Power Punch

"She looks pretty enthusiastic about it, huh?" I mutter, sitting on Letty's side, as the screen showing her mom gets blurred by the privacy filter.

"Mmm, yeah. That's how mom is, I guess." She replies and heaves her body up from her half-lying position with a small grunt. "She's pretty much the first person that comes to my mind when I hear about living in the moment." She turns to me and tilts her head with a thoughtful expression. "I really can't say that about you."

"Huh? Why?" I sit up in surprise.

"Well, um." My girlfriend gets embarrassed by herself and turns her head aside. "You're like, on different level than her? You enjoy living in the moment, but you don't invest in it... I guess? It's hard to put into words..." She mumbles.

"Mmm, I get it, I think." I nod my head with a grin. I like excitement and doing something, just like Dragha, I assume, but I don't exactly seek interesting things consciously. "I guess it's like where Dragha would go off looking for something interesting, I would mull over the past events and wait for another one to come."

"Um, yeah. Right." Letty nods thoughtfully, but shrugs lightly and stands up a moment later. "Well, let's go. I told mom to spawn where we did, but we're still far away."

"Yeah." I jump up with a smile. "Want a ride?"

"Ah, not today." She shakes her head and smiles kinda apologetically. "I still want to fly by myself. It's a lot of fun. And I've an idea to try out."

"Can't deny that." I nod with a grin, stretching my wings wide and arching my back. "You need my help with the idea?"

"Um, no, maybe later. No time now." She shakes her head as a stream of Nihility worms its way to her legs and builds something I can only see as thrusters below her knees.

"Sure." I step up to her and take Letty's hand into mine, holding her in place as I watch nanobots flow all over her body and cover her in a black aerodynamic suit with a pair of small thrusters on her palms. Which, by the way, looks really futuristic with its purple lines perfectly matching her eyes... and she looks hot as hell. Or more like... damn, I dunno the word for that. Like how a machine can be attractive, I guess?

"Wow." I let out in reaction, looking from top to bottom at what could easily pass as a military suit for space battles, just without the proper helmet and a little flashier, which is only a good thing is this case. "That's worth not having you on my back." I grin cheekily when my girlfriend looks at me with raised eyebrows and an amused glare.

"Well." She mutters with slightly reddening cheeks. "I need to be independent a little, right? With your teleportation and your speed."

"Mhm~." I hum. "Are you confident in flying?"

"I'm confident I won't crash." She mutters, standing up on her legs, now thick, round, and distinctly not human below her knees, while holding my hand for additional stability. "But honestly not much past that. I'll adjust quickly though, because I've experience with similar things."

"Okay. Good luck then." I pull her arm slightly up to indicate her to fly up, and a moment later I hear the specific hum of engines in her legs as air is sucked in through the inlets under her knees and... something happens in the chamber, because I've actually no idea what type of thrusters those are.

Letty's body seems to lift itself off the ground and she wobbles this and that way before a burst of... I think plasma from her hands followed by a less intense continuous stream of it lifts her up further and stabilizes her. I let go of her hand and watch for a moment as she stays in place with focused expression, then starts moving her arms and legs at first slowly, but gradually increasing in speed both in terms of her limbs and her whole body.

I beat my wings to catch up to her rising figure and grin when our eyes meet for a moment.

"Go at your own pace, I'll follow you." I tell Letty and beat my wings strongly with a burst of Primordial Energy that pushes me forward, then make a sharp turn around till I'm flying with my side to her and start making a lazy circle around her, watching with a smile as she flies around faster and faster with each second, occasionally losing her balance but correcting herself immediately.

A few minutes later she stops her tests and looks around for me, smiling when she notices me a couple hundred meters away and doing my fifth circle around her. "I'll be going now!" She shouts and orients herself on the island, then starts flying in the direction of the outer forests.

Initially very slowly, but thanks to her previous tests she seems to have everything under control and is flying reliably enough not to worry about her crashing into a tree, as well as fast enough to be unmatched by any running human and steadily speeding up.

I follow after her quickly, catching up to her and slowing down to fifty meters per second next to her, looking to the right at her flying figure with a wide grin. Her looks right now, the futuristic black suit with purple details along with the thrusters in her legs, are so contrasting with the surroundings it's jarring in a specific, really nice way.

