Chapter 234 - Almost alone in the jungle (5) (1/2)
Another two months passed, during the time Mars and 78 trained 78's swordsmanship every day and she improved at a rapid pace, especially after Mars made her a two-handed sword out of bone of course, currently the two of them were training on the jungle floor, Mars blocked 78's slashes with his claws and acted rather leisurely but a faint trace of sweat on his forehead showed 78 massive improvement over the last two months. While Mars blocked another fierce overhead slash his thoughts drifted for a moment, after spending two months with 78 he had learned more about her temperament, basically she was like a big dog that thought it was still a puppy, she would cling to Mars for no apparent reason and act like a spoiled child at other times, but who could really blame her lack of social skills, she had after all been put into a tank at age five and experimented on for about 20 years before Kerbal collapsed, after that she spent who knows how many years alone in the tank
”You're open Mars!”
Mars snapped out of his thoughts and dogged to the side before she closed in on 78 and gave her a small flick on the forehead
”Naive”
”Ouch! Mars it hurts!”
78 kneeled down and held her forehead where Mars had flicked her with tears in the corner of her eyes
”Yeah yeah, sorry... Come on how long are you going to sulk?”
”I'm not sulking!”
78 sent out a slash from her kneeling position and almost hit Mars' legs, Mars gave a sigh and sat down on the jungle floor
”Let's take a break”
”Humph...”
78 turned her head away with a pout on her face, Mars gave a sigh he knew that when 78 got like this it was best just to wait a little bit and watch an amusing sight in the meantime, it all usually started with 78's tail that would begin to move a little before eventually the pout on her face would disappear and be replaced with a distressed expression as she thought
'Oh no... what if he hates me now?'
gradually the thought grew in her head and eventually she turned around and looked at Mars with a teary face and asked in a shaking voice
”Mars... Do you hate me now?”
”hmm...”
Mars looked like he was thinking really hard which only made 78 more distressed before eventually he made it look like he just arrive at an important conclusion before he spoke
”no I don't hate you 78”
78's face gradually turned more teary before she quickly crawled over and clung to him for sometime until she calmed down again
'She really is just like a child... Well I guess that what would happen when you put a five year old into a tank, their emotional development halts...'
Mars silently shook his head before suddenly he looked to his right for a few moments and gave a smile, he had detected a group of people trekking through the jungle, they looked like high class hunters. They each carried at least one weapon and were of all the three main races, the group consisted of two elves, one human, two beastmen and one demon a total of six
”Well would you look at that... looks like we need to sleep outside tonight”
78 looked up at Mars before she wiped her tears and asked
”Why do we need to sleep outside?”
”Because we are following a group of hunters, hopefully they can show us the way to civilization”
”...Are we leaving the jungle Mars?”
”Yeah we need to start our long journey home”
78 looked at him with wonder for a few seconds before she asked
”Can I come too?”
Mars looked down and saw a pair of uneasy eyes and gave a sigh before he patted 78 on the head
”Of course you can”
78 gave a big smile before she once again hugged Mars tight and so for the next few days Mars and 78 discreetly followed after the group of hunters that were blissfully unaware that a living god and a former human experiment was using them as a GPS to find some semblance of civilization. For the first three days the group of hunters moved further into the jungle but after they made a kill on a relatively high class magic beast they turned around caring as much of the materials and of course the magic beast core with them out of the jungle, but after walking for 5 days they still were not out of the jungle and that's when their luck ran out as they ran into a pack of wolves like the ones Mars had fought when he first arrived in the jungle