Island (1)

"It's been a while since I've done anything like that." Vera raised one of her arms and stretched her body.

"I guess it wasn't so bad to take a breath of fresh air every once in a while instead of staying in my basement all the time," Vera said before taking several deep breaths and enjoying the different air in the actual forest compared to her usual workplace.

Blake on the other hand was still thinking about how he flew together with Vera for the past 30 minutes non-stop, looking at both the beautiful scenery and the breathtaking beauty that flew beside him.

"Yes, we should definitely do this more often." Blake instantly replied when he heard Vera say she should do this more.

Having quality time with Vera was definitely a thing that Blake enjoyed very much.

However, that wasn't the only thing that he got from this short escape from his everyday routine of hunting demonic beasts and eating souls.

He also learned that the forest that he was currently in was a very, very huge forest.

He and Vera had spent the past 30 minutes flying around the forest, but Blake didn't see anything other than the trees around him.

Even after spending that long flying high up in the sky, Blake didn't even see the edge of the forest, or anything other than the forest.

And that raised many questions inside his head.

Where exactly was he in the demon realm? How big was the forest that he was currently in? And what the places outside the forest looked like. How do the varying places in the demon realm look?

He didn't know anything about them since he had spent all his time inside the forest.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing and Blake didn't actually feel he was isolated from the outside world as the forest itself was big enough that Blake continuously found something new every time he and Robus traveled the different parts of the forest. But Blake just wondered about it.

'This is only the first demon realm and Vera said that there were still many demon realms below this realm filled with stronger demons. But I wonder how big was each demon realm. Is this first realm as big as the earth that I know?'

'I kinda want to explore this realm and see more of it since now I am literally a demon myself… In essence, that means that this realm will be my new place of origin. I don't think it's good that I am foreign to my own birthplace.'

Blake then walked up to Vera, who already finished stretching her body out and taking in the fresh air of the forest.

"Vera, I want to know more about the demon realm. Can we explore this realm some other time?"

Hearing Blake's question, Vera was caught off guard as she had never actually thought about that.

'It's true that he had only been in the forest ever since he came into this world…'

'I should let him know more about this realm now that he is living in a whole different world from where he came from.'

'Even though he probably won't be staying here for long with his rate of progress, the essence of a demon won't be too different in each realm, and knowing about them would only be beneficial for him.'

'But the demons outside are…'

Vera then stared at Blake and continued thinking to herself.

'Seeing how he chooses to communicate first instead of attacking and how well he converse with others, his world back then should be a relatively safe world where violence wasn't dominant.'

'He would surely be shocked if he learned about the other demons…'

But Vera then suddenly shook her head.

'His parents did a bad job teaching him about the real world and sheltered him his whole life. I should know better that I shouldn't do that to him as there's no way he would be able to survive without experiencing how the real world works…'

'It's decided then.'

While still looking at Blake, Vera then opened her mouth.

"Sure, but let's do it when you've evolved."

"The place that connected this realm to the next realm is quite far away from here and you should be able to learn quite a lot about this realm if we travel there from here. Are you good with that?"

Blake didn't expect that Vera would agree so easily, but he also didn't expect that Vera would forbid him from doing it like a strict, overprotective parent either.

So when Vera asked him whether he wanted to go out and explore the world after he reached level 15, evolved, and it's time for him to go to the next realm, of course, he accepted the offer.

There's still a huge part of the forest that he still hasn't explored yet, and it would be fulfilling if he had already explored most parts of the forest before continuing his journey to the outside world.

"Yes, I am good with that. Although it will take a while to evolve, I still want to explore this forest more, so it wasn't really a problem, it's a perfect arrangement for me." He replied.

"That's good then," Vera said while nodding her head.

"But Vera, I wonder, how far exactly is the gate to the next realm, and how big is this forest actually?"

Vera then tilted her head and looked at Blake while squinting her eyes for a solid second before she had a look of realization and released a nod of understanding towards Blake.

Blake wanted to ask what her expression meant as it looked as if Vera had questioned his question before suddenly remembering something, but Vera spoke first.

"The gate to the next realm is so far away, in fact, it wasn't here."

"It wasn't in the forest? Of course, it's understandable."

"No, what I mean is, the gate wasn't here, not on this island."

"Island?" Blake asked with a confused look.

"Yes, this whole forest was located on an island far away from the mainland, where the gate to the next realm is located."