"Let’s go.  Quick, quick, I’m dying to see Maria." Celia said as she picked Leila in her arms and deftly jumped on Leo’s back.

"Alright, I understand, you are missing your sister. But we have to pick Sheila first." Leo reminded her.

"Tsk, there was that girl indeed. What do you think about leaving her behind?" Celia asked, her face brightening at the thought of playing such a trick on Sheila.

"Err, we can’t. We did tell her that we will come back for her." Leo said helplessly. He couldn’t possibly leave the poor girl up there just because there was some minor enmity between her and Celia. 

"Tsk, but you didn’t seem to mind when you proposed to leave Leila behind." Celia said.

"Well, it is different. She is less of a threat than Leila. Besides, we don’t need to take her with us once we bring her down from that tree." Leo explained.

"You are really a brute." Celia said as she angrily punched Leo’s back.

"Hey, why am I suddenly the bad guy? I thought you didn’t like her." Leo asked, unable to understand why Celia was suddenly angry with him.

"Yeah, but you can’t always be thinking about leaving a girl alone in the wild at night." Celia explained exasperatedly. She almost sounded like she was scolding a stubborn child. "Now, let’s go."

'Oh, so that’s why. Well, it looks like the gender thingy holds true even in this kind of world.' Leo thought as he understood what was angering Celia. Honestly, he didn’t think about that while dealing with the two girls. From his point of view, in this world, what mattered the most when judging something was their power, outside appearance didn’t. For all he knew, someone that looked like a weak child could be some kind of peerless expert while a seemingly feeble woman could turn out to be a goddess. For him, as long as you are powerful it doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. Though it would seem that he was wrong. 

"Well, let’s not make her wait longer then." Leo said as he spread his wings and quickly took off, flying toward the tree they left Sheila in.

"Tsk, tsk, look at all this. So much destruction." Celia said as with the height she was able to get a clearer view of the state of the forest. Right now, the whole area surrounding the clearing he fought with Blake was completely wrecked. It almost seemed that a storm went past that area and destroyed everything.

'So this is my new reality, uh. It’s really incredible that a person can cause so much destruction by themselves.' Leo mumbled as he looked at how much destruction he was already able to cause.

"Wonder if the girl is still alive." He asked as he saw how far the aftermath of the fight spread.

"I think he should be able to do that much." Celia said. "Don’t underestimate her."

"Let’s hope you are right." He said as he increased his speed and soon reached the tree where they left Sheila.

Fortunately for the girl, the tree she was on was among the few that held strong and weren’t uprooted during the fight. 

"Oh my, what a sorry sight you are making." Celia chuckled as they flew closer to the tree and saw a shivering and disheveled Sheila who was hugging the tree trunk with all her might.

"Ah, you guys are finally here." Sheila said angrily as she fixed her hair.

"Who were you even fighting against? How come the auras I felt were so scary?"

"Couldn’t you be more cautious while fighting? The tree was shaking so much that I almost fell many times."

"Nobody taught me how to fly, you know. I seriously thought I was going to die. I should have listened to my mother and stayed at home." Sheila said as he glared at the duo.

"Hey, hey, calm down. We were too focused on keeping our lives to think about our surroundings." Leo said as put a stop to Sheila ranting.

As she heard him, Sheila finally calmed down and looked at them up and down. "You two do indeed look quite wretched." She said with a frown. 

"Who did you even fight against? There shouldn’t be anyone that powerful around here." Sheila said as she shuddered at the mere thought of the towering auras that clashed a few moments earlier.

Then, as if she just remembered something, she looked at Leo and Celia with eyes full of suspicion and shock. "Was it really you fighting!? And you won? You guys are really that powerful?" She asked even though she already knew the answer. Still, it was hard to believe that there was someone so powerful in their poor forest. Where did he even come from? 

"I don’t know if I should praise you for being dumb." Celia snickered.

"Oh, good, looks like you finally realized how awesome we are. Now, come here, we don’t have all night." Leo said.

"Ah yes." Sheila nodded as she hurriedly joined Celia on Leo’s back.

Once she sat down, Leo didn’t wait and immediately headed toward the entrance of the settlement.

"Oh, who is that girl?" She asked as she looked curiously at the unconscious Leila

"No one that you should care about." Celia said.

"Ah, sorry." Sheila nodded, showing a surprisingly obedient attitude in front of Celia.

"Oh, great forest king, are you interested in having another group of subordinates?" Sheila asked. It seemed that the girl was unable to spend a second without talking.

"Err, what are you talking about?" Leo asked curiously. 'Why was the girl suddenly trying to suck him up?' He wondered.

" You see, a mighty king like yourself needs plenty of subordinates. And someone of your stature deserves the best so I thought it might be a good idea for my clan to submit to you." She said enthusiastically. 

"Are you sure you can take this kind of decision on the behalf of your mother?" Leo asked, surprised by Sheila's bold proposal. 

'That girl is really funny. First, she turns into a sucker then she tries to sell her clan.' 

"Who cares about that lazy hag. I am the one leading our clan right now. I can perfectly make this kind of decision." Sheila said confidently.

"Oh, that’s surprising. I will think about it then." Leo said. Though the proposal was interesting, he currently didn’t have his mind on this kind of thing. Besides, he didn’t really believe that things were as easy as Sheila was making them out to be.

"Yeah, you should think about it. Our clan…"

BANG…

"Sorry, she was starting to piss me off." Celia said as she knocked Sheila unconscious.

"Nah, thank you. Who could have guessed that she would be a chatterbox?" Leo said as he heaved a sigh of relief.

"Me. Ah, we are here." Celia said as they reached the path leading to the Redwater settlement.

BOOOM.

"Let’s continue then." Leo said.

***

Meanwhile, in the Lamia’s settlement, Sheila’s mother was still lying languidly in her cottage. Though, from the small frown on her beautiful face, one could understand that she wasn’t as relaxed as before.

Just like the orc’s shaman, she was able to spy on Leo from the comfort of her cottage. The more she saw, the more surprised and wary she became. Even though she was already aware that Leo was an anomaly, she didn’t expect him to already be that powerful. Originally, she wouldn’t have cared much about this as she and her clan could just migrate to avoid having anything to do with him. 

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be possible anymore as her little girl had run to tie their destiny with his.

"This girl… " The lamia chieftain said exasperatedly. Though, she knew it wasn’t her daughter's fault. "Even a seer can’t escape such a destiny. Let’s hope we didn't draw a bad number." She said as she exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.