Lin says "That's easy. If you don't want to get hit, don't do anything stupid."

"What if I can't help it?"

Lin says "Then you will at least know you deserve it."

Myria says "Don't worry, I'm sure she will only hit you if it is something really stupid. Like trying to eat a demon."

"Actually, I don't even know if eating demons will do anything for me anymore. It has been a long time since I last ran into a demon or an angel."

Lin says "Wait, when did you run into an angel? Was it a real angel?!"

"Oh, didn't I tell you that story? It was when Ruby got banished."

Lin says "No, you didn't."

Brightfire says "I haven't heard that story either."

Since the two of them are interested, I tell the story of the corrupt church. Once I am done I convince the girls that it is late and we can pick things up tomorrow night. They leave and I end the soulscape, then I work for a bit on moving Bones' connection.

When it starts to hurt I stop, end my meditation, and then head for the cabin to go to bed. When I walk into the cabin what I see causes me to freeze in shock. Lin is messing around with the books on one of the bookcases, but she is doing it in a Japanese school girl outfit.

I end up not getting much sleep before I have to wake up and feed the kids. However, it was absolutely worth losing sleep over and I have no regrets. Once they are fed, I spend some time giving the kids some affection.

After a while, Brightfire shows up and I send the kids off to play. Then I go in to wake up Lin and have a second breakfast with her. Once we are done eating, Lin gets dressed and we head out to talk to Brightfire.

"Okay, that chest over there is completely full of food. Athena is going to be helping you watch the kids, so you don't have to stay here all the time. If anything comes up you can contact us with the amulet. Is there anything else you need?"

Brightfire says "Nope. Although, what would you think about me introducing the human kids to yours?"

"I'd be fine with it. It would probably do the kids good to have new playmates. Just be sure to explain what they are to the human children first. Surprises like that normally don't go over well."

Brightfire says "I will, but it should be fine, they already know Keeble and Neesha. The two of them have even played with the kids while in beast form."

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"Really? That's unexpected. Is Stillwater behind all this?"

Brightfire says "Yes. He took it hard when you told him their situation and he blames himself."

"I am as much to blame as he is. I forgot about them."

Brightfire says "I did too. Don't be too hard on yourself, a lot of things happened that distracted all of us. The kids are doing well and don't seem to have suffered too much from their self-imposed isolation."

Lin says "Ash, she is right, you shouldn't worry too much. Yes, you made a mistake, but you have already corrected it. What's more, you are taking steps to correct what caused the mistake. So stop beating yourself up."

"I am not going to argue with the two of you. Brightfire, if there is nothing else we will be leaving."

Brightfire shakes her head, but she gives Lin a look full of meaning as we are leaving. I head out to the balcony, put on my saddle, and then wait for Lin to climb up. Once she is comfortable I take off and fly south towards the coast.

Lin says "So, is there a plan for this trip or are you just going to make it up as we go?"

"I plan to fly inland a bit from the coast and then turn west. I will be staying low so that I can scan for resources as we go. No need to waste gold buying what I can get myself."

Lin says "So we are not going to try and reach the city today?"

"No, we will probably reach it tomorrow."

Lin says "Assuming we don't find any random adventures."

"If we do, that's fine. We are not in a rush or on a timetable."

Lin says "That means we will be using the castle. That's good, I can finally put more of my books away."

"Yeah. One of the materials I will be collecting is more wood for us to use in creating copies."

Lin says "Great! I am really looking forward to reading books from your world! I do have a question though. You mentioned something called manga to Krenocia, what's that?"

"By the time I have explained the differences between manga and anime we have reached the coast. I end up promising to copy the manga that I know well enough so that Lin can read them. As soon as we are over land I start scanning as I fly which makes talking harder.

Lin quickly realizes what I am doing and she stops talking to me so that I can concentrate. Then she casts a spell, when I turn my head to look I find that she created a barrier against the wind. She has taken out some materials and is working on sewing something.

"What are you doing?"

Lin says "Working on outfits. After how enthusiastic you were last night over a simple outfit I can't wait to see how you react to the others."

Since I have no way to answer that safely, I leave her to her work and focus on my tasks. Once the coast is out of sight I turn west and drop to just above treetop level. The closer I am to the ground the easier it is to scan below ground and the deeper I can scan.

I am not looking for anything specific since I need metals, stone, and wood. The first I encounter is a group of magical trees, so I land nearby and tear a tree out of the ground. I figure that using magical wood should make the copying easier and make it require less materials.

Aside from breaking the trunk down into chunks, I also keep some of the branches. They should work perfectly for making new sets of wands for the elves to use. Of course, just one tree isn't going to be enough, but I am also not going to take them all.

I only take one out of every five or so of the trees and I try to look for ones that are growing too close together. I do my best to gather enough wood that we can do all the copying we still need to do without having to gather it again.

The entire time I am uprooting trees and breaking them down, Lin keeps working on her sewing. She only stops when I take off and then continues once I level out. The next time I land, to gather some stone, she stops and gets off to stretch her legs.