I come back to the familiar birds nest and see Shiona sitting next to the tree still.

‘When I said to stay put I didn’t mean it quite this literally you know.’

She looks up at me.

“Are you really…?”

‘Yup.’

“How?”

‘Well this and that happened. A lot of this and that actually.’

One of the trees fruits then fall next to Shiona and she tries to pick it up.

‘Let me help you with that, opposable thumbs and all’ I say as I walk closer and pick up the fruit for her, however my hands simply go through it.

‘Oops, guess I’ve got to actually be here to do that,’

“What do you…?”

‘I’m only here in spirit right now, but trust me, I have some friends looking for this place as we speak, they said there were only a handful of these trees around the world so it shouldn’t be that long.’

She nods weakly, finally having succeeded in picking up the fruit and starts eating it, however her mask is still in the way of the rest of her face so I can only see her mouth and chin.

Once she finishes the fruit she puts the mask back on fully and sits down again, I do the same.

While we’re sitting next to each other I look around to see if I can see anything important looking.

While I’m looking I see that we are indeed above the cloud tops.

“Three years…” Says Shiona. “For three years have I been on this mountain…”

I start inching my way closer and closer to her while she speaks.

“At first it was fine, I had some family to talk to, ways to entertain myself… But then all of my siblings learned to fly and it became winter… Everyone left when it got colder, leaving me alone…”

At this point my right side is touching her left.

“I have been staying here alone ever since the first winter, although I could survive off of the fruits from the tree, I had prepared myself to die up here…”

She lowers her head and hides it in her wings.

I stand up and walk over to her, she opens up her wings and looks at me with a steady *drip* *drop* coming from the ground below her chin and I hug her.

At this point the floodgates open completely and she hugs back.

We stay like this for a while until I let go and look her in her eye-lights.

‘In order for us to find you quicker I need you to tell me what this place looks like when I’m not here, when it’s not all black and white.’

“... The tree, you can already see the color of the fruit right?”

‘Yeah, but the trunk and leaves look gray.’

“The leaves are normal green leaves, but the tree’s bark looks the same color as copper, and the grass is deep blue.”

‘Okay, and have you ever seen any other kinds of creature flying by around here?’

“When my mother and siblings were still here we would see things that looked like those flying towards go by here every few months, other than that there’s been nothing.”

‘That should be more than enough.’

I then sit back down next to Shiona and put my hand on her shoulder.

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“... Do you promise you’ll be back?”

‘Yeah. Definitely.’

We then stay like that for a while until I wake up.

I get out of my bed and see that the pickits have already prepared themselves to leave and continue their quests, I then ask them to tell Charlton the color of the grass, the tree, as well as about the flying lizards.

“Deep blue grass and a copper tree with multicolored fruits? Are you absolutely sure that’s what she said?”

‘Yeah, no doubt about it.’

“Alright, we’ll tell him when we go by.”

‘Thanks.’

The three then leave through the door and I leave through the window and go to the guild.

Once I reach the guild and enter I can see Hugh leaning on one of the walls with his arms crossed, rapidly tapping his foot on the floor.

Once he sees me he dashes up to me and hands me a large pouch

“After a long night of work we finally confirmed the stuff, here’s the reward, three gold and seventeen silver for the goblins as well as one hundred and twenty six completed F rank quests, for the hobgoblins you got one gold and seventy one silver as well as eleven D rank quests, for the three highbreed ears you got six gold and three B rank quests, total to ten gold and eighty eight silver. Also Rupe added a load of energy jellies as thanks for giving him the idea to come here for work, the rest of us also added some as thanks for the new sla-” *cough* “worker.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, on one hand I’m surprised that each new goblin skipped an entire rank since the previous one, giving me a good amount of high ranked quest completions, but on the other hand, even after all the work I did I only gained slightly more money than I did from the reward for the nobles delivery, so I decide to ask.

“Are the hobgoblins and highbreed really strong enough to be of such a high ranking?”

“Not really, it’s due to them always traveling in such large packs, a lone hob wouldn’t stand much of a chance in a fight, however they’re each followed by around ten normal goblins that can distract you, unless you’re able to fight more than ten opponents at once without getting hit you’re in for a long and grueling battle, the highbreeds are even worse, they don’t have ten goblins, they have at least ten hobgoblins, and each of those hobs also have ten normal ones, though they may be weak on their own, when they form as large packs as these guys do it gets tough and they start deserving their ranking.”

“Is that why I only needed one highbreed ear for a quest rather than the normal five?”

“Yup, also those buggers are really rare, I’m legitimately amazed, not by the fact that you killed them all, but by the fact you were able to find three in a day. Okay, I’m also impressed that you killed them, but not as much. Oh yeah, when you do get your new license you’ll have been promoted to B rank.”

“Alright, well thanks a bunch for being so thorough.” As I say this I start feeling a vibrating sensation in my chest.

“No worries, in exchange could you tell where the person who cooked the food yesterday lives?”

Ignoring Hugh I frantically cover my torso with my hand and take out the crystal.

“The red hair from yesterday left before I could ask.”

After I take out the crystal I can see it shining with a prismatic light, as well as hear it creating a sound like that of an ice skate going across ice.

‘!’

I take the emblem that Hannah gave me and toss it to Hugh, I then run as fast as I possibly can outside of the city, leaving behind Hugh who was too busy looking at the emblem to pay me any mind.

When I get outside the town I create stilts again and keep running to the forest, once I’m there I submerge my whole body except for my head into the ground and make myself flow towards the pickits cave faster than I could run, going through any trees, boulders, or monsters that were in my way.

As I go past the disguised pickit sentry outside the cave I exit the ground and start running normally again, I hastily shout towards it with telepathy that I don’t have time to stop.

I keep launching myself by using phasing, when I’m inside the cave, using full body phasing whenever I’m about to hit a wall and using an energy jelly whenever I start to feel tired.

I end up having to stop at the gates for a short while to not have any of the guards thinking I’m someone suspicious who needs to be chased, however they quickly let me through.

I *SLAM* open the door to Charlton’s mini apartment.

‘Did you find Shiona!?’

From the door I can see Charlie, Baom, Diifan and Charlton sitting around the table in the living room, all of them staring at me in surprise.

“... You got here a lot quicker than expected.” Says Charlton.

‘Never mind that, did you find her!?’ I shout in my mind.

“Calm down Plush!” Shouts Charlie back.

“We’ve not found the demi-bird herself, however we know which mountain she’s on, remember how I said that there was only a small number of those multi-coloured fruit trees? Well not only are they a small number in general, however out of all of them only a single one has copper bark, as well as only one mountain with deep blue grass.” Says Charlton.

‘And how far away is it?’

“It is a few countries away, however Charlie told me about how you were able to roll just like us when you first came here so you’re allowed to use our transport system.”

‘Transport system?’

“Charlie, could you show him?”

“Sure, come with us.” She answers and we leave the house.

After having walked for a good while we come across a building much larger than even the human sized houses, and enter it.

Inside I could see stone blocks, one by one by one meters in size, each standing at the end of a long round indentation that go down a long tunnel.

“This is it, come here.”

The three of them then walk and roll up into balls in separate indentations, I follow them and make myself a solid air shell.

‘How does this even work?’

“Oh you’ll see, just don’t do that weird thing that makes you go through stuff.” Answers Charlie with a very muffled voice.

‘Wait you know abou-’

“NOW!”

As she says that the stone walls suddenly move at an incredible speed and launches us all like pinballs.