酷视

But while the dryad simply discarded the news, opting not to believe in them… Madam actually took a moment to think about what I said.

Out of the three of the women, only Fay didn\'t seem to pay much mind to the news, fully focused on squirming around me, as if she wanted to check every inch of my body to ensure I had no injuries whatsoever.

\'I wonder if that\'s all there is to it,\' I thought to myself right when Madam started to discuss something with Leinei in a hushed voice while throwing occasional glances my way. \'Well,\' my eyes turned over to the semi-transparent windows of my system. \'The master route isn\'t complete, so it can\'t be all.\'

The master route for completing the "starlight plain" mission was all about uncovering the secret of this area. And while I now learned something new regarding that issue, it was merely a piece of the puzzle, not the entire picture.

"Yeah, on that we can agree," Madam spoke out loud as she pulled a step back from her friend and turned her eyes to me. "We are sorry, but we can\'t believe such an outlandish claim without proof. And I do believe you…" she hesitated, throwing a quick glance at Fay before recomposing herself.

"You don\'t have any proof, do you?"

The answer to this question couldn\'t be any simpler.

No. I didn\'t have a shred, a hint of proof that I could use to back my words. But that didn\'t mean it was impossible to convince those two to my theory. But for that, I needed us to be somewhere safer than just under the shade of some random tree, where those two decided they would be safe from any potential eavesdroppers.

Still…

\'I don\'t think sharing the news about my system would be a good idea,\' I thought, considering this option for but a second.

If they knew how exactly I came to know what I did about the relation between the starlight plain and the misty valley, I wouldn\'t have to produce any proof or theory to back it out. But…

I have yet to tell Fay about my system, so how could it be right to let everyone know about it?

\'If I\'m ever going to share that I have a system, Fay should be the one to decide whether it\'s safe to share it with others.\'

This decision didn\'t come just from my feelings or my lust alone. It was nothing as silly as an offering to cement my position in the fox-girl\'s heart. It was simply the most logical path I could take, given how I knew little to nothing about this world while Fay was… well… a local.

"Believe me or not, it won\'t change the fact that those two areas are, in fact, one." I turned back and refused Madam\'s demand for proof. "What\'s more, I\'m already working on a certain theory…" I offhandedly mentioned, only to cut my sentence in its middle and turn silent.

Before long, though, Leinei failed to hold herself against the anticipation my trap built in her.

"So?" she asked with an annoyed look on her face. "What\'s the theory?" she demanded as if it was only right for me to share it straight away.

"I said I\'m working on it," I pointed out, happily cutting Leinei\'s expectations down. Shrugging my shoulders I looked around again only to put the same, ugly grimace on my lips that I did back when they wanted to question me straight at the edge of the forest.

"And again, I don\'t think this is the right place for me to share it," I repeated myself only to walk a few steps out before turning around and returning to where I came.

"So, how about this," I picked up where I left after a short moment later, once I made sure everyone saw just how hard I thought about the issue. "We shall go back to Leinei\'s hut. I will use the time it will take us to go back to iron out all the details," I suggested, spreading my arms out while gracing everyone with a lovely smile.

"This way, we can talk about this sensitive issue in a place where we don\'t have to constantly look around, worried about someone or something sneaking up on us!"

Even if those women felt comfortable around here, I didn\'t. And, even with all my endurance, made it pretty damn hard to focus on what I promised I would put my attention to - ironing out the details of my theory.

In all my speeches, this was the only part that was fully free of eloquence tricks and traps. There were some questions and issues bottled up in my soul that I had to solve for my theorem to attain its full form, its true potential to shake both of the forest guardians.

And lastly… I was still on the clock. And what would be the point of hurrying it up back in the mist valley, if I were to waste time dawdling around now?

"Fine," Madam stepped in and joined the conversation before Leinei could speak another word. Already expecting to serve as a mount for everyone, she didn\'t even change back to her human form, despite how much she loved to parade around in that silver, shining, late-night dress. "We go back to Leinei\'s place, then you tell us what you figured out."

Even though she clearly still had her doubts and didn\'t believe in my words… I could see that she now treated me with enough respect and consideration to, at the very least, listen to what I had to say.

And, in this particular case, I opened my mouth by following my requests.

"I lived without thinking about this issue for ages, so waiting a few more hours won\'t hurt," Leinei finally admitted while breathing out a sigh of relief. Her face then tensed up as she scrambled with her hands, patting herself down only to pull out a multi-colored bouquet of flowers from behind her belt.

"Here," she spoke while passing the strange set of flowers to me. "While you were out in the mist, I gathered a few of the herbs that you were interested in…" she explained, right as I reached out and collapsed my fingers over the stalks…

[Bounties of the forest: Easy route completed!]

[Level up!]

A bolt of energy rushed down my spine, making my entire body tense up and freeze for a single instant.

[First milestone achieved!]

[Unlocking T1 rewards]

[Bounties of the forest: Master route completed!]

[Unlocking "Friend of the Forest" subroutine]

[Bounties of the forest: completed!]

An entire array of different notification and selection windows swarmed my vision, forcing me to escape with my eyes to the side, still frozen in place by the physical shock I\'d just gone through.

Free of the wordy clutter, I could now see that Leinei jumped back, as startled by my sudden change as she was curious about what happened.

"Peter!" Fay was already all over me, pressing her hands to my chest and to my back as if refusing to let me go off somewhere.

"Haaa…" I released a long sigh, sensing a certain weight dropping off my shoulders. \'I did it!\'

I closed my eyes, enjoying the moment.

Without killing another human being I did it! I reached that damn milestone level! And as expected, the rewards for doing so were far better than anything I\'ve received so far, save only for when I got my hands on this magical portal.

"What happened?!" Once assured I wasn\'t going anywhere and sensing I started to relax, Fay asked.

"Something did happen," I admitted, only to lower and then shake my head. "But I need some time to sort my thoughts out," I then dodged the topic.

There was no point talking about it, not yet. I had to slowly go through the entire swarm of notifications and carefully study each and every last one of them. And what could be a better time for doing so, if not the two hours we were about to spend traveling on Madam\'s back anyway?

"I need to sort my own thoughts first, so how about we talk about it later?" I suggested in a pleading voice, actually struggling to process all the changes still happening to my body under the influence of the jolt of energy I felt before. "For example, in the relative safety of Leinei\'s hut?"