"Runnn!!! Incoming!!" Ryu can't see anything behind Darla but the girl looked pretty serious. *Shudder* *Shudder* He was still trying to make sense of her call when the earth under him began shaking and he can clearly hear sounds of rumbling. 'Don't tell me? Shitt...' Coming to the same conclusion as Darla he got up and ran into the tunnel ahead of him. It wasn't long before the centuar caught with him. "What is that about?" He still had to confirm it. "What do you think? It's the buddies of the spider. It's last scream was a cry for help it seems." She was definitely telling the truth because Ryu turned back to see the whole underground hall being swarmed all over by huge spiders. Some of them distinctly located them and selected the same tunnel as them. "Dammit!!" He saw Darla grit her teeth. He assumed it must have been her wounds acting up. 

"Heyyy..??" Next second he found himself grabbed by his collar and picked up. He tried to struggle but she kept her hold on him and threw him on her back. "Try not to fall off. I am not going to pick you again." Saying a single sentence she broke into a sprint. Ryu was surprised but why would he mind a ride when she can run much faster than himself. He can see the distance between them and the arachnids grow and it wasn't long before they had left them far behind. Still Darla ran for 20 more minutes before taking a stop in a somewhat wider tunnel. "Get off me!!" She barked and Ryu diligently get down. "Yeah. Doing just that no need to be this mad." It must have been night outside considering how the temperature inside the caves system had fallen, making him shiver in cold. "You guys sure can run fast, even if that was the last thing you can do." "What did you say?" Darla glared viciously at him. Ryu immediately waved his hand "Just kidding. No need to be this serious Miss Darla." Her eyes softened "Don't call my name. You are not.." She wanted to say, he was not worthy but then recalling her decisive defeat against the guy she can't get herself o complete the sentence. "Huffff.." She turned around and settled against the wall, falling onto the ground. She was exhausted. 

Ryu pulled out a Virgo from his pocket before munching on it. He saw Darla pull out some first aid from her bag. Getting her hands on some potions she washed the wounds on her large frame. He can see her having difficulty reaching the far end of her rump but chose to ignore it. From how bad her temper was, he would only get a scolding if he offered any help. Few minutes passed and he saw the frustration grow her face. Time to time she would look in his direction to check on him. "Huh.. Give it to me." He strolled to her before sitting next to her large horse body. The girl was hesitant but in the end handed him the potion. 

"Hissss... Agghhh.. mhhgh Do it slowly. Aiiooo.. aiiiii" Ryu was ruthless. Rubbing her wounds with the potion he bandaged them. Once done Darla hurriedly wiped the corners of her eyes. "You sure you are a warrior? Don't tell me this is the first time you are out of your home?" She made faces at him before her face turned red from recalling the event from before. "Never mention that I allowed you to ride on my back." Ryu was intrigued by this new development, he placed his butt on the ground before using her body as a large pillow for support. Darla saw him take advantage of her but remained quiet. "Ohh.. why so? The ride was not that bad." "You idiot. In our tribe it's considered a great disgrace to allow someone to ride you and that too a human." She shook her head realising the consequences of her actions. Weren't humans their enemies? How did the situation come to this? She didn't know what she felt towards the boy but she certainly can't have the boy gotten killed because of her. 

"Okay. Okay. I get it. I won't mention it." She can tell he wasn't serious about it. She shook her head and looked towards him with a firm gaze. "You don't understand your situation. I am no ordinary centuar. My father is the leader of the tribe. How do you think he would respond if he got to know a measly human rode his only daughter? Yes, you will be killed. No matter where you hide." Ryu gulped realising the gravity o the situation. "It can't be that bad? It's not like I took his daughter to bed? Does he have to be this violent?" Darla's face heated up even more. She didn't know if she should laugh at the coincidence or she should worry about this dimwit. "It's is very bad. Why do you think we don't allow anyone to ride our backs, especially girls?" Ryu shrugged his shoulders. How was he supposed to know about these local customs? "It's because riding us means having sex in our tribe. The women only allow their partners in sex ride them and no one else." The boy choked on the fruit he was eating. Can there be a more ridiculous rule than this? "Well good to know that I got myself a wife. But I am not sure if I would be able to reach it." He took glance at her brown rump. 

*Swish* He can fe the cold blade against his throat and he immediately put his hands in air to display his surrender. "You bastard.. Erase all the perverted images that your dirty mind just came up with!!" Ryu pecked his head like a chicken. "Already erased!" She pulled her sword back before calming her nerves down. "Good. Don't think of it too much. I only allowed you to do that because you are not even a centuar also it is never in our blood to not pay back out debts. You saved my life and I saved yours. We are equal now. Don't expect me to save your life once again humph.. now if you don't mind, get away from me. I need to sleep for a bit. She asked him to erase a those dirty images from his mind. She got that. But there was no way he was giving up on this warm cushion in this freezing cold. They bantered with each other for a long time and in the end he came out victorious. All his beddings were left outside so Ryu was fated to pass his night like this. He snuggled into Darla's body much to her annoyance before closing his eyes. 

