We left the forest soon after, each of us equipped with the gifts they had received from the old forest god that looked like a fairy and was in fact a perverted grandpa. Yes, this included Enri, who now had a black leash attached to her collar, with me holding the end of this leash in my hand.

“This really enchants your body?”, I asked the happy dragon with a frown on my face. Holding the leash of a dragon loli, really wasn’t something I wanted to be seen doing.

Enri nodded looking more enthusiastic than ever.

“The collar has a bunch of magic spells on it, making it almost indestructible, disallowing me from detaching it from the collar and enchanting both my five senses and the regeneration of my body.

I can see a fly from over a mile away now!”, as if to prove it, she suddenly chanted a magic spell and a small black dot rapidly closed in on my face. I cursed and side stepped, dodging the fa, insect that continued its path until it died from hitting a tree. Rolling my eyes in annoyance I suddenly pulled on the leash, causing the grinning Enri to lose balance and loose her overly smug expression. She fell on her butt and gave me a dark look.

“Stop messing around”, paying her no further heed I walked forwards, still keeping the end of the leash in my hand as I walked faster to catch up with the rest of our group. Suddenly I felt a slight resistance from the leash.

Turning my head, I realized that Enri couldn’t keep up with my speed.

Why?

Because she was crawling on all fours, pretending to be a dog.

I felt even more annoyed than before. Maira was still ignoring me, Riina was behaving weird and saying stuff she really shouldn’t and Ignatius, …

Well, the knight was actually the only one who didn’t make any problems at the moment.

Either way, my patience was running low and I had no nerve to deal with the dragon’s antics. It might be unfair towards the cute girl, but right now my mood didn’t allow me to mess around like that. Turning around I walked over, before grabbing the chain that connected the cuffs on her wrists and pulling her up on them. Then I simply threw her over my shoulder, treating the petite girl as if she was a sack of potatoes as I hurried up to catch up with the others.

“Y-you…”, Enri began to complain and the bells that were attached to the various chains on her body began to ring.

“A pet shouldn’t talk back.”, I said with a stoic expression, not halting for a single moment until I reached the others. Maira threw a short look at the weird scene of Enri hanging from my back like a piece of beef jerky that was being dried in the air. She didn’t seem surprised though, averting her eyes after a moment before letting out a dissatisfied sigh.

Riina on the other hand, had her eyes lit up as a teasing grin spread on her lips. She walked behind me and began to tickle the defenseless dragon girl, causing her to giggle around and make the bells ring even louder. An naughty expression had overtaken the cat girls face as her tail wagged around in joy. She was like a cat who was playing with its helpless prey.

I actually found it to be very amusing, so I didn’t do anything about it even after Enri had pleaded for help for over half an hour.

“S-stop hahhhaaahaa…. I-I will be a… haaahhaha good girl now… S-s-so s-stop!”, after being tortured for almost an hour Enri had given up her rebellious demeanor and panted from continuous laughter. It was almost sad to see such a vigorous and fierce heroin in such a state after only an hour of tickling.

As such I took pity on the poor gall and let her down.

“You really shouldn’t bully your companion like this.”, I told Riina with a wink. She smiled before helping up Enri, who was still a little shacky from having laughed for too long.

“It’s revenge for going out of line.”, the catgirl whispered with a smug expression. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. She really was a predator after all…

My eyes fell on the black twin daggers that hung from the sides of her short pants. The obsidian-like surface glittered in the light of the sun and gave off an intimidating impression of sharpness.

“Isn’t glass a bad choice for a weapon?”, I asked the catgirl while deciding that I had to somehow return her to her former cutesy self.

She smiled and reached out to touch the smooth black surface with her fingers.

“I don’t think that it’s actually obsidian or glass…”, she thought for a moment.

“More like some sort of stone, maybe a crystal…..

Either way”, drawing the two daggers he glanced at me before winking at me.

“They have quite the useful enchantment.”, all of the sudden her black hair turned into countless black wisps of smoke that obscured her body, before dissipating into the surrounding air. Riina had disappeared from her former location and I felt a slight pressure on my neck.

“Y-you still blocked it.”, the girl muttered full of dejection as she noticed the hilt of my sword that had squeezed between her dagger and my throat. At the last second I had sensed the attack and reacted by unsheathing my new sword and using the hilt to block the sharp blades.

