The now, quartet’s day had arrived when they would be leaving the nation of Stellarina. Voulin had made sure he had enough money to get the things he wanted. He also made sure that he had as much updated information about the current state of affairs as he could get. He had a pleasant chat with Jessica while drinking tea. Frey hung out with Raffeel, they bought magic supplies and talked. Misen hunted some more monsters, in an attempt to practice using the sword bleed skill and make more money. Before noon they all met up at the front of a gate that was pointed in the direction of Alyja’s cradle which is said to be the domain of the goddess of love Alyja.

“Is everyone ready?” Misen asked the group.

“I handled my business here. So I’m good.” Voulin replied.

“I’ve already done my daily prayer to Sherasil and I got supplies with Raffie.” Frey said.

“Raffie huh, you two been getting closer. Can I call you Raffie?” Asked Voulin, with a smile.

“You can, It’s the nickname my friends call me, we will probably be journeying together for a while.” Raffeel calmly said. By not getting flustered he excellently diffused Voulin’s attempt to tease him.

“Alright Raffie.” Voulin replied, with a hint of disappointment.

“Okay, so it seems everyone is ready. Then let’s head out!” Misen happily shouts. The group walks out of the gate together.

“We headed out of this gate so we can have the quickest path to Alyja’s cradle where I plan on offering up a prayer. You all are welcome to pray with me.” Frey smiled.

“I’m good.” Misen flatly said.

“No thanks.” Voulin said.

“I’ll pray with you.” Raffie states.

“Thank you Raffie.” Frey smiles. They were walking for a while when suddenly.

“Couldn’t we have just rented or bought a wagon?” Raffie chimes in.

“It’s more fun if we walk haha..” Voulin chuckled.

“You’re supposed to be our information guy, but you forgot to get a wagon.” Misen remarks.

“Well..you see… ah fine, you’re right it slipped my mind.” Voulin stumbles his words before admitting to his blunder. He sighs and scratches his head. “Well, we are too far to turn back and get one. Let’s see if I remember correctly there should be a village somewhat close. We could get one there.” They continue walking, the pathway seems to stretch on forever. Although, surprisingly no one is noticeably tired. Including the two non-physical members of the party. The party encounters several monsters on the way to the supposed nearby village. However, they are quickly taken care of by Misen and Voulin. They finally make it to the village and find it currently being attacked by bandits.

“Bandits huh, lovely.” Misen sighed. “Yo bandits! If you don’t want to die please leave.” Misen shouts to them.

“I know you’re strong but don’t antagonize them.” Raffie says worried. The bandits laugh at Misen’s declaration. One of the bandit giants hurls a rock through Misen’s skull. Instantly destroying her head, her headless body falls to the ground.

“Those bastards they killed Misen!” Raffie panics. He looks to see Frey and Voulin’s unshaken expressions and becomes confused. “She was your comrade, why aren’t you shaken by her death.”

“She’d probably be happy if she died.” Voulin comments.

“So that’s your answer huh, well I tried to give you a chance.” Misen sighed as drew her blade from its sheath. Raffie is even more confused, he sees the blood on the ground but Misen looks completely fine.

“I guess I forgot to mention, but Misen is immortal.” Frey calmly explains. Upon learning this Raffie’s jaw drops. The giant bandit’s confidence disappears as he sees the woman standing unharmed. Misen bolts towards the bandit and stabs his heart. Then drains the bandit’s blood.

“Monster!” A bandit cries out. Most of the bandits attempt to flee but are slain by either Misen or Voulin. Voulin used a sword he stole from one of the bandit’s corpses to kill them.

“Even though they were bandits. It is unfortunate they fell down the wrong path.” Frey prayed for the bandits as they were slaughtered. After Misen and Voulin slew the outer group of bandits, they spot the main group who have the townsfolk rounded up. Raffie snipes them from a distance using fire magic. Voulin uses his throwing knives to kill the ones near the townsfolk. After mitigating the immediate threat to the townsfolk Misen charges in. She begins combat with the bandit leader. The leader is a big man with large muscles wielding an ax.

“How did you slip past the outer group? No matter because you will die here.” The bandit leader begins to battle Misen. At first Misen is completely defensive against the ax. However, she bleeds her blade and swings at him and he blocks with his ax, but the blood goes into his eyes.

“What is this stuff?” He shouts after being blinded. Misen attempts to finish him off but he manages to dodge.

“Too shallow.” Misen cursed, as her slash only barely grazes him. She continues to pressure him while his vision is impaired. However, he is used to fighting against dirty tricks, so he is able to prevent any fatal blows. While Misen is battling the leader the rest of the bandits are taken care of. With the exception of one woman who blended into the crowd hoping no one would notice. She wore typical traveler attire in hopes of fooling the party. With seemingly the rest taken care of the party goes to assist Misen. Raffie casts a stun spell which gives Misen the perfect opportunity to deal a fatal blow. She diagonally cleaves the leader in two. However, through pure rage he stays alive long enough to say something.