Letty smiles as well when she meets my eyes and I turn my wings to the side and make a slow barrel roll around her, making her giggle. I raise my eyebrows suggestively in response, pointing at her with my chin, and her eyes light up.

She glances at her hands, and a moment later a burst of plasma shoots her above me in something of a free fall; she catches herself only with another sideways burst when she's already on my left and below me, which pushes her under me and to the other side, where her eyes widen and only another huge burst of plasma shots her beside a tree she would have collided with.

I giggle in amusement when she almost starts flailing midair, but collects herself quickly and stabilizes her flight with a hell lot more of effort than she would have probably liked to admit, since the amount of plasma she shot in those three seconds was higher than during thirty seconds of normal flight.

When she finally gets herself under control, she looks back at me with a grin and giggles on the way back to my side.

"You wanna go above the barrier?" I shout to her and she nods vigorously, so I casually teleport us both a couple hundred meters up, giving Letty a salute with a grin when she looks at me after initial surprise.

"Well, that works." She says with a wry smile, likely having expected something more... of a process. "Imma speed up then."

I watch initially in confusion, but it soon turns into amazement as a mass of Nihility flows to her legs and constructs a large, sleek, metallic... conical shape around her lower half that oddly resembles a ball gown - though someone more acquainted with rocket thrusters would likely instantly think of one at this sight - with distinct large holes where her hips were for air to pass through.

"Helia? Remember how I couldn't catch up to you earlier?" Letty turns to me with a grin?

"Yeah?"

"I worked a lot on it! You wanna see the result now?" She grins with a twinkle in her eyes I can see very well despite being ten or so meters away, and I mirror her smile.

"Hell yeah! But you know I'll catch up no matter what you do, right?"

"Not like I'm planning to escape anywhere." She rolls her eyes. "I'm the normal one between the two of us."

I snort in amusement at that and watch in anticipation as another swarm of Nihility covers Letty's arms and back in a vague wing shape, and after a moment of charging up, indicated by a steadily growing louder hum, a burst of blue flame appears inside her engine and she starts accelerating at an amazing speed, leaving me far behind within seconds.

I beat my wings with a growing smile to catch up to her and get surprised when a sudden distinct sound and shockwave from Letty - I see it in my mana sense - makes me realize she just crossed the sound barrier, and really fast at that.

Well, imma get more serious then... and test an idea I got a while ago. Back in the lava bath, actually.

I imbue my wings with a property amplifying the momentum and changing direction of all particles that pass my wings, and just as I thought, my wings burst into flame that trails after my suddenly quickly accelerating figure.

That's another interesting thing I remember from school. The protoplast of the idea is scientifically called aerodynamic heating, and it's seen mostly in objects entering atmosphere of planets when the air compression and drag heats the air enough for flames to appear. What I'm doing is completely different, but the resulting effect doesn't particularly change - the air flowing around my wings is heated to extreme degree, causing fire to trail after them.

And it looks fucking cool, because it's not like in some shows where the wings are made out of fire, which usually looks absolutely ridiculous, but there is literally a trail of flames behind me.

To put short, I like it, and Letty's sentiments seem to be similar as she looking back at me with wide open eyes and massive grin while making a light turn.

Also, should I say it's expected that I catch up to her within a minute? I'm certainly not surprised.

I massively increase the drag and friction of my wings when I'm close to her, causing the flames behind me to grow even larger, but also decreasing my acceleration to match my girlfriend and fly side by side with her.

"Fifteen minutes and we're on the edge!" Letty shouts to me, transmitting the sound only by an immaterial string of Nihility since the supersonic speed we're going at renders communicating via air effectively impossible as long as we're not flying in line.

"Mhm. Can you go faster?" I ask curiously.

"Yeah! Sure, easily thrice what I'm doing now!" She laughs happily. "This is the maximum speed if I want to fly for long though, anything more and I'm left dry in minutes."

I nod my head in response and look towards the edge of the island, already vaguely visible at this point despite the massive distance, mostly because of the very low curvature of the island. "Well, let's go then." I grin.

...

"Hello again, mom!" Letty says with a grin when she accepts the call, sitting on my lap on the edge of the island with sky filled with gray and green dots on all sides except for our backs.

"Hello, Letty." Dragha replies as her tired, tan face - the same we got to know during her character creation - pops up in our view, her voice far from enthusiastic.

