Chapter 70

〈 Episode 70 〉Farewell, Solitary Journey

The piglets stayed glued to Asha all day, suckling milk and growing visibly bigger. Asha endured the familiar tingling of her nipples, feeling the increasing weight of the two piglets.

“Mom, ah~”

“Ah~”

Asha, holding the piglets, accepted the peeled fruit Lucia offered. Asha smiled and kissed Lucia on the cheek.

“It tastes better because Lucy gave it to me, doesn’t it? By the way, they’re growing really fast…”

When the piglets were first born, they were small enough to fit easily in Asha’s arms, but in just two weeks, they had grown so much from sucking her milk that their legs reached down to her hips.

Asha, supporting a plump piglet in each hand, looked outwardly exhausted, but thanks to her newly acquired Innate Strength skill, she could hold the piglets without much effort.

“Mom, aren’t they heavy?”

“It’s okay. They’re not that heavy, really?”

Asha replied, looking anew at the piglets who were endlessly sucking on her breasts.

‘Don’t they ever sleep?’

As with most baby mammals, the fluffy piglets were extremely cute, but Asha was getting a little tired of these incarnations of gluttony who spent more than half the day suckling milk.

Because the piglets demanded milk all the time, Asha had been walking around topless for several days, with her breasts exposed and her shirt tied around her waist. It should have been cold in the mountains, but thanks to the two fluffy masses clinging to her, she wasn’t that cold. And so, Asha, Lucia, and the pigs were already halfway across the mountain range.

Oink, oink!

Asha watched the piglets, who were now bustling about and rummaging through the bushes. Like any young ones, the curious piglets poked their noses, sniffing and rummaging here and there. Behind the piglets, there was a Boar who seemed anxious about his little ones, who were smaller than his hooves, wandering around, and he followed them closely.

“Ahahahaha! Oh, that’s funny. Kids! You have to think about your dad too!”

The memory of the enraged Boar tearing through the Goblin village was still vivid in Asha’s mind. It was quite amusing to see that Boar at a loss with his tiny piglets.

“Lucy, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I think it’s been almost a month now.”

Asha nodded at Lucia’s words. It had been two years, which she had thought was quite a long time, but already almost a month had passed. Asha felt that the time had come to leave. Fortunately, the piglets had been weaned a few days ago.

“Um, you know. I think I should get going soon.”

The Boar, who had been following the piglets’ tails, turned his head and looked at her at Asha’s words.

“I have other things to do. Now that the piglets have grown up a lot, you can take good care of them, right? Thank you for everything.”

He looked at her with deep eyes and shook his nose up and down. Asha smiled and kissed his nose.

“Take good care of the kids so they don’t get hurt!”

Asha took out the Winged Garment she had received from the last quest. She would probably be able to traverse this mountain range in a short amount of time if she used it. When she used the item, two large pairs of wings appeared on Asha’s back and began to move rapidly.

“Heh… it moves on its own. Lucy! Come here!”

She embraced Lucia with both arms and lifted her into the air. Because of their physical structure, the pigs couldn’t look up at the sky, so Asha couldn’t keep eye contact with them, but she could feel that he was still aware of her.

“I’m leaving! Take care!”

Asha, who was completely in the sky, turned on the map while holding Lucia. She set her direction towards the Orcs’ village, gradually accelerated, and quickly broke through the mountain using Spell.

‘Uncle Walter, Sister Eva, Georg, and Konrad… I’m coming to see you now.’

Meanwhile, around the time Asha failed her 8th quest, Eva, who had left the Orcs’ village, was continuing to move north. Without having to try hard, she could run faster than a horse all day long, so she decided to check what was at the northern end while she was out.

“If I go all the way, there will be something or nothing. I just hope I don’t run out of food.”

She wasn’t running at full speed, but Eva was moving at a speed that would easily outpace a quadruped running at full speed. She was running lightly, but she didn’t need to rest and didn’t get tired, so it didn’t take long for Eva to cover a long distance. In that way, she covered nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) in less than a week with her bare body.

After running for several days, Eva gradually stopped running as the surrounding scenery changed to a landscape devoid of vegetation and covered in snow.

“Ah, I’m a little hungry…”

Eva chewed on the jerky she had brought from the village and muttered. In a place with nothing but white snow, she with her blue skin was particularly noticeable.

Sizzle-

Every time Eva stepped, the blazing heat from her body melted the snow. She was always surrounded by Mana after the temperature dropped below a certain level, and she didn’t get tired even after operating for two days.

“Tsk… that looks delicious. But I can’t just tear it apart and eat it raw…”

Eva smacked her lips as she watched a white fox passing by in the distance, but she gave up on cooking it herself because she knew her cooking skills well.

Finally, she reached the top of the northern mountain and looked around at the surrounding area.

“The scenery is amazing… but there wasn’t really anything special even after coming all the way here. Well, that’s usually the case…”

Eva, who was about to turn around and go down, felt a presence and looked back.

“There was a guest. Who is it?”

“The word ‘guest’ is not accurate. What should I call someone who has been here from the beginning if not the owner?”

The man who appeared behind Eva had long, flowing blue hair and was wearing only a single layer of clothing even in the blizzard. Eva realized that the man who had appeared before her was the owner of this place.

“My apologies. It’s my first time here.”

The man looked at Eva’s unique appearance with suspicious eyes.

“A race I’ve never seen before…”

“But you… are you strong?”

Eva grinned as she felt the deep blue aura emanating from the newly appeared man.