While Daimon used blink to advance towards the small series of island he saw earlier, he remembered the bracelet the Greenwich sage created which was linked to the integrity of the ruin.
"Mm?", without stopping advancing, Daimon raised an eyebrow after seeing the current advance on the decay of the integrity, in a rough calculation about five hours had passed since he entered the ruin.
And yet the red part of the first day hasn't moved at all, or the advance might be too small to be noticeable.
'Could it be that the time here flows differently compared to the outside world', thought Daimon.
There had been such cases before, ruins in which a day inside is only half a day outside, but those ruins could only be accessed by Arch ranks and most of the ones who ventured inside would most likely die.
"Time altered ruin… this keeps on getting better and better with each minute", he mumbled before he accelerated.
If that was the case, not only the difficulty of this ruins was bound to be pretty high, they would need to survive more time than what they expected, so finding the rest was a must.
About an hour later, Daimon finally caught a glimpse at the islands up-close, most of them were small sand banks without anything besides some vegetation, but there were a couple who were big enough to contain a jungle as well as some mountains.
One of those two was the one from where he saw smoke coming from before, but now the smoke was gone without any trace, as if it was purposedly done.
Daimon's nose wrinkled a couple of times, with his sharp smelling sense it wasn't too hard for him to detect a hint of iron in the air, but again it was disguised.
So, it was less likely to be one of those creatures, and more probably one of the participants of the exploration, which to be honest meant no change for Daimon.
He descended on the shore of the island and then scanned it with his mana sense.
"Damn", Daimon couldn't help but swear as he rushed into the jungle, after avoiding a trap which was set on the ground, he approached a cave but stopped outside knowing that if he entered, he would be bombarded with long range spells.
"It's me, are you three okay?".
… "How does my mind projection look like?".
Daimon let out a sigh of relief, listening to Yvonne finally answering.
"Basically, you but with a witch's hat for some reason".
"You can come in".
Daimon entered the cave and was welcomed by the sight of the three Risha sisters, sitting on the ground with tired expressions, the one who looked worse was Liliana, she had bags under her eyes and her face was pale.
Unlike her usual pale skin tone caused by her ice affinity, something she had in common with Elaine, right now it looked unnatural and sick, it was clear she overexerted herself.
Daimon took out the potions the academy gave them and handed them to Yvonne and the others.
He could hear their stomachs making small noises, which made them blush, Daimon chuckled and then took out some food from his inventory, making it look like he had them in his storage ring.
While the girls were curious as to how Daimon contrabanded food from the outside, right now they didn't care.
"Thanks", after thanking Daimon, the three of them immediately dug in.
Daimon saw them devouring the food like hungry ghosts and he sat down in front of them, before he took out water for them.
"Take it easy, once you finish eating then I want you to tell me what could have happened that brought you to this state in a day or two".
The Risha sisters slowed down but without stopping eating their food, they all said.
"It's been nearly a month since we arrived here".
Daimon who was drinking water nearly choked with it, he looked at the Risha sisters and noticed they looked at him with slightly ashamed expressions.
He didn't pay too much attention before, but they were quite untidied right now, their hair was disheveled and although they were clean, their clothes had signs of battle, like small cuts here and there.
"… Enjoy your food, we'll talk later, tell me when you are finished", it's all what he said before he left the cave to stand on guard.
Judging by the fact that they hid themselves like this, it was obvious they were running away from something, which was surprising considering once he reached here, he used his mana sense to look for any nearby islands and there was nothing in 1500 kilometers around.
After a couple of minutes Daimon's ears caught the characteristic sound of clothes falling to the ground, it was very low and while others wouldn't notice it, after eight years living with the girls, he was used to it.
"We are okay now", this time Leslie was the one who called him.
Daimon entered the cave again and as he expected, they were now wearing a new set of clothes they even combed their hair, that as well as the food and probably the fact that Daimon was with them now, helped their nerves which were stiff relax, making them look less stressed.
Daimon saw Leslie holding Liliana's hand, small sparks appeared from time to time as well as some steam.
He sat down near them and then waited for them to tell what happened.
"I guess the first thing you should know about this place, is that there are Lord level beings, that's why we ended in such a state to begin with", mumbled Yvonne.
