While spending their time exploring, Ariel and his friends visited many places that they have been to through the month of their adventures, including each of their bases that they spent most time in. Most of the time as they walked the four of them spent it talking about all of their exciting and unusual experiences, here in the purple wilds.

If anyone saw them from the side they would only see a group of youth’s walking through a colorful forest while smiling and laughing, sharing their interesting stories. They didn’t put much attention about their surroundings, since in their own opinion there was almost nothing that would threaten them after having met up with each other and having defeated that chimera, so in the time they spent travelling they managed to cover a lot of ground.

In several hours they were even able walk alongside the purple wilds longest river, from the start to the very end, seeing many wonderful sites along the way. However soon they would be leaving here and a small nostalgia had sprouted in all of their hearts.

Knowing that this is the place they will always remember because of their familiars, made this feeling of nostalgia truly unstoppable. Unfortunately they had to deal with it and carry on since getting stuck on the past is mistake that could make them regret it.

As the party was walking through another small path of the forest, they unexpectedly found quite a nice and serene place none of them had visited before. Seeing this place Ariel gave out his own suggestion with satisfaction in his eyes. “How about we stay here and rest until the time to leave come? I think this is quite a nice place and since our time is almost up I’d like to spend it relaxing a bit.”

The one to respond to his words and speak was Brendon. “I think that is a great idea since I am also quite tired from all this walking. What do you two think?” He himself was quite tired and quickly accepted the proposal, but he also didn’t forget to ask the girls before hand, who fortunately also easily agreed to it.

Like that they settled down at the spot and started resting while enjoying the environment. Each of them either talked with one another or explored a short distance around the spot they found. A small pool was near it so there was plenty of interesting wildlife that they could inspect while waiting.

Unfortunately fate sometimes likes to play around at such peaceful moments. Sarah who has went a bit further to explore, happily returned back as she spoke about the interesting creatures and plants she seen around, however one thing she said made Ariel quickly jump from his resting spot and ask her a question while being dumbfounded. “Could you repeat that?”

Not knowing what Ariel was so heated up about, Sarah answered with a bright smile. “I said there was a cute badger like creatures which looked extremely adorable, with his two tails and small horns on his head.” As you have already guessed she was not the most well read and she mostly only knew about important things and things she had ran into before, so the eminent danger of what she met flew right over her head.

Ariel inwardly cursed while quickly thinking about what to do. Unfortunately the other two also didn’t know much about these peculiar creatures and didn’t know why he was acting so strangely, since from Sarah’s description it appeared quite weak and not threatening.

However he ignored the peculiar expressions and quickly used his special sight to look around, and just like he expected he saw countless number of small Mana sources converging around them. Turning slightly pale he shouted out a command while preparing to get away as fast as possible. “Everyone, quickly prepare for combat and run as quickly as possible. If it isn’t needed, don’t engage them.”

His strict and strange instructions shocked the others, but they have already plenty of unconditional faith in him and did as he said, absentmindedly with out raising any protest. Suddenly the greenery around them started moving, and out of it came a creature, that was just described by Sara, however it wasn’t alone, more and more started appearing at a rapid rate, which stupefied Ariel’s friends.

Only after a couple of moments did they snap out of it and understand the crisis that had befallen them. Even if these critters were weak, if there are so many of them then they will be eaten until only their bones would remain, so they quickly started running with Ariel in the lead while panic became slightly visible in their eyes.

Erna who was closest to Ariel looked at him and asked while feeling extremely nervous. “What are those and why are there so many of them?” Its clear that even the well read Erna didn’t look into things that didn’t interest her, so this was out of her range of knowledge.

Turning to look back at her Ariel calmly responded. “They are forest fangs. All of them are actually barely low level Acolyte rank of strength, but the problem is that they hunt in hoards and even powerful creatures are afraid of catching their attention. Sarah, back then must have met with their, scouts who alerted the others and came to hunt us down.”

Ariel’s words were heard by the rest and made them very scared. If it was Ariel who said that powerful creatures are scared of them, then these powerful creatures are something even he couldn’t beat which also means that the forest fangs are definitely something they couldn’t mess with.

However just after Ariel stopped speaking, he noticed that small Mana sources were also coming at them even from the front. He was quick witted and understood that the little, clever buggers have surrounded them. Turning around and stopping he quickly yelled towards his comrades. “They have trapped us. Prepare for combat, we will try to drag it out until the time is up, since that is our only choice.”

