"Alice, how much EXP have you gathered so far?" I wondered all of a sudden.
"Oh, quite a big amount after everything you've hunted this time… it's actually enough to heal some glitches… but Sylphy, shouldn't you be concentrating in battle?" she responded.
"Don't worry, they're nothing to worry about," I told her as the two other mushrooms suddenly hastened their pace and rushed towards me at a great speed.
"S-Sylphy!" shouted Aquarina in fear as she quickly acted. Her magic knife suddenly harbored her mana as she unleashed a slicing blade made of crystalline water, glistening across the air before slicing through the mushroom nearest to her. The creature was sliced apart rather easily!
The mushroom was easily one-shotted. From the looks of it, we have too much firepower.
"I guess I'll take care of this one…" Zack could not help but mutter. Surprisingly, a swing of his axe was enough. He unleashed a strong aura-based attack composed of wind mana. It was strong and fast, enough to slice the mushroom multiple times as the winds exploded around the creature.
"And done…!" I said after the last one died.
"But there are more mushrooms around us… maybe we shouldn't get closer," said Aquarina.
"If we get closer, we'll wake them all up." Zack agreed with her.
I quickly went to the corpses and opened them, taking out the slime-covered Magic Crystals inside of them.
"Uh huh. I guess you're right. We can't get through them so let's go through the trees instead. They got a lot of branches," I suggested.
"The trees?" Aquarina asked.
"Yes, can't you guys walk on trees? It's easy," I replied as I showcased how to do it. I just crawled over the nearest tree by grabbing on the rough parts of the bark. Well, it was a bit slippery due to the moss stuck around, but nothing too big. Fortunately, I remembered the techniques I had learned from my previous life, and it was fairly easy.
With that, I reached the tree branch in a few seconds. When I looked down, I expected Aquarina and Zack to quickly imitate me, but they were looking at me with eyes wide open.
"W-What…? I've heard that elves are good at climbing, but you got there in just two seconds!" said Zack.
"Eh? It's just tree climbing…" I murmured.
"S-Sylphy, let me do it too!" Aquarina was less of a pushover than Zack, so she quickly showcased some new techniques that she was taught by someone, or she learned herself… I've definitely begun to think her father had begun to teach her.
She used her water magic to cover her feet and move upwards towards me while walking in the air, reaching the same branch.
"I did it!" she said.
"That's cheating… but I guess we all can do it on our own way," I told her
"C-Cheating?" she asked in response.
"Well, not really… never mind, that was amazing!" I said soon after.
"Ooh! Hehe…" Aquarina seemed to giggle adorably as she was praised.
Of course, Zack was still on the ground.
"Hey, didn't you live in the wilderness for some time? Don't tell you never learned how to climb a tree!" I could not help but say to psych him.
"I-I'm a bit rusty in that regard…!" he said.
"Chicken! Let's go, Sylphy. Let's leave him behind. We can do this the two of us anyways!" said Aquarina while smiling cockily at Zack.
Naturally, Zack was easily motivated by that provocation as his entire body exuded a green windy aura, and his anger started to bubble up. He had a bad temperament and it surprised me he was resisting for so long towards Aquarina's offenses.
"Y-You little shrimp, I'll show you that I can and shut you up!" he roared. Suddenly, his body continued to exude more aura. This was something I had yet to learn well, but aura was pretty much the expression of the body's strength combined with Mana. It's a special ability that all physical fighters use, and well, we had been using it without realizing it.
He encompassed himself on his Aura of Wind as he flew up here by running vertically over the tree. He reached us in an instant, although he felt tired and dizzy after that.
"You did it!" I said, petting his head as he rested over the branch.
"Don't praise me as if I was a puppy or something!" he replied, albeit a bit embarrassedly.
"Alright, let's get going. You guys can jump in between branches, right?" I asked soon after.
"Yes, I think I can!" replied Aquarina.
"I-I'll try…" answered Zack.
Well, I guess this could work as a way to train the two to move over trees. Instead of the floor, moving over treetops was always more useful and efficient as one could travel longer distances by jumping over each one. Plus, it also allows one to see a wider range of the landscape.
"The dungeon entrance should be right there…" said Zack.
We quickly began to jump from branch to branch. For me, it wasn't hard at all. In fact, I had taken a long time to relearn this back home. But I was now rather good at it after a few days of training after relearning this technique.
We moved over the treetops as we reached an area surrounded by small plants, mostly wild berry plants. There was a large boar with two small boar children at her side. From the looks of it, she seemed to be a mother eating berries.
I wouldn't really want to disturb her, so we sat down over the branch to watch them while they ate.
"That's a cute family of wild boars…" Aquarina could not help but say.
"Hm, maybe we should hunt them. The little ones always have tender meat," Zack suggested soon after.
"Zack, shut up," I said in response to Zack's words.
"Eh?! What?!" he asked, confused.
"Poor things, look at them, they're just eating… I know I've hunted boars before, but now that we don't really need to hunt anymore, leaving them would be better for my mental health… I don't think I would be able to live knowing I killed little boar babies…" I told him.
"Ah, you're so weird sometimes…" Zack told me in response. He didn't really understand me that well.
"I know… it makes me feel bad when I kill when I don't need to… we got a lot of panthers so it's better to wait." Of course, Aquarina agreed with me.
"Fine…" Seeing as both of us didn't want to kill them, Zack relented with a sigh while crossing his arms.