Boosted Continuation

Chapter 270 – Not always confused

Steph found a sign leading to the Forsaken Maze Dungeon during their travels towards Maya’s home and got excited about exploring a dungeon. Once she found out that Sophia, Fen, and Maya had been there before, and her sister had exploded the whole area, she wanted to see it even more. The group decided to get the others and turn it into a group exploration because it was a rather interesting and nostalgic place.

“Oh, the nature around here already looks like home!” The moment Sophia brought Maya and the others to the sign they found, Maya immediately became a little nostalgic.

“It’s so nice and warm around here~.” Ari happily clapped her hands as she looked around.

“Yeah, it’s the worst!” Chloe didn’t share her enthusiasm.

“Someone’s going to stay in the domain once we’re in the monster country, huh?” The tiger rolled her eyes as she looked at the fox while remembering how hot and dry that place was.

“Probably.” She shrugged. “I’ve been there with Feyfey before, and it was super boring, so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything. The one time things got interesting was when we found a group of griffins, but Feyfey didn’t allow me to pet them!”

“I really want to see a griffin again!” Sophia got a little excited. “The last time, I accidentally turned one to ash and then got attacked by another one…”

“How do you accidentally turn a griffin to ash?” Anna looked confused.

“I was confused, surprised, overpowered, and not in full control of my magic.”

“Ah, you were being you, makes sense.” The princess nodded a few times.

“Oi!” The blonde glared at her. “I’m not always surprised!” She couldn’t let that slide.

“Fair enough, I’m sorry about that.”

“Thank you very much!” Sophia was glad Anna apologized.

“By the way, why are we here? Wherever this place is.” The jaguar looked around some more. “I thought you four wanted to sprint all the way to Maya’s hometown, and we continue from there? I notice the distinct lack of a town.”

“Because of that.” The blonde pointed at the sign before looking at her sister. “Steph wanted to explore this place with everyone.”

“Forsaken Maze Dungeon.” Maya tilted her head before pausing for a moment. “Wait, isn’t that the place you blew up and almost killed us while doing so?”

“Yup.” She just nodded.

“Woah, we really are close to home!”

“Why did you blow up a dungeon?” Ari had a hard time keeping up with her.

“I was confused, angry, overpowered, and not in full control of my magic.” The tiger shrugged in return before glancing at Anna. “See? Not always confused!”

“Sure.” The princess rolled her eyes.

"I remember you being confused about Canir, though." Maya just had to do it.

"Shush!"

“What is there to explore if it got blown up, though?” The jaguar was still a little confused about the situation.

“Steph wants to explore the crater.” Sophia smiled at her. “She likes holes, after all.”

“Who doesn’t?!” The dog-girl raised her voice.

“Fair enough.” No one could say anything there.

“I remember mom and dad mentioning that people started excavating magic ores out of the crater when they traveled past it, so I’m actually quite curious about what it turned into.” Maya nodded a few times.

“How do you explode something so hard that magic ores form in the process?!” Anna got loud. “They’re supposed to be rare!”

“To be fair, there also were a bunch of crystals under Sophia’s cherry blossom forest in her domain, so she has a talent for creating them.” Chloe smiled at the princess.

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“Hmm, I guess so.”

“My domain is one thing, especially because I used many times my magic at once to create that forest, but I doubt it was my fault that those ores came into existence.” The blonde shook her head before looking at Anna. “It doesn’t say here, but that dungeon was made by Canir. There’s like a 98% chance that he did something leading to the ores because he thought it would be funny.”

“I can see that happening.” Fen thought about it for a second. “Hmm, that would also explain why the explosion back then was that massive. Sure, you idiot used all of your magic at once back then, but it still ended up being bigger than I had anticipated as we barely made it out of the blast radius.”

“I might need to have another chat with Canir about this~.” Sophia cracked her knuckles while saying so.

“Let’s get going already!” Steph clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention because she had enough of the chatter.

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“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” The group made it to the explosion side in just a couple of minutes, and Ari looked at the blonde with an open mouth once she realized just how big the destruction was.

