"Oh no. This is bad." Rhamn suddenly appeared in his way, forcing Cyril to stop.
With concern she relayed to him a certain piece of news.
"Tsk."
"What's wrong?" Rose turned to him in confusion.
"Tigris is approaching here." Cyril covered his face with a palm and tiredly explained.
"I'll go meet him."
The zoo was dangerous, and he didn't have the heart to let the cub traverse it on his own.
"Anna is too useless, she can't protect him!"
Rose nodded in understanding. She didn't ask how he knew his tiger cub was moving or how he immediately knew which way to go.
To Rose, and many other mages, hiding personal abilities was common sense.
"I'll go with you. You are my research partner after all."
She simply followed after him as he walked in a particular direction.
A red butterfly flew in the air above them, observing the way forward, her flutter somewhat more eager than usual.
Without any interruptions, they soon reached a grassy field.
From the thicket nearby, a white tiger cub hurriedly ran out on all fours, tears streaming down from his blue eyes.
"Ooh, my poor Tigris~"
Rhamn's face quickly lost any anger, and tears glistened in the corner of her eyes as well.
Forgetting any dissatisfaction over his actions, she opened her arms to greet him.
Before they could have a touching reunion, a red blur swooped in from the air, grabbing the crying cat.
"Meow!"
His face growing panicked, Tigris fruitlessly struggled as Morpho took him, flew with him in a circle, and threw him on Cyril's shoulder.
"Meow..."
He could only slowly shake his head, trying to recover from the flight.
Cyril slowly patted him, a subtle smile on his face.
Rose chuckled at the sight, then something caught her attention, her eyes widening.
"...Anna!"
Cyril followed her gaze and discovered the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl quickly walking in their direction.
She clutched her arm. A streak of blood ran from the wound on her forearm, splattering her bracelet and falling to the ground, painting the grass behind her red.
They ran up to her, and Rose quickly cast a healing spell.
However, the wound was still bleeding.
"What?"
"I've tried to heal it already. It doesn't seem to close no matter what I do."
Anna weakly said, her face pale. Strangely, despite such heavy bleeding, she didn't look too concerned.
"What happened? Did some magic creature harm you on the way? What was it?"
Rose quickly replied as she pulled out her notebook.
Her voice was eager and might've seemed concerned to some, but Cyril had enough understanding of her to tell that she was simply excited and curious about what beast could've done that.
Anna went quiet, her gaze subtly moving a little to the side, to Cyril.
"...?"
Before he followed her gaze, Cyril first felt a certain furball on his shoulder twitch, then freeze.
No way...
Cyril slowly looked at Tigris and found the cub hiding his head in his shoulder.
"Tigris."
His voice grew colder, and the white kitten flinched again.
In this exact moment, the wound on Anna's arm stopped bleeding, surprising everyone.
"What?! ...Was it Tigris?"
Rose quickly put two and two together, staring at the cowardly tiger with wonder.
"Yes, it was."
Cyril sighed helplessly.
He turned towards Anna and bowed.
"Sorry, I'll make it up to you."
Anna hastily used a healing spell, a bit of color returning to her face.
"No, no! It's fine. I was too careless. Tigris is still young, it's not his fault."
She mumbled, on her face a slight smile. She looked at the remains of her wound as if at some proud achievement.
What?
"She is not unreasonable." Rhamn nodded in satisfaction.
"We can all agree it was her fault and not Tigris's."
No, we can't.
Cyril shook his head and shot the cat on his shoulder a stern look.
"We'll talk about this later."
The tiger cub still hid his head from him.
Paying him no more attention, Cyril began walking away, promising Anna to escort her towards the shelter.
However.
"Can I go with you? I won't get in your way, honest," she sheepishly asked.
Cyril looked at her in confusion, the wound still present on her arm getting in his sight as well.
"...Sure."
Rose nearby breathed a sigh of relief, scared their wonderful journey would end so soon.
Anna subtly smiled, walking after them with lighter footsteps.
"I still can't quite figure out what's wrong with her. I want to say she fell for your good looks but... I don't know, she gives me the creeps."
We'll see.
...
They've met more magic creatures after this.
At first Rose was cautious with the arrival of Anna, holding back the full extent of her scientific curiosity.
But as they continued on and Anna showed a no intentions of stopping them, she became braver.
So they resumed their experiments fully. Anna would only occasionally throw a pitying glance towards the magic creature in their grasp.
