“Don’t think I’ll forget your prank just because you changed the subject.”
Jon was just as serious, firmly snatching back the Yanpupu.
“I’m serious!”
Elita pouted.
“Your personal credibility with me no longer supports even half a syllable of trust.”
Jon tossed the Yanpupu back to Liya.
The drunken Liya sat astride Yanpupu’s head, imagining herself a Dark Knight riding a skeletal horse.
“Eh~~ Can I get a loan first?”
Elita put on an innocent, pure expression, blinking her emerald eyes.
“Sorry.”
Jon gave a hard tug, wrapping the elf girl tightly in a bedsheet, preparing to throw her out.
“This is a small business, no credit allowed.”
“Last time! Really! Trust me just this once!”
But Elita used Elven magic, shifting her form to appear directly behind Jon.
Seeing she couldn’t be gotten rid of, Jon gave up and decided to quietly listen to what she wanted to say.
“Look at this Yanpupu. Don’t you feel anything special?”
Elita snatched the mount from beneath Liya.
This act made Liya leap at her, attempting a furious chokehold—though her arms were too short to even get halfway around the neck, and the lock failed miserably.
Jon gently lifted Liya back into his arms, stroking her “young girl’s” head like a kitten.
Drunken Liya rubbed comfortably against his fingers.
“I don’t feel anything special. But it’s true, it’s quite large. It probably got lucky and absorbed some pure magic power, so it’s close to evolving.”
Jon replied.
Monsters was the common term among the people.
Strictly speaking, Pupu belonged to the category of magic beasts—’magical creatures born naturally from the omnipresent [Magic Net].’
Magic beasts were divided into ranks from one to ten based on magic power.
Normal Pupu were all zero-rank, not even reaching the threshold of the first rank.
Due to their poor hunting abilities and docile nature, high-rank Pupu were basically nonexistent.
But occasionally, some scattered Pupu, growing in magic-rich regions or by chance absorbing pure magic, could reach the level of ‘first-rank.’
However, a first-rank Pupu was still just a Pupu—bigger, with more skills, but overall still not dangerous.
“That’s not what I mean. Don’t you notice? Its rock magic is extremely pure, the quality much higher than other Pupus, and its weight after ‘hardening’ increased a lot.”
Elita poked Yanpupu a few times.
Yanpupu, feeling threatened, instinctively activated its hardening to resist external attacks.
With this reminder, Jon realized Elita was right—this Pupu was indeed quite unusual.
Even for magic beasts that evolved, it was usually just an increase in magic quantity or new application methods.
It was rare for the purity of magic power itself to improve.
Purifying magic power was something even most spellcasters wouldn’t deliberately do…
Because it was difficult and slow.
Most regular spellcaster classes preferred to increase the total magic power or learn new spells—new ‘magic application methods’—as that helped more in battle.
Only those fundamentalist ‘Mages’ would pursue the path of the Goddess of Magic, endlessly refining their magic to explore the mysterious and grand origins.
“A magical Pupu.”
Jon marveled.
“No wonder my Pupu insisted on keeping it.”
“More importantly, Jon, don’t you think your pink Pupu is way too smart? And it even looks like this. Could it really be a demon transformed?”
Elita stared at Liya, her gaze growing increasingly suspicious.
“Which demon would be dumb enough to turn themselves into a Pupu?”
Jon shrugged.
“…True.”
Elita thought for a moment and realized it made sense.
Those self-indulgent, purely selfish demons—’after I die, let the flood come’ types—would never turn into a Pupu just to infiltrate a hero’s party, right? It couldn’t have been an accident? That would be way too stupid.
“Then why is it so smart? And why did it become humanoid?”
Elita suddenly looked up at Jon, because she noticed he didn’t seem confused about this at all.
Sure enough, Jon’s face turned red, his eyes darted away.
“There’s a very complicated reason behind that…”
“You really did it with her?”
Elita made a half-fist gesture, shaking her wrist up and down quickly.
“I did not!”
Jon’s face flushed.
He panicked and hurriedly stammered an explanation.
“She ran out of magic at the time, so I gave her a bit. I almost killed her. It must be that my magic altered her and made her like this.”
Elita’s eyes widened in realization.
“Oh”
Then her tone shifted, suddenly becoming certain.
“So you really did do it with her.”
“Stop making baseless accusations!”
“Bleh bleh bleh”
Elita stuck out her tongue and made a face as she ran off laughing.
“The hero is a pervert~! The hero did it with a Pupu, a big pervert~! Ehehe”
The elf twisted her waist, her form gradually turning transparent until she vanished completely into the night.
Jon stared at the dark clouds outside the door for a long time and sighed softly.
Ever since defeating Demon King Liya, the situation within the party had gotten more and more complicated.
Who knew how many more troublesome things would happen on the way back to the Empire Capital?
…Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.
Jon prayed silently, then locked the door and went to the bathroom to wash up and change.
Night deepened.
When Jon lay down, thunder rumbled endlessly outside the window, and a downpour arrived uninvited.
Jon sat up and looked toward the disaster-stricken village, worried.
Their homes already destroyed, now facing such terrible weather, how would they get by tonight?
All night, he tossed and turned.
Fortunately, in the second half, a lost Liya crawled under his blanket in search of a nest, climbing onto the warmest spot on his left chest and sleeping soundly.
He stroked the damp, fragrant Pupu in his arms, feeling a little more at ease.
The next day.
At the break of dawn, Jon braved the rain to head to the village.
Along the way, he saw many people with soaked clothes, huddled under makeshift shelters of broken walls and tree branches to escape the rain.
The wind was fierce, the rain relentless, making it impossible to light a fire.
He saw a hunched woman holding her daughter, shielding her from the slanting rain with her back, while a wide-eyed child nestled in her arms, chewing on a bean cake soaked with rainwater.
“Old man!”
In the distance, he saw the village chief from yesterday.
He was no longer commanding the villagers but leaned against a crude cart loaded with the last of their belongings, huddled with his family and seven or eight men in the only half-collapsed guard post still standing.
“Child, you’re here again? In this heavy rain?”
The chief was surprised, but quickly waved his hand, sighing helplessly.
“Go back. There’s no need. It’s pointless now.”
The pouring rain battered Jon’s face, dripping from his furrowed brows.
“Pointless?”
“The rain is too heavy. Nothing can be done. From my old bones’ experience, this rain will last at least four or five more days. The floodwaters will rise again sooner or later—maybe even more than one river will flood.”
“Run. Run north, as far as you can. If even one survives, that’s enough.”
The village chief’s weathered face squeezed out a bitter smile.
With nowhere left to go, his despair lessened, replaced by a strange sense of relief.