Getting out of the goblins den, was even harder than entering it. Our experience from entering the den was rendered null and void from the switch in perspective. To make matters even worse, we didn’t even have a guiding beacon of magic to give us a general direction. In other words we got terribly lost. Not even our marking helped us. They only told us that we had explored those paths when we entered. Following the path of slaughtered goblins, was of no help too. We found them everywhere, all paths we went had at least some goblins laying around, no matter if it was a dead end or not.

“It’s pretty chill down here.”

“You shouldn’t have stripped.”

“Who said I should strip?”

“I”

“Besides I didn’t say I am freezing.”

We continued to aimlessly wander around the maze. Soon enough Erin dismissed her fire orb, as the light wasn’t needed. Sight wasn’t needed to leave this maze. We couldn’t see which path is the right one, so why bother seeing. Our ears, touch and nose were good enough to move forward and not crash into walls. This also meant that Erin would expand less magic, a nice sideffect.

“Couldn’t you just blast a hole to the surface.”

“Not a usable one.”

“What about using magic to create a map.”

“Not enough magic, to use my sense.”

“Can’t you try to sense the magic of insects.”

“They are the interference in magic senses. You only notice them, when they are absent. I can snese them all around me even in the walls.”

“So aimlessly wandering it is.”

“Yes.”

And so we continued on. All things considered it was still a good experience, asides from the smell of rotting goblins. Relaying on other sense to move than your eyes, is quite an impacting experience. I had learned to do it ages ago, but rarely did it, because I could always relay on my eyes. Here in the darkness of the tunnels, moving without sight was easy. Our steps clearly echoed through the tunnels and bounced back from the walls and the smell of dead goblins gave a clear path of were the tunnels were leading.

In other words moving was surprisingly easy. After a while I did it pretty much on without consciously thinking about it. Just like walking normally, but I didn’t use my eyes to see. Which left my free to roam around in thoughts.

Naturally my thoughts drifted to Erin at some point. Focusing myself on her I could soon enough feel her every movements, how her muscles moved, contracted and relaxed. Each steps, moving countless muscles throughout to move her forward. I could hear the fabric of her cloth swishing with every movement, her bare feet moving across the ground, her claw like toenails, clicking whenever they hit stone and her heart beating in a slow rhythm, having long since synchronized with my own heartbeat. I could feel the warmth of every breath and even something entirely different.

Erin’s feed were surrounded by something strange, blurring my perception of them. It wasn’t the ground she was moving with her magic, as I could clearly feel it. After a while I noticed that the blurring enveloped her entire body, but much fainter than around her feet. As if she was ever so slightly out of focus. Minuscule enough to not impend my perseverance of her, but noticeable enough to be irritating. There was another blurring that was a bit stronger then the general slight out of focus Erin had all around her body, which were her Horns.

“Do you have a greater concentration of magic around your horns?”

“Yes.”

“Turns out I can sense magic. And I thought I had a got six sense.”

“Would be weird If you couldn’t sense magic. I know how you fight. You use magic in your combat stile.”

“… … So your telling me Weapon arts are magic.”

“Yes.”

“I have gone decades thinking I was incapable of magic. And you tell me I have been using it all the time!?”

I said while falling completely out of clouds. I had been using all the time as aid and had never realized it. I could only facepalm at my own stupidity. It wasn’t like the magic I had been using was something subtle. No I had been summoning weapons in my hands whenever I needed them and not even once had it occurred to me that I had been using magic. I thought of it as weapon art and nothing more, never making any attempts on trying to understand my abilities more. Talk about stupidity.

“Have you experimented with your magic?”

“Lots, mostly small spells and non combat non elemental magic, like my barrier for example.”

And another thing I had completely missed The last time I had met her before meeting her at the Inn she was only capable of elemental combat magic. It’s beyond me how I managed to not notice this.

“Has something else notably changed, I should be aware.”

“Still the same old me.”

“I am not sure if this is something good or bad.”

“You decide.”

I could tell that she was smiling as she said it. Although she said that she hadn’t changed I knew that it wasn’t the case. Erin had changed, only a small bit. She probably didn’t notice it herself, but I could. Probably because I have only just met her after such a long time. Its only a minuscule thing, which I only noticed when I paid more attention to her. Her smiles come deeper from within her. They are more sincere. She is happier, more in tune with herself. Something one can only notice when they know Erin good. After all she is not one of the most expressive person around. It need someone, who really knows her to see the difference.

But why didn’t I figure out that my weapon arts were a form of magic!? Am I a complete idiot? It’s more than obvious! Couldn’t somebody just gone and have pointed it out! Would have helped me a lot.

Erin stopped walking, sending me almost stumbling into her. Having been completely occupied by my thoughts. So much that I had completely lost track of my surroundings. Not even realizing that Erin had stopped.

“Why did you stop?”

“I can sense the outside.”

“Really? How?”

“Magical signatures that are definitely not insects.”

The darkness was broken by a dull brown light barely illuminating the tunnel. Erin was slowly weaving an earth sigil. Slowly she waved a complex, made out of intricate symbols, numbers and forms, expanding it in size as she did so. After a while the sigil stopped expanding, after having reached a size, of almost filling the whole width of the tunnel and was no filling it in steady orange light similar to a static torch. Erin however did not fire this spell of. Instead it started to collapse shrinking in size as the various symbols and numbers merged and convoluted. In the end the sigil was only as big as any other sigil, looking not more complicated than any other.

“Canyon.”

