"I wanna go home..."

There was not a speck of her previous enthusiasm left. The tentacle incident left a big scar on Mindy. But of course, this wasn't a matter of whether she wanted to go home or not. The question was... was it possible to return? What if they don't find the missing ingredients?

...

"Don't worry... we ought to find some people soon..."

Nate tried to reassure her, but she didn't cheer up one bit.

In fact, since that wolf massacre, the air around them was mostly silent. Neither one of them felt like talking at all. Even during their quick breaks only a few words flew by. And to make the matters worse, the sky turned dark hours ago. They were now wandering in a scary forest in the middle of the night without any idea where to go.

"Do you think I'm cursed?"

The silence was broken by Mindy's strange question. Nate wasn't sure what to say to that and before he could reply, Mindy spoke again.

"Maybe Arnagroth is mad at me for messing around... Or maybe god himself hates me?"

To stop her from getting even more depressed, Nate hugged her.

"Who cares about that... even if god himself hates you, I never will."

"B-but... the tentacles..."

"It's fine! I'm telling you. I'll always be here for you!"

Nate's bold statement made Mindy blush.

"B-but... what if you get injured because of me..."

"I can handle a scar or two!"

Mindy's face turned even redder.

"I... these tentacles..."

"It's the magic power you wanted! It's not a curse or anything like that!"

...

"But what if I'm possessed or something... you shouldn't just..."

Her voice got gradually weaker and then cut off.

"Huh? Possessed?"

Nate released her from the hug and looked at her, but Mindy kept avoiding eye contact while her eyes teared up.

"Don't worry about that... I mean... If there's anyone who can resist being possessed by evil tentacles, it's gotta be you."

A big smile appeared on Nate's face.

After a moment of silence, Mindy wiped off her tears while pouting.

"What's that supposed to mean... idiot..."

A faint smile appeared on her face as Nate stroked her head.

With their mood lightened up, they pressed on. But even if they felt better, they were still all alone in an unknown forest, where another wild beast could ambush them at any second.

Not too long after that, Mindy came to a halt again before pointing into the darkness.

"Huh... OH! OOOH! LOOK!"

"Hmm? What?"

But Nate only saw more wooden trunks in the darkness ahead.

"A house! Look! Right there!"

Mindy urged him to look again, but even after straining his eyes, Nate just couldn't make out anything that resembled a house among all the tree shadows.

"I can't see anything..."

"Ugh! Come on! Let's get closer!"

The excited girl ran forward while Nate promptly followed, still trying to see just what she was talking about.

In a few leaps, Nate's eyes finally registered a structure he could vaguely identify as some sort of cabin.

"How did you see it from so far away in this darkness?"

To that, Mindy stopped and turned around.

"Eh? ...well, it's not THAT dark, right?"

Nate was about to make a comment... but decided to ignore it for the time being. Getting to safety was the priority after all.

"Never mind that, let's see if someone's home."

The two of them then approached the house and checked the insides through a window. The cabin didn't seem to be illuminated from the inside. Either nobody was home, or they were sleeping.

"Come on, let's try to knock."

Nate turned around and walked to the front door. Mindy looked at him, then inside through the window, and again at Nate before finally following him.

The nefarious thought of breaking in through the window occurred to her, but she decided to go with Nate's method instead. She probably realized that they can't antagonize the owner or they'll have to sleep in the woods.

When they made their way to the entrance, Nate then steeled himself and knocked on the door. He didn't forget to put a lot of force into his knuckles to make sure his knocks would be heard. Then, he stepped back and patiently waited for a response.

...

The lack of any reply made the two look at each other.

"I guess nobody is home?"

"Hmm... I don't know if that's good or bad..."

Since nobody was home, there was no way for them to get inside... but at least no mad hermit popped out planning to chase them away with a rifle.

"D-do we break in?"

Ignoring the fact that his Mindy just proposed carrying out a criminal action, he started to seriously think about it.

"But how would we even do that? This door seems sturdy and the windows-"

"F-FIREBALL!"

Mindy's yell interrupted Nate as the familiar tentacles shot out from her palm and tore down the door with barely any resistance. Mindy's teeth were clenched and she was shaking as it happened, but she wasn't having panic attacks like before. When the deed was done, the tentacles crawled back into her hand without causing any other scene. Mindy sighed in relief as she held her hand.

Nate on the other hand... looked at the scene with sweat on his forehead. He then gazed at the girl, who willingly used something she was so afraid of not too long ago just to get into the cabin. Mindy noticed his stare and...

"W-what...? You said it's my power... so I'm using it!"

But Nate kept his eyes on her for a moment before they wandered off to the thrashed door.

"It's not really a safe place anymore if you destroy the entrance door..."

