Humanity Return

Ch. 24 – Rides

Hearing Leinn's question, Aura still did not directly answer. He just looked at the young man in front of him while hiding a part of his face with his hands.

“Fieh... In this forest they should be found inside the Slime” colony

Aura sighed, successfully calming her heart and dispelling her smile.

“Colony?” the new word stole Leinn's attention.

“Yes, Slime with low Rank often live in groups. Coreless Slime usually lives together with Rank D Slime, they are supposed to live in the dark and damp cave in this forest”

”Huh, where is it?” leinn asked while looking around.

Aura was silent for a moment, then shook her head.

“I... don't know” the answer is weak.

Aura realized that she did not know the exact geography of this forest. His spirit disappeared immediately. It seemed like his negative thoughts were starting to appear and filled his head again.

Seeing that, Leinn smiled and extended his hand touching Aura's head...

“HUE!” scream Aura hard.

And shuffled his hair as hard as he could.

After three seconds that felt so long, Leinn just stopped his actions.

Aura held onto her messy head and hair, looking at Leinn with a surprised and confused expression.

“Eh? Wh why? Eh?” he didn't understand why he got it.

“Hahaha!” Leinn replied with a laugh.

He simply turned around and walked over to the already-sleeping Gorilla Beast.

Aura was still in a state of shock while holding her head. After calming down, she realized her negative feelings had already disappeared due to her feelings of shock and confusion.

He looked towards the young man who was walking away.

“Hm..”

Leinn finally arrived in front of that slumbering face and looked at it for a while. He then pulled back his hand and slapped the Gorilla Beast's forehead quite hard.

“Wake! I need help!”

“HOH!?”

Jumping awake due to the pain on his forehead, the Gorilla Beast began to search for the source of the attack in a semi-conscious state. He found Leinn standing in front of him with both hands on his waist.

“Hoh...?”

This Gorilla Beast looked at the human in front of him while stroking his forehead with a puzzled expressi.

“Have you ever seen a cave filled with living water?”

“Hoh?”

Aura looked at Leinn's back which was waiting for an answer from the large Gorilla who was scratching his head with that puzzled expression. He had not expected Leinn to ask such a detail to the Gorilla Beast that was not connected to him by the Contract.

Before Aura could say anything, the Gorilla Beast stopped scratching its head and started inspecting the surrounding area.

“Hoh!” he pointed one way.

Aura was surprised by this result. It turned out that this Gorilla Beast did know of a place that might be the Slime colony's cave.

The direction he gave was in a part of the forest deeper than their current position.

Leinn started to get excited after finding her next destination, she then turned her head back and found Aura was looking at her with an amazed expression.

He only smiled slightly and began to prepare to continue their journey.

“Alright let's go..” his sentence stopped strangely in the middle of his speech as he looked at the Gorilla Beast in front of him once again.

He had only taken one step forward before standing still while watching the huge Beast.

“Hm..” Leinn nodded his head once.

And with one jump, Leinn managed to land on the Gorilla's right shoulder. He instantly discovered that the thick white fur covering the wide shoulders of the Gorilla was quite comfortable to sit on.

“Hoh?”

Leinn looked down and found Aura who was just standing looking at him.

“What are you waiting for?” Leinn patted the Gorilla's neck while pointing forward.

The Gorilla Beast finally understood what he meant and reached out his right hand to lift Aura to his left shoulder.

It seemed like Leinn was planning to walk into that cave on the Beast's shoulders.

Aura was intending to reject him but was reminded of his extremely low stamina and road speed.

So he could find no reason to reject the offer.

“Hoh”

The Gorilla Beast was seen staring at Aura with respect as well, either because he had been healed by her or when he saw the human on his shoulder being defeated by the little human in front of him.

Aura just stared at the huge palm waiting in front of her, and finally chose to accept it.

When he had just taken one step forward, he felt a strong pull from his back followed by a loss of his lost weight.

”HUEEE!” Aura saw the Gorilla's hand becoming smaller, realizing he was hovering ten meters from the ground.

The Wolf Beast had just bitten her dress and with a single blow of its head threw Aura into the air.

The Gorilla Beast immediately reached out its hand to catch the fallen Aura, but was stopped by Leinn who patted his head.

“Hoh?” so he pulled back his outstretched hand.

“..aaa-Umph!“

Pomf

The wisps of fur caught him, precisely the back feathers of the big wolf beneath him.

The aura was still confused by what had just happened, and could only be speechless while looking at the surroundings.

The Wolf Beast then turned around and walked in the direction that the Gorilla Beast had pointed at earlier.

“Ayo” Leinn said as she pointed at the wolf.

“Hoh?”

The Gorilla Beast only scratched its head in confusion, then walked following the Wolf Beast.

Leinn looked for a comfortable position on the hairy shoulder he was sitting on, then suddenly showed an expression like remembering something.

He looked behind her.

“...”

A faint smile appeared on his face, which looked completely different to the warm smile he had shown Aura in the two days they had known each other.

His smile this time looked extremely cold and dangerous.

The target of his smile was a green dragonfly that perched on a large tree they had just passed. The dragonfly immediately floated in the opposite direction after noticing the young man was staring at him.

“Hehe”

A small laugh came out of Leinn's mouth as he returned his attention to the front, either because of his impatient feeling of obtaining his first Contracted Beast, or something else.

...

Two kilometers away from the black-haired youth and the pink-haired girl was seen a person in a long robe standing on top of a big tree branch, hiding his whereabouts.

“Damn...” a whisper full of upset emotions came out from under that cloak.

He could see two large Beasts and two humans riding them were walking in one direction, and the black-haired young man managed to find them so easily.

It made him realize that the young man already knew what he was doing, but just let it go.

And that last smile...

“Leinn Springleaf..!”