Chapter 23

With our meal finished and time to spare, Ril lay down beside me to idle the time away.

The hatchling hopped out from my shirt and began to doze off again as well.

This was pretty healing. There was something nice about watching cute things just relaxing like this.

Besides, Ril was in her human form, so sticking close to her made it feel even warmer.

“Ryu, it’s warm today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, the weather is great today.”

“Peee~”

The hatchling chirped as if in agreement.

“Let’s sleep for a bit.”

“In that case, goodnight, Ryu.”

“Peep.”

Goodnight, everyone.

Something felt heavy. It wasn’t that I felt sluggish; it was a physical weight.

Ril was in her human form resting on my arm, and the hatchling was supposed to be on my stomach, so what exactly was the source of this weight?

Shifting my gaze down toward my stomach, I saw an eagle covered in beautiful feathers.

Its crimson plumage was adorned here and there with gold, making it look exquisite. Its tail feathers were long; I could easily imagine it flying with pure elegance if I were to see it in the air.

Was its size about the same as a normal adult eagle?

But where did this guy come from? Why was it on top of me?

I had absolutely no idea.

“Ryu, good morning…”

“Yeah, morning, Ril.”

Ril woke up. She might know something about this guy, so I decided to ask.

“Ril, what is this thing on my stomach?”

“What do you mean? It’s that hatchling. It’s already grown this big.”

By hatchling, she meant the one I picked up? That tiny little thing became this size while we were napping!?

“When you say ‘grown,’ this is way too fast…”

“It probably ate your magic power. That’s why it grew so quickly.”

It ate my magic? And grew this much because of it? I was clearly asleep, though?

“I really don’t understand monster ecology.”

“Is that so? I always thought monsters were beings that just kept evolving to become stronger.”

So the source of that power is magic. What even is magic power?

No matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t really get it, but it was surely something important.

And that mysterious energy was inside of me. In massive quantities, at that.

“It’s not like it’s particularly harmful, so shouldn’t it be fine to just leave it be?”

Ril wrapped up the conversation like that, and for now, I figured she was right. I’d try asking someone about it eventually.

Perhaps our talking was too noisy, because the bird that used to be a hatchling woke up too.

“Morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Peep!”

With a shake of its head, it hopped down to the ground.

The sun was already beginning to set.

“Sorry to make you move right after waking up, but shall we go procure some dinner?”

“Okay~”

“Peep!”

And so, we set off to climb the mountain once more in search of prey.