It's a wild green with a scarlet sky as far as eyes could see, one road following the rise and fall outline of the land, the once dense view now left behind, and a new sight for the sore eyes, unhindered.

Alex stood, for long he was mute, the wind suspended his attire, waving tenderly.

A strange red thing peeked, hiding behind a lonely white flower, resembled a red princess hid in a white castle, protected by a monstrous dragonfly.

For long he had forgotten, the freedom he was once abandoned, on that fateful day, he ceased to taste the feeling of air.

Repressing his desire, working to the grit of teeth, painful migraine and a lot of colds...

But now, here he was... looking... at the endless horizon, only the sky was the boundary.

He tilted his head, shutting his eyes, the solitude of a man, might not a lot who could comprehend.

A woman waited behind him, ceased her intention to call him up, his reflection on the purple eyes, ingrained deeply into one mind and soul.

What kind of suffering? What kind of reining?

It was unknown to her... a territory she yet to understand...

Her life was easy... she had everything from the get-go... from the moment she born...

Could she understand him? Acknowledging his effort?

The man opened his eyes, deep weariness hid behind the casual expression, he looked over his shoulder, smiling at the girl who looked at him dazedly.

"The wind is very nice in here..."

He strolled toward her, then hand caressed her head.

"Let's go back..."

"Un."

(***)

When Alex and the others came out from the jungle, it was closed to the evening, the gang decided to continue walking toward Eldorado Town, the Blessing of Nature from Nuon still left them with abundant energy.

Olivia still unconscious, a marvelous item like Ygdrassil couldn't even cure someone from the comatose condition, but Alex thought this perhaps had nothing to do with physical injury, he just hoped the girl didn't have any sort of mental damage at the moment.

They discovered two tents nearby the Old Woodland's entrance.

"That is our camp nyaa..."

Nyantaa didn't sound ecstatic, in fact, she mostly quiet along the way, unknown whether this because of her wound, or she simply didn't want to talk about anything.

Alex inspected the place; if there were three people in their party, why here only had two tents?

"Nyantaa, are you share a tent with Olivia?"

"No nyaa... each of us had our own nyaa... only..."

The catgirl suddenly paused, Alex turned his face to look at her and noticed her lack of spirit, what exactly happened before? How could she look so despondent?

"Well, there are two tents here... it was either someone stole the third one or your friend managed to exit the jungle..."

"... not my friend..."

"Hm?"

Alex wrinkled his eyebrows, he could see the catgirl's pink lips mumbled, but unable to make out the words she spoke.

"I am sorry, what?"

"Nothing nyaa... it's good if he survives nyaa..."

The gang didn't tarry long, Alex kept the tent inside the system and moved on, after crossing the plain field for some time, they encountered a blue-colored wolf, Nyantaa said this monster was considered the strongest monster among the Novice rank warrior or mage, but Alex one-shot killed it with spirit bolt.

He was level 7 now... but the strength of the spell such as spirit bolt had nothing to do with his magic attribute, yet it still could kill the blue wolf easily...

It was either Nyantaa overconfident when she spoke about the monster, or this was the limit of the people's strength who inhabited this area? Because the rank test for non-academy people only available at the cities, and some people might not be going there to check on their rank, thus unable to get a valid perimeter of one strength, and mistaken a weak monster like Blue Wolf as most powerful in novice rank.

The system mentioned that if each rank were converted into a level, this would be the result; Novice rank was 1- 9, journeymen 10 - 18, Expert 19 - 27, Master 28 - 48, Grand Master 49 - 62, Saint 63 - 81, and lastly Sage 82 - 100.

Based on that, Alex estimated the Blue Wolf's strength at most were level 3 or 4...

"Hey, Nyantaa, what does Eldorado town look like?"

Momo turned her head to face the catgirl, the latter knitted her eyebrows.

"Mnyuuu... the people are... kind enough nyaa... there is also a lot of visitors nyaa... oh, many delicacy nyaa~"

"Really? What kind of food?"

"Sweet Butter Cake nyaa... Fried Fish... Appel Candy... Bear Cookie..."

"Those mostly sweets, you like eating them?"

"Yes, nyaa, this one time, Nyan and Jewel..."

Nyantaa suddenly paused, her face froze akin to a sculpture, then she exuded a dispirited air.

"Nyantaa, are you alright?"

"Yes, nyaa... Nyan is fine... Nyan a little tired..."

Momo knew it wasn't the reason for her sudden shift in tone, but she didn't pester the catgirl.

Meanwhile, Alexis walked at the side of Shizuka, she looked at the comatose Olivia then back at the kunoichi.

"Shizuka, are you not tired?"

She had been carried Olivia non-stop from the first moment they discovered her.

"Thank you for the concern, Ms. Lionheart, but I am fine..."

From the look on her face, she did appear calm like usual, Alexis couldn't help but admired Shizuka's endurance.

