"John..." Muttered Ariel with a happy expression

"You're late..." Said Serena with an unexpected smile on her face

The gorilla got seemingly more furious as it began to roar and pound it's chest rapidly in anger once it noticed that it hadn't landed a hit.

"John, it's fur is magic resistant and it gets stronger the angrier it gets, it's a B-ranked Monster. The king of the jungle, Barlugura." Said Serena

"It doesn't look that strong..." I muttered as i stared at it

It was rampaging around but wasn't really attacking us.

"Gravitas" I muttered

The 20x gravity over the Barlgura caused it's movements to slow down but didn't immobilise it. It looked up at me who floated above it and jumped straight at me.

I avoided it by moving back and after it missed, it fell straight down.

"Let's go while it's slowed down." I said as i grabbed on to Serena and Ariel's hands

I coated them in anti-gravity as they held on to my hands and we flew straight up leaving the Gorilla child behind.

"I'm glad you two were fin-"

I was interrupted by Ariel who suddenly hugged me. Her sudden action caused me to slightly lose balance and my concentration and it made us hastily descend

"Eek! Ariel!!" Said Serena with a frightened expression

"Ariel, it's hard to fly Around like this" I said

Without saying anything, Ariel continued to hold on. It was surprisingly cute and felt nice so i didn't say anything else. Serena also appeared slightly annoyed by it, but held back.

"Serena, that 'eek' that i heard"

"You imagined it" She replied as she looked away

Shortly after ariel let go of the hug and went back to holding my hands

"S-Sorry! I just thought i'd never see john again so when you came i was just so happy and- Sorry..." Said Ariel with a dejected expression

"Hm? I don't mind. You're free to hug me whenever you'd like" I replied

Ariel's expression changed to a happy one and Serena said

"Is that so..." She muttered

Shortly after she suddenly hugged me too. We hastily descended again, but like before, i managed to concentrate in time.

"Eek!" Said Serena again as we descended

"S-Serena... Are you afraid of heights?" I asked

"No! Who wouldn't get scared if we suddenly start falling? Even Ariel is shaking" Said Serena

I looked over at Ariel and just as serena said, She was trembling.

"Ah, I see... But you don't have to force yourself to hold on to me it's safe even if you're just holding on to my hands" I said

"I'm... not just hugging you because i'm scared..." She whispered

"What was that?" I asked

She spoke too low for me to hear it, and I wasn't strengthening my hearing with magic

"I Said... I missed you too!" shouted serena as she let go of the hug and looked away

"Haha, i missed you both too, I'm glad i had deprehendre, otherwise i wouldn't have found you two. Speaking of finding, how did you know where Ariel was Serena?" I asked

"I asked the spirits for help, and how did you know i knew where she was?" Serena asked

"Well because i saw you rus.h.i.+ng towards her with deprehendre, and did you say spirits? You can communicate with spirits?" I replied

Ariel looked over at Serena with a curious and interested expression

"Well yeah, it doesn't work in dungeons because they're artificial, but i'm able to freely communicate with forest spirits once i put my mind to it. More importantly, where are we heading?" Serena asked

We had been flying in one direction for the past few minutes at a moderate speed, but i hadn't told them anything about where we were going.

"Well, for starters, we're getting out of this forest and finding the nearest town. Did your forest spirits tell you anything about where we were?" I asked

"Not really, they only told me i was inside of a dangerous forest." She replied

We continued flying above the trees until 20 minutes later where we finally managed to leave the vicinity of the forest.

"Hey i think i see something..." I said

With enhanced vision and deprehendre, I noticed around 100 meters away from us[] carriage being attacked by a pack of dark wolves, they had a strange evil air around them, i could feel it straight from where i was at.

"What?" Asked Serena

"A carriage getting attacked by shadow wolves..." Said Serena

"Let's go help them" I said

"Okay." Said Ariel

"Sure" Said Serena as she let out a sigh

I Wasn't helping them just for kindness. I needed information, and right now, the best way to get it would be by helping whoever is in that carriage

As i got us closer to the site, i could see a male mage fighting back the shadow wolves, he was making sure none of them would get close to whatever was in that carriage. Seeing that i increased my speed.

"That's weird..." Said Serena

"What?" Ariel Asked

"Shadow wolves don't live in forests, and it's weird for them to be on plains such as these. They're more common as familiars, meaning..."

"Someone plotted this... It's most likely an a.s.sa.s.sination of whoever or whatever is in there." I muttered

Hm... Can't we watch a break? We just got out of the dungeon...