"Uhm, so Madeleine… How long do you plan hugging me?”

“…Give me one more minute”

“I mean… I would, but you already said that like five minutes ago”

“…”

“Hey! Don´t ignore me now!”

Madeleine pouts her cheeks, but realizes that she´s exerted the girl´s patience quite a bit now. It wouldn´t lead to anything good if she continued to be selfish. A dejected look surfaces on her pretty face as she reluctantly separates from Vienessa and opens the door to her home. She´s just about to gesture the girl inside, but before she can even lift a finger the Demon is already standing in the middle of her room

Vienessa´s eyes wander around until her gaze stops on the bed. Shortly after, not only her gaze but her entire body stops on the bed

“Ah, so fluffy. I missed this feeling~” she says while completely relaxing herself for the first time in quite a while.

Madeleine, still standing outside and watching Vienessa from her spot there, finally enters too and locks the door behind her. She walks around the room for a bit as if searching for something but then just remains standing awkwardly in the middle of it. She feels like a guest in her own home.

An uncomfortable bulk of silence passes.

“So…” the receptionist tries to end the quiet “You´ve… certainly changed a lot since the last time I saw you, I almost didn´t recognize you”

“Huh? Is that so?” Vienessa sits up and slightly tilts her head

“Eh? Well, I mean you´ve… grown a lot. At the time you left you looked like a kid in the early stages of adolescence, but now you´re almost an adult. Or at least you look like it,” Madeleine whispers that last part

Vienessa puts a hand to her chin “Hmm, now that you say it, I was wondering if you got smaller since before…” she says and looks down her own body

“Well it´s not really that I´ve changed you know? Did you really just notice?”

“Ehehe,” Vienessa scratches the back of her head. The receptionist sighs, but then just kinda chuckles to herself.

Feeling that it´s becoming easier to talk to each other again, Madeleine takes a deep breath before speaking up once more: “If… If it´s okay to ask, you know… Uhm, would you mind, maybe, telling me… why it took you so long to come back?” she asks, immediately losing the comfort she just felt.

The Demon looks at her with a judging expression

“N-no good? I´m sorry, you really don´t have to if you don´t-

“No I mean, it´s fine,” Vienessa interrupts “But... no nevermind”

“I mean, this question is still a little… It´s just, I don´t want to offend you right after what happened,” Madeleine says, holding her left arm with her right

Vienessa shakes her head “If you don´t want to offend me, then stop talking like that. It´s irritating”

Madeleine lets her gaze sink to the floor, but then a small chuckle escapes her lips “I should´ve known you´d say something like that. You really like keeping things simple, don´t you?” She sighs. “Well, I think that´s one of your good qualities though. It´s… refreshing.”

…

“Ok”

After sorting her thoughts for a bit, Madeleine is ready to continue: “Let me be blunt then: Even a Level 40 Adventurer should have little to no problems with that Dungeon. It isn´t even that big either. I mean, you said you´d come back right after, but… did something else happen? What have you been up to?”

Vienessa, who just lay down on the bed again, sits up, again, with a genuinely confused expression on her face

“What?" she grimaces "You really think those guys from the guild would stand a chance? I’m pretty sure even the guild Master would struggle quite a bit with the silver one, no?”

“Hm? Nonono what? I know you like joking around, but seriously this Dungeon is on the easier side”

Vienessa opens her eyes wide to Madeleine´s confident statement

But then, the receptionist suddenly furrows her brows “Wait, what do you mean, ´Silver one´?”

The Demon blinks a few times.

“Well, uh, the Silver Minotaur of course, what else?”

“What?”

“What what?”

“Minotaur?”

“Well, It would be weird if there were no Minotaurs in the Minotaur Den, don’t you think?” Vienessa somewhat chuckles at Madeleine´s stupid question

But Madeleine doesn´t look too amused: “Wh- Huh? What, no, how the hell did you end up in the Minotaur Den?”

“Well, you sent me there?”

“No I didn´t! I clearly told you to go to the Kobold Lookout”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Kobold Lookout?”

”You…”

Madeleine massages her temples with a pained look on her face. “How did you even manage to make it to the wrong Dungeon after we prepared everything so thoroughly?” she asks, more in resignation than anything.

“Wrong Dungeon? Aaah, so that´s why the map you gave me didn´t make any sense, I see…” Vienessa says with a voice that sounds as if she just made a world-moving discovery

“I… don´t even know anymore…”

--

The two have a long talk about what happened to Vienessa over the course of the month. The Demon describes everything in great detail, from her first fight against a Minotaur to how helpful and crucial the |Artifacts| were in her ´Monster hunt down´ and final fight against the Dungeon Master.

Madeleine´s initial goal was to gain as much information as she could, but not too long into listening her attention was unexpectedly glued to the girl´s storytelling skills. This was the last she had thought the Demon would excel at. The Demon´s excited nature only added to the fun.

After a few hours pass, Vienessa´s boasting slowly comes to an end. At this point, Madeleine actually wonders how Vienessa managed to do all she had done in a mere month.

The receptionist thinks for a moment, but then just shakes her head.

“If anybody were to become so much stronger in only a month, they would be satisfied for life. But knowing you, you want to get right back at it, don´t you?” she asks, expecting nothing else but an ´of course´ from the girl, which she immediately gets.

“Well, I don´t wanna say I knew it, but I knew it.” Madeleine sighs.

“Vienessa,” she then changes her expression to a serious one and looks the girl in her red eyes “What do you think about going to the royal capital with me?”