She knew Nuon had boosted their vigor and vitality, but then again, Shizuka's stamina seemed pretty high already.

"That's... ok then, oh, please don't be so formal with me, Alexis is fine..."

Shizuka shifted her eyes toward her for a moment then nodded briefly.

They continued walking ahead, Momo rushed into Alex's side and talked to him.

"Alex, what do we do after we enter the town?"

The middle-aged man crossed his arms, eyes tilted upward.

"Well, first look for a place to rest, tomorrow we go to this Baba to search for information, you want to tag along?"

"Do you have something for me to do?"

"Actually I do, I wish to assign several assignments to save the time..."

"What is it?"

Alex told what he needed to Momo, the devilukian startled, wrinkled her eyebrows.

"Why do you need that? You already have a system..."

"It's multiple layers of reason, but the main point is to be effective... and walking everywhere certainly not, besides, we need to hurry to return Alexis and Elliot to Avalon, otherwise, their mother can't be saved..."

"Oh yeah, regarding their task, how you are going to do it?"

"I don't know yet... they only need the Wyvern's feces, so we don't necessarily have to fight the monster, but our track record for these couple of days has not always been good lately, something unexpected happened frequently, and I don't like it honestly."

"No one does..."

Alex and Momo sighed, they wondered if they got some bad luck fawning over them.

After a while, about two hours later, a glimpse of illuminations appeared at the distance, the sight of Eldorado Town was not far left.

A red towering wooden gate, with fences on both sides, stretching long to the far end corner.

There was no one at the gate, not even a guard or something, did this town have no protection?

"There are a few towns in Moonlight Continent without under single influence of the kingdoms, Eldorado Town is one of them..." the system said.

"But, what if it was under attack of monsters? Or a group of bandits for example?"

"It is left to the people of the town to defend themselves."

So that meant there were powerful people living in the town? Otherwise, such a place would have been destroyed or occupied by a bunch of misfits

It wasn't long until the gang arrived at the gate, what greeted them was a wide and long street, the ground paved in stones, several poles akin to a lamp post positioned at right and left, there were lots of people walking around.

The human with different skin tones, there were Elves, also Dwarfs, even Dog-race...

Some stores still open; the kind of weapon sellers, general stores, restaurants...

Lingering scent appetizing dish... their stomach couldn't help but grumble...

This was a nice change of atmosphere, from trees and animals to buildings and people...

Alex had kept the rifles away in order to blend in, and their attire had already resembled the people, but some still glanced to look at them.

Alex understood if they were looking at Momo for example, not only she's a beauty, but her tail was conspicuous, naturally attracted attention.

But some of them actually observed Alex, couldn't help but making him felt weird.

"Mage is not exactly common Alex..." the system said.

"There is no witch hunt here, right?"

"No, don't worry, you are not going to be hunted, crucified, then burned, people just simply curious..."

Alex looked at Nyantaa, the catgirl didn't appear to be happy back in town, perhaps here not her home?

"Nyantaa, do you know a good Inn at a considerable price?"

"You mean a resting place nyaa?"

"Yes, what they called it in here?"

"Cottage nyaa..."

"Alright, can you recommend one?"

"I know some places nyaa but clueless at the price nyaa..."

Eh? Was that supposed to mean? Did she never rest here? The fact that she knew about some resting places but not their prices meant Nyantaa ought to be a resident of the town, right?

"It's fine, just take us there..."

Nyantaa pointed out the direction, this town was rather straight forward, after a straight path from the gate, they arrived at the center of the town, there was a board with a couple of benches there, Nyantaa took them to the street on the left, and a couple of minutes later they arrived at two-story building.

The decoration was decent with the mix of cream and brown paint, a 'Clank' reverberated from the bell on the upper part of the door as Alex opened it, he was greeted immediately by a counter and graceful young lady behind it.

"Welcome to Lovely Cottage, how many rooms you-"

The lady stopped immediately the moment she saw Nyantaa on the wheel plant came in, she gasped while having tears, then dashed out from the counter and hugged the catgirl immediately.

"Nyantaa!!!"

"Ngyaaa!!! Pain pain pain pain pain!!!"

Nyantaa hissed whitelist went pale immediately, she's obviously bedridden but the lady such slammed against her.

"Nyantaa... this is you, right? I am not dreaming, right?"

She started pinching the catgirl's cheek and stretched the meat far to both sides, Alex and the others exchanged glances with a sweat drop on their temple.

"Mnyuu... Mary nyaa, normally people pinch their own cheek nyaa..."

The young lady called Mary chuckled, then she stared at Nyantaa for quite a while, the pearl of teardrop fell out of the corner of her eyes.

She hugged Nyantaa again, gentle this time.

"Thank God... Caeth said you died in the Old Woodlands, Jewel also ran away from home, and Caeth had been beaten up by Jorey and the others... I... I don't really know what's happening..."