Cyril walked ahead, his experience of the zoo marred a little bit each time the white tiger cub got into his sight.
"At least now we know Tigris's other ability. It's good this happened."
"His claws and fangs leave wounds that can't be closed. Isn't that impressive?"
Rhamn tried her best to control the damage.
He needs to be educated properly. Otherwise he'll grow up into a waste.
Just as Rhamn was pouting, about to offer a rebuttal, her face grew surprised, and she disappeared.
Cyril raised his hand, motioning for his group to stop.
The two girls, already used to such actions, warily glanced around.
Anna slowly cast a spell. The vegetation around them grew imperceptibly bigger, leaning towards them, and hid them.
Soon their ears caught the sound of wings disturbing the wind.
A cry of an eagle rang out above them.
Suddenly in the air flew by a creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle.
"A griffin!" Rose whispered, barely containing her excitement.
Soon after the griffin flew another creature. It was a reptile with wings for its forearms, covered in red scales.
Through its head ran a black streak down to its tail, which ended with a sharp spike.
"Is it a dragon?"
"No, it's clearly a wyvern. Dragons have four legs. Their wings grow separately at the back, and they are way bigger than that." Rose eagerly corrected Anna's mumbling.
"Oh."
"Specifically it's a Lioleus! A fire wyvern that in the past had the title of king of the skies!"
A notebook was already in her hands.
They slowly followed after the winged creatures, eagerly observing. Lioleus and the griffin were engaged in a fight, pursuing each other.
"Is that... somebody on the dra- wyvern's back?" Anna said while squinting as they chased the two creatures.
"...!"
Cyril noticed it ahead of her, almost stumbling in his run.
On the back of the wyvern stood someone he knew.
A girl with was holding onto the red scales, wind rattling her auburn hair.
"Myra!?" Rose noticed too after a moment.
"Why does she get to do that?!"
Morpho flew off Cyril's shoulder, flying with all her might towards the two flying beasts.
Cyril could only helplessly observe her departure, trying to keep up on the ground.
In the sky, Lioleus shot forward, Myra desperately holding on.
The wyvern grabbed the griffin with its claws, and the two began tussling in the air.
A sharp glint shone in Myra's eyes as she held her arm forward, casting a spell.
From the magic circle a sphere of light suddenly hit the griffin, and its huge body flinched.
Lioleus bounced away and hovered in the air, Myra still clinging on.
The griffin struggled, breathing heavily, and slowly lowered to the ground, weakness showing in its eyes.
The red wyvern observed it for a moment and roared, as if declaring its might to the world.
Myra on its back flinched but managed to hold on.
Then, Lioleus's fierce eyes glanced to its back, and it began shaking in the air.
It violently moved left and right, trying to throw off the human.
Myra, with a desperate face, cast another spell, hitting the wyvern point-blank.
But it only flinched for a moment and resumed its violent tussle. Its scales were scratched, with obvious signs of damage from the griffin, yet it still refused to yield.
It was a beautiful sight to behold for Cyril, who could do nothing but observe from the ground.
Can you grow me wings?
"I could try... Though it will probably be unsuccessful, none of the creatures we've seen have satisfying enough wings."
"..."
Suddenly the struggle above intensified. Lioleus roared as it violently flailed around.
Under this assault on her ears, Myra couldn't hold on and was shaken off.
She fell through the sky, her face showing desperation.
Just as she was casting a spell, a red blur, a smaller one, finally caught on to her from the ground.
"...!"
With widened eyes, Myra stared as a butterfly grabbed on to her uniform, desperately preventing her fall.
Surprisingly, her descent slowed down. Despite her fragile looks, Morpho managed to barely hold on to a human's weight.
The two fell to the ground as softly as a feather.
"Thank you, Morpho..." Myra muttered absentmindedly as the butterfly landed on her shoulder and began resting.
With that, Myra turned around, and sure enough, Cyril was walking up to her with a mixed expression.
"That was pretty good," he honestly said, glancing at the disappearing wyvern in the distance.
It didn't pursue the small human, instead retreating to a mountain nearby. Now that it has bested the false king of it, the whole territory belonged to it.
"Damn it... Come back. I want to fly too!" Rhamn weakly reached out, though Lioleus mercilessly ignored her and disappeared completely.
"Heh heh, thank you." Myra scratched her head, offering a sheepish smile.