Hagan stood there proudly looking around himself for a moment, or at least tried to do that.
Looking around himself, Hagan of course saw the mage and warriors looking like they were about to break out into laughter at any moment.
"Hmph… LITTLE GIRL YOU WON THIS TIME! I WILL WIN NEXT TIME WE MEET!"
Saying so, Hagan quickly left the place with manly tears threatening to spill out of his eyes at any moment due to the honorable defeat he suffered.
Seeing Hagan run away with tears almost spilling out of his eyes, both mages and warriors were speechless for quite some time. The former image around Hagan being a manly and strong warrior had completely shattered into tiny pieces, never to be restored ever again.
"H-he's quite a bad loser… isn't he?"
Ivy said as she looked towards the direction Hagan went, seeing him getting farther and farther away, before soon disappearing into the distance.
After Hagan had disappeared into the distant, mages and warriors both burst into laughter together.
"Puahahahah, what the hell was with that guy? To think the giant of a man had such a "unique" scream. HAHA."
"Haha, indeed, is this how the warriors from the warrior guild is nowadays?"
"Haha, no way, haha, that guy is indeed a unique case."
"Well I guess everyone who managed to get into top 5000 in the warrior guilds yearly tournament is unique in their own way, hehe, this big guys "uniqueness" on the other hand is quite interesting."
"Haha, that is indeed true! I really hope we can fight with him again… Even though he acted quite high and mighty, he was a great guy."
"Yeah…"
"That is true."
"I agree…"
After chatting and laughing with each other for awhile, the mages and warriors soon went their own ways, either alone or with the groups they came with.
"Soooo… Where are we going now? Do we just stay in the desert or do we move beyond it to find stronger monsters…?"
Lucia said while looking at Ivy and Poe.
"I think that the monsters around here are strong eno-"
Poe said as he looked towards Lucia, but was interrupted by Ivy mid-sentence.
"We already killed the strongest monster in the desert, so why not just move on to stronger monsters? I heard that we can find what makes the time tunnel unique and sought after passing through the desert~ You didn't think people would come all the way for this time tunnel if it was only higher level monsters did you?"
Hearing what Ivy said, Poe felt a bit ashamed of himself. The reason was that he really thought people came to this time tunnel because it had higher-level monsters. Thinking about it, the mages and warriors that came all the way to the time tunnel could simply have entered a higher-level tunnel or dungeon instead.
"True. I also really want to find out what makes a time tunnel so unique, outside of the weird levels of the monsters…"
Before Poe managed to answer Ivy, Lucia joined Ivy's side and rooted for going to the place with higher-level monsters.
"W-well, if both of you want to pass through the desert…"
Poe said in a slightly low voice.
"Great, then let's GO~!"
Somehow, Ivy managed to pick up Poe's low voice and to it as an okay and proceed to start walking towards what looked like a forest in the distance. Most likely, the end of the desert and the start of whatever environment came after the desert. Poe was just happy that it looked like a normal forest from afar and not some kind of forest of death or worse.
Walking towards the forest, Poe started noticing something weird about it. The closer they got to the forest, the darker the ground under them became. The "trees" in the distance also looked like they were in many different colors, ranging from red, blue and yellow to brown and black.
The closer they got the more weird the trees looked; Poe soon turned and cast Ivy a suspicious look.
"Ivy… Why are the trees in the forest in so many different colors…?"
"Trees? Ahaha, from what I heard they are not trees, but giant mushrooms! Exciting right!? It's the first time I've seen mushrooms grow that big!"
Ivy replied with an excited look on her face, as she looked at the giant mushrooms in the distance.
Poe was speechless for some time, before he slowly recovered.
Mushrooms, those giant "trees" in the distance are mushrooms? No wonder they looked a little weird…
Poe had been ready for a forest filled with living trees trying to kill you all the time, or maybe a forest filled with spiders, but a mushroom forest… That was outside Poe's expectation.
It was after all not as if you walked into a dangerous place expecting to run into giant mushrooms on the way.
Poe had eaten mushrooms before in soup and other forms of food before, but they had always been small mushrooms… How would the giant mushrooms taste like?
Thinking this far, Poe started drooling as he looked towards the giant mushrooms in the distance.
"I-Ivy, are the giant mushrooms edible?"
Poe said as he looked dangerously towards Ivy with a sharp look in his eye, as if he was a predator looking at the cute little lamb about to be eaten.
"Y-yeah, some of them are edible, but there is also some that are poisonous, so you need to be careful of which ones you eat. The best way to find out if they are poisonous is to use the inspect skill…"
Ivy answered obediently, as even she got a little scared by the look in Poe's eyes.
Poe suddenly thought that entering the giant mushroom forest was not that bad of an idea…