NOVEL NEXT Chapter 129 – Shortcuts
The group decided to finally resume their exploration of the regular world as their biome projects were taking some extra time to finish as they didn't have enough magic at their disposal. As the cats, and Fen, didn’t want to deal with the cold mountain range anymore and decided to skip it entirely, the blonde took a portal stone and threw it to the other side of it to directly continue from there.
“By the way, have you been in this area before?” While the group was walking through the plain where the tiger's portal stone had ended up in, Sophia turned to look at Chloe. “You and Fey visited all kinds of places together, right?”
“No.” The fox shook her head. “We came from a different route before we arrived in the village we met. Actually, we were planning to go this way, too, after Feyfey finished her business in the human capital. It’s new for me, too.”
“Aww, too bad.” The blonde looked a little disappointed. “I was hoping for a little guidance to interesting places. I don’t mind taking it slowly, but if it’s nothing but green plains for 80% of the time, I have a feeling that we're back to my domain and playing with our biomes fairly soon. Don't get me wrong, I love plains as a filler, and we’re going to have plenty in said domain, too, but they’re a little boring.”
“That is true!” Steph chimed in. "It's a great place to run around and play fetch, but it's nothing new or fancy." Her inner dog got out for a moment. "The plain we're in right now might as well be in our old world, and I wouldn't notice it.”
“We are in the middle of the continent in an area with a temperate climate.” Aura lightly shook her head. “At least from what I remember, aside from some scattered places here and there, plains and regular forests are the dominant biomes around.”
“Exactly what I didn’t want to hear.” The blonde hung her head. "I think we need to come up with a better way to explore this continent. Or, at the very least, the less interesting parts of it.”
"I'm all ears!" The dog-girl liked the way this was going.
“Me, too!” Chloe felt the same. “What’s the plan?”
“I just said that we need to come up with something!” Sophia got loud. “What made you think I know a solution?!” She shook her head. "The best solution would be somehow being able to skip the boring parts in one way or another."
"Like the mountain range that we just did?" Ari tilted her head.
“That wasn't a boring place!” Steph disagreed with her. “Though, I understand the intent, and that should work, shouldn’t it?” She tilted her head while looking at her sister. “Whenever it gets boring, we throw a portal stone as far away as we can to skip an area. How far could you throw it?”
“I wonder if there’s actually a limit?” Sophia paused for a moment. “I mean, physical strength aside, it’s just a matter of using enough magic to keep it flying.”
“That’s true!” The dog-girl nodded.
“I wonder if I could throw a rock into space?” The blonde suddenly looked up at the sky.
“Ohh!” Steph and Chloe seemed to like the idea.
“No.” Maya and Ari didn’t share the reaction and just shook their heads instead.
“Ahaha.” Sophia let out a small chuckle. “Anyway, there are some issues with using the portal stones to skip areas.”
“Really?” Her sister couldn’t think of any on the spot.
“We could miss interesting places, but we still could do so while walking regularly, so that’s not as bad. In which direction should we skip, though? I mean, I would get lost regardless, but there’s no way anyone could keep track of our position after a couple of skips. Then, there’s the biggest issue of all. What if I hit someone with the portal stone when it lands? There’s a high chance it could kill a person!”
“Ha.” The dog-girl thought about it for a moment. “Those are indeed some issues. Well, hitting someone seems rather unlikely, but I feel like you shouldn’t chance it, either.”
“Exactly!”
“You didn’t seem to have cared about that when we left the mountain range, tough.” Ari looked at her.
“Well, the destination of where I threw the portal was within my detection range, so I knew that no one was around.” Sophia just smiled at her.
“Ahh, that makes sense.”
“Isn’t that already the solution for this problem?” Maya tilted her head. “If we only skip as far as your detection magic works, you can easily avoid harming someone.”
“That is true!” The blonde liked the suggestion. “My detection range also is over 150 kilometers at the moment, so we could skip some decent chunks. Actually, that would be too much already. If we do a bit of exploring every 50 or so kilometers, we should be fine!”
“Let’s go!” The dog-girl immediately got excited again. Not that she ever stopped in the first place.
“There’s still the issue of having no idea in which direction to go and or getting lost.” Sophia slowly shook her head.
“How about a map?” Ari tried one of her logical ideas.
“Do you have one?”
"Ah." The jaguar noticed a flaw in her suggestion.
"We could just make a quick trip to the capital and ask Father for a detailed map of the entire kingdom.” Anna gave them a thumbs up. “Perks of having a connection with a princess and all~.”
“Awesome idea!” Sophia clapped her hands in glee.
“Now, let’s go?” Steph gave it another try.
“Let’s go!”
“Makes one think why we never took a map with us when we left the capital, huh?” Maya leaned over to Ari while rolling her eyes.
“Kind of, yeah.” The jaguar nodded. “We did leave in a bit of a hurry because everyone was so excited so that definitely played a part there.”
“True.”
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Having decided on a course of action, the group returned to their travels more motivated than ever. As they were still getting closer to the city Sophia had detected with her magic, the group decided to go there first before giving the portal skips a try.
“By the way, does anyone know the name of the city we’re heading to?” The group had been walking through the green plain for a while when Sophia eventually got curious about the place they were going to.
“Why do you want to know?” The jaguar tilted her head. “It’s not like you’re going to remember it anyway.”
“I’ve never been so hurt in my life!” She had a rather dramatic reaction to the accusation.
“Am I wrong?” Ari didn’t buy any of that.
“This and that are unrelated!”
“They are not.” She was just shaking her head while looking at the short tiger.
“…” Sophia had no chance of winning against her. “So, what’s the name?” She still wanted to know, though.
“It should be Egona.” The jaguar let out a small sigh before continuing. "It's a medium-sized city a little secluded from other places as it’s close to the usually impassable mountain range and thus can only be reached from the other side.”
“Ohh, I see!” Sophia nodded a few times. “Is it on the list of places Menzor would like a portal?” She then looked at Maya, who was keeping said list safe for her.
"Let me see." The cat-girl pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolded it. “Yup, it’s right here.” She showed it to her while pointing at a specific name.
“Perfect!” Sophia then faced Anna for some reason. “Dearest and most beloved princess of ours, I’m counting on you to explain everything to the mayor of the place once more.”
“Haa…” She let out a small sigh in return. “Alright, I'll tell the mayor about our portal plans and linking their city with the capital. Under one condition, though. Tell me what the city is called again. Ari told you only a minute ago, so I’m sure you remember, right?”
“…” The blonde froze before awkwardly turning her head away.
"There's just no way you've forgotten it already?!" Anna couldn’t believe her fellow tiger. “It’s seriously been literally a minute at best!”
“L-Look, I have other qualities!” Sophia got defensive. “Names just isn’t one of them.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to explain it to the mayor, then.”
“Grr!” The blonde growled at her. “Wait, the last time, I got Menzor from the capital and had him explain it! Problem solved!” Her expression turned smug.
“You’re so insufferable.” Anna gave up on her.
“We still need to take her to a doctor because of this, don’t we?” Maya leaned over to Ari again. “I’m worried that she might have some sort of brain damage.”
“Yes, it’s becoming more and more concerning.” The jaguar nodded in agreement.
“Oi!” Sophia glared at them.
"Don't worry! We'll love and support you no matter what the results of the examination are." The two smiled back at her.
As there was nothing the blonde could say there anymore, she simply sped up towards the city before the others hurriedly followed after her. Being teased and showered in love at the same time was still one of her biggest weaknesses. Right after being unable to remember random names and places, that is.