The others followed his orders and got into a basic formation, Brendon didn’t waste any time and used his water magic to make a giant water wall on one of the sides, leaving only three directions that had to be protected. Although he wouldn’t last if he had to make such sturdy defense on all sides, but if it is only one of them he could still manage.

Erna quickly got into the front and took the position of being a vanguard while Sarah and Ariel prepared to bombard the forest fangs from a distance. The golden haired maiden was quick to act and with several powerful slashes, her rapier easily cleared the immediate area around them while also killing several tens of the vermin.

Both Ariel and Sarah took the sides and used their respective AOE’s, ice cone and acid rain, creating devastating damage and giving them more room to breathe. Seeing that the assault was pushed back a bit, Ariel continued giving commands. “Quickly summon your familiars to help or we will not make it. There are too many of them for us to handle.”

The whole party understood that by themselves it would be too much for them, but luckily they had contacted their own beast not so long ago that could help here. Because of this, each of the obliged and besides Sarah whose familiar was barely a cub, everyone summoned their beasts in an orderly fashion.

A white unicorn summoned by Erna started rapidly running around and trampling the enemy’s while at the same time majestically shooting light magic from its horn. Erna worked well with it and progressively cleared out every forest fang that acme into their reach.

Brendon’s ancient tortoise that Ariel hadn’t seen before also made its appearance. Unlike the white and beautiful unicorn, Brendon’s familiar looked like a giant turtle, the sizes of the previously mentioned beast.

It had blue skin and a giant, black shell with no particular patterns on it, its four stubby feet and a short tail made it look a bit funny. However over all its body was quite sharp edged at places, and its eyes had clear laziness in them, but also hidden wisdom which sometimes flashed as it used water magic to help defend or restore peoples strength.

Ariel’s spirit seemed to do the least as it only kept shooting out ice spikes towards the enemies, but others didn’t complain since they understood that just like Sarah’s baby panda it was still to young and didn’t have enough time to grow.

With the help of these three familiars, Ariel and his comrades kept fighting while killing one forest fang after the other until they couldn’t even keep up with the death count anymore. After some time of such slaughter they had slowly started feeling the drain on their body, which further became visible when Erna actually got bitten by one of them.

They understood that it would be soon over for them if this continued like this, so their space grew smaller and smaller as more and more bite and scratch marks appeared on their bodies from the few forest fangs that managed to get past.

When an entire hour has passed since it started, the party was already starting to go pale from the exhaustion of their energy and wounds. Fear soon came over them when they saw that these vile creatures regrouped and prepared to go on an all out assault.

Not knowing what to do, they slowly prepared for their inevitable death. Sarah let out a stiff smile as she spoke. “I really didn’t think that my death would come in the form of small fuzzy creatures.” Others agreed and started talking about what was on their mind as they looked towards the giant tide coming towards them.

But just as death was so close to them, they felt warm light suddenly surround their bodies and their minds growing dim. When they came to, before their eyes were the familiar training grounds from where they were teleported from, a month back.

Looking around all of them let out a breath of relief coming to the understanding that they were barely saved in the nick of time. Ariel then exclaimed with happiness in his voice. “Thankfully we managed to survive long enough. If we died a moment before returning I would have really become angry at the gods when going to heaven.”

Brendon, Erna and Sarah also felt relieved as Brendon spoke. “We also came back each having a familiar, so this out going could be considered a complete success.” His words reminded them of the completion of the long task, and the exhaustion was quickly forgotten as they lost themselves in the feeling of accomplishment.

They all smiled and even Ariel let out a small one, which disappeared before anyone could notice it. Each of them was excited to have made it back alive and let out a laugh together with all the students around them.

Later on the teacher came and all of the students had to show their contracted familiar. In which of course Ariel and his friends once again were in the centre of attention having each contracted a rare beast, and in Sarah’s case an unknown one. Ariel also got to ask about what happened with the Broach.

Teacher Albert told him that it must have been a life saving enchantment made by the rumored healing affinity having mages. They seemingly had a certain spell which could enchant an object with any element Mana which in dire straits would heal the person that had it, provided that the affinity of the person was the same as the element used for the enchantment.

By the teacher’s theory, the ice spirit somehow was born in the object due to it not being used for a very long time, so it was extremely lucky for Ariel to have it happen, which made him even happier with this small spirit and its future prospects.

At the end of the day, all of them finally returned to their respective rooms after the long month and at last had some satisfying and well deserved sleep, ending this small adventure and also one of the most memorable arcs of their lives.

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there