The morning that both the princess and I received the title of 'chocolatier', we decided to go on an expedition to the eastern end of the forest, where the supposed island with the choco beans was located.
Both the maids, Carli and Gina, dressed up in blue leather gear and pants. Gina had a harness with two dark blue daggers, and Carli was holding her dark blue-tipped spear.
I was curious, and when I asked them about it, they told me their weapons were made of mithril, and their gear was made out of cyclops skin, which I supposed had blue-ish skin.
("Huh, so that's what mithril looks like…")
The princess' gear was similar to that of the maids, except for the color which was more purple-ish than blue. When I asked her about it, she told me her gear had been made with "ogre king" skin, a very rare material from a very rare monster.
Vespera said that it took her two hours to get to the island running at full speed, which meant that it could potentially take us a few days walking. However, both maids and the princess reassured me that they would be able to keep up.
Honestly, I wasn't too worried about the maids since they were battle-maids and trained for this type of stuff. It was the princess that worried me the most, since running was all about stamina and physical strength.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" I asked the princess as she stretched.
"He he, it's been some time since I did this!" she responded with a smile.
I still didn't know what she was thinking, but in the worst-case scenario, we could just slow down our pace to let her catch up. "Alright then, let's go!"
Vespera walked to the front of the group, and started to jog while slowly picking up speed, then looked back at the group behind her, and bolted off through the forest at a crazy high speed.
The maids and Yoru followed suit, bolting forward with a force that left a wake of plants and dust behind them.
I waited for a moment to see what the princess would do when I noticed she was getting herself in a "crouch start" position, as if she was about to run a race for the Olympics. But as soon as I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing, I noticed two small arcane circles appearing at the bottom of her shoes. "Speed boost…"
*Fwoom* Was all I could hear as the princess disappeared in front of me, leaving a huge wake of dirt at the spot of her launch, and I with a dumbfounded face as the wind blew away the hair from my forehead.
I looked straight ahead, and the princess was waving at me a few hundred meters away while standing next to Vespera and the maids.
("What the hell was that…?")
I quickly caught up to them and asked the princess.
"Heh, it's a spell I learned a few years ago when I saw a sage casting it while training the knights!"
"Really? I don't wanna sound rude, but the knights that came here at first were not even close to casting something like that…"
"Hmm, I wouldn't expect them to do it. The sage just used it mostly to train them but not teach them… I just copied his spell." she said with a proud smile.
"I see… I kinda want to try it, if it's going to make me save some stamina…"
The princess explained that she simply focused her magic on her feet, then casted air magic to propel herself. The name "Speed Boost" was simply the name that she heard the sage use when casting the spell. "Sounds easy enough…" I said as I got into the same "crouch starting" position.
Focusing magic on my feet wasn't as easy as I expected, but I managed to get a hold of it after a few tries. When the arcane circles finally manifested under my feet, I tried my best to imagine a gust of wind that could propel me far. However, as soon as the spell activated, the force ended up being too much for me to control, launching me at high speeds tens of meters straight, and knocking down a tree with my back.
"Are you okay!?" said the princess as she approached me with the rest of the group behind her.
I sat up on the ground and shook the dirt and pieces of wood off my body as I slowly stood up. "Yeah, I'm fine. But wow… it's a bit tricky to control with my feet…"
The maids and the princess stared at me with their eyes widened in surprise.
"A-are you sure you are okay?" said Gina reluctantly
"I'm fine, why do you look so scared!?"
"Y-your body just went straight through that tree, and you can easily stand with no injuries?" said Carli before getting interrupted by the princess.
"I'm sorry Ichiro! I should have taught you how to control it better… When I learned it for the first time I was in an open space for the same reason…"
"Guys it's alright, I'm totally fine. My body is quite durable… heh."
"I-if you say so…" said Gina without changing her confused expression.
After a few more tries, I was actually able to get a hold of the spell and managed to not crash into any trees, although I wasn't as fast as the princess, so halfway through I switched to running, which for some reason made me go faster.
("Maybe Phelena did go overboard when giving my body more endurance…") I thought. Although to be fair, both maids were also keeping up with our speed, and they were also running without using any spells, so maybe I wasn't too far off on the scale.
After two full hours of racing through the forest, we made it to the rocky eastern shore, and as our vision passed the trees blocking the view, we found the mysterious floating island just a few meters away from us.
"That's the one," said Vespera with her proud tone of voice.
The island was indeed pretty small, if I had seen it from far away, I would have thought it was a large floating rock with lots of vegetation on top. Even though floating rocks weren't a thing, this one definitely was.
There were two large tree trunks that connected from the forest's shore to the island as a bridge, which had been placed there by Vespera the day before for her little spiders to hop on the island and carry the fruits and choco beans out.
We used those same tree trunks to cross and began our own exploration of the island. The entire place was filled with wild plants and beautiful flowers, and even though they were definitely wildlife, everything somehow looked like it was being taken care of.
As we kept walking, we found the bushes where Vespera gathered the "sweet reds", or oversized strawberries, when something caught my attention.
All of the bushes were planted in uniform columns, the same way you would if you were to farm them.
"Hey, Vespera. Are you sure you didn't see anyone on this island?" I asked.
"I'm certain of it. I checked every single corner of this island with my spiders and couldn't find anyone."
"I see. You probably thought the same thing I did."
"Yeah, these fruits were planted here on purpose. It's the same with the others too…"
"Hmmm, is that right? Show us."
Vespera then showed us the way to where she found the bananas, and sure enough, all of the trees were uniformly lined up in rows. But what was even stranger was the fact that all of these trees were full of fresh bananas ready to be picked up, just like the previous bushes with strawberries.
"Hey, Vespera. Did you leave all of this fresh fruit here yesterday?"
"I did not. I grabbed everything I could…"
"Hmmm…" I pondered as we kept walking, until making it to the area where the choco beans were located.
The trees where these beans grew were around the same size as the banana trees, so at most, they were two meters tall, and all of them were abundant with choco beans growing from their branches. Even the scent of the area smelled like pure delicious chocolate.
"Yeah, you see? Everything grew back again!" said Vespera.
"You were right. I want to check something…" I said as I approached the rocky edge of the island, then looked down at the water. There was something going on with this place, and my curiosity was now begging me to check it out.
("What is actually keeping this island here?") I thought as I took off my coat, shirt, and sandals, getting ready to take a dip in the water.