Why play in a band if you don't form one for life?

"Good Spartan..." Hongxia shrank back. But Youxina was immediately pushed into the tent by the people behind him. Others immediately rushed in, and they all expressed their concern. The tent suddenly became noisy.

"I'm sorry, it could have recovered faster, but the [Pure Light of Salvation and Perfection] has been used up, and Lisa's cookies can't be fed to you while you're asleep, so..." said Shizi.

Hearing this name, Hong Xia's cheeks twitched: "(What the hell is that?)"

Others were chattering as well. Although it was touching that everyone came to visit, it was inevitably a bit noisy.

"Hongxia still needs to rest. Can everyone wait outside for a while?" Lisa persuaded the others to leave with understanding. "Youxina, it doesn't matter if you wait a little longer."

Yukina looked a little anxious: "I don't know when the upstream will collapse...Okay."

Hongxia and Lisa were the only ones left in the tent. "Thank you, Lisa. But I don't think I need to rest." Although she said this, Hongxia still lay down.

"It's not you who needs it, it's me who needs it. Others need it too." Lisa said playfully, lying down next to Hongxia and yawning, "Everyone was scared by the earthquake last night and didn't sleep well."

However, even though she said she wanted to rest, Lisa was still talking: "You're amazing, Hongxia, I didn't know you had that trick."

"After all, I don't use it in normal times." Hong Xia closed her eyes.

"I'm so envious~ I wish I had a hidden skill like this~" Lisa's voice turned into a mumble.

"Lisa's original skill..." Hongxia looked at Lisa. She had fallen asleep.

After everyone had rested, they sat in the hot air balloon and headed upstream. This was the best option when the ground was shattered and it was uncertain whether there would be aftershocks.

"Ahahahaha, I am the ruler of the night, the apostle of darkness, the broken-winged angel who fell from heaven—Ayako Udagawa!" The feeling of flying into the sky made Ayako very excited.

"The river—it's broken." Youxina was concerned about the waterway. The formation of the barrier lake upstream blocked the water source downstream, and the flow of the river has been declining. It will not be able to carry ships in a while. Not to mention, the barrier upstream is unstable and may collapse at any time. The accumulated large amount of water will cause new disasters. Although they will most likely rely on hot air balloons to travel, this disaster may also affect them, so it is better to eliminate this hidden danger as soon as possible.

Everyone in Roselia had never experienced hot air balloon riding, so most of them walked to the edge of the basket and looked out. But Lisa was an exception. She kept making all kinds of cookies, taking a bite, and then switching to the next one.

"Didn't you have breakfast?" Hong Xia noticed her.

"Oh, I'm not hungry," Lisa said. "I'm trying to develop new varieties of cookies."

Originally, she thought Hong Xia was a pure support like herself, but after seeing Hong Xia's [Star Dust], she could no longer sit still and was eager to equip herself with certain abilities other than support at the critical moment.

However, after trying so many times, Lisa only made cookies with different flavors, and did not make any substantial changes to their functions.

And she was also very full.

She pinched a cranberry cookie and began to worry.

Her skill of creating various cookies is not a skill strictly speaking, but an application of the ability of [Goddess Furnace]. Since there is no way to develop the ability itself, should we try to develop skills? She asked Azi. Azi's situation is similar. Her original ability is only to release magic power, and all other skills are self-developed.

"Oh! Sister Lisa, do you want to change your job?" Yazi's eyes lit up. "Yazi thinks that if the pharmacist wants to have output, he should point out poison, right? You can poison a single target, create AOE, and make bait..."

"Speaking of poison..." Lisa picked up a small bag of cookies. They were all purple and black, and looked ominous. "I didn't dare to try the effect of this bag..."

"How about trying that?" Shizi pointed to a monster lying on the ground, almost buried by rocks. It seemed to have survived the earthquake, but it wasn't much better, at least it couldn't move.

So Ryo and Kita controlled the hot air balloon to go in that direction. Lisa took out a cookie and threw it at the monster.