"Um, did something happen? You look worn out." My girlfriend asks in concern and her mom sighs on the screen as what I realize is dense foliage moves there and there behind her.

"Nothing... particular." She says with scrunched up face. "It's just a fuckload of monsters, and I've only now got a breather."

"Huh. There shouldn't be many monsters here." Letty mutters wonderingly, but focuses on the correct things soon after. "Where are you, if we're on that? We'll get you out if it's really so bad."

"I'm not sure, actually." She looks up, most likely in search for any landmarks, even though she's not likely to find any in a forest. "There's a huge ravine here though, maybe that will help? It's actually deep as hell, I don't even see its bottom, and so long I don't see either end."

Letty frowns at that, but I chip into the conversation before she can reply. "I think I know the place. Can you look at the sides of that ravine? If it's where I think it is, you might be able to see a rope bridge on either end." The place I'm thinking about is Aver's Crossing, and if I'm right, that would mean Dragha is somewhere along the ravine next to which the village was situated.

"I'd like to say I can, but not really." She replies sourly. "There's a monster party out there, and I don't want to be a snack. Though I haven't noticed anything like that."

"What monsters are they?" Letty asks.

"Goblins, I think?" Dragha looks back at us with a thoughtful expression. "Small, green, humanoid. Though there are other mixed in, and I've no idea about those."

"...They're not fighting?" My girlfriend asks after a small pause, voicing the exact question I'm wondering about.

"I don't think so? Didn't have much chances to observe them, but at least I didn't see any signs of battle." She scrunches up her face again. "Apart from chasing after me, but that was more like a wild chase, yeah? I'm now on some ledge ten meters down and with an overhang." The camera rotates to show a wall of stone a couple hundred meters away with a deep chasm beneath.

"Helia? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Letty turns to me with raised eyebrows.

"The monster controller, right? That would explain it." I nod my head and notice Dragha looking at us in incomprehension after turning the camera back. "Do you know about attacks on Riverside and Aver's Crossing?" She shakes her head. "Long story short, a town not far from where you are got ran over by monsters a while back. A girl told us that they suspect a person capable of controlling monsters was behind that."

"Ah, so you're saying I have controlled monsters here?" Dragha asks, pursing her lips. "Yeah, that would make sense."

"Well, I'm saying that's a possibility. Not that I've any proof now." I tilt my head. "Anyway, you're not in danger, right?"

"Maybe?" She chuckles in response. "For all I know, a flying monster will find me in a minute, but for now at least I'm safe."

"We'll be on our way then. We should be there in fifteen minutes or so." Letty says and turns to me with a smile, then surprises me with a quick kiss and flips to the side.

She starts to fall freely, building her thrusters on the way, and I hop down from the ledge after her, spreading my wings with a grin.

From there we set the course for former Aver's Crossing - I've no idea if it actually still exists, and definitely not as a proper village - and fly there at leisurely speed while chatting idly with Dragha. Leisurely, that is in comparison with over half a thousand meters per second we did on the way to the edge of the island.

When we're on that, we also briefly describe the situation on Beholder's Eye to her, because while she saw some clips and general info, we have some more information, mainly from our own experiences, from Elisora, and from Shiva, that aren't known to wider public. Such as the existence of other intelligent races with prime examples of Ave'a and Elena the High Arachne or the existence of Black Hand as the underworld of the six islands.

About ten minutes later, aligning with what Letty predicted, we see the massive canyon and the ruined Aver's Crossing on the edge. It's actually being rebuilt, with a couple tens of new buildings in construction or already standing, and there seems to be a large group of hunters stationed around the perimeter. None seem to be any strong though, the best of them on similar level to Grant, so around Rank 4, and one person about twice that in terms of mana.

We don't linger around there and quickly fly to the gorge and deeper inland. The massive crevice goes kilometers into the island, and it will probably take a couple more minutes to find Letty's mom.

Though I stretch my perception field across the whole thing, so I'll notice her when we pass her. The clarity of the feedback is a little bad, and it would be much better if I compressed... wait I've an idea. I found out long ago that I can modify the shape of the field, and that the quality of the image improves as the thing gets smaller. But now that I think about it, did anyone say that the perception strength, spread across the whole field, is fixed?

