It's been over a month since we left the Kadra Realm, during that time between the Aura pieces of training I've been doing, we've also made several stops at what Samira and I call tourist spots.
In addition to the beautiful waterfall where we had a delicious barbecue with everyone from the City of Shadows, we also stopped at a normal small rural village, stopped at the ruins of a small town that according to Lilian was destroyed during an Annual Monster Wave decades ago and stopped a town that was having a festival on the way.
I've never had so much fun, everything is so fun, so far I haven't seen any Humans, but I've seen a lot of Demi, there was even a talking Gorilla who worked in a bar, if I told this in my old world people would think it was the beginning from a joke, in addition, he prepared an amazing drink mix, Nolan mostly insisted that we stay in that city for a few more days, I allow it because I want him to learn from this Gorilla, I'm doing this out of pure selfishness and a desire to drink the best drinks you can.
After so much time spent on tourism that according to Ivan was wasted during the trip, we are finally close to the underground city I wanted so much to see.
As we were less than a day's journey from the city, I decided to put away the carriage and go riding, my mount was Ragnar in a less dazzling form, he now only looked like a Warhorse with a strange red crystal horn shaped like a blade.
I was riding Ragnar and the others were riding Shadow Horses which I summoned, as they are creatures I summoned I had to make a contract with them, but to my surprise, the terms of the contract were quite easy, this was to give them a place where they could live peacefully and follow Ragnar.
The Shadow Horses seemed to be very smart, I accepted their terms after talking to Ragnar, he seemed happy to lead a group of monsters, he said that his mother also had a lot of horse type monsters under her leadership.
It didn't matter to me as Sakura had already formed a community of Dryads, Incarnations of the Forest, and Nymphs before I knew it.
I knew that the Mountain Range Nymphs were always by Sakura's side since she formed a contract with me, but I didn't know that her charisma with monsters and plant-type creatures was so strong.
Several days ago when we were at the waterfall, Sakura had gathered a group of hundreds of plant-type monsters, using her power as Holy Beast she placed them all as her servants making many of them evolve and be better able to control their instincts.
When I got to her it was too late, as she seemed happy and said that they would live in the forest together with her, so I let her take care of them in the forest on the Shadow City floor and the mansion inside the Dungeon.
It wouldn't cost me anything, besides Nix and Layla were already leaders of their own of the beings that lived inside their Cradles, now Sakura and Ragnar also had their own subordinates, Orion didn't say anything but I could tell he was thinking about these things also.
Those who were riding the Shadow Horses and coming with me were Diana, Érica, Kira, Nix, Vanessa, Samira, and Elsaris who are using the same Shadow Horse, Irius, and Irina.
Hela and Ivan were on high level Skeleton Horses that could even use the Spectral Body skill, Lilith was riding a Demon Horse that she was very insistent for me to summon, she even looked like a kid asking her father to buy a pony.
In the end, I did what she wanted, unfortunately, I'm still not that used to this summoning business, I've learned a lot from Rakan, but the most I can do is choose the summon race, but the number is still very random.
When I summoned the Shadow Horses I ended up summoning 117 of them which took all my mana, while the Demon Horses were summoned 81 of them.
With the experience of the previous time, I asked Ragnar to be lightly during the invocation, thanks to that the terms for the contract were similar to the Shadow Horses.
The Shadow Horses were large with black fur, their mane and tail appeared to be made of ethereal leftovers, their eyes were completely white and their teeth were sharp since they were carnivores.
The Demon Horses were also large, but their bodies were more muscular, the fur on their bodies varies from individual to individual between the colors black and red, their mane and tail were blood red, they have red eyes and two white horns on the back head, in place of normal Horses' paws they had Wolf-like paws with very sharp claws.
These two monster races have Grade A strength, but when they chose to follow Ragnar, he turned them all into his servants which increased their strength straight to S, some of them with more talent went to Grade SS directly.
With such strong mounts we could reach our destination fast but we went slowly while talking to everyone, the two races of Monster Horses were not able to speak the language of other races, but Ragnar and I could understand their language, Ragnar could understand all the Beasts and monsters, I could understand these two races because I made a contract with them.
During our trip I talked to Vanessa about the Oracle she received from the Goddess Selene, it seemed like I would have more things to do on this continent, but first I would have to know more details.
In this way, we continued until we reached the foot of a mountain, Lilian who had gone ahead was waiting for us on the road.
"Welcome, this is the place I promised." (Lilian)
"Are you sure this is the right place?" (I)
"Yes, the city is under that mountain." (Lilian)
I look at Lilian and then I look at the "mountain", I don't know how you can call it a "mountain", there's lava running down the side and smoke coming out of the top.
"But that's not a mountain, that's a Volcano!" (I)
I turn to the others.
"That's a volcano, right?" (I)