Chapter 196: Dinnerdate.
Because of issues with time, they had to split up once they left the dungeon. The three adventurers didn't know their dilemma, so they were a little disappointed, but when Ephine offered to meet up later to eat dinner together, their mood improved significantly. After deciding a time and place, the two groups split up and headed in separate directions.
Although they were going to the same place, Ark's group decided to take a different route, just to avoid any suspicion of their identities.
Since Lillia, Lily and Kanan all had horses of special breeds, they were bound to travel back to the city swiftly. Since that was the case, Ark's group just took a different route and travelled leisurely, to make sure they didn't bump into them somehow.
Because of their leisurely pace, it took them almost three times as long to get back to the city, but it didn't really matter that much, since their trip was rather enjoyable either way.
Because of his telepathy skill, Ark could now talk to Thufrat even when he was in his wolf form, the only downside was that he could only communicate to a certain extent, so they couldn't hold any extensive or complicated conversations. But considering how they couldn't communicate with each other at all for a while, it didn't matter too much to them.
Once they returned to the city, it was already afternoon, but they still had plenty of time left before dinner. Since that was the case, they started with selling their spoils of war as usual, which earned them a decent amount of gold.
Since they had been in the dungeon for over a week now, they were pretty used to this lifestyle now, they had also considered moving on to the next level of the dungeon, but they decided to hold off on it for now.
Although they had some confidence, they decided to just take it easy for another week, and accumulate a bit more strength first. It wasn't that big of a risk to just go to the next level immediately, but Ark preferred to not risk anything. Since they didn't have much information on the next level, he wanted to gather some too before going.
Getting information from some adventurers in passing was pretty easy, but he would prefer it if it was a bit more in-depth and extensive, and the guild had guidebooks that served such purposes.
A guidebook was pretty cheap too since its purpose was to let adventurers know of the dangers in the dungeon. And if it was expensive, no one would buy it. After they were done at the adventurer's guild, they went to look at the nearby market to see if they could find something they wanted.
After walking around for a while, they only managed to find some decent clothes, whilst the rest of the market was filled with stuff they didn't care for.
Since they were running low, Ark decided to also buy a plethora of different vegetables, and even some spices too, since they had been using a lot of it every time they went out. Although he wasn't the best cook out there, he kind of enjoyed cooking, so he made sure to have ingredients at hand when he needed it.
His spatial bag was almost always filled with magical beast carcasses since a lot of lesser magical beasts attacked them whenever they were in the wild.
The greater magical beasts could all sense both his strength and bloodline, and they knew better than to try and fight with him. Even if magical beasts were seen as monsters by many, after a certain point, they could be considered an intelligent species too, just like humans.
Although Ark wasn't a big fan of their natural brutality and bloodthirst, he could appreciate their honesty, as it was a trait that many humans lacked.
Although his interactions with intelligent magical beasts were far from enough to judge an entire race, he could still draw some conclusions from the few he had met. Either way, he wasn't going to judge someone based on their race, he just planned on keeping his guard up for most of the people he faced, whether they were humans, demons or beasts.
He had naturally heard a lot of bad things about demons, and he had even fought against demons before, but similarly, he had fought against plenty of humans, and the reason behind the endless fighting seemed to almost always stem from humans natural greed.
Just like magical beasts, there are good and bad apples, but the rotten ones always stand out. Speaking of apples, they also bought a few to share. After a while of just browsing the market, they started losing their interest, and just went back to their house. Because of exhaustion, no one really felt like doing anything other than lazing around, and what better place to do it than home?
Since they had recently gotten into playing card games, they spent most of their time doing that.
Even though Ark felt like playing with the others, he opted to practice his magic circles instead. Compared to when he had just gotten started, it wasn't as boring and repetitive as before, since he could now experiment with different kinds of circles, who showed different results.
In the future, Ark theorized that he could make his own spatial bag with the help of a magic circle, but that was far off in the future. Not only did he need to level up his magic circles a bunch before he could do something of that calibre, but he also needed to get a better affinity if he wanted the spatial bag to actually be somewhat useful.
After a while of just playing around and doing whatever they wanted, it was soon evening. Even though he had spent a few hours to practice his magic circles, no levels were gained. Even though he practised with the goal of gaining levels, he didn't care that much if he didn't get any. Since he knew that he got closer at least.
Since it was almost the time of their appointment, the group decided to head out.
As they walked around the familiar streets of Moonhill, it didn't take long until they reached a familiar establishment. Although the street was dimly lit, one particular shop seemed to light up the street like beacon, that was naturally the Lighthouse. Outside of the restaurant, they could see Kanan waiting patiently.
He seemed a little bored, but since he had nothing better to do, he had decided to wait outside. The night breeze was fairly pleasant after all.
When he saw Ark and his group approaching, he grew a little excited. He wasn't sure whether they were going to show up in the beginning, but he could let out a sigh of relief now that they did. Truth be told he was starving, and when he saw them, he almost started salivating at the thought of the food they were soon going to eat.
To Ark, he looked a little foolish as he stood by himself in the dimly lit street, seemingly in a daze.
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