As the sun rose in the distance, the sky was enveloped in a beautiful orange glow.
Even this early in the morning, the streets remained busy as adventurers gathered as they prepared to leave for dungeon runs.
Most of them seed hung over from the night before. So there were quite a few won on the street brewing coffee.
The rich scent of grounded coffee beans filled the air and perated in every corner of the city. The ones handing out coffee were the girls who worked in the restaurants.
They were still dressed in their maid outfits as they handed out the mugs of coffee with warm smiles on their faces.
The beverage was given free of cost. So of the girls even cleaned their armors and let them use the washroom because so of them had ended up sleeping on the floor of the restaurants.
With this kind of treatnt, no wonder the adventurers ca back every night to spend their earnings.
They had built a functioning ecosystem for themselves.
A few minutes later, as I was growing impatient, I finally spotted Amanda through the crowd walking toward with a cup of coffee in her hands.
Her hair was a ss, and she could barely walk straight.
Honestly, after last night, I wasn’t surprised about her current condition.
"Good morning," she mumbled as she got close.
"Good morning."
"Seeing that you’re here, it seems everything went well with my sister. That’s good."
"It did. So, where to now?"
Amanda brought the cup of coffee to her lips and took a sip.
"We’ll head west. It’s the quickest way off Heaven’s Plain. It will still take a while since we’ll have to travel through the Ainz Mountain range. This city is the closest one to the border, so we’ll have to stock up on so supplies. We probably won’t even encounter a single monster until we’re off the continent.
That made sense. There aren’t many monsters out there roaming free since the dungeons that pop up are constantly being cleared.
So this will be just another boring road trip until we’re off the continent.
Wasting no ti, the two of us began shopping for supplies. It was mostly Amanda since there weren’t many things I needed.
I prefer to hunt for the food I needed instead of carrying rations, and I didn’t need clothes or weapons.
We visited many different shops, but nothing particular caught my attention.
After we were finished shopping, we quickly made our way out of the city.
The mont we stepped through the gate, Amanda’s shoulders slumped as she released a heavy sigh.
"Ugh, I should’ve hired a carriage."
"If you’d like, I could carry us. At least until we’re off the continent."
Amanda looked at incredulously.
"Us? You look as if you could barely carry a fly."
[85 biomass has been spent to increase your size to 20 feet!]
Imdiately, my body began to stretch and swell until I was the length of a school bus.
Startled and shocked, Amanda took a step back as her mouth opened in shock.
"You can increase your size? This... how? You’re like a boss monster! Maybe this form of yours isn’t as useless as I thought. Before, I thought you were like a puppy, actually, no, weaker than a puppy."
"Climb on," I instructed.
"On to your back? Oh, OK."
Although a bit hesitant, she grabbed onto my exoskeleton, which had grooves allowing her to climb onto my back.
"Not bad. I always wanted a personal mount, especially one that could fly."
"Don’t even think about it."
"You have four sets of wings up here, just like a dragonfly. Your flying ability must be incredible," she continued, and I could feel her soft hands tracing against my wings.
"And your exoskeleton... Is this obsidian?" Her hands then moved to the back of my carapace, feeling her way through my armor. This was the first ti she took interest in my appearance. "Though it’s a lot harder than regular obsidian, so it won’t shatter like glass. What are you, exactly?"
I didn’t say a word as I slowly raised my wings in preparation for flight.
"Oh, not planning to tell , are you?"
"I’ll tell you if you tell the real reason you were drinking so much last night. It didn’t seem like it was only because we are entering the Void lands."
Silence. She didn’t say a word, so I took it as her answer. After a while, she finally said sothing.
"On second thought, it’s best we keep our secrets to ourselves."
Vibrating my wings, I created a powerful lift force that raised my body into the air.
From above, the beauty of the land was all the more evident.
"Wow, I’ve never seen the world from this high up before. Now it’s all the more beautiful," she said in amazent at the sight below her.
"Sotis I wish our world was like this."
She went silent.
"... too."
For the rest of the journey, neither of us said a word. We flew for hours, crossing over mountains, rivers, and entire forest areas.
If we had walked, it would’ve taken days for us to cover this much land.
"Huh, what is that?" Amanda suddenly said, breaking the long-standing silence between us.
Following her gaze, I glanced down at the ground.
"Looks like adventurers," I answered.
"No, it shouldn’t be. Not this far out here. This is wrong. They’re headed west."
"Huh, what’s the big deal? It’s just one party of—"
Before I could finish the sentence, she was already gone, falling gracefully from the sky.
’What the hell is she nuts?’
Seeing her fall, I had no choice but to follow behind her.
As she fell, she reached behind her and pulled out one of her knives while the adventurers were unaware of her approach.
Even from the height she jumped, she didn’t take fall damage. Instead, she landed gracefully like a feather, as streaks of brown could be seen on the ground.
Her knife cut through three adventurers before the group of four could even draw their weapons.
The three adventurers bled out on the ground as she held the knife against the last mber’s throat.
This last mber was a woman carrying a staff. She was dressed like a priestess.
I landed just in ti to hear Amanda interrogating her.
"Please, who are you, why are you doing this?" the young girl pleaded.
"Your friends aren’t dead, but they are severely injured. You’re their healer, right? You can still heal them if you hurry up and answer my questions."
"OK, I’ll do it. What do you want?" the young girl quickly answered as tears accumulated in her eyes.
"The four of you are players, am I correct?"
The girl hesitated for a mont, but then her eyes landed on her party mbers, which caused her to answer quickly.
"Yes, we are."
"Why are you headed west?" Amanda asked without skipping a beat. She didn’t even seem surprised. It was as if she expected it.
"We were ordered to by our guilds!"
She was ordered to? Could that an...
"What guild are you from?"
"We’re from the Sunflower Guild, but we aren’t the only ones. There are at least four other guilds mobilized to enter the Void Lands."
That ans we aren’t the only ones that know about the Terra-shard.
There are other guild masters going after it.
But how did the information spread?
Amanda clenched her teeth before turning to face .
"This is bad."
Her voice rung ominously.
I knew it without her having to say a word.
This just turned into a race.
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