Teanam
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Chapter 040
🕑 Added 2023-09-26 18:43:37 +0000 UTC---
Chapter 040
Roughly two weeks passed since the girls built their very own private hot spring inside Sophia's dimension, and they had used it every single day since then. It was a more than welcome way to end their day after a lot of walking around in the normal world and going crazy with their biomes in the domain.
“I’m not sure if I want to see it…” Everyone except Mira and Fey were together in the cottage’s living room when Sophia shook her head a couple of times. “We’re so close to reaching Checko, so we should keep the surprises low to not get overstimulated. I could already sense it on my detection magic, too!”
“We’re close to reaching what now?” Ari looked confused.
“The city on the list of places Menzor wants us to visit.” She looked at her. “It was Checko, right? If not, it was basically the same, just with a different letter or so. Cut me some slack!"
“…” The jaguar paused for a moment. “It’s Sava…”
“See! Basically the same!”
“There’s not a single letter in there that’s the same!” She raised her voice. “The number of letters is different, too!”
“But both are cities with names made out of letters!”
“What else should they be made of?!”
“Stuff!” Sophia ran out of arguments, not that she ever had any in the first place.
"Maya, we'll take her to a doctor once we're in Sava. "She's good at using healing magic, and we also have some sort of proficiency in it, but I think she needs to see a professional. Something's wrong with her brain."
“I’ve been saying that for a long time already.” The cat-girl nodded.
“Hey!” The blonde started pouting. “I’m just a little bad with names!”
“There are limits to that!” The duo disagreed with her.
“Anyway!” Sophia decided to change the topic. "Steph, I'm not sure I'm ready to see your biome yet. I think we should do it another year… err, time, I mean.”
“You do know that if you give me a year, the glorious eternal arctic ice kingdom of the permafrozen tundra will have reached the cottage without your intervention?”
“…” The short tiger went silent. “Did the name get even fancier again?”
“And it got this fancy after just a week!” Her expression turned smug while she smirked at her sister. “Imagine how many adjectives there will be in a year~!”
“Urgh.” She hung her head in return. “I guess it’s really worse to wait here.” She gave up.
“Let’s go!”
“Should we take a look at my pine wonderland afterward?” Aura looked at her. “It's not the warmest place, either, because pines work better in temperate conditions, but it's far from actually being cold, and I'm really proud of how it turned out!"
“If I survive Steph’s hellscape, I’d love to see that!” The blonde wasn’t very hopeful about her future. “Let’s get over with it.”
“Do we have to come, too…?” Maya and the royal couple also weren’t overly enthusiastic about it.
“Yes!”
Afterward, as there was no getting around it, the group followed the excited-looking dog-girl through one of the portals in front of the cottage.
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“Alright, time to leave!” Exactly 0.5 seconds after they arrived in Steph’s biome, Sophia immediately turned around again.
“Not so fast!” Her little sister grabbed her hand to stop her.
“B-But!” The blonde used her free hand to point all around her. “We just escaped snow hell in the capital, I don’t want to be back!” There wasn’t much vegetation, mostly some scattered pine, fir, and spruce trees together with some bushes, but each of the trees was still a few hundred meters high. This wasn't the issue she was having, though. As far as she could look, the entire area was covered in a thick layer of snow, which seemed to be around a full meter deep. Obviously, thanks to that, the temperature was far from ideal for the cat, too.
“I agree.” Ari, Anna, and Maya, the other cats, felt the same as they nodded along with the shorter tiger.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?!” Chloe didn’t have the same opinion as the cats.
“Look, I agree that it looks very nice around here, snow is quite pretty, after all.” Sophia could admit to that much. “Even so, I don’t enjoy being cold, so this place isn’t for me! No matter how impressive it might be!”
“The cold is so great, though!”
“Fen!” Instead of bickering with her sister, the blonde faced the wolf. “I have a request.”
“Oh, I think I like that expression.” He was a fan of the mischievous grin she was having.
"I'm sure you'll enjoy this." She gave him a thumbs up. "When we acquired the hot springs, I found out that you are quite the volcano enthusiast.”
You can say that again!” He reacted with a big nod.
“Okay, how about I give you a little task?” Sophia smiled at him. “You still haven’t started your own biome yet, right?”
“You’re not asking me to make a volcano, aren’t you?!”
