"Are you ready?"

There wasn't any need for excessive luggage. With how most of our wealth was in form of the hut that I created along with some basic furniture for it if we wanted to travel anything, all we really had to take with us were our weapons of choice, a bit of food for the leisure - given how immortals like us didn't need to think about this very basic need of the mortal bodies - and two or three sets of clothes in order to break up the daily routine of constantly wearing the same things.

"With you? Always. Celia, are you sure you don't want to join us?"

In reality, the most important aspect of going to that immortal city was about allowing Celleria to advance to the immortal rank. Given how she lost her immortal blood that she was born with thanks to the bastard father of hers, venturing to that city seemed like the most obvious choice for someone in her situation.

Sadly, she decided against joining during our first journey. According to Makay's words, during our first visit, we would have to deal with quite a lot of paperwork for some kind of immortals' organisation to acknowledge our existence, so due to how quick we intended to go back to our home, there might not be enough time for Eve's stepsister to actually go through the advance ritual.

In reality, though, I was pretty sure that her refusal steemed from how hurt she felt with my refusal to fuck her. Given how the entire situation was arranged by her very own sister, it was clear that she held some grudge about betraying her expectations, making it way harder to actually help her advance. In the end, if I wanted to get the burden of taking care of this faraway part of my joint family, I had to prepare the grounds for her ritual myself!

"Guys, can you stop stalling? While we don't have any set time when we have to arrive, I would like to avoid travelling through the dangerous grounds through the night. While I do not doubt that you guys are capable of defending themselves, there is no point in taking an unnecessary risk for no damned reason!"

Seeing how long it was taking the two of us to actually pick those light bags that we took with us and actually let the Makay start guiding us toward that elusive city, it was no wonder that he was slowly turning annoyed by the situation. If I were in his shoes…

No, I would never allow for this world to put me in a situation where I would have to wait for anyone but Eve or the kid that sooner or later would be born from her belly. For me, only the direct family of mine was important enough to warrant any wait, and with how the only family that the two of us had right now was the presence of each other unless Eve announced that she was ready to depart, I couldn't care less about Makay's nagging.

"Yeah, yeah. Stop being a prick. We can go now."

Clearly dissatisfied with how Makay dared to actually hurry us up, Eve responded with an irritated tone, with her entire body tensing up. Catching her hand, I had to actually keep her close for the entire initial part of the journey before her muscles finally relaxed, indicating that the passing bout of fury caused by the self-centred personality of Makay would finally be over.

Only by the evening did I understood what Makay meant when trying to start the journey earlier than later. As soon as we departed from the area where our house was, the three of us instantly crossed the barrier and entered the area where I liked to hunt for the monsters. But instead of stopping there and using some kind of artefact to travel, Makay actually forced the two of us to keep running for several hours straight without even a short moment of rest!

While I couldn't complain that my body wasn't able to keep up, nor that would be the case for Eve, given how there was a small chance that my dearest was actually pregnant, this complete lack of breaks was annoying me to no end. In the end, no matter how powerful one's body was, the breaks weren't meant only for the physical rest, but also for the sake of keeping one's mentality sane.

With all three of us being either real immortals or at the level equal to immortals, running for several hours straight wasn't a problem at all. On the other hand, with how active life I and Eve lived so far, continuing just a single action for the greater part of the entire day was actually pretty boring and soon started to affect our mood!

"Okay, we will take a short rest here."

We actually had to leave the trees behind and enter a huge, empty plateau for the Makay to stop his steps and announce the very first break ever since we started running. Taking a quick look to the back, I got curious about the potential monsters that got him so worried.

Once again relying on my energy vision, I quickly scanned the line of the forest, with a particular doubt still lingering in my mind.

If that forest was actually so full of the monsters that could pose a real threat to such an overpowered party like ours, then what was the reason that stopped those monsters from attacking us en route?

In just a few moments, my energy vision revealed the answer to my first question while only increasing the doubts that I had about the other one. No matter where I cast my sight, powerful auras indicating insane magical energy were visible literally everywhere.

It seemed that it wasn't like the monsters in that forest were particularly dangerous per se, but they were simply pretty annoying to fight with! For Makay, an immortal of either initial or middle stage, huge bulks of positive energy were insanely dangerous. Given how he was trying his absolute best for an extended period of time to get rid of every little hint of magic from his own flesh and blood, killing the monsters that were akin to entire oceans of said energy and allowing for the released force to wash through his self didn't seem like the best choice for someone attempting to get rid of all of it from his entire self!

"Are you sure? Shouldn't we be getting close to the city already?"

Voicing my hint of doubt, I looked in the direction that we were travelling so far. While I couldn't see the line of the buildings, walls or any other direct reason to think that we were anywhere close to the civilised area, I never intended to rely on such useless ways to gauge the distance.

Instead of looking for the concrete proof with my eyes, I preferred to just rely on the fact that I could already see a huge amalgamation of unnatural clouds forming in the horizon, indicating that there was either an insane forest fire the size of entire continent going on just outside of our line of sight, or an actual settlement where fires were aplenty!

"No, we are not that far. If we were to strain ourselves, we could arrive in just a single or two hours. The problem is… The land that we would have to travel through is actually considered to be one of the black areas of the map. As long as we keep close to the line of trees, then no monster should attack us, assuming that we wouldn't be worth the effort. But trust me, as soon as we set foot beyond that small stream…"

Pointing his hand at a barely visible line of water that crossed through the open plain, Makay looked directly into my eyes as if in an attempt to make sure that this important message would be communicated properly.

"... then we will enter the area of monsters that even entire groups of immortals might find troublesome to take down. While it's possible and to a point - easy to avoid them during the night, given how you constantly looked at your girl with that worried look of yours, I just assumed that you wouldn't like to take this unnecessary risk just for the sake of saving a few hours or just because you wanted to take rest in an actual bed!"