"Of course boss!" Beetus said, reassuring Minos.
"Do you have to go master? Can't you stay?" Rubella said in a sad voice.
"This is important so I can't cancel, besides, you're a big girl now, so I'm sure you can take care of yourself." Minos said as he rubbed Rubella's hair as he usually did.
"Take this Beetus." Minos said, as he tossed a heavy bag over to Beetus.
Beetus caught the bag and opened the top, revealing a dense pile of shimmering Nux Stones, at least a dozen in total.
"That should be more than enough for a year's time." Minos said.
"Enough, more than enough!" Beetus said as he admired the glimmering Nux Stones inside the bag.
"Anyways, I've got to go, you guys take care." Minos said, as he stood up off the couch, about to head to the door.
"Leaving already! Can't you stay just a day longer, please!" Rubella begged.
"Yeah mister, don't go, just one more day." A little boy said.
"Yeah, one more day!" A little girl added on.
Just like that, the entire group of children began chanting 'one more day' causing Minos to freeze mid-step.
Hearing them all chant in unison, Minos knew he couldn't just say no. Calculating the time left in his mind, he realized that even if he gave up a day, he could still make it to Tinka in time.
"Fine, one more day." Minos said.
"Woohoo!" The children cheered, Rubella going red in the face in happiness.
"Let's go to the park!" Rubella suggested.
"Yeah!" All the children agreed.
Like that, Minos spent the rest of the day with the children, playing tag and hide and seek with them, before treating them to another large meal to end the day.
…
The next morning Minos woke up bright and early. Everyone was still asleep at this time, so Minos decided to take advantage of it and leave.
He knew goodbyes were hard, so it would be better to just avoid them. Tossing a fresh new robe on and packing his spatial ring with some spare cloth, Minos exited the house.
Without wasting any time, he entered the Underwood Mountain Range, saying goodbye to Underwood City.
He only had 6 days left, so he ran full speed, trying to reach the Salt Breathing Tribe as fast as possible.
With his base speed of 80 meters per second, Minos could move at a tremendous speed. He also had his Shining Sprint technique that improved his speed.
Unfortunately Minos soon noticed after using it that the speed boost wasn't as strong as it used to be, only improving his speed to 120 meters per second, rather than the 160 he was expecting.
The speed improvement had dropped from 100% to only 50%, but Minos knew this was to be unexpected, after all the Shining Sprint was only a low-level technique he had created back in the day.
For it to still have an effect at this level was impressive enough, so he had nothing to complain about.
Traveling at about 6 kilometers a minute, Minos quickly made his way through the forest, occasionally taking brakes to catch his breath and regain his stamina.
The Underwood Mountain Range was quite treacherous, with no real roads to travel, which made journeying across it much harder then it had to be.
So despite the distance between the Salt Breathing Tribe and Underwood City not being that far, it still took Minos half a day to arrive, only reaching by afternoon.
Breaking out of the dense forest, Minos was greeted by sandy beaches. Taking a deep breath in, the salty air billowing off the sea traveled into his legs and filled up his nose, the smell filling him with a strange sense of nostalgia.
Stepping onto the sandy floor, Minos made his way towards the tribe, soon seeing the outline of the familiar buildings.
The tribe members were doing what they usually did, but when they noticed Minos, they couldn't help but become slightly confused, some whispering to each other.
"Hello everyone." Minos said in their language.
"Traveler, how do you know our language?" One of the men asked with his guard raised.
"Do you not remember me?" Minos asked, realizing that the tribe members seemed to also not realize it was him after his massive growth spurt.
"We know a child with rare white hair like yours, but like I said, he was a child, not like you." The man said.
Before Minos and him could talk any further, a few more tribe members came out from behind, among them was Tinka.
"Minos!" Tinka screamed out in joy, recognizing him instantly.
"That's Minos?" One of the tribe members couldn't help but ask with shock.
"The boy's finally become a man!" Another one laughed.
While the tribe members were gossiping, Tinka jumped into Minos's arms, embracing him tightly. The two hugged for a moment, before releasing each other.
"You changed so much, you're so handsome now!" Tinka said, as she looked him up at him with a slight blush on her face.
"I guess I finally grew up." Minos said with a laugh.
"I disagree, I feel like you were always grown up, it's just your body finally caught up with your brain." Tinka said.
"You think?"
"I know!" Tinka said, as she grabbed Minos by the arm and led him away from the tribe.
"You were gone so long, I started to think you weren't coming back." Tinka said once the two were out of range of the rest of the tribe.
Her eyes were slightly red as she said this, on the verge of tears. Before she could fully cry however, Minos pulled her in tightly, hugging her.
"Didn't I tell you before, I'll never leave you, and what did I tell you to never stop doing for me?" Minos asked.
"Believing, I never stopped believing." Tinka said.
"Good, then wipe your tears away, because as long as you believe in me, then believe that I'll never make you sad." Minos said as he wiped away a teardrop with his thumb from Tinka's eye.
With Minos's words, Tinka's mood was instantly renewed, laughing happily, completely forgetting her sadness.
Seeing her joy, Minos couldn't help but laugh. As the two walked along the beach, Tinka kept asking Minos what he had been doing the past year, but he didn't have much to tell her, since he had spent the year training.
"Weapon refining, is that anything like sculpting?" Tinka asked as Minos was talking about his year.
"Well they definitely share some skills. For example, shaping the weapon takes a certain level of sculpting skills, same goes with creating the weapon handle and the other non-metallic components."
"But there's also plenty of skills unique to weapon refining that you'd have to learn before you could ever create anything." Minos said.
"Do you think I could be a weapon refiner?" Tinka asked with a glimmer in her eyes.
"Do you want to learn?" Minos said with a smile.
"Really, would you teach me?" Tinka asked.
"Of course, didn't you teach me how to sculpt? It's my turn to return the favor." Minos said.
"Awesome! When shall we start!" Tinka said with excitement.
She always loved working with her hands, which was a big reason she became so obsessed with sculpting.
Of course part of it was because she didn't have much else to do in her spare time, but there was no denying that Tinka truly had a passion and talent for these sorts of things.
Given her sculpting talent, Minos was quite confident that Tinka would be a natural when it came to weapon refining, but ultimately, only by teaching her could anything be revealed.
"Let's start tomorrow. I still want to say hello to your parents." Minos suggested.
"Oh yeah, you still haven't greeted them! Let's go back, they'll probably be pretty annoyed knowing you came back but didn't say hello." Tinka said.
…
After walking for a bit, the two arrived back at the tribe, the members greeting Minos as he walked past them.
Minos would naturally return every greeting with a smile, eventually finding himself in front of Tinka's home.
Tinka opened the door, revealing Ronkus and Meninka who were seated at the table eating lunch.
"Finally decided to pop in and say hello?" Ronkus said with a smirk, Meninka laughing lightly to his side..
"Sorry, I just lose sense of time when I'm with Tinka." Minos said apologetically.