I don't think so. So I increase my perception strength... yeah. That's it. I now see everything in half a kilometer radius from me clearly. The ground, the trees, the stone underneath, all with distinctly different arrangements of mana. That's a little... anticlimactic, I guess?

Not like I'm going to complain, because that saves me a lot of effort... though it also makes me wonder if there are actually any sensible limits to what I can do with my powers. Shiva said that the Energy affinity is a cover for reality manipulation, sure, but as I do things, I realize more and more that if there is any proper limit to my abilities, then it will take me a long time to find it.

So, as we fly deeper and deeper above the crevice, I scan our surroundings and quickly notice a massively increased number of monsters from the usual. Where normally it's hard to find two monsters in the span of five minutes, now I see tens in my perception field, occasionally even hundreds if they group up more. They are all roaming around, at first glance aimlessly, though I don't notice anything indicating they are... hm.

Actually, now that I think about it, how does controlling monsters with voice work? The person that Elisora told us to look out for was supposedly controlling them that way. Even though I don't hear any voice now, no matter how I look at it, those goblins, with occasional kobolds, wolves, and other monsters mixed in, don't behave like they should normally. So it's either that the control lasts for a longer while, or...

"Letty?" I turn to her and notice she is looking around curiously, but turns to me as soon as she hears me. "Can you check if there are any... pheromones or something in the air?"

"Sure." She replies, extending a small sensor or something similar into the air. "Mom, you didn't see us yet?"

"No." I hear faintly from the panel floating in front of Letty.

"Okay. Um, Helia, there is something weird in the air, though I've no idea what it is. I'd need more time to check."

"I can help with that, I think?" I hear Dragha saying. "I think I can decompose things and learn what they do, so, uh, I think I'll manage with this?"

"Sure, if you can then I'd appreciate the help." Letty replies, but I don't hear her properly as I focus on something weird on the left of my perception field.

Where normal monsters look like a clump of mana in the physical shape of the monster with a Mana Core that looks like a blob vaguely in the middle of the body, what I see on the edge of the canyon looks like... a gradient in the shape of a person, with more mana closer to the center and blurring at the edges, plus with a small ball of dense mana more or less where heart should be.

It takes me a while to realize that it's very likely I'm seeing Dragha, and from there I immediately realize that her Adaptive Body is a very probable reason behind her looks to my magic sense. It's like she's blending with surroundings to the point the border between the two isn't visible.

"Letty, found her." I say and veer to the left, zeroing onto Dragha's position and extending my energy into the wall.

What happens next is that the naked elf sitting leisurely on a ledge comes into my view, she looks up at me in the same moment as I dig my claws into the stone and stop myself with a booming sound when I flare my wings with the assist of energy affinity, and a high-pitched startled shriek from her turns into a weird bubbling sound as her body loses shape and color and turns into a greenish grayish shapeless quivering blob that pushes itself into the wall away from me.

I look with a giggle from my position I realize is dangerously close to a wall slam as she collects all her mass fanatically, some of it almost spilling down the ledge, and starts rebuilding her body shape after her shuddering stops.

Around the same time Letty comes into view, flying to the ledge while laughing so hard it's a wonder she manages to fly straight with all the wobbling.

I look with a wide grin as she gets her laugh under control and lands on the ledge next to Dragha, still giggling like a little idiot when I pull my hand out of the wall and hop next to her. I wrap my arm around her as we stand and watch with silly smiles as her mom rebuilds her body from bottom up, then finally gasps and lets out a quiet, colorful string of bubbling curses I would hardly expect from a particularly foul-mouthed engineer. Their contents, judging from the context, could be summed up into complaints about the very lacking control of her body in this form comparing to what she was capable of out of VOW, as well as my very abrupt arrival.

"Mom?" Letty waves her hand finally with a disapproving glare. "What are we doing now?"

"...Dunno." Dragha's body makes a weird wave going from her feet to her shoulders, which I assume is an equivalent of a shrug. "You've got more experience here, but I don't fancy going back into that horde." She waves her hand and indicates vaguely upwards.

"Helia? How many monsters are there?" Letty turns to me and I focus on my perception field to see what's around us, increasing its range and strength greatly to see better.