A thunderous boom ripped through the tunnel. Ripping the earth apart, pushing layers upon layers of stone and earth from each other, creating a small canyon. The light of the crescent moon and the stars shinned down onto us, who just moment ago had stood in complete darkness many meters below the earth.

“Well that's convenient, thank you. “

I climbed the newly created canyon with ease. The rock and earth of the walls, were soft enough that I could sink my hands and feet in it, but hard enough that it easily supported my weight. Erin on the other hand decided to be completely lazy and cast a levitation spell and slowly hovered upwards, while I was climbing and sweating. At first Erin stood upright as she hovered upwards, watching me suffer in silent amusement. Not long later she sat down in the air, before laying down sideways, as if she was lounging on a sofa.

The only thing that Erin was missing was some grapes to eat, while watching me struggle. And soon enough she had summoned some pears from her sleeves and started eating them.

“The pears are tasty. Want one?”

“I am climbing.”

“Do you think a pear tree in front of my Inn would be a good idea?”

“Depends on what design your going for.”

“Haven't really thought about it. The only thing I have thought a bit about is where I will rebuild it.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere remote with a beautiful view. “

“What about turning the Demonlords castle in your Inn?”

“Depends on the view. I should build it here, since I have a good view.”

“Quit staring at my ass.”

“You and your delusions.”

After some time of climbing I finally reached the top. Erin had floated ahead and was already standing on the ground as I heaved myself on it. She looked down on me from above, more than usual. I swear she loves, looking down on others.

Erin then used another spell to close the tear she had created in the earth for us to climb out of the den. Then we went on our way to find our horses and a nearby river or lake, to wash all the sweat blood and guts of us. We positively reeked of goblin and were more than eager to get the smell of of us. Our smell was strong enough to scare the wildlife away. I hope we find a lake or see sooner then later.

I didn’t worry about our horses. Irwin might be an old lady, but she is still a Ferian Warhorse. She won’t have a problem defending herself against goblins or wolves. The only thing I am slightly worried about is that she may mistake us for a goblin and attack us.

Luckily we found a river first. A small shallow river in the middle of the forest surrounded by willows and illuminated the stars and the moon. It was idyllic, a scene straight out of a fairytale. Owls could be heard shooing in the distance, fireflies, flew around and a group of deer was drinking water at the nearby riverbank.

The only to complete the beautiful scenery was a princess, bathing in the river surrounded by wildlife and fairies. Erin entered the lake, scarring the deer away and started to take of her clothes to bath. Well she wasn’t a princess in the lake, but close enough to count.

I quickly joined her in the river and started to take of my clothes to clean out all the blood and gore of the goblins.

“Is there any danger around?”

“No magical atleast. I can sense a bunch of magical signatures, but no abnormal one.”

We continued our bath in silence. Erin started by taking her clothes of completely and cleaning her body. Whilst I started by cleaning my armor.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to check out Erin, well only her back. There wasn’t much to see only her perfect skin, with beautiful muscles and devoid of any scars or impurities. She was fairly muscular, but from the few time I have seen myself in a full sized mirror I knew that I had much more pronounced muscles than Erin, despite her Being an Oni, a species inclined to physical strength. She is a mage after all and not in need of raw strength to win battles.

Finished with her bath Erin left the river, to dry herself of on the small riverbank with the towel she had summoned.

“Watchout!”

Before Bara could finish her scream a troll broke through the forest and launched his fist at Erin. Taking her by surprise and launching her out of the river into the forest. The Troll was a hulking green giant, mostly consisting out of muscles and fat. They weren’t magical in the slightest. Erin had only sensed a normal magical signature from the Troll and thus mistaken it for another regular animal in the forest. Only Bara sensed the monster trampling through the forest, through her experience in tracking monsters.

The Troll let out a scream before running in the river, his hungry eyes fixed on Bara, fully intending to grab and eat her.

Bara evaded his outstretched fists by diving into the water, unfortunately separating her from her armor and weapons. The Troll wound up another punch, giving Bara enough time to make it halfway to the shore.

The second punch came as fast as the first one. This time Bara jumped upwards onto the Trolls open fist, before running up his arm and onto his shoulder.

“Arsenal: Dagger!”

Bara summoned a dagger and plunged it into the Trolls right eye, before the it could swat her like a fly. Letting it scream in pain, shaking Bara of while doing so. It tried frantically to remove the small dagger lodged into its eye, but couldn’t grab it with his big hands.

Enough time for Bara to summon a spiked club into her hands. Charging once again at the enraged Troll, evading its furious punches, smashing the club into its ankle and bringing it onto his knees, screaming in pain.

A blast of wind crashed into his head, sending Baras dagger into the Trolls brain. Suddenly it stopped screaming and fell to the ground having lost its brain functions momentarily. Before it even hit the ground its, mangled head started to regenerate and prompting it to move again.

However Bara smashed its head with her club, before it could do anything meaningful, paralyzing it once gain. Rendering it immobile once again.

A few moments later Erin walked out of the forest. The Troll began to move again, its head regenerated enough to allow movement, but was smashed again by Bara.

“Fire Javelin.”

A red sigil lit up in Erins hand as she hurled a burning spear at the gory mess of the Trolls head. The spear burned itself straight through the Troll, leaving a charred hole along his spine the size of Erins head. It did not start to regenerate, not would it ever do, as heart, brains and many other organs did not exist within the trolls body anymore.

“Are you alright?”Bara asked, worry in her voice.

“Just a sore neck, from crashing through a tree. Lets finish washing up, soon enough it will reek of dead Troll here.”