"See! I told you guys he will come to us without a single scratch on his body," Varth said after noticing that Vincent had entered the small cave behind the waterfall.
As the rest heard his words, they looked away in shame, feeling a bit disappointed in themselves.
Vincent wondered what happened as he looked at them, finding them acting a bit distant.
Leila ran towards him in a hurry, embracing him tightly. She whispered words of love in his ears before warning him to never face a group of beasts all by himself.
"I can't promise you that," Vincent said with a smile, knowing full well that he won't ever let go of such a rare chance in the future.
"Hmph," Leila pouted in anger, stomping her pretty foot on the ground.
Vincent found her looks a bit too seductive, enough to make him feel the heat rising in his heart. He grabbed her hand, pulling her into his embrace. Then, before Leila or the ones looking at them could even make sense of the sudden sexy situation, he kissed her, savoring every bit of the sweetness lacing her lips and her tongue.
Leila's cheeks turned red as he pushed her deeper into his embrace and traced the inside of her mouth with his tongue, pounding on every inch and corner in search of the sweetness that only she possesses.
She felt flustered, not wanting to pull away from this kiss but also not wanting to let such personal matters continue under the stares of her teammates.
The others coughed and looked away from them, continuing on with their work.
Vincent, on the other hand, enjoyed kissing her. He knew she won't turn into a feline as she has gained some resistance to his touch. Once he kissed her to his heart's content, he set her free.
"Hmph!" Leila stomped on his foot in anger before running away from him. She joined the others, helping them in moving magic crystals.
Peter and the others were working on some kind of a circular object in the center of the cave. Varth, on the other hand, was sitting on a rocky stone in silence.
Vincent walked towards the rest of them, sitting next to Varth.
"Where is the path leading towards the Mysterious Violet Forest? And what's this stuff?" Vincent asked him.
"It's right there," Varth said those words while pointing at the circular object in the center of the cave, indicating that it is the path leading to the Mysterious Violet Forest.
"Huh?" Vincent felt confused, unable to understand how a dusty, rusty and somewhat broken machine is going to lead them to their destination.
"It's a Portal Generator." Varth said, clearing Vincent's confusion. "By injecting a considerable amount of purified energy into it, the generator will become active and open a stable spatial tunnel towards the Mysterious Violet Forest."
Vincent asked how much is a considerable amount.
Varth showed him ten fingers before saying the word magic crystal.
"Only ten thousand magic crystals?" Vincent's eyebrows raised in confusion.
"Ten million magic crystal," Varth said, correcting him.
"Oh," Vincent's lips parted ways in shock.
Magic crystals were precious energy resources, and people could mine them from magic crystal mines.
(Magic crystal mines aren't any less precious than diamond mines)
Ten millions magic crystals weren't a measly amount. To earn that much in a short time, a person's best bet is to hunt down a Monster Lord and loot its entire kingdom.
"So, who is footing the bill?" Vincent asked him, wondering who is paying the ridiculous amount to activate the portal generator.
"It's Iris," Varth replied in a clam voice.
"Just her?" Vincent found it hard to believe that a young girl has ten million magic crystals, even though she is a member of the twilight temple.
"Yes, it's only her." Varth's word fell heavily on his mind, making him sigh in happiness and sadness.
Many people work day and night to earn money to feed their families, while others are born with a golden spoon in their mouth. They are so lucky that they never need to worry about how to pay their bills, pay for food, and such stuff.
He was glad though to have such a rich person in his party, a work of fate.
"How many more magic crystals do we need to feed it?" Nevis asked, summoning magic crystals out of the spatial device Iris had given him and pouring them into the energy tank.
"It just needs seven more crystals worth of energy," Iris replied as she emptied another spatial ring from all the magic crystals.
"Just have to charge it a little bit more, huh," Peter said, throwing those seven crystals into its fuel tank.
"It's done," Leila said in a relieved voice after they finished feeding 10 million magic crystals to the Portal Generator.
"Guys, standby." Iris took a few steps away from the generator, waiting for a portal to open in the middle of the small cave.
The cave trembled for a bit, and a distortion of space occurred next to the portal generator. A dark blue portal made up of swirling energy appeared in the center of the cave, thinning down at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Hurry up and jump into it," Iris said before she headed into it. The rest followed in tow, jumping into the closing portal, one after another. Their visions darkened, and they felt like something was stretching them as if they weren't born with bodies made out of bones but chewing gum. Also, darkness encompassed their senses before they got teleported to a brightly lit place.
A moment later, rays of purple lights filled their visions, forcefully dragging their focus from the weird sensations filling every fiber of their beings back to reality.
"Hmm?"
They turned to take a look at this place, taking in their surroundings with a scrutinizing gaze.
Trees dotted the Mysterious Violet Forest, and they could see a lot of vines coiled around the trunks of the trees. There were a few mushrooms here and there, each made out of some kind of purple matter and releasing a gentle purplish glow which was easy on the eyes of the ones looking at them. Except for that, they also saw a huge castle whose peak reached the sky a few miles away from them.
"That's the tomb of Roselia, right?"
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