"Darni? Wait... Are you the Naga Hero's pet?" Hera gasped. Could this snake be a creature that has been alive since so long ago? On the one hand, it would make sense for it to be this big, but on the other, how could something survive for so long?

The snake nodded vigorously while closing its eyes, shaking the entire area. Hera tried to keep her footing, but she was still feeling a bit woozy from the effects of the mist and ended up falling to the ground. Seeing that, Chika stopped nodding and lowered its head, almost like a puppy who just did something bad.

"I'm OK. Don't worry," Hera chuckled, realizing that the gigantic snake who terrified everyone seemed just to be lonely, "Wait a minute. How can I tell that you are lonely? And how can you understand what I'm saying? I should be the first human you come in contact with, and the Naga used a different language."

Chika tilted its head, unsure of the meaning of the question.

"Sorry, I don't expect you to answer. I'm just thinking out loud," Hera smiled, not wanting to make the giant puppy upset.

The snake moved over and tried to touch Hera with its face, but the stone around the alcove blocked it. Feeling dejected, it moved back and stared at the explorer longingly. Hera smiled and got up, staying close to the edge of this small cave. She looked around and saw how Chika would be too big to reach her even if she was almost falling into the abyss. Not wanting to leave the snake who saved her life alone, Hera made a stone platform and pushed it far enough so the snake could get close.

"Come here," Hera gestured to the snake asking for a hug.

Chika didn't miss a beat and quickly but carefully approached the explorer, rubbing the side of its face on the human who seemed to understand it. Hera hugged Chika back. The scales on its head seemed much softer than the ones on its body, it wasn't like touching fur or someone's skin, but it was on par with a strong hairbrush. They stood like that for a few moments until Hera noticed something heavy falling beside her. Unsure of what was going on, she looked around without letting go of the attempted hug. Another large object fell on the other side. She looked up and realized that these objects were tears coming from Chika. Tears of happiness and sadness that were held back for eons.

Hera didn't want to let go, but each tear was the size of a minivan, if one of those fell on her, she would be squashed, and the platform she made wouldn't survive. She let go of the hug and jumped to the alcove. When she looked back, she met a confused and slightly hurt Chika staring at her.

"I'm sorry. I want to hug you, but your tears are too big, and the walkway is weak," Hera gestured to her own eye and then the half-bridge she created, and Chika seemed to understand, despite not being happy about the situation.

Again, Hera felt confused about how she could understand Chika so well. There was a kinship among them, like seeing an old friend or someone who shared the same mentality. Did that mean that she was a snake herself? Probably not. Could it be because of an affinity? But Hera didn't have any mist spells, she did have poison, but she couldn't be sure that Chika had any poison. However… The Naga poison could be different. If Chika was part of the Naga people, could that skill be helping her with the translation?

Hera stopped thinking and focused on her poison, the one covering her body and the one in her mana pool. She could sense it, clear as day, but almost like a crappy glow in the dark star sticker, the type who you could only see when you were not looking directly at it, she could feel some mana coming from Chika. It was familiar yet unique, not the same mana that she was using, but something very close.

Maybe that was the reason. Since they shared that particular type of mana, they could communicate somewhat. Maybe Chika even received the same skill that she had. Hera walked back to her platform with a smile and gestured for the snake to get closer. It did so but with its snout instead of its cheeks this time.

"I can only imagine what it was like to stay here alone all this time. I'm sorry you had to go through that," Hera kept scratching the snake's snout.

A few minutes passed when Hera realized that her friends should be freaking out. It would be even worse if they called Helena, Silah, or even her grandmother, telling her that Hera was dead. She pulled her tablet, hoping that she would somehow have access to the internet here. Luckily, there was a single bar of signal. Hera quickly pulled her group chat and tried to make a call. It kept disconnecting just after a single ring because of the poor connection. Hoping that it would be enough to get their attention, Hera just sent a text letting them know she was fine, how she fell on top of the snake and that it was very friendly. She also added that there seemed to be a connection between her and the creature, but she couldn't explain how. Hera also mentioned the poison and the Naga poison skill, but made it clear that it was just a theory for now.

After being done with all that, she stared at the sent mark on the messages while moving her tablet around, trying to see if there was a place with a better signal until it finally changed to 'delivered.'

"Good, I think they won't freak out now," Hera told Chika as if the snake would understand what she was talking about.

Feeling a bit silly, Hera turned around to look at the alcove for the first time. It was highly unlikely that there was any monster around since they would just be killed by the snake, but that didn't mean that there wouldn't be any danger. The alcove was a wide space, although oddly oval-shaped. Getting closer to the walls, Hera noticed a unique pattern. It seemed like something scraped against them over and over through a long period of time. There was a large rock on the left side of the alcove, and behind it, more markings, but these were smaller. Well, smaller in comparison with the markings on the walls. Whatever made this was still larger than Hera's torso.

