Green. Green. More Green.

Nope, I wasn't talking about Greenie's skin.

The only things I saw under me were the tops of trees.

I was up as high as I could go, looking for our cave. If I could find the cave, I would be able to guide Greenie in the right direction. It was still early morning, and since Greenie didn't have the jar after our encounter with the wolves, we would need food again.

Water too.

My throat feeling a little dry, I made sure to keep my mouth closed. The wind was blowing around me while I flew high up as I could go in the sky.

The wind was blowing strongly over the treetops and I did my best to keep abreast, flapping and gliding, while making sure I didn't lose sight of the mossy tree.

I needed some sort of marker, something to tell me where we were.

Doing a 360 turn around I-

Found it!

It wasn't hard to miss, a giant mountain off to one side. Since it had been behind me when I first flew up, I hadn't noticed it.

The mountain was a part of a whole mountain range that all had snow-capped peaks, but this one, probably the one the Ice Cavern was a part of, was massive. The top of the mountain didn't even show up, reaching high up into the clouds and disappearing into the sky.

Wow. Now that mountain was one that would appear in a fantasy world. Swirling lights glowed between the cloud formations, purple, pink, blue, green, like the auroras of my world. If I concentrated my ears hard enough, I felt like I could hear the tiny crashing sound of thunder as lightning flashed through the aurora, cutting and weaving the lights together in a strange dance.

If we could get back to the mountain, maybe Greenie could retrace his steps back to our home cave. It was perfect, we could stop by the Ice Cavern at the same time and pick up some food on the way.

The foliage of the tree hid Greenie, who should be underneath it, waiting for me. When I bobbed my head at him, pointing at the ground to stay, Greenie had stared back at me, then bobbed his head back, which I took for understanding.

Folding my wings close to my body, I dive and glide, dive and glide through a gap in the tree branches, landing back on Greenie's shoulder.

He'd been patiently waiting for me.

Good Greenie!

Using one wing to point us in the direction of the mountain, I croak. The goblin was quick on the uptake, walking forward. He didn't seem that scared of every bush and tree around him anymore. Instead of crawling forward like Greenie usually did, he walked upright a lot more, though he did crawl sometimes too.

I chalked it up to evolution. If it gave Greenie the confidence boost to stop shaking at every leaf shivering in the wind, I was all for it.

Onward, my goblin!

Let us depart!

I stop Greenie a few times to check on our location, until we're halfway back towards the mountain.

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On the way, we'd carefully avoided meeting any other creatures due to my awesome scouting skills, the new ones we'd earned from the fight with the wolves,『Evasive Maneuvers』 and 『Hide』.

In my opinion, these were the best skills, the most useful to me right now, other than the Flight skill. There was nothing special about Peck or Appraisal (Special) right now.

As we walked, I used appraisal on the things around us and what I could glimpse of the creatures moving past us, who either ignored or didn't seem to notice us as I kept 『Hide』on at all times.

{Gilded Lemur}

{Sword Tulip}

{Painted Beetle}

Something buzzed by my ear. My head swivels as I focus an eye on the small dot.

Appraisal!

{Murder Mosquito}

Sigh..

Murderous Mosquitos!? What in the world...

{Bane Frog}

{Owl Grass}

{Drago Salamander}

Why did everything sound dangerous!? Even the owl grass was scary. It was green, mottled with specks of brown, curled in on itself in a cylinder shape. When a white salamander accidentally fell off a tree and into the area where the grass grew in abundance, it had only taken a few seconds for the grass to unfurl and cut it into ribbons.

None of the other animals bothered to step into the grass for a bite of what the plants were eating.

The flecks of brown on the green grass came from the blood of its prey.

Yeesh.

Good thing Greenie already knew to avoid that patch.

With my Hide and Evasive Manuevers skills, we were also able to avoid other Ironwood bears, smaller than the dead Bear King but still bigger than any bear I'd ever seen at the zoo. They seemed to prefer the trees with the darker barks, ripping into the trunks like they were made of paper and chewing away at them like happy pandas.

There was an unoccupied Ironwood tree nearby from our safe distance where we observed them. How strong were those trees? There must be a reason why they're called Ironwood, right?

To gauge the hardness of the bark, I use 『Peck』

And my beak rebounds right off the wood. Leaving me with a ringing headache.

My pecking skill that could easily put a hole in Greenie..

The one that had shattered part of the thick ice wall in the Ice Cavern…

Those bears were monsters!

I rub my poor beak with one wingtip. Was it bruised? It felt bruised.

The bears were having the time of their lives, crunch, crunching away like the trees were candy.

Which meant their jaw strength must be powerful. Enough to tear Greenie and I into small shreds.

Better get out of here while we still can.

To get Greenie's attention on me and off the bears, I tap his shoulder with my foot. Jerking my head to the side, I let out a small goblin "Ki!", our signal to keep moving.

One bear lifts his head all of a sudden, as if he'd heard my call.

Oops.

Better think fast, before that bear comes over to where we were hiding behind the trees on a hill overlooking the bears. It wasn't like before, when I could just run away if the bear came after us. Greenie was with me this time, and he didn't look strong enough to be able to fight against a bear if it thought he would be a good in-between snack.

I still didn't know if these bears are herbivorous or omnivorous.

Uh-m.

The bear takes one step towards us, making the other bears stop their chewing and turn in our direction as well.

Flying up into the tree, I try to mimic the call of one of the small jittery blue birds that were everywhere.

"Cheep-cheep!"

A perfect high-pitched bird call, different from the croaking that I usually did, rings out of my throat.

Oh wow.

I didn't know I could do that.

When the bears hear that, they go back to their meals, gorging themselves on what I think were the Ironwood trees.

The cracking and tearing sounds of trees being eaten resumed, Greenie and I slowly crawl away and then head back towards the mountain.

It takes a while until the sounds finally fade away, and we're off on our way.

On my next flight up, I see a small lake, off further along the side of the mountain, where the melted snow had trickled down into the divot of land.

Water!

That was perfect!

Let's go over there, Greenie~

Cold, fresh water. Ice cubes clinking together. The beads of condensation that would run down the outside of a glass.

My tongue was hanging out just thinking about it.

We follow the slight animal trail that leads us down to the lake, me constantly swiveling my head like a security camera while Greenie walks.

If there was a trail here, it meant that there might be other animals/monsters here.

Better to be careful.

Moving up the incline, with the clear waters of the sparkling lake now visible before us, I control my urge to fly off Greenie's shoulder to get a nice, long drink.

"aghjskga, asdfjhagdsh dsf dyonnf"

What was that!

My claws dig into Greenie's shoulder.

That sounded like words.

Who was speaking!?

The sound was coming off from our left hand side, towards the mountain where a thick copse of trees ringed the lake.