“I will go first….” Yuki decided it was best that she went first. While Nana might have a sturdier body, she had the best chance of escaping with her speed and agility if it turned out that a demonic beast was inside.

As Yuki stepped into the cave, she sniffed the air. Her nose wrinkled as she motioned for the others to stop. She slowly backed up a few steps, and just as she did, two yellow eyes appeared in front of her as a large black head shot toward her. Yuki was not unfamiliar with such a beast. She quickly jumped up and spun her body around as the large head passed underneath her. She landed on the head of the large snake as the two passed through the entrance of the cave and out into the rain.

The tail of the large black scaled snake swept toward Yuki, trying to knock her off, but Yuki only jumped into the air and did a flip as the tail swept by before landing back on top of the head.

“An earth snake!” Ami cried out in surprise. An earth snake was a snake that had properties of earth element which caused them to be very hard to kill as their scales were harder than metal! “Yuki, quickly escape. This is a rank three demonic beast!”

Yuki ignored Ami as she would never let go of good food. Not only would they get a place to sleep, but they could also get a filling meal in the process. With her broken sword in hand, Yuki dodged the tail that was swiping at her once more before stabbing her broken sword into one of the snake's eyes. This caused the snake to thrash wildly as it let out a loud roar of pain.

This was Nana’s cue as she charged forward. As the snake raised its head, trying to shake Yuki off, she jumped into the air and raised her sword over her head before slashing down, sinking her blade deep into the snake's body and slicing a long gash all the way to the ground.

The snake let out another pained roar as its huge body collapsed on the ground. Yuki jumped off the head of the snake and looked at Nana, and nodded her head. Nana nodded back. The two girls then silently began carving up the snake, trying to get the meat out. Ami watched the two girls go to work in a daze. A rank three demonic beast died just like that to these two.

This was not a feat one could do easily! But these two, with their combined teamwork, easily took it down like it was just some random prey. And now they were happily carving it up! At least Ami could only guess they were happy because there was no emotion on their faces at all. Luckily it was raining, or else these two would be covered in blood from head to toe for the rest of the three months.

The crackling of a fire could be heard within a small cave. Luckily for the girls, the cave tunnel turned to the right giving cover from the wind that entered. The fire lit up only their immediate surroundings, which made it so that those who might find the cave could see nothing but darkness from the outside.

All four girls had stripped down to their inner wear, which was still wet but better than wearing robes that were soaking wet. They had laid them out to dry by the fire. Yuki was busy cooking snake meat while Ami and Ai chatted with one another. Nana was leaning against Yuki’s back with her eyes closed.

“It kind of sucks that this place did not have some rare herb or something in it,” Ami complained. “I mean, you hear stories all the time where people find a cave and fight the demonic beast inside who was protecting some thousand year old herb.”

“Hahaha! Ami, you can't expect something like that in the outer ring. Such a herb would have been long discovered, right Yuki?” Ai was trying to force Yuki into the conversation. Yuki turned and looked at Ai and nodded her head. She also felt the same. There would be no way such a herb would be this close to the edge of the forest and not be found a long time ago.

“See!” Ai smugly replied.

“You all have no romance! I mean, think about how amazing it would be if that were to happen!” Ami pouted. She felt it was only right to have dreams of finding some ancient herb that could boost her cultivation and make her super powerful all in one go.

“That is not romance, that is just greed.” Ai teased, making Ami’s cheeks grow even puffier.

Yuki looked at the two girls bickering as if they were good friends, and remembered how she and Chi used to joke around. She wondered if Chi was still alive. And if she was, if she was not being abused or used in unspeakable ways.

“Yuki?” Nana whispered. She could feel Yuki’s mood getting slightly gloomy.

Yuki shook her head and leaned her head back against Nana’s. In a low voice, she answered: “It’s nothing.”

Nana did not push it, but she knew that Yuki must have gone through something similar to her own experiences. As someone who had lived through a lot herself, she could tell. She could also sense that Ami had her share of issues too. The only one she could see to have no issues from birth was Ai. You could say she was quite sensitive to this kind of aura that came off people who had a hard time.

While the girls were eating and chatting in the middle of a downpour, Kenji was in another location, huddled under a tree. “Fuck! That fucking Ryu.”