High up on one of the mountains in the Alka Mountain Range, Cecil was startled awake from his meditation. He had kept his Mana Sense on all his party members and found that Lucia's presence was suddenly erased. Normally, even if Lucia used her illusion magic to disguise and camouflage her presence, she still wouldn't be able to escape from his Mana Sense once he had it completely focused on her.

Cecil frowned before standing up and disappearing from his spot as he flashed towards the direction where he last sensed Lucia. It didn't take him long until he found the cave that Lucia disappeared into. He quickly entered the cave and found the remnants of the five golems Lucia had destroyed just a moment ago and he also found the small golems eating nearby. They were harmless so Cecil didn't attack them.

The large empty pit in the middle of the cave quickly grabbed his attention and when he peered inside, he quickly found Lucia lying unconscious in the middle of the pit.

"LULU!"

Cecil quickly used Blink and appeared at her side in an instant. He didn't know what happened to her, but judging from how wet her entire body was, she had been drowning or something. There wasn't any water anywhere, but Cecil didn't question it and immediately checked her pulse after seeing that she wasn't breathing. He immediately noticed that there was some water in her lungs, so he gathered his mana into his palm and pushed down on her chest, forcing all of the water out.

Lucia immediately started coughing as the water rose up her throat and out of her mouth. Cecil immediately started rubbing her back and he asked, "Are you okay, Lulu?"

"Cel..."

She regained consciousness for a moment and after seeing that she was in Cecil's arms, she entrusted herself to him and fainted again. Seeing her faint, Cecil immediately checked her pulse and sent his mana into her body to see if there was anything else wrong with her when he discovered something odd.

"1, 2, 3...4? 5???" He counted and exclaimed incredulously.

Somehow, Lucia had gained 2 additional mana cores and along with it, 2 additional tails. Cecil remembered Mrs. Anna telling him that the more tails Lucia had, the stronger she would become because it meant that she could create more mana cores inside of them. Whatever encounter she had inside of this cave was definitely fortuitous because it helped her create 2 mana cores in such a short time.

Cecil smiled after realizing that she had obtained a lucky chance and managed to increase he strength. He picked her up and finally realized that she was only in her underwear right now, but he had already seen Lucia naked plenty of times already, so he didn't pay it any mind and just took out a large towel from his spatial ring and wrapped her up in it.

He quickly left the cave and slowly made his way back to the campsite. He didn't dare go too fast because he was worried that Lucia's body still wasn't stable from the sudden powerup and she was sleeping rather soundly and it made him feel bad if he moved too fast and accidentally woke her up. However, when he was almost close to the campsite, 5 bushy tails wrapped around his body and the girl in his arms stirred.

"Uehehe~ Cel~"

Cecil was startled and looked at the sleeping girl's face. Her eyes were still peacefully closed, so she was only sleep talking. When he finally arrived back at camp, Silver was lying down by the side of the carriage in his battle form. The large white wolf opened its eyes and his two ocean blue eyes stared questioningly at him.

"Woof!"

Cecil shook his head and replied, "Shhh, be quiet Silv. Lulu's sleeping."

"Ruff..."

"What?

"Woof!"

Cecil shrugged since he didn't understand. He went into the carriage and placed Lucia on the seat to let her continue sleeping, but as he was about to stand up and walk away, the 5 tails that were still wrapped around him suddenly tightened. He was surprised and collapsed on top of Lucia who responded by hugging him back.

"Mnyah~ Cel~"

"Hey! Let go, Lulu...what the heck..." Cecil became a bit flustered. He tried to pry off the tails from his body, but they only tightened around him in response.

He could easily escape if he wanted to, but that would mean being a little rough with Lucia. He helplessly sighed and pinched the middle of his brows since he was in a pickle. Since he couldn't do anything about it, he decided to just stay there. He sat upright and let Lucia cling onto him. He could feel her breathing down his neck and it caused him to tingle a bit. He frowned at this and began tickling her, but unfortunately the only response was her tails tightening around him.

'Hmmm... It usually works.'

Cecil changed his strategy and gently pressed a couple of pressure points on Lucia's arms and body. It caused her arms and tails to become powerless for a moment and he used this chance to slip away. He quickly let her back down gently onto the long seat before taking out a blanket and placing it over her. He also carefully readjusted her body and made sure he stayed away from her tails and arms that were, for some odd reason, searching for him.

If he didn't confirm the fact that Lucia was indeed asleep, he thought that the girl was only playing a prank on him. When he was about to exit the carriage, he heard Lucia mumble his name again, "Ce~el..."

He shook his head again and calmly walked out of the carriage. He spread his Mana Sense out again and quickly found his friends. He looked up and saw that it was almost lunchtime and said to himself, "I guess I'll cook this time..."

Silver who heard him mumbling started whining.

"Tsk, hey! It's not that bad! I can still grill a good meal, yknow!"

'Yes, and that's literally all you could do, grill' was what Silver expressed with the pitiful look in his eyes.

"Tch... it's not my fault. Lulu fainted for some reason and it doesn't seem like she's going to wake up anytime soon."

"Woof!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Cecil quickly started a fire and took out the meat that the group had prepared for their lunch. It was still the demon hawk king's leftover meat from a few days ago. The corpse of the monster king was pretty large, so even after a couple of days cooking and eating the meat there was still some left over and thanks to preservation magic, they were able to store the meat without letting it go bad.

He used the remaining bird meat and began cutting them up into small pieces. He pulled out a small basin and the sauce that Lucia had prepared for him for emergencies like this. He poured the sauce into the basin and dumped the small chunks of chicken meat into it and then waited for over an hour before he began skewering the meat onto thin wooden sticks that he had prepared in the meantime.

