Morning came, and the sun smiled down on the village. Shin and Bael were up early and had already gathered their things.
They bid farewell to the chief and were on their way, finally approaching their destination.
---
Twenty minutes after Bael and Shin left, a demon girl waltzed into the village. She walked past the guards and went straight into the now lively village.
She carried an axe much, much larger than her small and frail-looking body. She walked like a ghost, mumbling something under her breath.
The villagers did not dare go near her and instead watched from afar. The chief, having heard of this, rushed over.
When he stood in front of her, his large, built body towered over the frail girl.
"Hey there, little one. Are you lost?" the chief asked cautiously, eyeing the massive axe she carried.
He wondered how such a small, frail girl could wield a weapon twice her size. He bent down to touch her shoulder.
When he looked into her eyes, he froze in fear. He felt as if his body could be cleaved clean in two. He backed off and fell onto his back.
The demon girl continued walking through the village as a new sense of dread fell over everyone.
The whole village went silent. It held its breath as the girl took an agonizingly long time to walk out.
Everyone was frozen with fear, not daring to make themselves a target. The girl stopped and cautiously looked around, as if searching for something.
"It seems I was too late. They're already gone," the girl said with a sigh.
She looked up at the sky as a sentence replayed in her mind:
If you fail, little demon, you can kiss any chance you have with him goodbye.
The girl looked down at the ground. Her body shuddered at the mere remembrance of this.
"I'll have to rush to the base of the mountain," she blurted out and jumped into the sky.
She leaped a considerable distance. When she looked down, she saw two figures walking through a sparsely wooded area.
She paid them no heed as she jumped from treetop to treetop in mere moments. It took her about thirty minutes, but she managed to reach the base of the mountain without alerting the two travelers.
She sat at the base of the mountain, looking at her axe.
Just a few minutes longer, and I'll gain our freedom. Just a few more minutes.
She clutched it, holding it close to her body. A small tear dropped from her cold, expressionless eye.
---
Bael and Shin chatted carefree as they marched through the grasslands. Their laughter could be heard from afar.
They made jokes and spoke freely, unwinding from the long trip they had just endured.
They reminisced about the most challenging parts of their journey, with Bael teasing Shin about how he might have died had he not accompanied him.
They chatted like friends who had not seen each other in years, etching their journey into memory.
They neared the base of the mountains, approaching the end of their long journey.