Chapter 330 (Patreon)

Chapter 330

The group left the island where they had met their first demons and continued sailing towards the mainland. On the way, they made more plans for what to explore and look for, like finding out whether there are hybrids between the beastfolk and demons, as well as learning more about the biomes and the dragons that live in them. Sophia's ultimate goal was still to befriend all the elder dragons she could.

“I see land!” On the following morning, after they returned to the domain early so they wouldn’t arrive on the continent when the sun was setting, the group returned to their boat to sail the final stretch when Steph suddenly got excited while pointing in front of them.

In front of them, an enormous forest suddenly appeared behind the horizon in front of them and soon covered their entire field of view. Most of it, at the very least. Slightly to their right, there was a clearing where a small city could slowly be made out.

“Awesome!” Sophia lightly clapped her hands. “It was so weird detecting all kinds of life while still seeing nothing but water!”

“All kinds of life?” Ari didn’t like her wording.

“In terms of numbers.” She smiled at her. “I’m not detecting anything out of the ordinary.”

“Good.”

“Yet~.” The blonde’s expression changed into a grin.

“Shush!”

“Should we head right for the city, or do you prefer a different route?” Maya, who was steering the boat again, got the topic back on track and looked at Sophia while tilting her head.

“Hmm.” She looked around for a little longer before making a decision. “No, let’s keep heading towards the beach, more to the left of it. I want to take a quick peek at the forest before heading to the city.”

“Aye, captain!” She did a cute salute while keeping the boat on course.

----------------

They kept going for another hour, and the closer they got to the land, the more details they could make out. From afar, it looked like a perfectly regular, albeit massive, forest with mostly oak and beech trees, but now that they got a closer look, the group noticed that it was incredibly dense.

The trees were so close to each other that their crowns combined into one thick sea of green above that blocked every speck of light reaching the ground below. Thanks to that, everything seemingly turned near pitch-black just a couple of meters into the forest. Luckily, they had quite a few cats in their group, which made exploring a lot easier, but for their eyes to work in the dark, they'd first have to get it in there and accustom themselves to the darkness. Right now, they couldn’t make anything out inside there, either.

“That’s one spooky forest.” Anna lightly squinted her eyes to see if she could make anything out inside of it. “Even the jungle and Ari’s rainforest in the domain aren't that dark.”

“I need to step up my forest game.” Sophia nodded a few times. "A spooky forest sounds like a fun idea! Also, I can detect a slightly elevated base level of ambient magic inside of it. This forest might be magically enhanced. Now that I think about it, that would be a quick explanation of how it grew so dense.”

“That’s the elves for you.” Aura looked at the tiger. “Their forests always have this enchanted feeling of overflowing with magic. They’re very attuned to nature, so I guess magic naturally seeps into the surroundings of where they live. If you’re sensitive to those changes in magic, that’s how you find elves. Well, if you can’t detect them directly, that is.”

“Is that so?” The blonde looked confused for a moment. “I don’t remember anything like that in the abandoned elven village where we met Chloe.”

“That’s true!” The fox agreed with her. “The forest around it was also on the denser side, but the ambient magic felt pretty normal, and I’m normally extra sensitive to this stuff. Might or might not be related to me being the daughter of the overseer of magic.”

“The important part here would be the word abandoned.” Aura had an easy explanation for it. “The elves cause the change, so if there are no elves, things slowly return to normal.”

“Fair enough.” The two saw no flaw in her argumentation.

“Wait, so there really are elves in there?!” Steph pointed towards the forest in front of them while her tail was approaching the sound barrier.

“Yes.” The wolf reacted with a small nod. “I can detect several groups of them. A handful seem to be in the city to our right, too.”

“LET’S GO!” That was all she needed to hear.

“How do you know they’re elves?” Sophia closed her eyes and seemingly concentrated for a moment while facing the forest. “I also detect a few groups and a bunch of people inside and around the city, but how do you know they’re not demons?”

“Try to compare the readings you get from inside the forest and compare them with the group of demons from the island.” Aura gestured towards the land. “You should also notice a difference between the people in the city.”

