I looked for the girls until I found them in what you could call a makeshift hut made out of leaves. Probably those elf girls made it, and it seemed that human girl joined them in it. Then I turned my gaze around, seeing the silence in the forest, and I looked at the sky. From what I could tell, it would be dawn soon, and it should be around 4:00-5:00 AM if I were to use Earth standard.
I just kept staring at the sky. When I felt it was time to move, I jumped down and approached Aria's tent, wanting to call her name, but she came out on her own. Then I just said, "Let's go." Maybe due to how she was packing the tent, that huge guy woke up. Then he stood up. I didn't even spare him a glance. As soon as Aria was done, we both took our leave. I didn't know if the huge guy woke the others. I turned back to see all of them stood up, even the elves dismantled their temporary hut.
I just kept moving forward. From the side of my eye, I could see Aria kept glancing at me, so I turned to her and asked with a frown, "What is it?"
And she replied, "Why didn't you kill me?"
I frowned at her question and asked, "Would you rather I kill you? Because if you want, I can easily do that after giving you to those kids to beat the hell out of you. When they're done, I will torture you until every single drop of blood in your body is dried up." I said this with not much expression on my face and just kept looking at her.
She replied, "No, that's not what I want."
Then I said, "Good. You will be of use to me. Since you're probably 25 or 30, you will be able to act as my guardian until I leave this damn place."
I didn't say anything more and just kept moving until it was nighttime again. We spent the same routine of how we slept—I stayed up in the tree, the guys stayed below, the girls stayed together, and Aria stayed in a tent.
Like that, one week passed with us being in the forest. From there, I came to know we seemed to be really deep in the forest because we hadn't come across any magical beasts, and all we ate were fruits from the trees. While Aria used water spells to wash my body and hers, along the way I asked her if she recognized most of the plants. Most of them were poison plants.
I didn't know how strong my regeneration was, and I wanted to test my limits. So during that week, I ate all kinds of poison. Sometimes I got knocked out due to their strong effects; some even made me look like I'd lost all the blood in me. I just kept eating anything Aria knew was considered poison. At first, she warned me; at some point, she gave up because to her, it seemed I was just looking for a way to die. Well, not like I cared. I just kept eating any poison plant I came across.
One had a strong aphrodisiac effect, making my dick rise up. I only looked at Aria and simply shrugged my shoulders. If I wanted to, it would look like I was letting her off the hook easily. I already planned my revenge for her. Just because I didn't let them kill her doesn't mean I would let her off the hook. She would pay for what she did to this body. Honestly, I didn't really care. I would just make her suffer a bit and then see how things went—if I should leave her alive or kill her.
Anyway, currently, we'd been walking since morning. Currently, it was around noon when we heard the sound of running water. We went over there quickly. Then I muttered, "Finally, the first sign of life."
That was my belief since I had already gone on camping trips back on Earth. I know the saying, "Water is life; wherever there's water, there's life," meaning animals tend to come there to drink. So I looked at how far it was. I could see it had an edge, meaning it was probably a waterfall with the water going down.
So I just shrugged my shoulders, started stripping without care for the curious gazes the kids were giving me. They probably thought I was the same age as them due to how my body physique was. Once I was butt naked, I could feel the breeze blowing on my dick, and I shouted in my mind, "God dammit, is this how a 12-year-old's dick should look like? Because all I can see is a grown-ass man's dick dangling like it wants to go to war."
I could hear the girls scream. I just went into the water without turning back. I could feel the cold sensation of the water on my skin. It felt different from the water spells Aria cast all the time. So while washing myself up, I could see she too had gotten into the water but still had her clothes on.
I turned to the girls. I saw them giving me accusing gazes. And the boys, well, they got into the water too. So I just rested back in the water. We had a pool back on Earth in the mansion, so I had simply taught myself how to swim since I couldn't ask one of the maids there how to swim.
I looked into the water and couldn't see any fish in it, probably due to it being a waterfall, and they all got flushed out. I saw the girls getting in the water but occasionally giving me side glances. I simply shrugged my shoulders, stood up, and did a few stretches.
I could feel Aria's curious gaze behind me, so I turned to her and asked, "What is it?"
And she asked, "How old are you really?"
I looked at her and asked, "Is it because of my dick size or what?"
When I mentioned "dick," she stole a glance at my crotch with redness on her face but didn't reply. I just went on and put on my clothes. She also got out of the water.
I didn't ask her to dry me up. I went to the edge of the water, and like I guessed, it was a waterfall. I didn't even turn to look at them. I jumped. I could hear the girls scream. Then I shouted to Aria, "Jump! There's water below!" And she jumped. It was quite high, so it took me almost one minute to land into the water. I sank to the bottom, same with Aria.
I looked around. No fishes. If up there were no fish, then down shouldn't be the case, because there's no way this huge amount of water won't have at least an aquatic magic beast in it. Then I knew something was wrong. It only took me five seconds to process this. Then as soon as I had a clear head, I swam out of the water while the others were just falling inside it.
Then I shouted to Aria, "Something is wrong! We have to get out of the water fast!" I think those kids heard me. Aria had a frown on her face, but she still agreed. We all swam to the shore. As soon as we got to a good distance, I just stood at the front, but not close to the water. Behind us, there was forest, so I just waited.
Aria asked, "Did you sense anything?"
I didn't reply. Then I asked myself, "Was my calculation wrong? No, let's wait a bit longer." I had a frown on my face.
Then all of a sudden, the water started having bubbles. Then I saw what looked like a shark and a crocodile combined, popping its head out of the water. It was probably a magical beast, and from the mana pressure it was pouring out, I knew it was stronger than Aria. It had a few scars on its body, probably claws that looked like those of a wolf, but I didn't care. I knew for a fact that thing would kill us.
And sure enough, as soon as it was out, I could see its full size. That thing was as big as a car, probably the size of a sports car, with a sharp jaw. I didn't know if I should call it a shark or a crocodile. It had blue scales on its body. I could see its upright fin on the back of it, making it more like a shark with legs than a normal crocodile, with the tail that gave off the crocodile vibes.