F-ranker Sword Saint: My Soulbound Sword is Secretly SSS-tier!-Chapter 328: Playing House

"Elara..."

Daru was surprised to suddenly meet her when he himself was still lost, but he couldn’t deny that he was a bit relieved.

After all, two heads are better than one, especially if one of those heads is more than decent with directions.

"Oh my, what an intense gaze. Have you perhaps fallen for this princess?"

"No," Daru replied plainly, diminishing the smile on Elara’s face.

"Tch. As boring as ever, I see..." she responded, another idea entering her mind. "Well then, since I helped you, how about you carry this princess back to her hiding place?"

Daru sighed.

"I think you’re fine enough to walk, no? Also, I don’t know where your hiding place is, but I do agree that we need to hide soon." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Clangs, chirps, and furious screeches echoed in the skies just above the canopy of the leaves hiding their tiny figures just as he finished saying that.

"Hmph. Can’t even take advantage of a gorgeous lady..." she murmured in displeasure as she got herself off his arms and began running. "Come."

Daru naturally didn’t dare dally and quickly followed.

He didn’t know what would happen a few seconds after the dwellers of Yggdrasil detected a half-bird’s corpse’s scent, and he didn’t want to know.

Fortunately, his comrade’s hiding spot wasn’t too far, just a few trees deeper into the forest.

A fairly young fir tree that was still within the location he scouted out earlier.

’We must’ve barely missed each other...’ he mused, watching the height of Elara’s jump, her gracefully grabbing a low branch, and nimbly climbing the tree.

The movements of her climb suddenly disappeared before they even got too high.

Arriving at the base of the young fir, he copied what his silver-haired comrade did, surprised that he could do it even better than she did.

Daru was quite astonished, knowing that it was all because of his now-superhuman attributes.

Soon, he, too, disappeared into the tree.

***

"So, how do you like this princess’ cozy abode?" Elara asked with a proud grin.

Daru looked around, seriously examining the spacious, well-hidden tree hollow.

"It’s great," he praised genuinely, but somehow, the princess wasn’t satisfied.

"Oh, come on. Can’t you do better than that?"

His brows rose.

"Do better than what?

In the end, Elara could only sigh. "You’re impossible..."

Daru was about to ask how he was impossible, but a better question flashed in his mind.

"How did you find this nice hollow?"

Enthusiasm returned to the self-proclaimed princess’s eyes, though true puzzlement was also reflected in them.

"Why, this princess has eyes, limbs, and a brain. Clearly, each harmless tree has a hollow, so all this princess did once one of those humanoid avians showed up was hide beneath this fir, then carefully climb while looking for the hollow. I just settled when I heard the sounds of fighting.

"I see...so it was luck, huh...I really need to find a way t–" Daru murmured the last part, but Elara heard it.

She scoffed.

"Why are you even calling it luck? Isn’t it simp–"

Midway through her words, she stopped, realizing something. Elara cleared her throat.

"So there are Swordspawns inside other hollows?"

Daru nodded.

"I see...I guess it’s indeed luck, then..." she sighed, a bit downcast as she rested her back against the wooden walls of the spacious hollow.

To her surprise, the conversation didn’t end yet.

"Have you been wandering this forest since you spawned?"

Elara pursed her lips at the question.

"No," she responded with another sigh. "Embarrassing as it may be, this princess has already lost one life and respawned around here. I’ve been moving very slowly and carefully since then, trying to learn what I can. That bird earlier was this princess’s actual first kill here..."

But then, Daru sighed, too, prompting her to look his way instinctively.

"Figures...this place is really dangerous. So much more than Limbo, if not for the fact that we at least have three chances here..."

Elara’s brows rose.

"Wait, could it be that you..."

"Yeah, I died, too, shamefully to one of those Runebarks pretending to be a harmless tree."

Silence pierced the vigorous air for a moment, then she erupted into a giggle.

"Ah, that makes me feel better."

Daru shot a cold glance at Elara, to which her eyes widened, slight panic creeping into her heart.

She quickly explained: "Oh! I apologize for my rather poor choice of words. This princess definitely isn’t wishing an ill fate upon you. It was just that it’s a bit reassuring to confirm that the environment is truly just that deadly. After all, it even managed to take a life from Onimaru Kunitsuna."

This time, it was Daru’s brows that curved up, surprised at the amount of respect in her tone.

He nodded, deciding to change the topic to a more fruitful one.

Outside, it was still quite chaotic.

"What do you plan to do next?"

Elara sighed again, noticing that she had been sighing way too much since she got to Yggdrasil.

It can’t be helped.

After all, this was the first time she had encountered such a difficult situation in her smooth-sailing life.

And she thought that time in the Stone Castle was already bad...

Well, it was, but it didn’t leave her feeling quite as lost as she did today.

"This princess believes it’s quite impossible to look for that Sovereign Sapling right now, so my focus earlier was to simply attempt to master the environment first, level up second, then win the race third. I don’t know what to feel about the fact that I would get help from you and not get to do things myself, but this princess shall take the help this time. I’m fine if it’s you."

She flashed a rather playful look at Daru to see how he would react to the last few words.

Needless to say, Elara was dismayed. He didn’t even notice anything wrong with her words.

But this time, the princess suddenly felt a strange determination to extract a reaction from him, so she tried again, bolder with her approach:

"So, to summarize. How about we stay here and play house for a while? You’ll be the father, and I’ll be the mother. Let’s pretend we’re newlyweds starting a new life in these mystical woods, how’s that sound?"

Daru froze.

Then, for the first time since they met, the princess claimed victory.