"It always feels like feeding a cat," said Yukina.

A half-broken claw stretched out, groped on the ground, grabbed the cookie, and quickly put it back. Everyone waited for a long time, but there was no movement.

"Did it really eat it?" Lisa couldn't help but wonder.

"Eat it." Only Youxina could see the monster's movements in the shadows.

Lisa tried throwing out a few more pieces, and the monster ate them at the same speed.

"It's really like feeding a cat..." Kita also started to complain.

After waiting for a long time, there was still no response. Instead, the monster called out to them a few times, as if begging for food.

“……”Everyone even thought that the monster was a little cute.

"How about I try it myself?" Lisa picked up the last piece, "Hongxia, if anything goes wrong, support me immediately." After seeing Hongxia nod, Lisa took a small bite off a piece of the cookie.

Her expression immediately turned strange. "What's wrong?" Hong Xia was so scared that she immediately activated her ability, and Lisa's whole body was shrouded in starlight.

"No, it's okay." She responded in the light, "It tastes like grape."

"Huh?" Everyone was stunned.

"This cookie is grape flavored, that's all." Lisa couldn't even feel any special bonus.

Weird expressions immediately spread to everyone's face.

Then, Lisa pulled out another bag of cookies, this one all blood red.

As expected, this bag is strawberry flavored.

There are also black pepper-flavored grey cookies, vanilla-flavored pale white cookies, and even lollipop-flavored rainbow cookies.

“(Cookies… don’t know there are so many flavors?)” This is what everyone is thinking.

Chapter 26: The Warmth of Rhodonite

The new cookies Lisa made had no other effects except for their strange flavors.

However, enriching everyone’s menu is a good thing, right?

“Let’s give up on poison for now…” Lisa covered her face.

The hot air balloon rose again.

"What should we do with this monster?" Rinko pointed at the monster that was still trapped in the crevice.

"..." No one spoke for a moment. Normally, they should kill monsters when they see them, but asking them to kill a monster that they had just fed and that was described as "cat-like" was a bit...

"Just... stay here?" Youxina made a difficult decision.

"Meow——" At this time, the monster who saw the hot air balloon rising called out at the right time.

"Yeah." Yukina and Saya both turned their faces away.

"Ahhh I can't take it anymore," Kita was completely unable to resist the temptation of such a cute thing, "At least let it out!"

"Finally, the monsters were named, and followed the brave team on the journey to defeat the Demon King..." A voice with a speed similar to Rinko's and a slightly lazy voice interrupted.

Lisa looked in the direction of the voice in surprise: "Mocha?" It turned out that it was Shizi wearing a white wig and imitating Aoba Mocha.

"Ah~ If Shiko has something to say, you can just say it directly. This will scare people... And why are you so familiar with Moka? And Kasumi and the others as well."

"After all, Shizi is not that kind of role." Shizi only answered the first half of Lisa's sentence and pretended not to hear the second half.

"Okay, change it back for me." Hong Xia criticized, but with a smile on her face, "If you keep going like this, it will just be water words."

"Water word count?" Lisa was puzzled.

Finally, out of inexplicable compassion, they found a way to move the boulder that was pressing down on the monster. The monster did not play any classic tricks like recognizing its master on the spot, but it quickly ran away without anyone knowing where it was, and it did not look injured at all. After skipping this episode, the hot air balloon continued to move forward, but one person looked a little regretful.

"But I still can't figure out how to upgrade skills." Lisa lamented while lying on the suitcase. After getting in touch with NFO, she also used the term "upgrade skills".

"Or, why don't you try to do like me and just throw a lot of cookies down? Look..." Shizi waved his hand, and a large number of iron spears appeared in the air and smashed towards the ground, making a loud noise, and smoke and dust rose into the sky.

"So many... I can't do it, and this kind of attack is too inefficient compared to you, right? I hope I can have a powerful and special ability like what Hongxia did yesterday." Lisa said.

Everyone tried to find a solution for Lisa, but nothing worked for a while. Then Liang spoke up.

