High above the droves of trees, a large, shadow-made object blitzed through the sky, slicing through the sky like a hot knife through butter. The rapid wind whipped around the shadowy being, coiling around the buzzing form of the creature as the rapids in a river do around a solid boulder.

  "Yay! Rare Shadow Copy," Metsu uttered happily as she sat upon the very spot right behind the shadow's head, bouncing on the spot and bopping from left to right. Metsu cheered once again with a beaming smile plastered to her face while gleefully throwing her hands upwards to feel the chillingly refreshing breeze flow between her fingers.

  Standing firm against the thashing wind, Zalroth stood perfectly still on the centre of the shadowy creature's back, splaying the opposing wind with his body alone as he mindlessly watched the mountain-tall forest of metalic pale cyan mushrooms far off in the distance.

  Unlike the standing Zalroth right behind her, Metsu was more interested in the sprawling clouds overhead as she took in various shapes.

  Metsu's shadow swarmer easily pierced through the sky, the torrents of wind slamming against its raised wing covers that sheltered the other team members from the wind's violent attempt to remove them from the sky. Attempting to poke his head to see ahead, Kaira was greeted by a face-full of wind, striking him with the force of a flustered girl's slap and sending him back behind the wing cover.

  "Is it really much of a copy if you made it from scratch?" Kaira asked cheekily, his mood not dampened by the event that happened to his face moments prior.

  "Hey, if the skill says they're called something, then that's what they are called," Nagami remarked swiftly, matching Kaira's amount of cheekiness as she twiddled away her mini-smelting forge set-up thing.

  "Is it safe to be doing that right now?" Kaze asked with mild concern as he gestured to the small furnace, anvil, and mould at Nagami's disposal.

  "Shouldn't I practice smelting and stuff during turbulent situations so I'm prepared to do it in serious situations?" Nagami asked rhetorically, wagging her steel hammer[Rare] in the wind wielder's direction to tease him. Nagamai's retort got a somewhat amused rise out of Nowa, and the Gyaru Delinquent exhaustedly sighed to the side to keep herself.

  "You're almost as bad as Zalroth and Chronia with how recklessly dumb you can be," Nowa muttered semi-jokingly as she held the molten metal-filled mould in her hands.

  As the orange glow of the setting sun swept over the land, Metsu's shadow swarmer cleared the boundary of Medous Forest, eliciting excited cheers from Metsu. Influenced by Metsu's excitement, the shadowy swarmer slowed to a more conservative speed. The speed reduction allowed the others to peek their heads out and be greeted by the sprawling, vibrant plains filled with the occasional oak forest ahead of them.

  With his RPG-esque map beside his head and revealing the plains to be called Fruchilo Plains, Zalroth intently watched the map fill in with a large splodge of green and smaller sections of darker greens inside it. Zalroth absent-mindedly let out a low huff, ushering Metsu and Nero to flinch before the shadow copy picked up the pace again.

  "We've really made some distance thanks to... Nero?" Kaira said as he turned his head towards Metsu. Stopping himself just short of the wing cover's edge, he recalled the last time he poked his face in front of the wind currents around him and sheepishly returned his butt to where he was sitting.

  "Indeed, we'll shave off a whole day from our journey at this pace," Zalroth said with genuine praise. Metsu put on a proud face, feeling a wave of delight at being recognised for her little Nero's greatness. "However.". Metsu mentally paused, her once proud expression souring into concern at the guy's sudden shift in tone.

  "Howver?" Metsu mumbled timidly. The small teen nervously poked her index fingers together, fearing she had overlooked something and somehow done something wrong. The guy's prolonged silence dug into Metsu's mind like cheese against a cheese grater, her nerves growing increasingly ragged as she wiggled and wobbled in place.

  "We should make the last leg of the trip on foot, for obvious reasons," Zalroth mentioned nonchalantly, causing the nerve-racked teen to sigh in relief while emotionally deflating like a balloon as she covered her blushing face.

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  "Oh, I didn't even think of that," Metsu murmured as the faint sound of clanging metals broke through the roaring winds. The clanging persisted, its ringing hitting just the right frequency of speed and intensity to get under Zalroth's skin and shake his focus from the map. Clenching his fist, Zalroth passed a look back to Nero's left wing cover, where the loud Nagami and Nowa resided behind.

  "Seriously. What are you two doing back there?" Zalroth grumbled as he raised an eyebrow with minor contempt for the metallic noises.