…
For the next hour or so, Yvonne and the others told Daimon what they have experienced in the past month inside the ruin.
Apparently, they appeared not too far from each other and were able to gather without meeting any of those creatures Daimon has fought, with Liliana using her ice to create a path on the ocean, they were able to advance without any problem.
Fishing for food when they were hungry and things like that, until one day when they stopped in an island which had a river to take a bath, they finally bumped into one of those creatures.
Unlike the one Daimon fought, that one had a leg while the rest of its body was only bones, and it was about the fourth star ranked realm, after realizing that Yvonne's darkness didn't affect it, Leslie used her fire to attack the creature and the result was pretty good.
After killing the creature, they continued minding their own business and then left, from that point onwards they were ambushed by more of those creatures, at any mass of land one of those creatures was always waiting for them, then the number increased and after they defeated the tenth, things changed.
This time they were attacked while they were at the sea, a whole ship suddenly appeared from below the water, then dozens of those creatures led by one which had legs and one arm, attacked them.
The normal creatures were still manageable, but once the one leading joined the fight, Leslie had no option but to use her legacy spell, to push it back, her attacks didn't seriously wound it, but the creature was wary enough of her fire, to not directly attack them.
But the creature was just playing with them, after receiving and enduring a burn due to Leslie's flames, the creature jumped towards her and punched Liliana sending her flying backwards.
But when she got up, she realized there was no wound, if that hit landed then Liliana would have died, so the talisman activated protecting her.
Then Liliana used all her mana to imprison the whole ship and then created a small flat structure of ice, which she controlled to get some distance and rest, for some reason the Lord realm creature couldn't set a foot in the land, but the others could so from that point onwards, they were followed and attacked every day.
The lord ranked creature had the ability to sink the islands in which they hid, so they had no option but to keep on moving, hiding and fighting when it was necessary.
At some point, Yvonne acted as a shield since her darkness was harmless for the creatures, needless to say but her talisman activated too.
That was a week ago and today Leslie's talisman activated, but before its effect wore off, she who was the last one with the talisman, managed to feel Daimon's approximate location, and convinced her sisters to go look for him.
Luckily, they found this series of small islands and hid to rest, Liliana was the one who endured the most, since her ice was the best for defense among them, she overexerted her mana to protect Yvonne and Leslie.
And she collapsed in the middle of the battle, Yvonne then used her own body as a shield to block attacks directed at Liliana, she then grabbed Leslie and jumped to the sea, somehow, she managed to hide from them and then sneaked into one of the many small islands.
Unfortunately, they were attacked once again, and after a month of constant battles and little rest, they finally couldn't hold the line, Leslie used her wings one last time to attack the Lord level creature forcing it to retreat, but they had no energy left to flee.
That's why they set up a trap and prepared to fight for their lives, since the talisman already wore off, Leslie couldn't feel Daimon's approximate position anymore, that's why they used the bonfire to create a smoke signal.
The creatures already knew they were there anyway, so the smoke was used to get his attention, and their bet paid off.
As for why Leslie was holding Liliana's hand, it was because she used way too much mana and her body got a recoil due to that, so now her temperature decreased to dangerous levels, so Leslie helped her to warm up a bit.
Daimon didn't know what to say, as their story progressed, he couldn't help but nod in recognition, these three as two-star mages (thanks to they breaking through before entering the ruin) managed to hold back a Lord level monster, it was praise worthy.
And what's more they did it for a whole month, eating poorly, resting poorly and watching each other back.
Daimon suddenly frowned; his mana sense caught the strange scene of a ship emerging from below the water near the island.
He stood up but before he could leave the cave, the three girls also stood up, slowly but firmly.
"We will never be useless again, if you are going to fight, we'll go too!", said the three of them.
To their surprise Daimon nodded.
"Fine, come too, but to be honest I don't think you'll get the chance to do anything", after saying that, Daimon turned around and walked towards the shore, from the very beginning when he arrived, despite their tired and haggard appearances, the three of them didn't show any fear, instead of that they were ready to fight, and that's something he respected.
Not giving up in front of adversities might sound easy, but how many can truly look at an imminent death situation and still be prepared to fight.