**Next morning** 

Darla woke up to find herself in the arms of the boy. The boy had shifted from hugging her torso to her upper body, sometime during the night. She wanted to kick the hateful guy away but she can feel how cold he had become. Humans really were fragile creatures. She can't have him dying on her. Telling that to herself, she removed the armour on her upper body and pulled him into a hug. Now that he was in contact with her warm body she could feel him getting warmed up. She smiled to herself. Didn't she just look like her own mother when she would cuddle with her? It was not really a bad feeling to help someone out occasionally. 

"Where are we going?" "No idea." "Then aren't we effectively lost on this labyrinth?" "Who knows? I thought you guys had explored this place before our arrival." Ryu said as he fell on his butt. It's been a few hours since they had been traveling with no goal in sight. His spacestone too had wasn't showing any directions since his path got all messed up during the spiders' attack. At the very least he had survived the ordeal, that was the best that came out from that incident. "We only traveled some distance inside before falling back. There was simply no time to explore this deep. Guess we should continue marching ahead. We might stumble upon something." Ryu decided to try his luck once. "I can't do that. Too tired. You might have to carry me around." He was ready for another earful of her lectures but to a surprise the girl thought for a few seconds before bending her knees for him. "Get on before I change my mind." Ryu jumped on her back at once. 'My god. Don't tell me I have grown even more handsome in these few days?' Getting bolder with every minute he crawled closer to her before wrapping his arms around her waist. The only warning he received in return was a glare from Darla. 

"So Darla, why don't you tell me something about your tribe? You see this is the first time I had been out of my town in an adventure. I practically know nothing about the beastmen apart from the fact that they exists." Darla tried to ignore him first but she had underestimated the persistence of the green haired boy. "Okay. Stop. I will tell you." Ryu only grinned in response. "The beastmen are not exactly a single entity. There are many tribes that are included under the banner of beastmen but they rarely come together and take any collective decisions. The members of the tribe are only loyal to the tribe chief. Most of the time only a few tribe chief come together to take on some endeavours. Like fighting the human countries. Those who see the benefits in expanding their territory come together to fight off the humans." 

"So you mean to say the centuar tribe is not involved in invading the human territories?" She shook her head. "That is the masterplan of the Kobolds. They are the only one with insatiable hunger for resources. Most of our tribes don't have any mortal grudges with the humans, that's why we resist their calls for war. Ours is a rather powerful tribe and so we can manage to put up a resistance but tribes like wolfmen, arachnids and few other smaller ones can't do the same and have to do their bidding." Ryu nodded, she had provided him with enough knowledge to realise how dynamic the beastmen politics was. "So who is more powerful, your tribe or the Kobolds?" "Of course the Kobolds are the defacto leaders of the beastmen alliance. But we come at the second place in our military might. They can't bully us around." Darla declared with pride. 

Next she was the one asking questions and he told her about his town, his family and some other miscellaneous matters. "What? You guys too control a plantation?" Darla nodded. "But I had assumed all beastmen to be the meat eaters. Never knew there was a tribe just like us." Ryu exclaimed. "Huh" Darla wasn't too pleased after being compared to the humans "Yes we do eat meat but all beastmen can survive on plant diet too. We having a plantation under our control is the main reason why we could even think of standing upto those stupid lizards." This was too intriguing a matter for Ryu to ignore. "Wouldn't that mean you guys must be able to gain some control over mana too? Since you have access to the mama rich fruits?" "Yes, not all of us are lucky but a handful of our people do awaken the ability to control mana. We call them the shamans. My own mother is one of them." Once again pride dripped from her face.

Their talks continued as they found themselves much closer to each other at the end of their conversation. "But you really are one of the most talented human I have seen. I have faced a few humans at your level previously and most of them wouldn't even last for 3 strikes before either falling back or begging for mercy." "I just hope you didn't kill them just like you were planning to do to me, the first day we met." Darla turned red when reminded of that incident "That's a given. I was just going to threaten you. I already told you, we don't have any grudges with the humans. To tell you the truth there is actually an active trade going on between our tribe and the human countries." 

"Then why do I feel so much disdain from your words towards the humans?" Darla was a bit ashamed to admit. "It is just me. I picked it up from some of the soldiers. I thought it would make others feel like I have all grown up. It is just our nature to value physical strength. Ryu can understand where she was coming from. Just then he felt his necklace grow hotter once again. They had found the path to the relic.