The rhino enclosure was at the very start of the savanna. And both Patrick and Patricia were in a large park. Sitting with their backs to each other and snorting every so often.

Atha had taken one look at the rhinos and had retreated with Bog to the ranger’s hut. He found it immoral that these animals were being forced to mate. Even if the way they were being forced was by talking, and not how he, himself, had been forced.

Thinking of the goblins made him shiver. Bog took a hold of his hand and gave it a light squeeze.

"It is ok, Atha. The bad goblins are gone now," Atha appreciated the goblin. He always had an encouraging word for him. Even when, after the goblins were done with Atha, they began with Bog.

"It is not right, what these two are forced to do," Atha spoke and they both went inside the hut. The ranger looked at them, with wide eyes, but Atha showed him the adventurer's guild protection badge he had been given.

"We are not mobs. And we mean you no harm," Atha spoke softly and with a gentle smile. The ranger came to him, clutching his sword, and then took the badge. He rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed.

"Sorry. With all the dungeons escaping, I thought a new one came into the park," He looked around and offered Bog a chair and placed a mat on the floor for Atha.

"I can sit on a chair," Atha then pulled out a chair for himself and sat. The ranger blushed bright red. Afraid that the first impression of the Naga would be that he was backwards.

"It is so bad that so many dungeons come into the area. I mean, how am I to keep the animals safe? The adventurer's guild doesn't send people over here often. What with the region being deemed too poor," the ranger mumbled, and Atha looked around the hut.

It was Spartan. With a bed, a table and chairs. Nothing else. Not even a painting on the walls.

"Have you thought about setting up barriers?" Bog asked. He remembered the barriers the long haired red head had set up to keep them safe back in the mystery maze of thunder. They had been dead useful.

"Those are expensive. Honestly, the guild is the only one that supplies people with them. And they just give them to adventurers," Atha frowned at that. Surely, the kind guild master would see the plight of these people?

"How is a barrier stone made?" Bog continued. Surely, if he and Atha learned how to make them, they could hand them to those who needed them. So, no one would ever suffer like they did.

"You need to be a mana sensor," the ranger began, and Atha smiled. All Naga learned how to sense mana since they were little. He had felt the core come into his new home, but had tried to greet it with open arms. That had been his mistake. "And you need to be able to make mana crystals safely. Since making barrier stones with crystals someone else made is too expensive."

"And what else?" Atha asked, leaning forward.

"Well, it also requires masonry skills. Because barrier stone are made from special mana stones, which, in the end, are just stones with mana in them. When used in their raw form, they can make a barrier that can last for about two days," Atha thought that this all sounded doable.

"Bog, are you thinking what I am thinking?" Atha's smile surprised the goblin. The Naga often smiled, yes, but this smile reached his eyes.

"Bog believes that we could learn how to make barrier stones, yes," Bog replied, excited. His little hand found Atha's, and they gave each other's hand a squeeze.

"I don't want to rain on your parade, you two look like nice people whose hearts are in the right place," the ranger began, looking grim. "But it is hard, making mana crystals. Only masters can make them."

"Dorian can teach us," Atha argued. He had seen the tank make mana crystals before and then use them to make enchanted items. The Naga's bottomless bag had been a gift from the red-haired adventurer.

"If you split your soul, there is no turning back," the ranger argued. Suddenly filling awful for putting the idea in the two creatures' heads.

"I will learn," Atha was stubborn. He knew that Bog would be able to help only with the shaping of the stone, seeing as he had no connection to his mana. It was up to him, Atha, to protect people from the dungeons.

"Just promise me you will not try again if you fail. I mean, people can live with half a soul, but they grow deranged when they have less," the ranger pleaded and Atha's eyes softened.

"If I fail once, I won't try again," Atha promised him, and the ranger took out a bottomless bag and then three bottles of juice out of it.

"Look at what a poor host I am. I put the beetle in your heads to risk your lives, when I should have offered you a drink," the ranger opened the three bottles and handed Atha and Bog one each. "Blue berry juice. From upper Alcandino."

They spoke about nothing in particular, after that. The ranger was named Alphonse. Had a wife and a son, who was sixteen and on his way to Huergaz to become a well-known tank. Despite Alphonse having done his best to teach him carpentry.

"And then I told him: You want to be an adventurer? Then don't return until you are famous. And foot your own bills!" Alphonse finished his charade just as the Try Hard Party entered the hut.

"Hey, that is where you two were. The problem is solved," Dorian spoke, and then he saw the ranger. "Sir, there are ten baby obsidian rhinos that are in need of your care."

"How did Patricia whelp them so quickly?" Alphonse was like gob smacked. This must be the fastest rhino mating in history.

"They are not Patricia's. They are Patrick's," Armaros spoke happily. Patrick had told, read written them, that Patricia expected he fought nearly to the death with her. And he didn't want to die. Which was why he had refused to mate with her, despite wanting children.

So, Armaros had taken a drop of Patrick's blood and breed him artificially. Now the male rhino was prancing around happily with ten baby rhinos waddling behind him.

"You didn't make them mate despite their wishes?" Atha said, still ill at the thought that someone could have done something like that.

"We would never do that, Atha. We respect other's feelings," Morris said, and Atha breathed out the breath he was holding.

Alphonse stood and then took his bottomless bag.

"So, Patricia doesn't want to take care of them?" He began to murmur to himself. "Of course, she doesn't. To think, there were rhinos in the wild!"

He rushed out and Atha slithered to Armaros. He hugged the dungeon core.

"Thank you. You cut their connection to you, right?" Because, if something happened to Armaros, the baby rhinos would die, as well.

"Of course. I would never harm any of my children," Atha blinked at that.

Then, he considered that a drop of blood was all it took. Would it be so bad if he had a child of his own with the dungeon core? Someone to teach all he knew and to raise with love and care? Someone who, with their joy for life and innocence, could chase the nightmares away?