"When can we crack this baby open and have a feast?" The boar belts.

  "When I say you can." Hilt tells him.

  The boar, in an attempt to impress Hilt, decided he'll be the one to carry her box. I won't lie, he does seem physically strong. He's able to carry it pretty easily, even with a rge gash on his stomach. Luckily, the human knows the way to a nearby town called Hostice. It's only a few days away, I really forget how fast carriages can move sometimes.

  "What you did was really impressive back there!" The human man tells me.

  "Thanks." I say.

  "We haven't properly introduced ourselves yet, I'm Roy and that's Midgure." He tells me.

  "I'm Pyra, the elf is Hilt, and the fairy is Teir." I tell him.

  Despite being a scammer, he's quite nice. Not enough for me to like him, but I can tolerate him.

  "So you two know each other. Whatever happened to the, 'town asshole?'" I ask him.

  "Yeah, that's a scam we like to pull. We fake a fight, then I ask for either money or other services from women." He says.

  Knew something was up with him. Gd I didn't fall for their trick. The sky's still a dark, red color. In every direction is storms and rge bolts of mana. That demon wasn't a one and done, they're everywhere. She mentioned Cole. Maybe he's still alive out there. Cole did have connections to the sins, I don't think they're happy that their old ally is back.

  "I just have some quick questions." Roy tells me.

  "Like what?" I sigh.

  "What made you take up bounty hunting?" He asks.

  "Money." I say.

  Roy has a small notebook in his hand, he's writing my answers down.

  "What's that for?" I ask him.

  "I'm a journalist! I follow Midgure around and interview any adventures we come across." He tells me.

  "Why around here? You should go to the nd of gods if you really want adventures." I tell him.

  "Yeah, they're not the best for information." He says, " Adventuring's common there; here, where we don't have guilds makes this more interesting to people."

  I never expected Roy to be a journalist. He seemed like just another bounty hunter, more of a Frank clone than a real person. The boar on the other hand... Him being both a bcksmith makes perfect sense. Though they seem quite weak. Why would they take such a high bounty?

  "How much do you have so far?" I ask him.

  "Not much. I've only just taken this up recently." He answers.

  It smells like rain and the air's chilly. We must be coming up to a storm. There's a forest nearby, but all of the trees are dead, not to mention the number of monsters that must be lurking around there. With a storm nearby and no pce to sleep, we're in a bit of trouble. The next town is still days away.

  "Something wrong?" Roy asks.

  "Yeah, I'm just thinking." I tell him.

  "Alright, so, what brought you three to the demon territory?" Roy asks me.

  "A trip. We came here with two others but they've gone missing." I tell him.

  "Why not leave then?" He asks.

  Is he serious? Obviously we're looking for them! Of course he'd just leave his friends to die, people don't mean anything to guys like him. The only person that has any importance is himself!

  "We're not leaving them behind." I tell him.

  "What if they left you behind?" He asks.

  "They wouldn't do that."

  Roy writes something down in his notebook, his face basically stuffed in-between the pages. Is he really going to write that I have good friends? What an ass, guys like these are the worst.

  "I think we got off on the wrong foot." Roy says, "I never meant to offend you, I was just asking a few questions."

  "It's fine." I sigh.

  I should really calm down, he's right, it's just questions. Other than that, I just remembered, Teir's neckce was made by the boar, or Midgure I mean. The first time I saw him, I thought he'd be some strong guy or maybe a high ranking adventurer. He's still technically an adventurer, just not very strong or high ranking. This trip won't be the hardest thing of all time, but them being here doesn't make it easy.

  The storm's getting closer and cover still isn't anywhere to be seen. All of those mana beams don't make things easier. We've had to take a good few detours around demons, and I'm not sure these guys actually know where we're going. So far we've just followed the path, anyone could navigate this.

  "Are we almost there." Teir groans.

  "No. We just started." Roy chuckles.

  Travelling by foot isn't what I was looking forward to. This was supposed to be just another carriage ride, now we're back to when we first got out of the tower of mirrors. We traveled for nearly three weeks before finding an actually good town. We never should have left, it would've been better to just wait for Caleb and Cole.

  "We can take a quick break if you'd like." Roy tells us.

  "Yes!" Teir excims.

  "Is a break necessary?" Hilt asks.

  "Yeah, it'd be easier to just keep going, we'll get there faster that way." I say.

  Teir quickly sits down, and crosses her arms. She wants to pout now? Teir was never like this around King Yerrie, she actually acted like a princess back then. I must've spoiled her too much.

  "You've got wings, just fly for a while." Midgure says.

  "I can't fly..." Teir says.

  She did get shot with an arrow a while back. But the queen said she'd be fine soon enough. I bend down and lightly grab her wing. There's still a small scar there, but it's all healed. Did the arrow damage the nerves?

  "Have you tried to fly at all?" I ask her.

  "No, but I know I can't!" She says.

  "Just try!" I sigh.