Chapter 10 - Dangers in the night

AZKi lands on the greater goblin and gives it a smirk before she slashed its eyes shut. As the giant staggered backwards, AZKi lept off it and shouted for Sora to take her shot.

Quickly snapping out from her surprise from seeing a friend, the brunette snatched an arrow from her quiver and took a quick shot straight for the goblin. Her bull quickly appeared and charged straight for the large goblin, digging its horns into the goblin's stomach, toppling it over.

With the goblin now on its back AZKi took the chance to leap onto it and stab her daggers into its head.

Blood oozed out of the goblin's head, it twitched and writhed, trying to find the girl that firmly placed herself on its body. But it didn't take long before its life had been snuffed out and its body went to a complete stop.

All the goblins who witnessed the kill quickly went into a frenzy, hollering in fear as they scattered throughout the camp before disappearing into the forest.

"Did-did we win?" a stunned adventurer questioned.

"I-I think so," another said.

When their victory did eventually sunk in, the crowd erupted into a roar of cheers.

While the crowd were celebrating their survival and success, Sora was making her way to the girl who was sitting on top of a dead goblin.

"Am I dreaming right now?"

Turning around pink eyes locked on to brown ones. Tears slowly welled up against the corners of both their pupils before AZKi lept from her place and Sora ran closer to her. The two then engulfed each other in a tight hug as their tears that were threatening to fall finally dropped from their sockets.

"I never thought I'd see you again," Sora said her voice cracking from her attempts to hold back her sobs.

"Mm, I didn't think I would either," AZKi replied.

While the two girls were hugging from their reunion, the adventurers took it upon themselves to hunt down the remaining goblins that scattered. They wanted to make sure none of those little critters had any backup plans.

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Once the area had been cleared the group returned to the city where they reported the job as a success.

True to her word, Annie gave Sora a bonus pay, though she did it as discreetly as possible so that the other adventurers wouldn't feel cheated.

When she got her pay Sora headed out with AZKi, it's been years and the two wanted to catch up.

AZKi told Sora of how she found herself waking up in some random family's home after she crashed into their barn. The family then took care of her for a while and taught her the language of the world as well as to hunt. But her stay with them wasn't for long as after she managed to get enough skill to live on her own, she decided to leave in order to search for the others and potentially find a way back home.

She made her way all the way from one side of the kingdom all the way to the capital in hopes to find leads; instead, she actually found someone.

"How come you're here Sora?"

"I came to find other members as well, Noel told me she has some leads."

AZKi stopped momentarily and stared at Sora with wide eyes. "Noel? As in Shirogane Noel?"

"Yeah, we met when I was staying at a village that got partly burned down," Sora responded.

"That's a loaded statement right there," AZKi admitted, a small drop of cartoonish sweat dripping down her cheek.

The two ended up chatting the rest of the day away and only realised the time when they saw the orange hue of the sky. Deciding it was best to go indoors, Sora invited AZKi to stay with her in the inn she was staying.

With sparkling eyes, the once diva gladly accepted and followed Sora to her inn.

Because the inn Sora was staying at doubled as a restaurant, the two girls stayed downstairs and had a nice meal: a nice reward for their hard work with the goblins.

After dinner, they then headed to Sora's and Rio's room to rest. Before they could enter, however, Sora told AZKi to wait outside for a bit while she checked if Rio was inside since she knew he was usually back from work from that time and would usually be napping.

So leaving AZKi outside, the brunette entered her room and noticed that the bedroom was empty, but she knew Rio was indeed home from the clothes laid out on his bed.

Hearing the door open behind her, the girl turned around and watched as Rio exited the bathroom in his pyjamas while wiping his hair.

Relieved that she wasn't going to disturb her friend, Sora went on to tell Rio about AZKi. The boy was shocked to hear that another member of Hololive suddenly just appeared, but he was glad that Sora met her since out of all the Hololive members AZKi was one of Sora's closest friends.

Figuring that she needed some privacy, Rio proposed that he headed downstairs so that the two women could comfortably converse. However, Sora said that it was fine if he were to stay because she wanted to introduce him to AZKi. Plus she wanted to discuss other members who may have been transported, so Rio was needed.

Letting AZKi in, Sora then introduced her to Rio, who replied by giving a light bow and his name.

"Wow he is as polite as you said," AZKi commented in glee.

"Isn't he?" Sora responded somewhat smugly.

Sora and Rio then went on to share the information they gathered along with Noel. AZKi, who was already an experienced traveller, was then advised to check out some bars or maybe take on jobs outside Esteria to get a better understanding of their leads.

Unfortunately, the two couldn't leave the city, mainly because they don't have the money or the skill to last out in the wild without anyone's help, plus there was the situation with Rio's staff, so they couldn't leave yet.

"Well I guess that makes sense, ok let's-"

AZKi was then interrupted by a sudden scream from outside. The three quickly ran to the window and saw a woman being approached by a group of suspicious-looking men.

"What the-?"

Not wasting a second, AZKi opened the window and lept onto the scene, kicking one of the men during her descent. Once on the ground, the girl then took out her knives and prepared to fight.

"Who's the chick?!"

"Who cares, let's just take her as well!"

The group tried to approach AZKi and the woman but was stopped when an arrow stuck itself by one of the men's feet.

Looking up, the group saw Sora with her bow in the ready, one wrong move and her arrows would strike them as opposed to the floor.

Clearly aware that they were at a disadvantage the men slowly backed away before sprinting into the night.

After the group had disappeared from her sight, AZKi checked up on the woman prior to returning upstairs to Sora and Rio's room, where they then agreed to visit Noel to inform her of the events that had just transpired. But since it was now nighttime, they had to hold off on that, so that they wouldn't be the ones in need of saving.

Spending the rest of the night together, the two girls continued to chat while Rio slowly drifted to sleep after some light reading.

Chatting the night away, Sora and AZKi would then end up falling asleep, needing Rio to be the one place their cover over them so that they wouldn't catch a cold.

Thus a busy day in Esteria had finished.