NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 120 – It usually doesn’t involve arson
Fey and Aura started their chase after the female wolf teased her about all sorts of things to get the fox all riled up. Unfortunately, both girls were insanely skilled, a bit paranoid, and also continuously overthought things. Thanks to that, even after hours of zooming through the forest, their chase hadn't advanced in the slightest.
“Wait a moment!” Fey was still speeding through the forest while searching for Aura when she suddenly came to an abrupt and complete stop. “I’m still operating on Sophia’s rules! I wasn’t allowed to destroy her cherry blossoms, but this is just a regular forest in Mira’s place. It doesn’t matter if I get a little wild.” Immediately after, she lifted her right arm, and a pillar of fire shot away from her hand. It burned a ten-meter wide and 500-meter-long trench into the forest and only left ash behind.
She wasn’t done with just that, though. Keeping the flame going, the red-haired girl slowly rotated herself and ended up burning away a perfect circle of a diameter of a kilometer with her in the center of the forest. Looking rather proud of herself, Fey then slowly walked to the edge of the destruction in front of her.
----------------
“W-Woah!” Back on the island, Chloe’s eyes grew wide. “Can you really still call this hide and seek?!”
“Feyfey finally stopped messing around!” Steph lightly clapped her hands. “I don’t know what she was doing the past two hours, but it’s finally closer to our challenges.”
“You two usually play like that!?” The pink fox stared right at her.
"How else are you supposed to play hide-and-seek?" The dog-girl tilted her head.
“It usually doesn’t involve arson!”
“Exactly.” Sophia agreed with her.
“That sounds so boring!” She couldn’t understand the duo. “Hmm?” Steph then looked at her sister. “How did you and Fey play again? The complete destruction of the environment is an integral part of finding someone, after all.”
“It is not!” Chloe and the blonde vehemently shook their heads.
“It sure is.” She disagreed with them once more.
“Anyway, she tracked me normally, I guess? Finding hints of me having been there like broken branches and stuff, as well as following my scent as her nose.”
“And you only held out like a couple more minutes than my record?!” Steph’s expression turned smug. “The world is okay again!”
“Why?!”
“I would hold out a week like that!” She smirked at her sister. "When Fey chases me, she instantly starts a couple of fires to burn away any above-ground hiding spots, and I usually resort to digging tunnels with magic once I run out of forest and hope she doesn't blow up the dirt I'm currently in. You were playing in baby mode!"
“…” Sophia wasn’t sure what to say there. She thought that her chase with the fox was intense, but it appeared that she was wrong about that.
“I like that you and Feyfey are getting along, but I REALLY have my doubts about the intensity of your way of doing things.” Chloe slowly shook her head.
“It’s fine~.” Steph just smiled at her. “Anyway, I’m so glad that my previous time still has some meaning!”
“Grr!” The blonde didn’t like that. “Next time we do the chase, I'll choose a place I don't care about!"
----------------
“Oho!" Narrowly dodging the flaming inferno, Aura stopped at the edge of the still-intact forest and slightly peeked her head out of it to get a glimpse of the pyromaniac fox-girl. “I was wondering when she would finally get serious~.” She was having a lot of fun. “Okay, it’s time to stop with the baiting, huh?”
Having survived the first wave, Aura decided it was time to put a little more distance between them to make sure she didn't get caught up in another fire attack.
“It would’ve been too easy to get her with that, wouldn’t it?” Fey scratched her cheek. “I was a little hopeful to see a slightly charred wolf with a still lightly burning tail. Just like Steph looked like the first couple of times before she learned not to get too close to me.” She took another glance at the burned remains around her. "Well, wishful thinking won't get me anywhere.”
Shrugging once, the fox arrived at the edge of the circle of her destruction, where she raised her arm once more before burning down another significant portion of the forest.
“I wonder if she gets punished by Mira for all this later on~.” Aura had gotten away from the inferno and lightly chuckled to herself. “She’s making quite the mess, after all. Though, knowing Mira, she can probably fix the whole area with a snap of her finger.” The wolf had no doubts it wasn’t an actual issue. “That being said, did we set up an out-of-bounds area? It wouldn’t be hard to get so far away that our dear fox runs out of magic before she gets to me.” She found a slight flaw in their game.
Trying to account for that, Aura decided to change directions and began circling around the inferno to keep everything relatively contained.
“I think I just found a flaw in this.” It seemed like Fey also noticed an issue. "We never agreed on the playing field. She could go on forever, and I'd need to burn down half of Mira's domain to find that wolf.” She scratched her cheek. “Mira’s quite lenient, but I doubt even I would be excused for that much damage. It might be beneficial to narrow down her position a little more before it’s time to get aggressive.”
Saying so, Fey stopped setting the forest in front of her on fire and looked down at the ground. Immediately after, it began to move, and a pillar of dirt shot up to create a platform for her to stand on.
“Ohh!” Aura heard the sound of moving earth and took a quick peek through the canopy of a tree. There, she saw the red-haired fox standing on a roughly 200-meter-high platform as she was surveying the area below. "She noticed the downsides of mindlessly burning down everything, huh?" The wolf nodded a few times. “Let’s see what happens if I do this~.”
Saying so, she used a bit of magic and cut down a tree as loudly and flashy as possible.
“…” Fey looked at the random tree that suddenly exploded a little bit away from her. “I know that she’s baiting me, but there isn’t much I can lose, is there? Let’s go and take a look.” She then jumped off the platform and dove into the forest, where she saw the suspicious movement. "That playful little… wolf.” It seemed like she wanted to say something else as she saw the exploded tree, a couple of deliberately placed paw-prints in the dirt, as well as a cutely drawn heart right next to them, together with an arrow pointing further down in the forest.
Slightly annoyed by her teasing, Fey glared in the direction of the arrow before sending a massive pillar of fire along with it.
“She’s so hot-headed!” Further along inside the forest, Aura dodged the rapidly approaching fire and turned around. “At least things are more interesting now~." Saying so, she increased her speed a little to put more distance between them. “The chasing part is a lot more fun than the hiding part!”
Letting out a small chuckle, the wolf then turned at a 90-degree angle and drew another arrow into the ground before running further into the forest.
“Aura’s having a good time, huh?” Fey found the new arrow and rolled her eyes. “I’m starting to wonder how long we’ll keep going with this. No rules with the sisters means certain defeat for them because they’re just babies with no experience, but it’s different with Aura. She might be one of the most experienced beings in existence. As one can see in how everything is just a game to her.” She scratched her cheek again. “That being said, she wouldn’t have a much easier time finding me, either.” The fox tried to make herself feel better.
Having no better plan for the time being, Fey shot another barrage of fire the way the arrow was pointing before following after it.
“Someone found the second arrow, huh?” Jumping out of the fire’s range, Aura just nodded a couple of times in return. “Should I wait for her here? I want some more action!” She was becoming impatient. “Then again, while I like to set things on fire, I don’t like to be set on fire. Something that will definitely happen if I just stay here.” She shook her head. “Also, Fey would probably be angry with me if I gave up like that.”
Eventually coming up with something, the wolf made another quick art project in the dirt before disappearing into the forest once more.
“She’s gotten bored of the hiding part of the chase, huh?” Fey found the last place the wolf was and lightly chuckled when she saw another heart drawn in the dirt. Inside the heart, the words Detection OK could be read. "Well, it indeed was becoming a little tedious, so this will speed up things a lot.” She closed her eyes for a moment and then turned to her right. Instantly after, she dashed into the forest with tremendous speed.
Having entered the final phase of their chase, things quickly became a lot more interesting and heated between the two.
