seventh stage.

To make it easier for her, we used Hydro Mind on two of them which caused instant death!? Ohh! So those monsters which don't have a body are weaker to mind attacks? Interesting. Though I don’t get how its mouth bled… Though it does need a weapon to fight, I guess it was its mouth. That was its only ‘solid’ place in its body. I went up to Alice and grabbed her tongue, with my now clear fingers.

“So? How was that? Miss scoffer?” She couldn’t help but start laughing, but her tongue was still in between my fingers, so she wasn’t able to pull her tongue back. “Lelease my tonggg” (release my tongue) She said, which made me laugh. I put my tongue into her mouth and gave her a deep kiss. I turned back to see Rose, only to see her cutting through the core of the last monster. “Great! Now we are done!” I said, but at that time Rose pointed towards a cave, close by. “Or not… Let’s see what’s inside.” Alice finished my sentence for me.

We quickly went into the cave and after walking for about two minutes, we finally found what lied at the end of this cave. It was really good stuff! The ground wasn’t stone, but sand-like soil. Inside it were growing many Dragon Roots, and Mandragoras, which were the components of the Peak-level Energy Converting Pills! So this is why this whole forest was withered. These herbs had very powerful effects, which could suck away the life from other plantations, and make its whole area into such a dark, damp space.

We quickly rooted all of them and stored it away. We could do a few hundreds of thousands of peak-level pills from such a huge amount, which meant that we could convert another one or two percent of our energies, before attending to the championship. Of course, we didn’t intend to take it all, since Rose was the one who found it. “See? I’m really great!” Rose said as she stuck out her chest proudly, with a stupidly smiling face.

“Yes, yes, you are great.” Alice answered her, with a monotone voice, feeling ‘really’ proud of Rose. “But now we need to get some cores at the ninth stage because we can’t make the pills without them. So can you get them? Miss great?” Alice said sarcastically, but jokingly. We never bullied our friends seriously. Only in a friendly way! “E- Ehm… that’s for you to do since I was the one to find these herbs, right? I- I’m going to leave it to you juniors!” Rose was blabbering her bullshit.

“Hahaha~ Okay. Then your juniors are going to complete some quests, where we need to kill monsters at the ninth stage~” Alice told her. We quickly left the place and went to another planet, which didn’t have many intelligent beings living on it, but there were. We had to kill Blazelings. The planet was called Firelands, and these Blazelings had similar looks to dragons. You could say that they were a subspecies of dragons, just like Wyverns.

Using our mind powers, this time we were able to find anything on this planet, easily. We flew over to the monster. Out of curiosity, we pushed Alice forward, like a doll to test out, how would it react to her. It’s not a divine beast, nor is it a real dragon, only a subspecies of it. That’s why we had no idea how it would react upon sensing Alice’s draconic aura. What can I say… the result wasn’t what we have expected because it quickly charged towards my dear Alice with its jaws opened widely.

Alice looked back at me while acting. Her face was fearful, and terror was visible on it. Her lips also ‘trembled’, though she was clearly playing it… Whatever, I joined her play and transformed into my Hydra form. I quickly arrived before her and tore the Blazeling into pieces. Alice ‘happily’ cried because I ‘saved’ her life. Rose was laughing at our childish play from further away. A month has gone by in such a way. We have completed every quest we have taken up, in time.

We went back to the guild house and put a few memory crystals on the counter, in front of the receptionist. It was a woman at this time. “What can I help you with?” She asked. “Look into them, it’s to prove that we have completed our missions.” I said to her. She searched out the stack of papers and quickly read it over with her mind power. After doing so, she also looked at the memory crystals, where we fought many battles, against many monsters. Our true form was also visible on some of them, but we didn’t care about it.

Secrecy and discretion were one hundred percent in the guild. She wouldn’t spill the beans even if someone were to threaten her life since she can’t. The power of promises!! Every worker had to make it! “W- What!? Uhm… It’s alright. You have indeed completed every quest.” She said as cold sweat was trickling down on her forehead and back. I guess she thought that we are some evil big shots. Or something else. I have no idea what she thought… Oh ho ho! But I can have an idea!

