Yuki left the cave and sniffed the air to check for any demonic beasts nearby. Once she was sure it was safe, she walked out over to the edge of the forest and began picking up more wood. She also grabbed anything dry to use as kindling. She stored everything in her space and got a couple of big branches that were as thick as her body and stored them away too.

Time ticked by, and Nana was starting to grow worried. To her, every minute felt like an hour. She slowly got up and walked to the stone and was about to push it open to peek out when it suddenly moved, revealing the person standing there. The same person she was worried about. 

Yuki looked at Nana, whose face was now flushed red, and sighed. “Nana, I told you to stay put! What if you opened your wound again!? You have already lost a lot of blood before. Right now, you should be just resting.” 

Nana lowered her head. She did not expect to get scolded. Yuki shook her head as she led Nana back to the cushion to sit down. “Stay put. I will get the fire going again and then check your wound.” 

“Okay…” Nana replied as she sat down. She watched Yuki start busying herself with getting the fire going again and felt filling her heart. 

“I will also cook something to eat. You should eat more iron.” Yuki began pulling out more demonic beast meat and skewering it on sticks before propping it up like she did the night before.

When everything was done, Yuki washed her hands with some water before walking over to Nana and giving her a flask made of tree bark and demonic beast hide that she had made herself. “Drink some water while I check your wounds.” 

“Mmm…” Nana nodded before undoing her belt and letting the top of her robes fall to her waist before taking the flask from Yuki.

Yuki sat behind Nana and inspected her wounds. She was happy to see that it was healing nicely. “You should be able to move around freely in the next two days. So just rest until then. Then we can check the area we are in. From what I can tell, the spot we are currently at is without any demonic beasts. So we shouldn’t have any issues for the time being. Although we really have no idea where we currently are. So I will climb the cliff above us tomorrow to try to get a better understanding of how deep in the forest we are. But do not worry. I will be careful. This means sit tight until I return. I do not want to see you standing with the door open like a housewife waiting for her lover to return.” 

Nana’s face flushed red. She reached over and pinched Yuki’s thigh, causing her to laugh. Yes, she let out a laugh for the first time in a long time. She really felt comfortable around Nana. Even Nana was surprised by Yuki’s laughter. She turned her head and saw that beautiful smiling face which caused her to smile as well. 

After applying some more healing pills to her wound, she fed one to Nana and had her start cultivating. Since they were stuck here, this was the best way to pass the time besides eating and sleeping. She had enough wood to last all night, so she was not worried about needing to leave the cave for the time being. 

“Yuki, can I lie down?” Nana asked.

“Mmm…” Yuki patted her lap, and Nana did not hesitate to curl up and rest her head on Yuki’s thigh. She still felt tired and wanted to get more rest. But sleeping while sitting up like she was, was not easy either. Yuki began stroking Nana’s head gently, causing Nana’s exhaustion to take over as she slowly fell asleep. 

Within the forest, looking around, Elder Nishikawa was not in a good mood. She had checked the entire outer ring so far and still did not find any signs of Yuki or Nana. She was now in the middle ring, looking around. 

After a day of flying, she finally spotted something strange. Multiple dead wind wolves corpses were lying near a tree. Such a thing should not be possible, as other monsters would come and eat the remains. The only reason they would not be eaten is if there was a demonic beast nearby protecting them. She landed on the ground and looked around. She quickly spotted the shattered remains of a sword. “This seems to be the place. Ami did mention that there were wind wolves…..”

 After investigating a bit more, she heard a growling sound behind her. She turned to see a rank four demonic beasts standing there, staring down at her with saliva dripping from its mouth. “Piss off!” Elder Nishikawa had no time for some rank four demonic beast and waved her hand, sending out a powerful burst of her spiritual qi that slammed into the demonic beast crushing its head into paste. 

“It seems they went in this direction….” Elder Nishikawa looked at the tracks on the ground and began following them. She could only hope to find both girls alive and well. She would not leave this forest unless she either found them or saw their corpses. Even if this meant she had to turn the entire forest upside down and kill every demonic beast to check their stomachs.

She flew for almost two hours. She had been lucky that it had not rained since the girls went missing. She was easily able to follow their tracks all the way to a cliff side with a raging river. “They probably jumped in. These girls would not just stand there to be eaten. Now it is just searching the flow of the river for traces of them coming ashore.”

Back inside the cave, nighttime was slowly encroaching. Yuki had already woken Nana up so she could cultivate some after she ate dinner. She needed to make full use of the pills she had been taking for her wounds. Yuki hoped that the next day she would find out their exact location. She did not think anyone would come looking for them. It would be too hard to find them in a vast forest like this. So she could only try to get them both of them back to the sect.