Chapter 161 – Good ears

The group had decided to turn the large crater that formed after Sophia and Fen's magic went out of control into a gigantic lake. As this would naturally take a while, they decided to camp there. As the previous day was highly exhausting for those two, they slept in the following day.

"..." Maya and Aura were awake already and looked at their partners with a complicated expression. At the same time, they were also filling up the hole with water magic again as a good part of their power had recovered overnight.

"Say..." The cat-girl eventually glanced at the female wolf. "Was it... really such a miracle that the two s-survived...? I mean, I see the gigantic crater, but our idiots are extremely durable, aren't they?"

"There's a limit to being durable, you know...?"

"Y-Yes..." She hung her head as it definitely wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"Stop being sad thinking about what could've happened and be happy that it didn't. Those two love to play around, and dangerous things can happen. I'm sure they learned their lesson this time, though."

"Y-You're right..." Maya needed a little time afterward to get over the topic because it was pretty heavy, after all. Once she managed to put it past her, the cat-girl changed the subject to something that seemed much more fun. "Say~." She alternatingly glanced at the two wolves with a big smile, especially at the still asleep Fen, who had nuzzled himself against Aura's side. It was a great distraction from the other thing, too.

"Ugh..." Aura knew precisely where the cat was going with this.

"So?" She seemed to be in a better mood again.

"Well..." The wolf paused for a moment. "There is, uhh... some progress, I would say...?"

"You don't sound too positive?"

"No, it's definitely something good. Fen and I spent a ton of time together in the past. Before my accident, that is. We also often spent some dozens of years apart from each other because we had a slight variance in opinion from time to time. Playing around with magic, among other things, we often couldn't decide how to try out something new, especially because Fen's a real blockhead."

"D-Dozens of years just because of a small fight...?" Maya couldn't believe her.

"Fen and I are pretty much ageless. That much isn't overly noteworthy. You and Sophia are still young, but you'll probably eventually notice that time is just a number."

"I-I'm not sure if I want to find out, though..." Maya was still somewhat creeped out about not aging herself.

"Haha, fair point. It takes a while to get used to."

"That aside, I don't want to be apart from Sophia for so long!"

"You sure are cute." Aura let out a chuckle. "Well, Fen and I weren't romantically involved with one another during those times. Maybe I would think differently about it now, too."

"G-Good to know." The cat-girl sounded relieved. "Oh, does that mean you're romantically involved with him now~?"

"More than back then." She was somewhat vague. "We were always busy with something, and romance wasn't a topic. Now, though, we have a lot of free time, and Fen has also become much softer. Sappy, at times, even. I like him, even more, that way, as well."

"And?"

"We did a lot of stuff together here in the capital. We often had things that you could call a date, and the time we spent together while building the underground maze was the most fun I had since... I don't even have an answer to that. Add in yesterday to that. Our idiots thought they would... die, and yet, their last thoughts were about us. They didn't, though, and the first thing they did after surviving was to come back home to us while they turned into clingy crybabies. How could I not love him?"

"Everything b-bad from yesterday aside... The two really were super cute."

"Yep~."

"So..." Maya still wasn't done. "Are the two of you together now, or...?"

"Curiosity killed the cat, you know?"

"Nah, I'm also pretty durable." She wasn't faced in the slightest by Aura's little threat.

"You and Sophia really are a good match..." The wolf let out a sigh.

"Ehehe~." Maya liked that.

"Well... We're more than friends, but less than you and your tiger, I guess."

"With that, you mean flirty idiots?" She knew their standing in the group.

"Flirty idiots that get pretty loud in the mansion during the nights every so often. No, Fen and I are not at this point."

"Okay, that's a sta-, Wait, w-what?" The cat-girl suddenly froze up.

"While the walls in our home are quite thick, the hearing of Fen and I is something else."

"Y-You don't mean..." Her face turned completely red.

"Good for you, girl~." Aura sounded incredibly cheeky.

"Uuh..." Maya covered her face with her hands to hide her deep embarrassment. "T-That can't be..."

"I'm actually more surprised that, with such a young and passionate love the two of you share, you're not going at it every night~."

"Just why do Sophia and I forget to stop time so often?! Sure, we don't think about it when the mood's good, but... uuh..."

"What...?" Aura's eyes grow wide.

"Wait... did I say that out loud?!" She got even more embarrassed.

"You two actually stop time to have some... quality alone time...?

"P-Pretty... often..." Maya gave up on hiding it.

"Wow..." The wolf wasn't sure what to say. "That magic... So envious..." She only mumbled those words, though maybe not strictly for the same application.