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Once the skewers were ready, he placed them over the campfire and waited for it to cook. With the fire going, the smoke that rose into the air served as the signal for the rest of his party to come back and have lunch.

First to come back was Ainz, he was still as high spirited as when he first left, although he did look a bit battered. He washed his face in the nearby river and sat around the fire and waited for the rest of his party to come back. Not long after, Velicia and Fina came back together. The two were visibly exhausted and Velicia even had a couple of cuts and bruises all over her body while Fina was extremely pale. She didn't have any visible wounds, but her mana had sunk to a dangerously low level.

Elizabeth came back a while later and looked completely unruffled. She came back in the same condition as when she first set off, but Cecil knew that she was the one who pushed herself the most amongst the rest of the party members as she would fight multiple Armamite golems at the same time and would quickly fell them without too much difficulty. Her quota of 5 golems were long since achieved and she stayed in the mountains to train and hone her skills and spells. She also had the leisure time to pick some herbs that Lucia said would be great for crafting potions, salves, or even used as food ingredients.

Once everyone had arrived, Cecil served the meat skewers he had grilled. They ate ravenously, but felt that it was somewhat different than Lucia's usual meals. They also looked around and found that the girl wasn't even there.

"Cecil, where's Lucia?" Fina asked.

"Huh? Oh, she's asleep in the carriage," Cecil said and pointed at the carriage and Silver barked in agreement.

"Woof!"

"Oh, is she okay? Did she not get enough sleep last night?"

"No, it's not that. She just had a breakthrough with her mana cultivation and fell asleep."

"Oh, that's good!"

"How come she fell asleep though?" Elizabeth asked skeptically.

"It's just a side effect of her cultivation method, don't worry about it. She always sleeps like this."

"...okay."

Cecil didn't want to reveal that something unusual had happened to Lucia, so he just chalked it all up to some side effect of her mana cultivation method. This was a lie, of course, but Cecil didn't want his friends to worry. Once the group was finished with their lunch, Fina had rested enough and her mana had recovered. She quickly cast a healing spell onto Velicia and healed her wounds. She also cast one on Ainz, Cecil, and Elizabeth just in case.

After that, the 4 teenagers presented to Cecil the monster cores that they each had. Ainz had 4 and he was only one core away from reaching his quota. He couldn't fulfill his earlier promise, but he wasn't discouraged by that though. He only said that he was currently testing out some new spell combos and that if he used his normal spell compositions then he would have definitely finished his quota already. Velica and Fina had 3 each and only Elizabeth had 5.

Cecil nodded and he opened his hand and 10 more monster cores appeared. "This is mine and Lucia's. Alright, Fina, Veli and Ainz, head back up and finish your hunts."

"Okay!" The three replied in unison.

"Once you guys get back, I'll continue explaining my mana manipulation method and we'll begin our training."

The three people quickly started heading back up into the mountains again after another few minutes. Once they left, Cecil turned towards Elizabeth who was seeing off her friends and asked, "What about you Eli? Since you're already done, what do you plan on doing now?"

"...let's spar?"

"Haha, okay! But, no magic! We'll polish your sword skills today!"

Elizabeth smiled in response and said happily, "Great!"

Cecil walked a bit away from the campsite and pulled out his sword. He motioned for Elizabeth to do the same and the girl happily got up and quickly unsheathed her rapier. She focused her mind and psyched herself up for this fight. She breathed out and turned her extremely focused gaze towards Cecil. Seeing this, Cecil smiled and said, "Start!"

"HAAAAAAAAA!!!" Elizabeth lunged forward with her rapier piercing towards Cecil.

The two of them sparred with Cecil mostly on the defensive. He reacted to Elizabeth's attacks and only countered whenever he found an obvious opening in her moves. Whenever he countered, he always made sure to tell Elizabeth that she was open, so she could defend against the attack. They continued sparring like this for 30 minutes until Elizabeth eventually collapsed from exhaustion. Throughout the entire fight, she couldn't land a single blow on her friend and it made her feel a little frustrated.

"Urgh, you're so annoying..."

"Ahaha, well this just means you have to train more!"

"..."

"Well, how was it? Technique and skill matters a lot right? You can't just rely on your mana!"

"...how many times have you told me this?"

"Ahahaha! Anyway, you're progressing extremely well. Your rapier skills are becoming much more polished and refined compared to a month ago. Keep training hard, Eli."

"Of course, and one of these days, I'm going to land a blow on you!"

"Hehehehe, I'll be looking forward to that day, so you better train hard!"

Eli sighed helplessly looking at the training freak telling her to train harder.

'Geez, I'm a princess and this is how you treat me.'

She always felt it funny that this boy next to her and her friend that was currently asleep treated her just like they would any other girl. Elizabeth knew for certain that Cecil and Lucia were well aware of her identity as the kingdom's princess, but she overheard them talking about it one time. However, despite already knowing her identity, the two didn't give her any preferential treatment and they didn't treat her differently from when they first met. The same went for the other princess in the party, Fina. The two treated Fina and her in the same genuine way they would treat a friend.

Although, there were times when Elizabeth would complain in her heart at Cecil's unreasonable method of training, but she was grateful to find friends that treated her genuinely and without any ulterior motives. She really didn't like the moniker of being a princess affecting her relationships with the people close to her, so she very much welcomed the rather rough treatment even though she wanted to complain and whine sometimes.

"Hey Eli...what the heck is that?" Cecil patted her shoulder while pointing in the distance.

"Huh?" Elizabeth eyed the direction at where Cecil was pointing. She found a dust cloud rising in the distance and from the looks of things, it was heading their way.

"Let's quickly head back. That may be trouble."

"Okay."