We spent the rest of the day—or what I thought was one day—navigating through the forest’s twists and turns, trying to find the correct path that would finally lead us to its end. The complete absence of daylight was confusing.

I was a creature of habit, and it was difficult for me to eat when I got hungry and sleep when I got tired. I normally had breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, and dinner in the afternoon.

In the sunless forest, however, these words no longer held any meaning and I found myself disoriented at times. Thankfully, Kai didn’t seem to mind it at all, and so I followed his cue when it came to eating and taking breaks.

The correct path from the first intersection to the one that we were currently investigating was a two-hour walk and there was no sign of the forest becoming more or less dense. The amount and types of trees were the same everywhere, as were the floating lights on all of the different paths.

Kai and Adel spent more time talking to each other than with me but I didn’t mind it at all. It was good for them, as both had wounds to heal. Kai shared some of his favorite stories from books of tales and legends, while Adel shared his theories on how the forest worked and how big it might be. For a moment, it felt as if everything that took place yesterday was part of a nightmare that never actually happened.

I would never kid myself into believing that everything was fine and that we wouldn’t need to address it all at some point, but I thought it could wait until after our quest was over. We had a lot of mending and rebuilding to do.

Even though Adel was talking to Kai in exactly the same way he had while we were all still living in Nara, I noticed that he barely looked at him. Kai’s voice had not changed at all compared to that of the boy we grew up with. But the last time Kai had this skin color was when The Divine killed Adel’s parents through him.

I could tell Adel had forgiven Kai but I could also see that it was hard for him to forget. Regardless of how relaxed and talkative he wanted to appear, his hands always moved inadvertently around the pommels of his two swords. He had a lot of rage in him and, since he could not take it out on Kai, it seemed that he didn’t know what to do with it.

I wanted to create something that would represent my apology physically. Something that would protect him, and perhaps temper his anger. Wielding those two archangel longswords was so reminiscent of the vengeful angels.

Even though he was probably very effective at using them, it was not how I pictured him. I had just the item to help temper his wrath.

“Let’s take a break so I can go downstairs,” I said, while Kai and Adel were walking in front of me, lost in their conversation.

“Did something happen?” asked Kai.

“No,” I replied, and took the chest off of Adel’s back. “I just want to craft something, and I think you can handle yourselves for a while.”

“Sure we can,” Kai said, as I opened the chest and stepped in with one foot. “How will we know when you’re done?”

“If you take a break in two hours or so,” I said, as I started walking down the chest, “I should be finished.”

“Okay,” Kai said. “See you then.”

“She’s crafting magical items?” Adel asked.

“She can craft unbelievable things—” was the last thing I heard before I closed the door at the top of the stairs.

Being in the chest while somebody else carried it felt odd, but only when I thought about it. I couldn’t actually tell if the chest was moving at all. Everything looked perfectly normal. But knowing I would be in a different place when I got out later was weirding me out.

I wasted no time in retrieving the item I wanted to enchant and give to Adel as a gift. I opened one of the equipment closets in the small room we used as storage and retrieved a heavily ornamented shield.

Name : Shield of Hexa-Enchantment

Type : Shield

Rarity : C Grade

Physical Defense : 166

MP Increment : 0

Durability : 2200/2200

Weight : 1830st.

Description : A shield created with the utmost care to provide proper defense against physical and magical attacks without breaking as well as able to hold six enchantments, regardless of their magnitude. The shield was crafted in the bowels of Fjalhun by master-crafters who are disciples of the God of the Gorge.

I had acquired this piece back when we were living on the outskirts of the jungle city of Yubna, and it had cost me quite a lot of minor magical items, even though it had no enchantments on it. But even without looking at its description I could tell that the shield had a lot of potential.

Its shape resembled a diamond, though it looked more like one of the house crests we usually saw illustrated in books. The outline of the shield was made of gold while its body was a deep purple color. Multiple lines of gold ran through the shield in a symmetrical fashion, and there were five slots for gems or precious stones with an additional giant slot in the middle.

The reason I hadn’t yet enchanted the shield was because up to now, I had found no use for it. But I knew that its masterful build and the numerous gem slots would turn it into an amazing piece of protective gear and that was why I didn’t want to sell it.

Adel was still a few levels away from getting C-grade mastery at level forty, but I was sure it would not take him too long to get there. And having a good C-grade shield waiting for him might just make him change his fighting style.

I cleared the large table we normally used for reading and laid the shield on top of it. Then, I picked a piece of paper and started writing down all of the protective enchantments I wanted the shield to have.

The list grew quite long rather fast and I realized that I would need to prioritize the enchantments and see whether I had all the materials needed. It was complicated work, but this was exactly what I liked about crafting.

All the different and rare components, interacting with each other to create an item as unique as the person who was going to use it. For this reason, I wanted this shield to be more unique than anything I had ever created.