"Sophia, you idiot!" Even though she was just as at fault as the tiger, she needed to get it out of her system.

"Fuah..." As if on cue, the blonde suddenly stirred in Maya's lap while letting out a small yawn. "What did... I do this time..." She still sounded half asleep. "Also, 'morning."

"G-Good morning..."

"Such a noisy cat..." Fen joined soon after. "What's the commotion about…?"

"W-When did you wake up?!" Aura sounded flustered.

"Just now? Haa..." Also letting out a yawn, he continued. "When Maya was blaming our idiot for something."

"G-Good."

"Again, what did I do?!" Sophia was still confused.

"Nothing!" Aura and the cat-girl decided to keep their conversation a secret.

"Ehh...? Okay, I'll stop prying if I get breakfast~."

"Sounds like a good idea." Fen liked her plan.

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"Great!" Sophia was a lot more lively compared to yesterday.

Once Maya got the tiger off her lap, which proved to be quite the ordeal, even though she was the one who asked for it, she started preparing a meal for everyone.

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After everyone was well-fed and had forgotten about the previous topic, the group continued to passively use their water magic while spending their time around on the beach or around the crater.

"Sophia...?"

"Hmm?" The couple was currently taking a walk alongside the newly forming lake when Maya had addressed the tiger.

"Please... be more careful in the future, okay?" There was no need to specify what she meant.

"Yes..." She hung her head. "I promise I will."

"Thank you. I don't want to lose you..."

"I don't want that, either! I'm so incredibly sorry and regretful that I can't even put it into words... I can't guarantee that I won't ever do anything stupid and or dangerous again, but something like this will NEVER again happen."

"That sounds great." Maya liked her promise. "Yes, please don't stop doing stupid things. Even though I complain a lot about it, I also love that part of you. Doing stupid things is your nature, after all."

"Is that a compliment...?" The blonde wasn't sure how to feel about it. "It surely doesn't feel like one, though."

"No, I mean it. Catastrophes aside, you are adorable when you play around." She showed her a great smile.

"I-I see..." Sophia got a little bashful. "Okay, I'll be stupid a lot in the future."

"A-Ah, in moderation, okay...?"

"Nope!"

"I did that to myself, did I not?"

"Yep!" The mood between them was great.

"Okay, fine." The cat-girl gave up. "There's another very serious topic we need to talk about, though."

"Eh...?" The tiger froze up. "I really don't like the sound of that..."

"Our nightly fun time..."

"Ah." Sophia interrupted her. "Is this about the good ears of our wolves?"

"Y-You knew that they could hear us?!" She was shocked.

"Fen mentioned it yesterday... Before the accident, I almost already died from pure embarrassment already... It was awful..."

"Y-Yeah..." Maya nodded. "Aura told me about it earlier, too... Uuh... It's really hard to look them in the eyes now..."

"Mh-hmm..." The tiger felt the same.

"We need to do something about that..."

"E-Eh?!" The size of Sophia's eyes doubled in shock. "You don't want to stop now, do you?!"

"Absolutely not!" Maya stared right at her while vigorously shaking her head.

"G-Good..." She seemed relieved. "It's way too much fun. Not to mention extremely addicting."

"Ehehe." The cat-girl looked very smug. "All that training paid off, huh?"

"Sure did." Sophie agreed with a big smile. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, we often stop time before we... All we have to do is to make sure that we're either alone or always stop time."

"Uhh... First, it's amazing how you're so willing to exploit the magic."

"It's super useful, after all!" Maya had no shame.

"Second, that was my plan, anyway! It's just that a certain someone always gets so incredibly, let's call it frisky, that we forget about it because we're already in the middle of it before noticing. No, scratch that… Absolutely horny is way more fitting."

"Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?"

"Hey!" The tiger got loud. "I won't take the blame for more than 30% of the time. 40% at the very best. You're definitely the hornier one between us!"

"I highly doubt that. You always get really into it."

"You're definitely the hornier one when it comes to initiating things!" Sophia slightly corrected her claim.

"Fair enough." The cat-girl seemed to agree. "Let's just make sure that we're either alone or that you stop time for us."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. We really have to be more careful."

"Absolutely."

"..."

"..." The was an awkward silence between the duo.

"We're going to forget about it a lot, huh?"

"All the time." Neither of them had high hopes about their plan because their minds were busy with something else in that situation, after all.

Once the couple put the topic on hold and finished their walk, the two went back to the wolves. The group relaxed together until it was time for lunch while passively continuing to fill up the crater with water.