"No idea, but in many hundreds at least." I reply slowly as I take everything in, apparently including a group of people walking our way... three out of five being players and very weak even comparing to Cathie and the rest - all still at Rank 1 - and the two other locals not much more powerful. None seem to be special in any way apart from one who looks like some kind of beastman, though I'm not entirely sure if they are doing anything for the monsters to stay docile. They certainly are using no skills... apart from one of the players, who has a lot of mana gathered in his eyes and is looking around the area before his eyes settle pointing slightly down.

I turn to him with a toothy grin and giggle happily when he flinches in surprise. The group stops amidst frantic waving of their arms and quick talk I don't quite hear.

"Helia?" Letty's question takes me back to our three and I turn to them with a grin.

"We've a few people on us. Three players, two locals." I look pointedly at Dragha. "Wanna fight with players?"

"What about locals?" She asks with a frown.

"Dunno. I'll probably knock them out." I glance at the group of five and notice they are distinctly arguing about something. "But they already noticed us, so we might as well come to them. And you can see how this body fares against players."

"...Sure, I'd like to try." Dragha nods with a wide smile after a moment of hesitation.

"Join me up then, I'll clear up a little." I tell the two, plunging my hand into the stone, and pull myself up quickly, shooting up good five meters into the air along the stone wall. I offhandedly note that Letty weaves some simple clothes for her mom and repeat the thing two more times till the cliff ends. I beat my wings once to pull myself forward and land on the sloped edge covered in small plants. The large trees specific to Outer Forests start a few tens of meters further, and the monsters start at around twice that distance for whatever reason.

Around that time I notice that the group of people splits up, with two players, one human and the beastman, going in our direction and the rest retreating quickly. Huh. I guess it's a good thing, since I won't be troubled by the locals. Granted I wouldn't have problems killing them neither strength-wise nor in terms of morals and my conscience, but I would still much prefer not to kill anyone incapable of revival without a very good reason, since it's not reversible... actually scratch that, I could definitely learn to revive people if I actually tried. But it's a bother.

So I stop about ten meters from the border of the forest and set up a barrier to block the monsters while I wait for a while till both Letty with Dragha and the two humans appear behind and in front of me more or less at the same time. The former take a look at me, at the two humans, and quickly walk up to me, while the players stare at me for a long while without saying anything as they share a look.

"Hey, you two." I say lazily and their eyes snap to me. "What group are you with?"

"Uh, we..." One of them, a shorter human with clean shaven hair and wiry muscles, starts saying something and hesitates, looking at his comrade, who seems to be a... Badgerkin, or at least that's what he looks like to me with large body, bulging muscles, and specific striped pattern on his longish hair.

"We're in our territory. You state yours or I'll assume you're an enemy." The beastman says in rough voice and I grin in response.

"Fearless, really. Like a badger." I tilt my head lightly, then look to the side at Dragha, who meanwhile arrived on my side with Letty. "Do you want to be an enemy?"

"Why is it about me?" She asks with scrunched face, turning to me. "You want me to practice?"

"Yeah." I put a finger on my chin as I turn back to the two. "Well, not like it matters to me who you are..." I smile lightly as they stare at us cautiously. "Alright, you two. I'll give you a reward if you defeat her." I point at the slime.

"Huh? Why would we do that?" The Badgerkin asks in a hostile manner with a heavy frown.

"Because I," I whisper into his ear with a smile as I teleport behind him, and he whips his head around, about to throw a punch, before stiffening as I imbue a lot of Primordial energy into the word and make it convey a bit of who I am, making the world shiver. Just a little. "Say so." I teleport back where I was and tilt my head sideways with a smile as the two look at me with a mix of shock, fear, and uncertainty on their faces. "So, what will it be?"

"I... I'll do it." The man says quietly with beading sweat on his forehead as the human next to him shivers and nods his head fanatically. Less resistant to fear, apparently.

"There you go." I turn to Dragha with a smile and she nods her head slowly, glancing at me.

"I saw how powerful you are, but you're still surprising me." She mutters with a wry smile.

The two guys look at each other, not saying anything for a long while, before the Badgerkin steps forward uncertainly, reaching for the large axe on his hip.

"But you're both fighting, right?" I ask and put a finger on my lips as I look at the human pointedly. "Or do I have no need for you anymore?"

"Ye..." He trails off, confusion on his face before his eyes widen in realization and fear. "Yes! I'll fight!" He scrambles forward after the other and pulls his short sword out of its sheath, reaching for a shield on his back.