“Why bother about being ‘like Hongxia’?” she said. “You have things you can do.”

Hong Xia also chimed in beside Lisa: "Yes, I have things I can do, and Lisa has things she can do."

"You mean..." Lisa seemed to understand, but before she could finish, Youxi, who had been paying attention to the distance, interrupted them: "We're here."

Arrived? What? Everyone looked outside. On the river, a landslide formed a dam that blocked the river, blocking the river water from upstream and forming a small lake. I don't know if it's because of the silt or something else, but the water in the lake is turbid.

"What should we do?" Everyone looked at Yukina. Yukina thought for a while and said, "Let's blow it up."

Directly blasting the landslide dam to drain the water that has not been accumulated for too long may help avoid greater disasters.

"Gu." Kita looked at the lake below and swallowed, "Is it really going to explode?" She couldn't imagine what the scene would be like when the lake water poured out.

"Then let's do this." Shi Zi didn't think too much and took out the scarlet [True Talisman of the Ten Directions Shining with the Flaming Sun to Purify the World].

"Fly higher first to avoid being affected. Also, eat this first." Lisa handed Shizi and Kita a few biscuits to increase their stats. They were the only main force to blow up the dam.

After everything was ready, they began their attack. Two explosions that seemed to ignite the sky resounded across the land. The lake water was evaporated, and the steam rising into the sky formed a small mushroom cloud. The hurricane caused by the explosion tore the hot air balloon apart, and several people were almost thrown out. Fortunately, Liang reacted in time and the balloon remained stable in the air.

"Ahem... I've never used this move in the sky before, so I was careless... Ahem..." Kita was most affected by the steam, and with the exhaustion caused by releasing the special move, she had to hold Ichiri with one hand and cover her mouth with the other to cough. Ichiri was also holding the suitcase. Everyone started coughing unconsciously.

"Cough... cough!" Kita realized that she seemed to have coughed something. When she looked at her hand, she immediately screamed and threw the thing in her hand to the ground.

"Bug, bug, bug...bug..." She shrank behind the others and pointed at something on the ground. Shizi took a look and saw that it was clearly a worm, and it was even moving!

Was that something Kita coughed up? She felt nauseous, something came up in her stomach, she retched a few times, and something fell out of her mouth. When the others looked, they were a few worms again.

Shizi's face turned green. "What is this? Should I hold the axe and yell 'liar!'?" She was still trembling as she joked. Others covered their mouths, not knowing what they were about to spit out.

"Uwaaa!" Ako was also hit, and the worm fell to the ground in front of her horrified eyes. "Hehe... This is just worm magic..." She seemed to comfort herself.

"Insect magic is not something you can just talk about, Yazi... um..." Shizi struggled to hold on to the box.

"Is there something wrong with the steam?" Youxi's situation was relatively good. She found that there seemed to be something strange in the smoke that had not yet dissipated.

"Ahem... Could it be that there was something in the lake originally, and we blew it up into the sky?" Shizi thought of the turbidity of the lake water.

"Maybe." Yukina said, "Let's get out of here first!"

The hot air balloon moved again. After being torn by the hurricane, it was also damaged to a certain extent, and Shizi was unable to repair it for the time being. The flood was rushing in the river channel, and it seemed to have affected the underground water system. The surrounding area was not very stable. The hot air balloon landed on a high ground far away from the scene.

Everyone's condition was already very bad, and they had to support each other to stay standing. Yukina, Hongxia and Lisa were in the best condition. They moved everyone to the ground and made them lie down. Hongxia coughed and tried to heal everyone with starlight, but it didn't work.

"What the hell is going on..." Hongxia had never seen such a situation before. Everyone kept spitting out worms from their mouths, and several of them had started to have fevers and talk nonsense. Youxi was about to collapse.

Lisa stood there blankly, seemingly at a loss.

"Ms. Lisa, please try your cookies quickly... ahem!" Hong Xia urged her.