“O’ demon of Diudis using this stone as a catalyst and my soul as payment, destroy my enemies.” He roars, the stone in his pocket begins to glow. Instead of blood black ooze begins to bubble out of his body. The black ooze assimilates the flesh of the bandit and begins to form into a humanoid shape.

“Frey use holy magic right now!” Voulin shouts. Frey quickly prays to Sherasil and a beam of white light begins to burn the ooze.

“How rude.” A feminine voice comes from ooze. “Don’t you know heroes are supposed to wait until after the enemy fully forms.” The voice chuckled. The demon dispersed Frey’s holy light as it finished forming. The provocative looking demon smiles. The demonic woman had long jet black hair and red skin. She had long black horns and a tail. Her outfit showed a lot of skin, which caused many of the villagers to become flustered. However, none of Misen’s party were phased.

“Great, so that bandit’s last trick was summoning a middle class demon.” Voulin sarcastically remarks. He recognized the red skin and long black horns. Frey and Raffie are a little shaken by the news of it being a middle class demon.

“You’re quite knowledgeable for a human. What is your name, human man?” The demon seductively asked.

“The only way to get rid of a demon is by killing it with holy magic. Otherwise they’ll keep regenerating.” Voulin calmly states ignoring the demon’s question. Misen sheaths her blade and cracks her knuckles. Misen goes for a surprise punch to the side. It lands but injures her hand, however her hand heals. The demon is knocked to the side from her attack.

“A human with a healing factor, how intriguing.” The demon smiles, as she heals her wound. While the demon has some distance.

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“Frey, I’m going to restrain the demon and I want you to blast both of us with your holy magic.” Misen quietly whispered. Frey nods her head she was able to hear Misen’s plan using her wolf ears. Raffie couldn’t hear a word and neither could Voulin, but they decided to trust Misen. The demon returns and slashes at Misen with her claws and Misen rushes in once more but goes for a grapple. Misen restrains the demon while the demon attempts to scratch Misen’s arms to break free.

“Frey now!” Misen shouts, trying to bear the pain from her arms being scratched open repeatedly. The result leads to a pool of blood forming beneath them. Frey chants a longer spell while praying and a stronger beam begins to burn the demon.

“No! No! I am a middle class demon. I can't be defeated by humans.” She cries out in pain from being burned away. As a last ditch effort she attempts to charm some of the villagers. However, they are literally kicked back by Voulin. While some of the villagers are restrained by their fellow villagers. The demon eventually is quickly burned away.

“Are you okay Misen?” Frey rushes to Misen who sat in a pool of her own blood.

“Physically, yes. However I’m going to need to rest a bit from the mental taxation. Those claws were not a pleasant experience. Also I’ll probably have to refill my blood supply using the corpses of the bandits you all killed.” Misen lets out an exhausted sigh. She gets up and starts stabbing the corpses of the bandits and draining their corpses.

“You said she would’ve been happy to die, but why does she drain blood? Wouldn’t she die if she ran out?” Raffie asked Voulin.

“Well I’ve tried to get rid of all the blood in my body using poison. However, instead of dying I went into a murder spree to replenish the loss of blood. The amount of blood I have seems to tie to my humanity, rather than my life.” Misen explained as she continued to drain the corpses. She also started to gather the corpses into one spot. Voulin and some of the villagers helped her. “By the way, you villagers, you can take whatever you want from the bandits. After that we’ll burn the bodies.” Many of the villagers grabbed any valuables they could get from the corpses.

“How about you miss bandit?” Voulin asked the woman who had tried to blend into the crowd.

“What are you talking about?” The woman panicked.

“That’s right you were with the bandits, you aren’t a traveler.” One of the children shouts. However, instead of showing hostility the woman begs for her life.

“Well it’s you all’s call. What do you want us to do with her?” Voulin asks the villagers. They debate amongst themselves before one man steps up.

“She surrendered and enough people were killed, so long as she leaves here and never comes back I’ll be satisfied.” The man says. The rest of the villagers agree with him and the bandit breathes a sigh of relief.

“Well you heard ‘em, scram.” Voulin orders. The bandits immediately ran away thanking the gods that she survived. Afterwards they burned all of the bandit corpses, and the villagers began to dance around the bonfire. However, the party was able to leave and obtain a covered wagon to make traveling much easier.

“You know I’m just not going to question what they're doing.” Raffie said, as he looked behind, seeing the dancing villagers.

“I’m glad they didn’t hassle us to stay for a feast or something.” Voulin remarked, he held the reins to the horses that pulled the wagon.

“Seems like Misen passed out the moment she sat down in the wagon. She is a little cute when she isn’t constantly on guard.” Frey chuckled, staring at Misen’s innocent looking asleep face. Misen was peacefully sleeping while leaning against the wooden interior.

“Hard to believe that she will be around even after our great grandchildren have their children. I hope my descendants treat her well and she helps them out when she can.” Raffie states, while looking over at her.

“I hope that she will help the future generations of red wolves I will create.” Frey said.

