Chapter Twenty: Thinking Big

With a new morning slowly coming up now, the sun was slowly rising to give the earliest morning that little touch of light.

The cockerels crowed over and over again to inform everyone that a brand new day was here and that it was time for them to get up and start going about their daily activities.

The birds in their woods were already up and had gotten their choir of chirps on the way while the droplets of water left behind on the trees by the night's dew were slowly dropping down to the floor in tranquility.

It was a bright new day indeed but the reality was that it didn't hold the same amount of potential for everybody, and for some people, it held the opposite of potential.

Devon was the first person to wake up that morning, he woke up to find Maya lying on his body on the map laid out for him on the floor.

She was supposed to be on the bed with her brother and Erina, but she just stuck to Devon.

Erina and Bennet were the ones on the bed now, Bennet was quite low on the bed with his legs sticking out but he had his arms wrapped around Erina's leg and maybe that was what prevented him from falling off.

After waking up, Devon slowly sat up on the mat and dropped Maya back there slowly before getting up on his feet.

"I have a lot of explaining to do today." He muttered before letting out a sigh.

Sharon really wanted the two to stay and at least have breakfast with them and although Erina was more inclined to accept that offer, Devon insisted that they had to get back as early as possible, and she could see where he was coming from.

Just before they could start making their way back home, Maya quickly rushed to Devon and wrapped her arms around his legs because that was the only part of his body she could comfortably.

"I know you have to go, but you'll come and visit, right?" She said before looking up at him.

"Yeah, I'll come visit whenever I can." He assured her.

"You promise?"

"Yeah." He replied with a nod.

"And you'll come with Miss. Erina?" She asked with a faint voice before turning her gaze to Erina.

"Yeah, don't worry, Maya, I'll come visit too," Erina assured her before she squatted beside her and gave her a little rub on the head.

After that, the two said goodbye to the family and started their journey back home.

"You seem to have rubbed off on her way more than I did," Erina commented as the two made their way down the road.

There were a lot of people using the road that morning and a lot of them happened to be coming from the river.

"I don't really know how that happened but I guess it goes to show that I'm more likable than you."

"Yeah, you wish." She said with a little chuckle.

The two seemed to be having a lot of fun talking about a couple of things until they finally got to the path created in between the forest.

Standing there staring into the area brought back bad memories of the things that happened yesterday, that was the most life-threatening situation they've ever been in.

"Hey, hold my hand." He muttered before stretching his hand toward her.

"Okay." She responded before wrapping her hand around his.

"Alright, here we go."

[ -40 Energy ]

[ Location acquired ]

As soon as that message popped up in front of him, they suddenly vanished from where they were standing.

All it took was just milliseconds for them to find themselves just at the other side, the entrance to the forest from Audaznimo, and now they had their gaze on the walls of Audaznimo which they could see from where they were standing.

"I can never get used to that," Erina muttered before letting out a deep breath.

"Yeah, me too."

She took a quick glance at his shoulder to confirm that there was nothing there one last time before turning her gaze away from there.

"I still don't understand how this is possible."

"Yeah, mysterious, right? But you have to keep this to yourself for now, other than Emilia, you're the only one who knows."

"So, you're assuming that she knows."

"If you're sure that she asked you that question then there's no doubt that she saw it that day." He stated.

"You mean she saw you teleport?"

"Yeah." He replied with a nod. "Anyway, we have to return home now."

He could have just teleported inside with her but that would cause suspicion because they had to go in through the gate and report back to Evangeline.

She was quite glad to see that they were okay, and Devon made sure to keep out anything regarding the spider they encountered on the way.

When she asked what took them so long, he just made up an excuse that the old man asked for their services with something at his home and it took them a long time to finish.

Evangeline didn't exactly buy that, but the fact that they were okay was just enough for her so she refrained from asking them any more questions.

She gave them their payment and Erina returned the polearm because it belonged to someone else, and after that, the two began to make their way back home.

"Time for my explanation."

The two got dragged into their meeting room as soon as they met up with Michael in the hallway, and now that they were there, it was time to ask the important question.

"Where were you two last night?"

Devon dived straight into his explanation leaving out anything regarding the spider attack and giving him the same excuse he gave Evangeline.

"And you forgot that you had people who were worried about you over here?" Michael queried with his arms crossed.

"It was urgent and we didn't know it was going to take so long."

After listening to his nephew say all that, Michael slowly turned his gaze to Erina.

"And what did you say about this, Erina?"

"Um….."

"Hm, I see. Why do you guys like sticking up for him, I thought you would be more strict toward him but you're just like Emilia."

"Huh?" Devon muttered with a confused expression on his face.

"You know you're always required to be here in case someone comes back with a serious injury, we're just lucky none of that happened yesterday." He scolded.

"I know, I'm sorry." She apologized before slowly bringing her head down.

"Hey, you're supposed to be scolding me, not her."

"You being absent doesn't really impact us in any way but Erina does and she knows she shouldn't have been away last night. Who even told you to sign up to become an adventurer? It was Devon, right?"

"No, I did that of my own free will, he wanted to stay back but I insisted that I was going to go with him."

"Huh?" Michael muttered with a confused expression on his face. "He wanted you to stay back?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm."

He let out a deep sigh before slowly turning away from them.

"I know you're an adventurer now, but please don't take up any more commissions, things are really dangerous out there, and Devon."

"Huh?"

"I know you'll still go and do what you want when I'm not watching but please be careful."

"I've been trying to be careful these past few days."

"You two can leave now."

Erina left as soon as they were told that, but Devon proceeded to make his way to his uncle.

"Hey, uncle, where's everyone?" He inquired as his eyes quickly shifted to all the pieces of paper scattered on the table.

"They're all out taking care of important matters." With his gaze on a piece of paper that he was holding.

"And Emilia?"

"She's in her room, make sure you go see her later."

"Okay, I'll do that, I'll get going to my room now."

Just a few seconds had passed after saying that and he was already out of the room.

As soon as he got to his room, he crashed down on the bed and let out a deep sigh before unbuckling the bag around his waist and dropping it beside him.

He kept his gaze on the ceiling for a while before he opened the bag and dipped his hand into it.

When he raised the hand again, it was covered with lots of jewelry of different kinds, and each time he moved his hand, they would clash against each other and make little clanging sounds.

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind." He muttered with a smile on his face.

[ Mystic level: 03 ]

[ Mystic Points: 55/300 ]

After glancing through his system for a while, he brought out a piece of paper similar to the ones on the table in the meeting room from his bag.

"So, they're planning to rob the princess tonight, Uncle's finally thinking big." He muttered after quickly glancing through what was written on the paper.

'But there's no mention of what they're stealing, I might have to find out for myself.'

He still had the paper in front of him when he suddenly heard a knock on his door forcing him to quickly put away all the illegal stuff on his bed.

"Who's there?"

"It's me, Emilia."

"Oh, Emilia, nice timing."

*****

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