The Demon blinks

“Uhm, I… I don´t know? Yes?”

“Why do you sound so uncertain?”

“Well how is it my fault if you hit me with such a question so suddenly?”

Madeleine thinks for a moment, then continues: “Look, I can´t stay in this village forever. No, I´ll actually need to go back fairly soon. You told me before that you want to learn more about Humans, right? I can guarantee you to take care of that, of everything. And there are more benefits, Vienessa. There´s a reason the capital is called ´The Adventurer Stronghold´. Once there you will have access to dozens of mid-tier Dungeons. And once you´re ready, you can even partake in high-tier Dungeon raids. Now that I think about it, if it´s you, I think you´ll even be able to survive the ´World Labyrinth´ after a year or two and–

“Madeleine?” Vienessa interrupts

“Yes?”

“Enough, when do we depart?”

“In three days”

“Alright”

Vienessa stands up and leaves the comfortable embrace of the bedding behind her. She walks by the window; her eyes fall on the moon shimmering a faint silver amidst the iridescent stars in the dark night sky. She reaches out her hand and closes it to a fist, as if grabbing the glistening yet far away jewels for herself.

“I´ll be visiting my family before our departure” she suddenly says

“You need to see them before we go?” Madeleine asks after a while

But Vienessa doesn´t answer her question. “I´ll be here in exactly three days, so don´t you dare leave me behind”

Madeleine looks at the girl. Then, warmly smiles: “Got it”.

--

The next morning.

Inside the green forest, a bloody war is roaring. However, a war between the sun and the trees: The sun´s rays are desperately fighting to protrude inside and cover everything in their warmth, but the treetops are a force to be reckoned with: Their skill in blocking off the light is nothing short of incredible. For now, only a few spots of the foliage ground are coated by the star´s shine which makes it seem darker than the time of day would suggest. But the conclusion has yet to be seen on the horizon.

Yet, the Demon is waltzing through the battle-scene without even noticing the fierce action. She is humming a calm tune to herself while clearing a path for herself to walk. Not having seen her family for a considerable amount of time, of her life, she is excited to finally reunite with them, to talk with them and to show them everything she has achieved since then.

These aren´t the only reasons for her visit though. While she didn´t make it obvious in her talk with Madeleine, she is actually still quite bothered by the argument they had. In the corner of her mind, she feels guilty about worrying her friend so much. She never thought she would feel like that. If anyone had told her that such ´trivial matters´ bothered them, she probably would´ve laughed it off as something stupid. But it´s different now that she´s the target of concern.

However long she thinks about it, she doesn´t understand. Well, it´s not that simple to comprehend one’s innermost feelings. To understand something that can´t be put into words, what lies in the depths of your ego. At least, she isn´t able to do so. Yet.

--

Several hours have passed now since the Demon departed and to be frank, it is quite amazing that she almost reached her old home already. That is to say, her current strength and knowledge do allow her to move quickly and efficiently: The smaller plants don´t even have a chance to slow her down and the overgrown areas are swiftly bypassed as she is able to jump large distances from tree to tree.

Furthermore, the navigation is done with an |Artifact| that she was given by her mother. Although it was but a small pebble at first, the Goblin infused it with her Mana and recorded the cave, their home, as a fixed location. Now, when it´s pointed in the right direction, a faint glow emits. Nothing more, nothing less.

´Much easier to use than a map´

All this combined allows the girl to cut the way that initially took her some days into mere hours.

Looking around, the Demon recognizes more and more of the scenery. This clearing here, that water source there… She remembers hunting with her father in these areas from time to time.

But just as she´s lost in reminiscence, a small presence nearby catches her attention. Immediately stopping in her tracks, she activates |Ambush| and slips into the darkness of the giant trees. In a matter of a second, the forest becomes tranquil again. As if no visitors were ever there. Like an shark seeing its prey right above the water, she slithers from shadow to shadow until halting right behind her target.

Quietly sticking her head out of her hiding, she sees a blue shape with its back turned toward her. He peacefully hums a tune to himself and picks what seems like berries from a bush, a basket on his right arm overflows with already gathered spoils.

Vienessa grins to herself and silently surfaces behind the Goblin. Then, in a sudden movement, she throws her arms around him, hugging him in surprise: “Ba! Long time no see!” she exclaims in a happy voice.

Ba jumps up in surprise as he struggles to escape the girl´s embrace in a panic. Vienessa lets him go and he immediately falls on his back and flinches backward

“Hey, that´s so mean of you! Don´t say you don´t remember me as well?” Vienessa says dejectedly… and slightly exaggerated with a faint smile.

The Goblin opens his eyes wide as his expression of fear is slowly replaced by a smile. With his heart still racing in his chest, he opens and closes his mouth multiple times, then continues to make wild gestures. He doesn´t really know what that should mean himself, but it doesn´t really matter as the next moment he runs up to his sister and jumps into her open arms.

“Hahaha, I missed you too, Ba. Look at you, you´ve grown so much since last time!”. Ba turns his head up and looks at her while cocking an eyebrow. He points a finger at himself and then at his sister.

“I know I know,” Vienessa laughs up again. “Ba, let´s go and surprise the others for now, I´m sure their reactions will be just as fun as yours!”

Ba makes a complicated expression, then sighs in defeat. His shoulders slightly relax though. His sister may have changed visually, but it´s reassuring to see she´s still the same as always. Sort of. He grabs his basket and nods at Vienessa. The two of them then start to make their way home.