“Immortality with no clear way to die isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy, let alone a friend. I’ll do everything I can to discover a way for her to get rid of it.” Voulin proclaimed. “I’ll have to have Jessica and her team look into it.”

“Who’s Jessica?” Raffie attempts to tease Voulin.

“My childhood friend as well as the one woman in the world for me. Do you have someone you like, Mister Raffeel? You did say you wanted to have great grandchildren.” Voulin confidently said, then counters with some teasing of his own.

“I-uh-um-I do like someone.” Raffie stutters. He steals some glances at Frey.

“Well who is it?” Voulin taunts, already knowing who it is. “Well how about you, Frey? Do you have someone in mind to help you rebuild the red wolves?” Voulin looks to Frey.

“It’s Raffie, of course. I really enjoyed hanging out with him back in Stellarina.” Frey confidently says.

“Y-you what? You like me?” Raffie becomes super flustered. He takes a deep breath then speaks. “I like you too, Frey. Would you like to go out with me?”

“Of course Raffie.” Frey smiles and scoots over to Raffie then wraps him with her tail. Then they both go in for a quick kiss.

“Misen will have some fun news to wake up to. Whenever she wakes up, that is, I heard she was out for a couple of days after drinking the poison.” Voulin comments as he goes back to focusing on driving the wagon. If those two have children I wonder how magically gifted they would be. Both parents are magical powerhouses after all. Voulin wondered. I should probably be direct with Jessica as well, I can’t keep her waiting forever.

The party continues along the road and occasionally stops to let the horses rest. Two nights later Frey notices Misen muttering in her sleep.

Inside Misen’s dream she sees herself in an unfamiliar place with alchemists looking at her. Her body is much smaller, she collapses and hears the one say.

“Another failure, they don’t live very long.” As they shake their head. Misen suddenly wakes up, confused. A tear falls down her face.

“Did you have a nightmare? You were sleeping rather peacefully for a couple nights until tonight. I’m glad you’re awake, as we are almost at Alyja’s cradle.” Frey asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I was in an unknown place. I don’t remember too much, but I have a different question. When did you and Raffie get so close?” Misen asked, scratching her head. Raffie had fallen asleep leading on Frey with her tail comforting him.

“While you were asleep they admitted their feelings for each other. I gotta say I wasn’t expecting how direct Frey was.” Voulin commented.

“Well, it saves a lot of time. Would you rather our journey be filled with them stealing looks at each other too nervous to make a move. Potentially creating misunderstandings that could easily be solved by talking it out.” Misen sighed.

“Well that would’ve been a little entertaining. But you’re right it does save a lot of heartache.” Voulin chuckles.

“It was pretty obvious it was love at first sight. I’m glad you two were able to let your feelings be known. I’m happy for you two.” Misen smiles at the pair. Raffie had no idea what was being talked about because he was soundly sleeping.

“Thanks, was it really that obvious?” Frey lightly laughed. With both Misen and Voulin affirmatively replying.

“It’s kind of funny that you two confessed to one another on our way to the goddess of love’s territory.” Voulin comments.

“She must have given us her blessing. For a long and happy relationship.” Frey happily states.

The three continued to chat until Frey fell asleep and leaned on Raffie. Misen headed to the front of the wagon.

“You get some rest as well Voulin, I’ll take it from here. It’s a straight shot from here.” Misen said, as she took the reins from Voulin’s hands.

“Well, alright then. Good night.” Voulin yawned. He went deeper into the wagon and sat down then rested his head against the wood. After some time he fell asleep and Misen was the last one awake.

“It’s nice having companions. Even if this ends up being only a small part of my actual life time. I’ll cherish the moments I had with this group.” Misen whispered aloud with a smile. “I can’t wait to see the monsters that those two will create if their children inherit the strong magic levels.” Misen lightly chuckled. “Vel was right, maybe I don’t need to be in such a rush to die.”

After the sun begins to rise once more. Misen spots the entrance to Alyja’s cradle. It has stone arches with giant personifications of the goddess of love carved into it. Misen parks the wagon at the designated location and begins to wake up the party.

“We’ve arrived at the domain of the goddess of love, Alyja’s domain.” She softly says while waking them up. The sun continued to rise revealing how beautiful the city was. The marble arches looked much better in the sun. The roads were nice and smooth. The city was very well developed and decorated. Legend has it that the founder of the city fell in love with Alyja. In order to see her once again he made the city as beautiful as he could. The rest of the party woke up and Frey and Raffie walked side by side. Voulin woke up stretching his back before getting out of the wagon.

“Wow this place is beautiful.” Raffie’s words escaped his mouth involuntarily.

“Perfect place for the first date as a couple.” Frey smiled at Raffie.

“Let’s leave those two alone for the time being.” Misen told Voulin.

“Yeah, let’s give them some time.” Voulin agreed. The party split up into two pairs. “We’ll be wandering around while, at dinner time, let's meet in the central area.” Voulin told the couple. The pairs headed their separate ways.