  "Making merch for money, a fantasy city's bound to have an entry fee for people without any form of identification," Nagami explained smugly from behind the wing cover, not bothering to reveal her face, not wishing to lose any more focus from her work that her talking already caused for her. Zalroth mentally sighed, knowing how fruitless talking to the newly found blacksmith would be when she gets into her groove.

  As he returned his attention forward, Zalroth noticed Metsu checking out Nero's status out of the corner of his eye.

  [Nero(M): Shadow Copy Armoured Swarmer(Very Rare)][Level: 150]

  [HP: 6450][Hexa: 1665]

  [Vitality: 645][Stamina: 333]

  [Attack: 125][Hexa Proficiency: 1]

  [Defence: 448][intelligence: 1]

  [Agility: 305][Speed: 850(+3400)]

  [Abilities]

  [Aerial Swiftness][Passive]

  [The user's Speed is increased by 5 times when flying]

  "I propose we make this spot our stop," Zalroth stated, plucking his map from the air and lowering it in front of Metsu before pointing at it with his other hand. Following his finger, Metsu spotted the

  "But, couldn't we go a little further and stay at the town up ahead?" Metsu asked, pointing out the village beside a mountain a few grids away.

  "And how do you propose we pay for an inn?" Zalroth asked with a deadpan voice. Metsu placed a hand on his chin, genuinely considering ways to solve the problem given the tone of voice Zalroth used. Zalroth lightly sighed, ensuring his disbelief didn't reach Metsu's ears, as a single thought crossed his mind. "That was supposed to be rhetorical, Metsu.".

  As Metsu pondered, a second thought crossed Zalroth's mind, leaving him to wonder why Metsu was rubbing his chin instead of her own.

  Under the fall of night, the quaint mining town previously pointed out slowly emerged into view, embraced within the looming mountain's shadow. Acting as a backdrop, the mountain sheltered the town from the prying observation of the rising moon. The town's architecture bore a striking resemblance to that of classical Victorian-era design, applying an oddly nostalgic air to the place's marble buildings for Kaze.

  Aside from the mountain, the town's second form of defence appeared to be the two tall marble walls that protruded from the mountain. These two walls curved around the town, gracefully encompassing it in its entirety, save for the passage between the two walls. The passage served as a bottleneck for all land transport, making it the sole means of entry and exit for the town for non-flying traversal.

  "So, this is Gronoville?" Kaira asked lazily, his eyes half-open and dangerously close to the surrounding wind current. As he felt his drowsiness reach its apex, Kaira smushed his fingers against his face, softly rubbing his increasingly heavy eyes before falling backwards and slumping against Kaze's arm, much to the green-haired fencer's disdain.

  "Get off, would you?" Kaze asked as politely as he could without letting his frustration show. Despite his demand, Kaze made no real attempt to resist, more concerned that the sleepy guy might tumble off Nero and incur minor injuries if Kaze pushed him away. With a reserved, angered groan, Kaze allowed Kaira to cling to him while ignoring every fibre of being ordering him to beat the breaks out of the sleeping Kaira.

  "And I thought my little sis had a low battery," Kaze grumbled frustratedly. But, even with his frustration, one part of his own sentence stayed prevalent in Kaze's mind, dousing the flames of his annoyance for the sleeping guy into a meek ember.

  "I'll get us back, you have my word," Zalroth stated calmly and out of the blue for everyone other than Kaze. Kaze remained silent, a faint hum being his only show of acknowledgement.

  "Speaking of that, does your plan on doing that have anything to do with wanting to level up so badly?" Nagami asked as she clung to the assortment of steel pickaxe heads before dumping them into her inventory. Zalroth flinched, surprised and slightly ashamed that in all this time, he'd failed to inform anyone of his plan.

  Catching the look in the guy's eye and recognising it to be the one she had earlier, Metsu felt a sense of reassurance in herself that even someone as reliable as Zalroth can also be as forgetful as her at times.

  "Naturally. Those Imperiou duo mentioned, in their bragging of how strong they used to be, that their combined power can cut through dimensions," Zalroth explained swiftly, crossing his arms as he spoke.

  "And you need to be at least level five thousand to make that link thing with them?" Metsu asked happily while locking eyes at Zalroth with her big ol' eyes. Zalroth lightly huffed, telling the others that Metsu's question was spot on, as Nero began decelerating.