“Not a good idea?”
“To borrow the catchphrase of our dog, let’s go!” Fen was a big fan.
"What he said!" Aura sounded just as, if not even more, excited about it. “I want a whole volcanic area!”
“Uhh,” Steph raised her hand. “Where is this going to happen? Not here, right? R-Right?!”
“Volcanoes aren’t uncommon in a tundra~.” Aura’s voice turned smug.
“They totally are!” The dog got loud. “Well, I don’t actually know, but I do know when I’m being teased!”
“Hehe.”
“I leave that decision to our wolves.” Sophia glanced at them. “I’ll give you a portal to wherever you want it to happen.”
“Hmm~.” Sounding even more smug, the couple turned to look at Steph.”
“Please! Don’t!” Steph got on her knees. “This place is my baby! I love it and everything about it!”
“Don’t worry~.” The female wolf liked to tease, but she had no intention of being cruel. “Though, I want to please our dear owner of this place too. Sophia, please give us some space between here and the jungle. Fenny and I will ensure that the winter wonderland won't get too close to the main area.”
“I can live with that!” It was good enough for the blonde.
“I guess that’s fair.” The dog also wasn’t too unhappy with it. “I wonder if I can overwhelm lava with ice?”
“Try it~.” Aura took the challenge. “Don’t go and complain if I try and find out how much snow lava can melt at once afterward.”
"By the way," Having mixed feelings about where that rivalry would end up in, Sophia changed the topic. "How did you even manage to make all that snow and stuff?" She pointed all around her. “According to Mira, a high concentration of raw magic naturally warms the place.”
“No idea.” Her little sister just shrugged. “I created a couple of huge ice blocks and started a storm over them using wind-based magic. It turned into a super crazy blizzard and kept going for hours! Afterward, it somehow continued to snow while magic particles in the air also kept increasing for some reason. I don’t know why that happened, but I’m very happy about it!”
“The magic particles increased, huh?” Sophia took a short side-glance at her surroundings.
“Yeah!” Steph nodded. "Even magic knows what's good and fun, after all!"
“Ahaha." The blonde scratched her cheek, knowing it was probably exactly that.
“Should we head to my pine forest now?” The female wolf got closer to Sophia. “It’s amazing there and you’ll love the smell!”
“Anything to get out of this freezing hell!” The blonde was a big fan of the plan. “Sounds fun, too!”
Wanting to leave the cold as quickly as possible, all the cats immediately stepped through the portal, followed by the wolves and then by Chloe and Steph, who sighed while doing so.
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“There we are!” Sounding incredibly proud, Aura stood in front of the group as she gestured around while her tail was wagging in a way that could almost rival Steph’s constant wagging full of energy. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?!” The girls, and Fen, found themselves in a forest with nothing but pine trees as far as the eye could reach. Each tree was around 200 meters high, and it seemed like there were thousands of them. The ground was dry and littered with dead pinecones and needles, covering everything in a brown layer making crunchy sounds as one walked through the place. This wasn't the most important part of the forest, though.
“The smell!” Sophia’s eyes started sparkling as she sniffed around. “This is the best! You definitely weren’t kidding when you said you'll make the best-smelling forest!"
“Yes!” Everyone else agreed with her.
“Good job!” The blonde praised her again.
“Ehehe~.” Aura seemed genuinely happy about it.
“I have terrible news for you, though.” Sophia then faced her sister while slowly shaking her head.
“Huh?”
“You lost the contest.”
“What contest?!” She got confused.
“For the best biome project!” The short tiger started smiling. “Ignoring my cat-brain and objectively speaking, the winter wonder hell… err, land you made looks great and is beautifully crafted, but it can't beat the beast-smelling forest in existence. The place here itself looks immaculate, too."
"…" Steph had nothing to say. Her dog nose being extra sensitive, causing her tail to wag even more than usual ever since first smelling the place, didn't help, either.
“He.” Aura only got even more smug.
Afterward, the group continued to enjoy the forest and smell for a good while longer before eventually heading back to the cottage.
Comments
Virnor
Fresh delivery! 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Teanam
I'm not big on mint, but otherwise I very much agree~
Martynas Samsonas
I can totally approve of Auras pine forest. Pine, mint, freshly cut wood and freshly cut grass after rain, are my top 4. With Pine and mint competing for first place