“Mhmm.” Doing as told, the blonde paid a little more attention to her detection magic. "A few of the people in the city seem slightly stronger than most. Same goes for the groups in the forest. They feel like they have a bit more magic.”

“That’s precisely it.” The wolf gave her a small nod. “On average, elves have around 20 to 30% more magic than the demons. Of course, there are some outliers in both directions on either side.”

“Really? Somehow, I didn’t see that coming.” Sophia looked confused. “I don’t know why, but I was convinced that the demons were stronger.”

“Demons have way tougher bodies and more physical strength, so it kind of evens out.” She paused for a second. “Demons are also way bigger in numbers and a LOT more reckless when fighting someone or something. All things considered, they are technically stronger than the elves. A fair 1-on-1 would probably favor the elves, though.”

“Ahh, okay!” Her confusion quickly cleared up again. “Yeah, that sounds likely.”

“It also depends on the type of fight.” Aura added even more detail. “For example, if the challenge is about nature-related magic, even I would probably lose against them.”

“Ohh, I see!” The blonde clapped her hands again. “I guess using fire magic would be a good counter, huh? Nature tends to burn after all.”

“Technically, yes.” The wolf suddenly sounded awkward before turning her head to look at Ari. “NEVER use fire magic in an elven forest!”

“WHY DID YOU FACE ME WHILE SAYING THAT?!” The jaguar did not appreciate that.

“Come on, dear, we all know why I did that.”

“Grr!”

“Do elves not like fire?” Sophia tried to stay on the topic.

“To elves, forests are sacred.” Aura reacted with a small nod. “They don’t have anything against fire itself, but causing a forest fire, be it accidentally or on purpose, will make you hated by every elf in existence.”

“Ari, please don’t set their forest on fire!” She didn’t like the sound of that. “I want to befriend the elves!”

“Maybe I’ll do it just to spite you.” She still didn’t appreciate it.

“I know I joked about someone here accidentally starting a war with the beastfolk, but I never had Ari intentionally starting a war with the elves on my bingo card.” Maya almost seemed impressed by the jaguar’s reaction.

“Really?” Steph tilted her head. “It’s one of the first things I put on mine. Okay, it wasn’t Ari specifically starting a war with the elves or on purpose, but the general thing.”

“No, that doesn’t count.” The cat-girl shook her head. “Like, Ari’s on the list of people I suspect to accidentally start a war, but the intentional part is the surprising bit.”

“Mhm.” The dog-girl scratched her cheek. “Yeah, I guess intentionally starting a war is indeed a little different. However, if this will prevent me from getting a bingo first, I’ll be heavily protesting this decision!”

“Sure~.”

“I’m going to start a protest, too!” Ari only got more upset.

“Oh, wait, that’s on my bingo card!” Fen suddenly joined the conversation.

“Same!” Everyone, except the jaguar, gave him a firm nod.

“…”

"Okay, we had our fun! Let's get to land already!" Not that Sophia wasn't enjoying the scene, because it wasn’t her being teased, but she had enough of being distracted for at least the next upcoming 15 minutes.

“Please!” Ari was a big fan of the suggestion.

As everyone else wanted to explore the demon continent just as much, they also all agreed and picked up their pace with the help of a little bit of wind magic. Thanks to that, it didn't even take 10 minutes to get close enough to the gravel beach that it was only a small jump away.

“First of the bipedal members of the group on the demon continent!” Not wanting to be teased by the wolves again, Steph put some extra detail in her proclamation before she actually jumped off the bow of their boat when they were only a couple of meters away from running onto ground. “LET’S GO!” She energetically raised both her arms high in the air after she safely landed on the beach before running around all over the place to see if she could find anything of interest while her tail was only a wagging blur behind her.

“Good job, sis~.” Sophia smiled at her while she was zooming around on the beach as she waited for the boat to securely come to a halt to ensure the others were okay. “Second is fine by- huh?”

The blonde jumped off the boat, but the very instant her foot touched the beach, everything around her froze. The waves on the ocean stopped moving, and the boat, including everyone on it, was completely motionless as well. Steph, too, wasn't running around on the beach anymore, and even her tail stood completely still, which was only possible when time was stopped. Judging by her surprised reaction, it wasn't Sophia who did it, though.