Stuck under that rock, Hera saw something blue sticking out. She tried to pull it, but the cloth or whatever was in there didn't seem like it was in such good shape, meaning she had to be careful with it, or she could end up destroying the object. Hera tried to pull the rock up, but it was too heavy for her, then she made a stone wall rise from under the rock using the little mana she had left.

With a loud noise, the boulder shifted and released that cloth object. Hera crouched to pick it up, and it was a handmade plushie of a blue Naga with a large smile and half-moon for eyes, well, eye. One of the eyes was gone. The thing was dirty and battered, but somehow it was still in one piece, even with all the loose thread spread over the entire doll.

"What the hell?" She gasped and stood up. Suddenly, the entire room started to shake, making Hera jump back and look around for a trap or something that could be coming to attack her.

However, when she looked at Chika, she saw the snake moving around happily and excitedly.

"Is this yours?" Hera asked, showing the plushie to Chika.

The snake realized how the explorer was having trouble keeping her footing and stopped moving, then it nodded in response to the question. Hera placed the doll on the floor near the edge of the cave, not too close to the abyss that it could easily fall down, but far enough so that Chika would be closer to it. The yarn Naga was small, Hera could hold it in one hand, and even with the battered look, it seemed like it wasn't made by someone particularly talented. The arms had different sizes, the mouth was oddly shaped, and it seemed like the blue yarn ran out at some point, and they had to use a similar color to complete. Even so, just by looking at Chika, Hera understood that this was made with love, the type of love that survived for a long, long time.

With a flick of its tongue, Chika created a small mist hand and pulled the doll close to its head. Its eyes tearing up again. Hera smiled and thought that she wanted to do something to thank the snake for a moment. She used her stone wall spell combined with her [Shaper of Mana] skill to make a small chain link. If she had enough mana, she could try to make a necklace so Chika could carry the doll around. Then again, how would she make that? It was a snake. The largest part of it was its head. Anything below it would just be carried out. Hera tried a few versions of accessories, but nothing seemed to fit or to be usable. Not to mention that anything she did with a rock would be very fragile when considering Chika's capabilities.

Hera just watched as Chika kept playing with its doll for a while. At the same time, She was trying to recover her mana. It usually took around twenty minutes to one hour to recover all her mana. About ten minutes passed when she received a message through her tablet. Like her, it seemed like Blue tried to make some calls, but they all got disconnected. In the end, the controller just sent a text asking a bunch of questions about where Hera was and what happened and saying how happy she was that Hera was OK. She also added that she did send a message to Silah, Bonnie, and Helena during her freak out but that she had already explained to them that everything was fine and they didn't have to worry. So far, there were no responses to those texts, meaning that the people back in Boothudurn didn't even see the first message that she sent.

Hera sighed and sent another round of texts to Silah, Helena, and Bonnie, giving her own version of the explanation and trying to keep everyone calm. When she was done, she turned back to Chika. The snake was still playing with its doll, tossing it around and catching it later, balancing it on its snout. It tried to curl up with it, but the plushie was too small for the current size of the creature. Hera also took a moment to look around the tunnel that led here. It was very wide, probably enough for Chika to stay curled up in the middle, but it wasn't that tall, just around 8 meters from the bottom to the ceiling. Compared to the valleys that seemed hundreds of meters tall, this was barely a three-story building. Looking to the sides, to her right, she saw the end of this tunnel, and to the left, it kept going until she couldn't see it anymore. She pulled her map just to see if she could locate herself. To her surprise, her map was showing more than just this part. There was a long area in the middle of the room, where it should be the chasm, then a turn to the right and nothing. However, her location was much more to the north of the map. Curious about one thing, she overlayed this floor with the floor where the Naga hero's tomb was located. In reality, she was very close to it, just an unknown number of meters deeper than the King's Road.

Looking up, she realized another thing. The mist coming from Chika was bioluminescent, which was why she could more or less see the surrounding area. Somehow, even with the fog, she could see almost perfectly. Her best guess was that when Chika used that mist to hold her against its body, the snake also cast some sort of spell that could help her see in this area. Turning back to the smaller nest, Hera also noticed that there was what seemed to be a tunnel on the far left.

At this point, Chika stopped playing and came back to watch the human that was currently in its old nest. The snake saw where Hera was staring at and gestured for her to go with its head. Thanks to the [Naga Poison], Hera looked back, being called by the snake, and understood what the creature meant because of the connection they shared.

"Do you know if that place is safe?" Hera looked back at Chika, who just nodded in response, "OK then."

Hera got up and walked towards that tunnel. It curved around, and after a few meters, it started going up. Ten minutes passed as she kept walking until a notification appeared in front of her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would you like to enter the Eternal Bond dungeon?

[Yes] [No]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~