These last few days have been pretty sunny with almost no clouds in the sky, but today is cloudy, against my best wishes there'll probably be rain later today. The idea is to use my sense of smell to track the Desolaris down, but rain makes that nearly impossible, not to mention it'll soak my fur.

We've reached the forest some time ago, Aria is leading us deeper where a bunch of sinkholes can be found. If I didn't know that girl was the 'fool around and find out' type, I surely would think she's mysterious and enigmatic.

"..." - Aria looks back at me as if asking what I was grinning about.

The smile she had in the village is gone, instead her face is serious and focused. I gotta say something to break the ice.

"You can take the wig off if you want, no one is around anyways"

"...I'll keep it on, it's not like I have anywhere to store it"

"..."

"Bear at four o'clock"

"Got it" - I draw my daggers and slash its throat, then get out of the way of the dying body.

Apparently Aria has a knack for aura detection, the ability to perceive fluctuations in the aura naturally in the world to pinpoint the position of other beings, something like echo localization.

"Wouldn't killing the fauna be a problem?" - Aria questions me.

"Not really, it's only natural to kill what tries to kill you, isn't it?"

"pfft, yeah" - She laughs for the first time since we left, I take that opportunity to question her further.

"Just how many different smiles do you have stored?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just now, this smile is different from the smile you give to Ayla, it's also different from the one you give off when joking around, and especially different from the one you had after talking to Mira"

"What are you, a sommelier of smiles? Different sources of joy give off different smiles, that's all"

"Sure, that's valid for most of them, but the one you had in the village, which happens to be the same you had in your past life, that's a fake smile isn't it? Might it have something to do with the 'absolute freedom' theory perha-" - I speak in an interested and slightly cocky tone, but she interrupts me.

"Tsk tsk tsk, you're asking rather casually about stuff I've never told nor my family nor Oli, remember that four days ago you thought I was a dangerous and chaotic demon. Don't. Peek"

"Ah..." - I try to speak again, but her aura starts to leak, just to be shut in a second later, so I decide to shut up.

I should've been more careful with my words, it seems like she's pissed.

—

"We are here, you're up" - Aria says in a lighthearted tone as if our past interaction never happened.

I take the front and focus on the scents in the air. I've been close to an Desolaris in Aioniyos so I know the smell. We're currently on a slope, probably entering the depression at the center of this forest.

There are many pits around, the recently formed don't have anything growing in them but most have vegetation, others so overgrown that a distracted adventurer could fall into and never leave, of course, neither of us would fall into one.

I can smell many flowers, some that an apothecary would die to put their hands on, but I feel like thinking about money right now would make Aria even more annoyed, so I give up on that idea. In the end I wasn't able to sense any Desolaris as rain just started to pour down.

"My fur! Not my beautiful fur!" - I complain to the skies.

"Pfft, you sound like those high school girls complaining about their hair"

"Ugh, you say that because you never cared to take care of yours. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep my black fur this clean and shiny?"

"They do say black clothes are good at hiding dirty spots..."

I stare at her, is she trying to get back at me? 'Cause it's working!

"Heh..." - Aria laughs at me.

"To your infor-" - She cuts me off.

"What's that? There's a massive amount of aura gathered ahead, more than I have in me"

She's right, even though it's quite far, I can still sense it. If we allow it to continue...

"If we allow it to continue a certain phenomena might happen, it's called 'Aura Displacement', when two places in the world gather a bunch of aura, they link up and things from one place get displaced, in other words, teleported to the other. here in the wild, if some kind of beast gets teleported here, it'll probably be strong"

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"But it takes a long time for all this aura to gather up, right?"

"Yes, but..."

"So that place is our best chance of finding a Desolaris! We need to go!"

"H-Hey! What if some beast appears here? Worse, what if we get teleported elsewhere? We could end up ANYWHERE in the world!"

"Who cares! If there's a beast, we kill it, if we're teleported, we can just come back! Also, you aren't sure it's gonna happen now"

"Still..."

"I don't know about you, but the way I see it, the odds are on our side in this gamble"

"..."

"...And this gamble puts Mira's life on the table"

She's something else, were these argumentative skills only used to avoid class rep. Duty back then?

"Alright, alright, let's go"

—

We reached the aura anomaly, my aura detection is overwhelmed and this rain, on top of soaking my fur, inhibits my sense of smell, in other words, I'm nearly useless here.

Aria's aura is leaking, she's waking fast, her head bouncing from one side to the other like the spectators in a tennis match, her pupils looking all around even faster. Perhaps I got to her and she gets how this place is dangerous, else she herself senses the danger, which is a heavily worse situation, what could make a demon feel endangered?

Her pace suddenly changes.

"I think I found something!" - She says while starting to run, I follow right behind.

A big open space, a pit much bigger than the others in an elliptic shape with many plants covering it, many parts are overgrown, a small flow of water running through it and disappearing within the cracks on the stone. But more importantly, off to the side some white flowers can be seen, the flowers whose petals can kill aura-eroding bacteria, the exact flowers that can cure Mira's condition, the Desolaris!