I watch with a small giggle as the two stand across Dragha with weapons at ready and with anxiety clear on their faces. But they stand, out of fear. It's a little... funny, I guess?

"You're enjoying it?" Letty asks with a smirk from the side and I look at her with a grin.

"Yeah, surprisingly. It's interesting, isn't it?" I turn to the trio standing in place and glancing at me. Ah, yeah, a signal to start the fight would be nice.

I glance at Letty and teleport myself to the side and into the air onto a swing I build out of harmless, solid flame anchored to two cracks in space, then teleport Letty onto my lap and wrap my arm around her waist. She blinks a couple of times in surprise, but giggles a moment later and leans on me fully, wrapping her arm around my neck and leaning on my chest, casually glancing back at the fighters in a certain suggestive pose I can only assume she took purposefully.

"There are no rules." I say with a smirk. "Fight, and die."

As those words leave my mouth, Letty giggles again and relaxes onto me even more, and I need to pull her to me so she wouldn't slide off.

"Letty?" I ask in a whisper, though I can't keep a smile off my face. "You know how you look right now?"

"Like a mistress on her queen's lap?" She asks as innocently as possible in this situation, turning her head to me and hovering her lips a hair's breadth from kissing my cheek, instead exhaling a cold breath of air all over my neck. Wuoh. "You like this role?"

"...Can't say I don't." I mutter in low voice, glancing at her with narrowed eyes as the three people under us finally clash.

I momentarily don't pay attention to them, instead focusing on how Letty's body is pressed to mine, letting me feel every part of her from her bottom, firm abdomen on my side, her boobs squeezed between us and her head nuzzled into my neck.

"I'll get to you in a while." I whisper and focus on the fight, still lightly caressing her hips.

"I'm looking forward to it." Letty replies in a suggestive whisper as I watch her mom swing her arms in a circle, casually ignoring the about ninety degree limit of how far a human torso can bend, and surprising the Badgerkin enough to cut his windpipe after passing under his wide slash.

He starts gurgling with pain coloring his face, but doesn't let me down - likely thanks to some kind of Badgerkin passive - as he pushes forward despite the pain and slams his fist into Dragha's chest... promptly getting stopped after sinking a couple inches. A wave passes through the slime's body, with something of a large drop bulging on her back and getting pulled forward again, just at much higher speed, and converges on the hand still stuck in her body.

And the hand ripples, jolted back, and bursts veins with blood flowing from all over it, accompanied by a piercing scream that's quickly cut off when Dragha slips around the man, touches his nape, and quickly corrodes his spine. He collapses on the ground slowly and with a thud distinct in the silence, not broken by the other guy holding his battered, broken arm to his body and trying to peel his disfigured shield off it.

"Well." I mutter to Letty, slightly surprised. "Either I underestimated your mom a lot, or those two are absolute weaklings."

"I think both a little." My girlfriend mutters with a small smile. "Five centuries of experience isn't something to look down on, but they hardly put up a fight. Like complete novices."

"Mmm, yeah." I hum as Dragha approaches the second man slowly and he scrambles to his feet with a sword held in the functional arm.

All his grimacing face shows is pain and terror much greater than it should be. Like, seriously? A grown man on the verge of sobbing because of a broken arm? I'm not saying there is something... wrong with it, but he is just so... weak. Then again, I guess the guy must have had very little experience with painful things if he's for example from Gaia's arcologies. Hardly anyone from the middle and upper strata knows more pain than what comes from small bruises and cuts, and it shows in cases like these.

Oh well. Not that it matters much to me.

I smile lightly when Dragha swiftly pierces the human's forehead with a slimy spear and turns to me with a wondering expression.

"I like it." She concludes. "It's... different than out of VOW, but the principles are all the same so it's easy to adapt." She finally looks up to us and blinks when she sees our positions, giggles a moment later.

"Say, how large is your soul?" I ask curiously and she opens her character sheet to check.

"Just a little over one unit. Why do you ask?"

"Those two had one point three and point four." I bunch up my lips to the side. "It will be different with more experienced enemies, but you're strong enough even now."

"For what?" Letty asks curiously just a moment before Dragha.

I shrug lightly. "Nothing in particular. I was thinking if you wanted to go on your own sometime, and with this I'm sure you won't encounter any trouble at least in outer forests." I pause for a while and Dragha nods her head. "Say, wanna visit a town?"