Of course, I knew that Riina meant no harm, the slave seal on her chest wouldn’t allow such a thing, but my body had acted on pure instinct acting before I even realized it.

“It was a close call though…”, I comforted her while sheathing the sword. She gave me a look from the corner of her eye before also putting away her weapons.

“So, you really prefer cute girls.”, her words came out of the blue.

Surprised I turned back to face her and saw a thoughtful expression on her adorable face. Her two large eyes were locked on me as she absentmindedly stared into my eyes.

“S-sure, who doesn’t….”, I awkwardly replied before lifting my brows.

“Why are you as-“, before I could finish asking the cat girl had already returned from her thoughts and clapped as if she had made an important decision.

“Then I’m gonna be cute.”, oh hell, I think I should really get a professional psychiatrist for this party. Even the cat girls are slowly losing it! I was honestly concerned by this statement.

With a serious expression I suddenly grabbed Riina’s shoulders and got to my knees to get my head on the same Hight as hers. Looking straight into her eyes I hesitated for a moment.

“Just… be yourself.”, I finally said with a grave tone.

“You don’t have to play a character, don’t do stuff that you don’t want to do because you think I or anyone else expects it from you!

Just. Be. Yourself.”, I really wanted to make this clear, so I stressed my last three words, making sure that she understood what I meant.

Riina looked surprised by my sudden reaction and the grave expression on my face. But then she surprise faded and was replaced by amusement and tenderness. She smiled happily.

“Don’t you worry. To tell the truth I have been acting like I did because I’m the assassin of this group. A murderous killer can’t be cutesy and all, right? So… I’m actually being myself when I just mess around with Enri and the others. Still… It’s hard to not fall back into pretending to be someone else…

You know that feeling, right?”

She was more perceptive than I thought.

My serious expression melting away I also began to smile.

“Of course, I do. But I think I will give up on trying to be badass for the time being. Stuff like that shouldn’t feel forced. So… you should also try to be a little bit more like yourself.”, the two of us came to an agreement and after that our dear cat girl truly stopped any more seductive remarks and returned to her former shy and cute self.

To my annoyance the weather soon turned for the worse and for the first time since coming to this world I witnessed rain. Now that I thought about it, it was truly strange that there hadn’t been any rain during the whole one and a half months of my stay here. This was not an arid area after all and with all the lush vegetation you would expect a lot of wet weather.

“Fall is coming.”, Maira explained as she saw my surprised expression.

“Summer is very dry in our kingdom and we have to depend on the water storages we fill up during fall and spring to water our fields. It will be raining a lot in the following months”, a worried look overtook her bright eyes.

“Fall also means that the demons are most likely going to attack soon. They won’t wait for winter since the snow makes battles almost impossible.”

“This means…”, I said with a somber voice.

“That we have to hurry up and move north to build up defenses there.”, it seemed like the time to just wander around had already come to an end.

“I am also worried about the stance of the capital and the other nobles.”, Ignatius said with a frown as he felt the first drops of water fall on his skin.

“There is no telling whether they will truly march north to defend the kingdom or rather use this chance to start a civil war. The state of the kingdom is truly too precarious to put our hopes into them.”

I nodded.

“That’s something we should worry about once we reached the north.”, the rain became stronger and stronger as the surrounding area changed it’s color into various shades of grey. The sky was overcast, and wind picked up. A full-blown rainstorm was on its way.

Maira lifted her huge staff and the large crystal on it’s top flashed with green light. All of the sudden a transparent barrier formed a five-meter circle that encompassed our group and kept the rain and wind outside.

My eyes widened and I threw her a questioning look.

“Can you really keep this sort of mana expenditure up?”, the amount of mana used to keep of this spell would drain my storage within an hour and Maira’s level was almost a dozen beneath mine. Even as a specialized mage she couldn’t have had more mana than me and throwing out mana like this while being on unknown terrain could end pretty badly.

But Maira simply harrumphed and a smug smile blossomed on her face.

“The staff reduces the mana for a spell by three fourths. I can keep this up all day without any problem.”, she still seemed angry at me, but having a chance to brag about her awesome new staff had certainly elevated her mood.

I chuckled seeing her behave like an immature brat. Then my thoughts returned to the tasks at hand.

“Well let’s go then. We still need to get the money for completing our first quest!”