[OP: ]
After Eon and the others resolved the matter regarding the first prince, they got back to their own preparations.
They were going outside for the first ti ever since they ca to the tower.
While the preparations did not include much, they needed supplies and they needed to check the path that they were going to take.
They had to confirm their destination and when they would be back. Then they needed to match their ti since as soon as they were coming back, in a day or two, they were supposed to return back as well.
The work needed to go back was almost finished as well. Now, the only thing remaining was the final preparations.
"I think she's going to be surprised when she sees you." Zoe was in the surveillance room looking at the picture of a certain white squirrel.
It was a chubby creature.
There were many creatures of various ranks around her. She was simply living her life while the creatures that should have been wild and more aggressive were simply living their own lives in harmony.
The palace where they were living seed pretty well built. Every creature of different nature here was living in peace and harmony, there were conflicts but she even solved them. She helped them in any way they needed.
She cured them emotionally. She looked after them when they needed it. Every ti there was soone that needed her help, she would forget all her laziness and co running for help.
"She's the sa as I rember…"
There was a warm smile on Eon's face as he looked at the lazy friend that he rembered. She was the first friend that he made in this damned forest, the first Person that helped him, that gave him the good night's sleep that he could never get in that place.
"Perhaps she has gotten chubbier though, haha~." He could not help his laughter at that mont. But then again, he could not wait to et this chubby squirrel.
The ti they spent together was brief. The chances that they would et again were pretty slim as well. If it wasn't for Anna's accident, they would not have been here anyti soon.
Initially, he was planning to co back only after he finished his academy life. But fate wanted sothing else perhaps…
"Haaa… I've missed her." He smiled at her warmly, nodded at Zoe, and then, he shifted his gaze to the last footage of the Prince's party.
"Whatever made them co here, those guys ca knowing what they were gonna face." He had been watching their movents through these footages for a while now.
Ti was slower inside the tower so the things happening outside were relatively faster. The prince's party had been in the forest for a while now, and they had done a lot while they were here.
"Those guys secured a primary base and established a research and data center. They aren't here simply to gather materials, they are actually gathering all the data about the place that they can."
Through the footage, they found out that the team was here for a thorough investigation.
They were using all kinds of artifacts to gather data on the plant life, on the creatures, collecting samples for different things, they were even going as far as collecting data on the Mana in the environnt.
The vice captain of the group was an Elder mage, and she had been a researcher for a good part of her life. Magic was not the only thing she had mastered over the years, she had experience in other fields as well.
The other mbers of their group were also great at these things. They knew what they were doing when collecting each sample. They were observing their surroundings.
They had secondary bases throughout the areas that they were crossing connecting to their secured primary base.
They were moving slowly but the speed at which they were covering the areas was nothing less than astonishing for both Eon and Zoe.
"They are pros for a reason, alright."
It was obvious that they weren't doing this for the first ti. They had been around many sites around the world and they had discovered many sites around the world as well.
The places that they had discovered and helped to clear were already not a small amount, but they had not just found the places or went around them.
They had analysed the place. Their team consisted of people that were experts of their fields and aside from combat oriented individuals, the people in their team were mostly either creators, scholars, or research experts like their vice captain.
There was a person who was an expert of energies among them, one was a grandmaster alchemist, there was a master artifact creator and one of the fastest hamr workers. One mber in the team was one of the most knowledgeable people in the entire world– an elder dwarf who, though not oriented with blacksmithing, was a great scholar and seeker of truths.
It was not an usual party, but perhaps that is what made them climb to the highest rank within the association in a very short span of seven years.
Before them, it was unheard of for soone to achieve that rank in such a short tispan, but they made it happen with their recklessness, passion, and abilities.
"You wish to be like them, brother?" Zoe asked even though she knew the answer to that question.
"No." He answered with a smile, a warm smile as he looked right into her eyes. "I don't want to be like them. I simply want to be soone that can live a good life with the people I care about."
Be it the prince or the other mbers of his party, all of them were pretty distant from their families.
Not all of them had families, but they still had people that they had unique connections with. They had a place that they belonged to and a place to return to, but they chose not to do so.
The life of an adventurer, the life of thrill and the life where they explored the world was sothing they cherished more than the people that they were close with.
For them, their party was everything– which was sothing special in itself, but at the sa ti, they didn't spare much ti for their other close ones.
"They are great… but they aren't what I want, Zoe."
Eon did not want what those people had. He did not want a party that had gone around the world and established itself. He did not want to be soone well known for his achievents.
All he wanted and cared about were the people that he cherished. He could not bear to stay away from them for longer than he needed.
Each mont he spent away from them, even right now, was unbearable to him. The pain of being away from them, to him, was much greater than any accomplishnt that he could obtain by travelling the world with a party as great as theirs.
"A better world." That's what he wanted– for them, and for himself.
He was going to go to great lengths to make that world a reality. He was going to pull out all the cancerous bastards that polluted the world, be it a demon or a ssenger of the divine.
A better world did not an a world free of darkness or evil. To him, a better world was simply a place where his people could live without any problems.
"I'm selfish, but not for myself."
The people in the prince's party had their own goals that brought them together and closer. They were together not because of unquestionable faith in one another, but because of a goal that they shared with each other.
They would undoubtedly leave their backs to one another and trust them with their lives, but they still had a goal that connected them, not a bond of selflessness.
"I want to be an adventurer that sees the world, Zoe. Not soone that enters a forbidden forest with the people I care about willingly.
However important it might be, I would always be against it if I had the choice."
Even right now as they were finishing the preparations to enter a new world, sowhere new that Anna and the others would not understand readily, he was hesitant.
On one side was his love for his sister, while on the other side was his concerns for what might happen when they go out into the forest.
The love had triumphed over the concerns like always already, however they had not gone away or vanished into the thin air.
They were still there, with him. He would still be against it if it was simply about him… but it was more than that.
Anna needed this exposure. The rest of them needed this, and so he was nobody to stop them from having perhaps a once in a lifeti opportunity to see just how dangerous, ferocious, and magical the great forbidden forest actually was.
"So, let's do our best out there and show everyone so fun things, ok~?" With a bright new smile, he pushed away the screens and faced his younger sister.
"Yes~! Let's do our best~!" She smiled and hugged him enthusiastically.
It was obvious that he wanted her to look after the others that she will be carrying around and she obviously was going to do that.
She knew just how important these few days are going to be for everyone.
So… she was well aware of her own responsibilities in this entire trip as well.
'Hopefully we'll do ok.'
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