"No." Lisa came back to her senses, "I think I learned something new." She opened her hands and conjured up a cookie that no one had ever seen before. It was white and worm-shaped.

"Huh? Are you sure?" Hong Xia looked at the shape and was very reluctant to eat it.

"Sure." Lisa said, "After you come into contact with that kind of steam, you will naturally learn this. I'm fine, right? This is the antidote to this disease." As she said that, she forced the cookie into Hongxia's mouth, then walked to the others and fed them the cookies.

"Puff..." Several people vomited blood and recovered immediately. The worms on the ground also turned into ashes.

"It's amazing." Kita felt healthy again.

"You got a new skill, Lisa," said Yukina.

Lisa finally realized it. Did she get a new skill without realizing it? She smiled bitterly: "It's a pity that this skill is only useful at this time, and it's not as strong as Hongxia's."

But then her expression brightened: "But, this is something only I can do, right?"

Hong Xia smiled when she heard this: "Yes, this is something only Lisa can do."

Liang teased: "After all, it's 'Warm Rhodonite'." As long as you know a little about Roselia, you can tell who their song is about.

Hearing this, Lisa's face turned red.

"Ahhh, stop talking about this, it's so embarrassing!"

Amid everyone's jokes, Shizi repaired the hot air balloon.

It's time to go.

ps: I'm here to ask, I've recently written a lot of sweet and funny stories about young couples in the future chapters, but the plot is pushed very slowly, I wonder if you can accept this writing style? I hope to get some opinions, thank you~

Chapter 27: The Tide

Flying over the broken earth is bound to make people feel depressed. Fortunately, they left the earthquake-stricken area a few days later and returned to the area where nothing seemed to have happened. They tend to believe that the lush forests, rivers, and mountains are the delicate skin of nature, the most normal appearance, and the previous devastation is just eczema on a small piece of the earth. After leaving the disaster area, it seems that the eczema in their hearts has also been cured, and everyone has more motivation. These days, they have explored more areas.

"The safety of the hot air balloon shouldn't be a problem, right?" Kita couldn't help but mutter as she controlled the rise and fall of the hot air balloon. They didn't ride the hot air balloon at first because they were worried that the balloon made by Shizi wouldn't be able to bear the weight of ten people and a pile of luggage, but from the experience of these days, the hot air balloon is very reliable.

Although they were flying in the sky, they were still moving along the river. After all, if Poppin'Party was in this river basin, they would probably live near the water source.

A thick three-headed monster snake jumped out of the river below and almost bit the basket. Kita was so scared that she quickly controlled the balloon to fly up a little. There were several noises below. It was other people who took action. The broken body of the giant snake hit the water surface, stirring up waves almost as high as the basket. Even she could see it. The huge waves stirred up new waves, and finally offset each other with the rumbling tide in the distance.

"It looks like we won't be able to see the tide today." Lisa said with a bit of regret.

"Wasn't that big enough?" Shizi comforted her. But she was also a little disappointed.

As the river gradually widened, they gradually discovered the tidal phenomenon that the river had twice a day. The tide came from the lower reaches of the river. At first, it was just a thin white line, but the mighty sound of thousands of troops had already been heard. As time passed, the white line gradually showed a clear shape. The tide, like a wave, carried mud and sand upstream, devouring its source in a rebellious manner, beating the river bank with chaotic mud and sand, ignoring the insects flying in the sky, and continued to march farther upstream until it was exhausted.

The others were at a loss at first, thinking it was an inexplicable attack like the worms before, until Shizi explained to them that it was just a geographical phenomenon caused by a special terrain.

"There is this kind of tide in my hometown, and it is famous all over the country." Shizi felt a little nostalgic, which was rare.

The principle of this tide is simply that the river mouth is in the shape of a trumpet, and the tidal fluctuations are squeezed, and the waves behind push the waves in front, layer by layer, forming a spectacular tide. There is no moon here, but there are tides. It can only be said that some things cannot be thought too much. However, when the tide reaches here, it is no longer spectacular, and the height is comparable to that of ordinary waves.