"... Ah..."

...

In the end, they walked inside and found out that it really was abandoned. Though oddly enough, the lack of dust on the tables made it seem like there was someone not too long ago...

Without using Mindy's destructive powers, they manually moved a few tables and chairs to the entrance and blocked it off.

"That should be good..."

"It's still a little breezy though..."

Mindy rubbed her arm as she complained.

"Well, you were the one to break the door..."

"Ug... whatever!"

She pouted again. Feeling a little angry, she headed to the stairs and walked up. Seeing that, Nate followed her.

"OOOH! Look at this!"

While the bottom room had a few tables, chairs and a bed, the upper one was crammed with various tools, hanging maps and other eye-catching stuff.

The item Mindy immediately picked up was a sharp sabre. It was likely meant to cut bushes as you traverse an overgrown forest. But Mindy held it like a katana in front of herself, posing like a samurai.

"We shouldn't steal from here... we already broke into this place, I don't want to become even more of a criminal."

And when Mindy heard the word 'criminal', she immediately put the thing back.

"R-right... let's just spend the night here..."

Nate nodded.

As much as he wanted to get back as soon as possible, they were both terribly exhausted.

After heading downstairs, they located all of the available places to sleep and found just a single bed. Not even a couch or anything else, just a bed for one person.

"I guess I'm sleeping on the floor then..."

"Come on! We can both squeeze under those bed sheets."

Reacting to Mindy's suggestion, Nate looked at her with suspicion. Mindy's face went red when she noticed his gaze.

"N-not like that!"

Seeing her this flustered, Nate sighed.

"Alright, alright... let's both sleep on the bed."

And so, despite both still being dressed in their sweat-covered clothes, they tucked themselves into the bed and went to sleep...

...

A few hours later, when Nate was fast asleep, Mindy was still wide awake, lying in the bed facing Nate's back. She kept staring at her shaking hand, completely devoid of all the vigor she previously had. She was not as fine as she might have let on. After all, having a tentacle monster living in your hand is not something to be calm about...

While she silently gazed at her hand, Nate's sleeping body suddenly rolled over to his other side and hugged Mindy, pressing her head against his chest.

"Wh-!"

A tiny squeak left her mouth in surprise. When she realized he was still sleeping, she calmed down and was about to return the hug... But she changed her mind and looked at her hand again in fear. Then, she merely clenched her fists without hugging Nate back and finally closed her eyes to drift off to sleep...

In a different place and time...

A woman with wolf ears and tail ran through city streets. Since it was night, only skeletons and ghouls were still hanging outside and a figure of a wolf beastgirl rushing through sure caught their attention. But even if it did, none of them cared enough to go and talk to her or chase after her.

The woman soon arrived at a large building and wasted no time barging though the door. The interior was filled with round tables and chairs next to them. Various townsfolk sit around chatting... except not. When the woman suddenly crashed inside, all of their attention was drawn to her. However, she didn't mind it and ran straight to the counter where a woman with bunny ears stood. As she finally got there, she collapsed on the counter, gasping.

"H-hannah! What happened?! Where is Goran?!"

The woman behind the counter raised a worried voice as she helped Hannah stay on her feet.

"Haaa.. a... a demon! A demon!"

The woman's eyes widened. Just what was this girl saying? A demon? What kind of joke is this?

And not just her, all of the other people inside started talking and whispering among themselves.

"Calm down! Tell me what happened!"

While trying to calm Hannah down, she beckons to one of her co-workers and tells him to get the chief.

"Verner... he... he's dead..."

"Verner...? You mean that old hermit?"

Hannah meekly nodded. Tears started forming in her eyes as she recalled the horrifying scene.

As Hannah explained what happened, the co-worked returned along with another person. It was a man of large stature with cat-like ears on top of his head and his entire face framed by a magnificent mane.

"Hannah, did you say you saw a demon?"

Unlike everyone else present, his eyes were stern and unflinching.

"N-no... we didn't see it... we just saw... ugh..."

Hannah still couldn't calmly talk about the gruesome scene from nightmares... even when speaking to her superior. With Hannah not being able to speak, the woman with bunny ears relayed everything Hannah told her to the chief in her stead.

The chief then closed his eyes and clenched his teeth.

"Already a casualty..."

He didn't seem surprised to hear of a new demon.

"You know about the demon?"

When bunny-eared receptionist asked him why, he explained the situation.

"I got a message from the capital not too long ago. The king was ordered by the slime princess to assemble a party and search for the demon... and I was assigned as the leader for this."

He then kneeled down to match his eye level with Hannah.

"Hannah, I will need you to show me where you have seen the demon's... 'handiwork'."

Although she was still shaken, she nodded.