DUMP... FWOOP!

"Watch out! Hold onto something!" - Aria screams.

I followed her orders and grabbed a tree with my claws even though I didn't know the reason, I just heard a sound and...

All the aura that was just filling the air was pulled in, almost blowing me away, Aria, even though not holding anything is unaffected, just holding her wig so it doesn't fly off.

The exact scenario I wanted to avoid is unfolding before my eyes, the aura displacement is happening. The next seconds all that concentrated aura is blown away past us, in the end we didn't get displaced, still...

BOOM!

Something heavy just fell to the ground, probably the beast that just got teleported here. Didn't take long for us to discover what caused the sound, the creature...

...Was right in front of us.

A massive serpent made its way to us, now it is just watching, analyzing their next target. Serpents, together with spiders, are the strongest beasts in the world, some surpass demons, the queens surpass even dragons.

This one... Is bad news. Aria's face is filled with terror. Are we incapable of winning? Are we going to fail Mira again? Are we going to lose?

Aria's countenance changes.

"We gotta kill this thing, don't hold back, if you have a trick up your sleeve, use it! Else there won't be a next time for us!" - She says all the while not taking her eyes off the beast.

And the beast stares back at her, it knows she's a demon, it is warry.

"Change spear"

Aria is now holding a spear, I don't remember her bringing it, but that's not important right now.

"Don't take your eyes off that!" - I get reprimanded.

"We'll wait for its attack, we start after that"

"Alright" - I take a deep breath, now holding my daggers. I'm prepared.

The serpent rushes, I go to the right, Aria to the left. It keeps going straight, Aria jumped on its back, I did the same. We both sunk our weapons onto its body, but neither could pierce the hard scales. I get flung to the ground by the sheer speed of this thing's movement. She manages to stay.

"Forget the body, target the eyes and mouth!" - I hear her scream to me.

As I process her words I see the beast ready to devour me, I get out of the way. Aria, who rushed behind me, nearly landed a hit in its eye, but somehow it managed to move slightly to the other side, making her hit the scales again.

Before I can react, the tail comes in my direction, throwing me against a now broken tree. Once again its giant mouth tries to devour me, but Aria kicks its face, getting the thing out of the way.

"Change of tactics-" - She starts to speak while grabbing me and jumping, dodging another tail swing.

"Stay back, wait for an opening and attack, don't engage further. I'll deal with the rest"

"You sure you can do it?"

"I'm the only one here who might be able to"

With us still in the air, the serpent rushes again. Aria throws me out of its range, then she lands on its jaw, pierces it with her spear. Just before the mouth closed the weapon disappeared and a split second after she did too.

Serpents have thermal vision so hiding is useless, I need to keep moving around while staying in range for any openings.

They clash again: This time Aria tried to jump on top of its head, but it sped up so she landed on its back. I use some basic fire magic to throw fireballs in all directions so my movement might go unnoticed.

Aria, who was running past the trees, threw me a look as if saying 'prepare yourself'. Go on, partner!

Her running slows down, the ground that was breaking with each step of hers stopped getting damaged. When the creature got in front of her, now from above, she closed a fist and put on a stance in order to stay unmoved.

The mouth closed in, the head tilted to the side to devour the demon easily, but it surely didn't expect what was to come: A punch to the nose so strong that its incessant rush came to an end. I take the opportunity to stab the eyes, but I fail, needing both daggers to pierce one eye, I needed to leave one remaining.

The beast starts to move violently, the last pupil moving all around.

"I'm not done!" - Aria screamed, then stabbed her spear through the jaw and pinned the serpent to the ground, using all her strength to make the thing stay there.

I take the chance to pierce the other pupil.

"HISS" - The monster screams loudly, pulling Aria and her weapon into the sky.

The spear disappears again and she starts to fall, I grab her, but just before our landing the tail comes against us. There are bleedings all over my body, looking at Aria I see that she's missing an arm, a hand and her lower body. She probably went against a tree, then tried to land with her hands, the velocity caused the damage.

Yet, as a demon, she's already on her feet. I get up too.

The creature continues to scream, moving in pain and destroying the surroundings, including...

...Including the pit with the flowers we need.

Aria sees this too, I can tell because her aura is leaking, and she's not making an effort to pull it in.

The eyes... The eyes we put so much effort in destroying... Is back, it healed back. The pupils are shaking, the head is tilting from left to right. The beast is mad.

And I can tell that Aria is also mad.

"Elijah."

"Y-Yeah?"

"Go check the Desolaris. If anything remains, protect them. I'll deal with this loud clown here"

"Yes ma'am!"

"...Just to be sure, anything you see me do, you didn't."

"Yes ma'am!"

The next moment I saw what a true demon is capable of. I saw what makes demons the third strongest beings in this world.

I'll probably never see this again.

And I will take this sight to my grave.