[Stupid, peeker, perverted Hiro!] Alice remarked on my thoughts. [You are one to talk… How was it with Radcliff?] I retorted jokingly. [E- Ehm… you aren’t stupid, peeker and perverted?] She said meekly. [No, I’m not! I’m just curious anyway…]

Waa! I questioned them in such a rude voice when they came here to finish their quests! I’ve never seen someone completing so many of it at the same time and under such a short period of time! Not to mention that they are real monsters. They killed those powerful monsters so easily! What am I supposed to do if they get offended by how I spoke to them. --

Hearing her thoughts, I started chatting jokingly with Alice in front of her.

-- It seems like they aren’t the bad type of people. They aren’t even caring about me. Huh.. Okay, breath out! Maybe I can get away without losing my life! Although the guild is protecting its members, but if such powerful cultivators were to kill me a nobody like me, then they could surely get away without any repercussions. Let’s smile and be polite!

She did as she thought and transferred our guild points to our badges, politely, with a smiling face. “Thanks~” We said as we left her there. Rose surely got it easy. I don’t mind it even a single bit, but she has gained a lot of guild points, thanks to us. But she too has served us with a lot of entertainment and a target to bully. Over this month she was enraged so many times, that I can’t even count it. But she too was enjoying it. She even confessed it at one of the nights, when we were camping outside in a tent with a fire beside us. That was a good night… though the morning was rather awkward after what she heard… *cough*

As we left the guild house, Rose realized that after such a long time of being together we are going to separate. This is the drawback of us being True Divine Beasts. Even if we can find someone whose company we enjoy, we can’t stay with that person for long. Of course, we can still meet for now, but what’s going to happen once we ascend? Are we going to leave behind a friend in every realm, just like this? That’s going to be quite sad.

Rose hugged Alice tightly and I saw some tears, I think. She turned towards me and this time, unexpectedly, she hugged me too. “I’m going to let you do it this one time…” Alice said grumpily. I patted Rose’s back, then she soon separated. Her eyes were red as she said. “Thank you for becoming friends with me, now go on your roads and take care! You stupid monsters! Hahaha~” Rose said with a laugh, but her eyes were sad. This stupid girl is making even us sad. I hate goodbye scenes… and it’s not like this is the last time we meet.

All three of us turned around and flew to our own way. We went back to the school where we exchanged two third of the cores we have gained into Silverleaf points, and after gaining access to the higher floors we exchanged for a treasure. It was really pricey, and it was usable only once, but we didn’t mind giving it to Rose as a present. It was a talisman, which would make it possible to teleport something or someone to a place. It worked even among realms. We gave it to Rose and told her that if she is in trouble then tear it and think of us.

The day of the championship has finally arrived. I and Alice were walking through the dark corridors, leading into receptionist room in the arena. I was able to see a bright white light at the end of the corridor and many things were swirling inside my head.

So this is how it is? How are we going to walk on the road of loneliness? We have nobody to truly rely on. We can only rely on each other, it’s enough, but it’s also sad in a way. Seeing the bright light in front of me, I thought. Why do we want to shine? Why can’t we enjoy the darkness? I don’t understand it. I think that in the past I understood but I’m not a human anymore. Am I forgetting who I am? No, that’s not like me. It’s more like I’m changing. This bittersweet light is pulling everyone out of the darkness. We are together in the light, living happily, but we can’t stay there forever.

This light is so bittersweet. It’s like, it’s only there for people to taste it sometimes, to know what it’s like to live in the paradise, and then it releases you. It makes you fall back into the lonely darkness, where you feel alone. Does it truly worth living in the light? I don’t think so. But then what about the darkness? That path is way too lonely. Why would I want to be alone? This is why I’m going to stay GRAY. My other half is going to be here with me for eternity to come. No one can separate us. We can taste the light, and the dark, but our main path is always going to stay, a colorful gray.