They were looking at a crater about ten to 15 kilometers in diameter. It was rather hard to guess the exact size, as it just kept going and going, many hundreds of meters deep in the very center. Here and there, some sparkling rocks could be seen, but it was mostly just a plethora of brown and grey debris scattered everywhere.

Looking a little closer, a couple of paths, a few tents, digging equipment, and a couple of people working along the side of the crater, all the way to the bottom, could be made out. They seemed to be putting some of the sparkling stones into boxes, as well.

“To be fair, it’s a lot smaller than the explosion Fenny and I caused together.” Sophia awkwardly scratched her cheek. “This one here just looks worse because we haven’t turned it into a pretty lake.”

“That’s so not the point.” The jaguar shook her head.

“I was upset here, okay?” She just stared at her. “We explored an incredibly stupid dungeon filled with slimes, foul-smelling zombies, massive SPIDERS, ghosts, and other stuff, just to find the final floor to be empty with there only being a sign made by Canir on which he called us idiots and actively mocked us, as well!”

“That’s not a reason to change the map of the kingdom, though!” Ari shook her head.

“MASSIVE. SPIDERS!” The blonde repeated herself. “They were half the size of me!”

“The demon continent will be a lot of fun~.” Aura let out a small chuckle while listening to her.

“What was that?!”

“Nothing.” The wolf then shook her head while looking back at Sophia.

“There really seems to be a lot of magic ores, huh?” Anna kept focusing on the crater and intently watched all the people excavating all sorts of colorful and sparkly-looking rocks.

“Don't the ones in the very center look somewhat familiar?” Chloe lightly strained her eyes while pointing at the deepest part of the crater, where a massive cluster of translucent light pink crystals could be found. They seemed to be sectioned off by wooden fences colored in a bright red color for some reason, as well.

“They look like the ones under Sophia’s cherry blossom forest!” The princess nodded a few times. “The ones that suck out your magic and store it for later. I wonder why there are fences around them.”

“Let’s find out!” Steph pointed at a little path near them that was leading down the crater while her tail wagged even more in anticipation.

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Doing as Steph suggested, the group started descending the path on the side of the crater, but didn’t make it far before a few other people around them noticed the peculiar group.

“Ohh, does that mean the letter actually made it to the capital?” Two muscular black-haired cat-men in their forties, covered in dirt with a shovel and pickaxe in their hands, addressed them while mainly focusing on the tigers.

“Letter?” Anna tilted her head. “What is this about?”

“Back when we discovered the massive crater where the abandoned dungeon was last year, we hurried to send a letter to inform the capital. After all, a destruction of this size clearly is something out of the norm, and we thought you might want to investigate it. Then, after monitoring it for a couple of months, we deemed it safe and began investigating the crater. While doing so, we quickly began finding more and more magic ores of all kinds and began excavating them.”

“Ah, I see.” The princess nodded a few times. “To be perfectly honest, we aren’t here because of the letter but rather are just traveling through the kingdom, and this place was on our path.” While she left out some details, it still wasn’t wrong, so the tiger was happy with that. She had learned a lot from Sophia when it came to that.

“You tigers really are the oddest bunch. To just be traveling around like that.” One of the cat-men let out a small chuckle while shrugging. “Not in a bad way, of course. Makes your group as the royal family some great leaders!”

“Hehe.” The tall tiger smiled at him. “Speaking of, I’m Anna, first princess of this beautiful nation. I’m glad to hear that we’re good leaders in your eyes.”

“Gosh darn, I wasn’t expecting such a bigshot!” He scratched his cheek. “For the princess to just roam around is even more impressive!”

“Are you also one of the princesses of the country?” The other cat-man then faced the blonde.

“Nope, I’m Sophia.” She also smiled at him. “I’m just your friendly neighborhood tiger.”

“What does that even mean?” Naturally, he got confused over that.

“Don’t worry about it~.” Her smile only got bigger.

“Well, I guess being part of the tiger family is quite complex, huh?” He had no intention of prodding any further.

Once they finished their introductions and the like, the two cat-men told them a little more about the crater and how they found the first magic ores as they escorted the group further down the hole. After all, they didn’t want to get the tiger princess and the friendly neighborhood tiger hurt or fall down the sides. Ignoring the part where everyone in the group was incomprehensibly stronger than the two.