Epic of Caterpillar

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Brunhild ran to our side as she seemed rather happy.

"Father allowed me to go with you guys! I'll be going! So when are we going though? In a week from now?" Wondered Brunhild.

"What? No, right now." I said.

"EH?!" Brunhild was a bit shocked as she heard what we said, she slowly stepped back in surprise.

"Come on Brunhild, did you thought we were going to stay here for so long? We were only passing by after all." Said Sol.

"Yeah, if you want to join us quickly pack your things." Said Fiere.

"Sorry for that but we are in a hurry. The longer we take to catch the Genie, the worse everything becomes…" Ariant said.

"In fact I doubt you'll have any adventures aside from beating a bunch of monsters." Said Eriant.

"O-Oh…" Brunhild seemed slightly sad, even a little tear came out of one of her eyes. I sighed a bit as I gave her a head pat.

"Don't worry you will be able to level up a lot though! That's a pretty good thing, right?" I asked her. "In the middle of battles we'll teach you more magic too, so cheer up. Don't feel dispirited now, you're the heart of this party, if you feel like that, everything will go downhill."

"Eh? Am I?" She wondered.

Everyone agreed. We all were slightly not so cheerful as she was. Well, I was, but kind of insane too, so I didn't counted. She was the heart now because we didn't had Elfina right now. Brunhild was rather pure hearted, innocent, nice, and she was also cheerful and cute, despite being tens of times the size of our Elfina.

"Yep, I agree." Luminous said. "We'll be counting on your magic. We'll make sure you level up a lot to keep up with the monsters."

"Oooh! T-Thank you mister dragon!" Brunhild said while smiling happily.

"A-Ah, it is nothing. I am glad you're… well, you're happy about it." Said Luminous as he felt rather embarrassed. He had a weakness for cute girls. Probably due to that girl he once meet when he was younger that raised him.

"Yeah, I'll do my best from now on! I'll go back home to pick stuff first, wait a bit please!" Brunhild rushed back home as she began to pack a lot of her belongings into a big leather bag bringing it with herself. "I brought my clothes and several magic items my mother left for me. They might be useful as well…"

"You've brought a lot, did you brought the entire house?" Wondered Eriant.

"Hey don't annoy her now." Said Ariant.

"Brunhild that's a bit too much." I sighed. "Want me to bring it inside my Item Box? If a monster shows up, it'll be a pain for you to bring everything."

"A-Ah, right… sure thing!" She quickly agreed, giving me her bag of stuff which I stored inside my Item Box in a single second. Like that, we quickly decided to say our goodbyes.

"See you soon, please be careful out there, Brunhild!" Said Halberd.

"Will do!" Brunhild waved her hand from afar.

Just for good measure, I've been making some backup monsters and left a hundred Fortress Golems protecting the walls of the Giants. Alongside that, Luminous used his godly powers to imbue a large rock with his divine holy light and created a "Holy Stone" which repels monsters from getting near. Well, it doesn't repel them completely but it helps more than nothing.

After checking that there were no monsters left around the city and also sealing the large entrance where the Bone Dragons came from within the depths of the mines using a Holy Ice Wall that cannot easily freeze unless high level fire magic is used, Brunhild guided us through a safe path across the mountains.

"This is the Spine Valley, it is the safest route back to the ground below, follow me. I've memorized this when father taught me about this and I once came to explore alone. Of course he doesn't know that…" She said with a giggle.

"You really got a lot of adventures on your own, huh?" Ariant said. "I guess you're not as unexperienced as you always said you were."

"Yeah, I feel like we were tricked…" Eriant said.

"W-Well, I've had my little adventures here and there, but it is nothing too much…" Brunhild sighed. "I hope everything goes well from now on."

Brunhild walked forwards as I sat over her wide shoulders in my butterfly form, looking around with my big butterfly eyes, which had many lenses that enhanced my vision ability to completely new levels. With it, I glanced across the beautiful landscape, we were so high that even clouds were passing through.

"This area is rather peaceful…" Yawned Ariant.

"Yeah, I guess we are safe without monster here?" Wondered Eriant.

"Monsters are very common here, but the small ones that pose not much of a threat… Oh, there's one right there!" The twenty-meter big giant girl pointed, as a large critter suddenly emerged from behind a big rock. It resembled an enormous cockroach with black exoskeleton and horns on top of its head, its wings were gray and it seemed to have red eyes.

Its size? Five meters.

"Small?! Is this small for you?!" I asked angrily.

I looked at the monster curiously, finding it that although its size was big, it wasn't that dangerous. The monster had several Skills and… Eh? Why is it just walking straight towards us?

"It is a small bug, isn't it? We could squash it into the ground." Said Brunhild, as she tried to crush the giant bug while it walked past her, quickly noticing our smaller size and then… opening its jaws.

"GRYSHAAA!"

It suddenly spit some strange acid from its mouth, which we barely evaded, it smelled horrendous and it slightly melted the floor…

"Brunhild this is not a normal bug at all!" Ariant said. "Is this route even safe?!"

"I think there might be more bugs than I had imagined…" Brunhild said, as she noticed more bugs were crawling from the walls all around the valley…

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