“Why am I always the one who carries your s*?” Albert grumbled, as always.

This time, however, it was because he was found guilty of being a pervert. His red cheeks can confirm that. I stopped slapping him only after both of my hands started to hurt, only then I was merciful enough to tell the maids to start slapping him for me.

Some people may think that being in the forest is great: breathing a fresh forest air, fishing, camping. For me it was becoming the worst of nightmares. It was only my second day here but I can feel getting sick from just looking at this green color. I was not feeling comfortable also due to the local wildlife. Large monsters are yet to try attacking us but the goblins and the wolves create a lot of distraction. At least I know that soon I might start seeing something further than 10 meters in front, since my aircraft found plains not far away from here. The same plains that are cleared around large settlements.

Meanwhile, we walked into a wall of plants. With my foxfires I burned them, and found a cave covered behind. I was going there with Elina to find out if there is something useful, while Albert was tasked with guarding the maids. Elina appeared to be both more skilled, and much more pleasant. As a former male, it would be a shame not to 'accidentally' touch her a time or two while we are in the dark cave.

“If this monkey dares to grope you, don’t be shy to kick him in the balls. Don’t worry, I will be sure to castrate him for any of his pervert deeds.” I assured my maids and went into the cave.

After I made sure that there is a fine distance of 20 meters between them, I hurried after Elina.

The cave appeared to be inhabited and somewhat maintained, there were old wooden boxes and empty bags. From the way it was hidden and contains space for a ton of stuff, I felt like it was used as a smuggling outpost. After we walked for almost a kilometer, we encountered another green wall. This time I decided not to burn everything to ashes but to accurately cut our way out. If my assumptions are correct, we shortened our travelling time by a couple of hours.

“I’ll wait here, go bring the others.” Elina decided to guard this place and I will have to walk back by myself. Well, I am faster after all.

Almost an hour later we continued walking down the smuggler’s trail. The entire area was scouted from above several times by now, so it will be hard to jeopardize my planning. Or so I thought.

Just as we crossed some bushes, we have walked into a ravine. While it would be easy to cross it, right now we have an altar which is actually not that light to drag it up and down. In my former plan we would have walked around without having to cross anything at all, but now going around would take us a few more hours.

After a little brainstorming I came up with an unorthodox idea of using my flight deck as a bridge.

The ravine is 20 meters wide and my meter-long little accessory would not be enough to cover it but then I thought about the fact that it is not exactly connected to me with any struts. The flight deck rigging is just a plain board with superstructure on it. Usually it just hangs by my side, tied by a silk strip.

First things first, I decided to try the least possible scenario. My genius plan was to imagine it being 20 meter long and hope that it works out. Of course that was a failure. Neither my deck could be used as floating board to carry everything around. It just sticks close to me and refuses to leave.

My next idea was the most unortodox, but some out-of-the-box thinking can prove the most fruitful. The final plan was successful from the start.

“Another step!”

“Aye, another step!”

“Careful! Don’t step that far!”

We build a little tower from the ‘Rogues’ and I was at its top. All of our cargo was placed on the flight deck, and due to its unique stubborness, it didn't fall from the weight. Like that we were able to transfer all our stuff across the ravine. We lost only an hour.

[We are still ahead of my schedule! If everything goes well, within 3 hours we will come out of the forest.]

When we were very close to our today’s goal, we walked into a group of people. Not the ‘good’ kind of people.

“If you surrender, we might just sell you into slavery instead of killing!” The smugglers have shown up and were very angry that someone found their trail. Their leader stepped forth with a short sword aimed at us.

Now was the question. Talk with them, or…

“Listen, brother, we have no reason to fight. We are not welcome in the kingdom too, you know?” I tried persuading them.

“If so, then how the hell you came here?” The trail was far away from any landmark, and finding it out of coincidence would be suspicious. But we just did.

“You know, there is a shady guy in the forest. Calga, or something. We chose the least conspicuous way, and had no idea its yours.” For now this goes good.

“Oh my, that a*hole drove away another bunch of people?” The duke's infamy went as far as to the deepest parts of this forest.

“I see that you get what I say. Neither you, nor I get anything good out of beating each other, so how about we just pretend we didn’t see each other and go do our own business?” Please, let it work out.

“Fine… Alright lads, let ‘em pass. I just hope I won’t regret that.” The smuggler was still suspicious, but his friends sheathed their swords.

“I doubt we'd ever cross our paths again. I don't want to return into this forest in the slightest... But, if we ever walk into each other again, I hope we will have some mutually beneficial business.” I showed him my most ‘sincere’ business smile.

“You bet, foxkin.” He showed a smile of his own. We both sensed a slight of profit from our meeting.

Without any more issues we finally walked out of the forest and were ready to keep moving forward.