The group spent the night in the tavern in the oasis city and had a great time there. On the following day, they met with Doma again and took a boat ride on the lake to get to its center and measure the depth because Sophia wanted to find out just how deep it was.

  “Sophia, is there any way for you to sniff out my brother?” While rowing over the lake, Anna addressed her fellow tiger. “I really want to meet his group!”

  “To mess with him?” She raised an eyebrow in return.

  “Of course!” The princess nodded a few times.

  “What a model sister you are.” The blonde was proud of her.

  “Ehehe~.” She liked her reply. “So?”

  “Well, if you want to sniff out someone, the wolves or Steph would be ones to ask. They have great noses, after all.”

  “I was more figuratively and less literally talking.” Anna rolled her eyes. “I was thinking about something more magical.”

  “Mhmm.” Sophia scratched her cheek. "They need to be somewhat near for me to be able to pick them up with any magic. That will be pretty hard if we have no idea where they are currently. On top of that, their magic power is more on the regular side, right? It will be quite hard for me to spot them between everyone and everything else I can sense."

  “Too bad!” The princess had hoped for something better. "Alright, I'll get an old jacket from Nathan for Steph to learn his scent, so that she can literally sniff him out!”

  “That might raise your chances of finding him.” The blonde nodded. “Though, knowing Steph, she probably would have an easier time finding a cute girl over a boy.”

  “Then I'll take an old jacket from Ari's sister! She's almost as cute as Ari, and she’s also with Nathan!”

  “Hehe.” The jaguar in question liked the praise of her sister and especially how she ranked above her.

  “That will work a lot better!” Sophia felt like that would motivate her sister much more.

  “I’m all for meeting cute girls, but I kinda doubt our dog can sniff out people in any meaningful distance.” Maya wasn’t overly convinced by the plan. “Well, I guess it would help us with not walking past them in the same city, but still…"

  “Steph has the weirdest talents, so don’t write her off that easily.” Sophia didn’t like her belittling her sister.

  “I mean, yeah, her talents are great and fun, but there are limits to things. Then again, she is your sister, so she cares about limits as much as you so, so…”

  “Exactly!” The blonde smiled at her girlfriend.

  “Okay, I REALLY hate this now!” While they were chatting, the tigers were also rowing them closer to the center of the lake at the same time. The closer they got, the more nervous Maya became. The ground was getting further and further away before it suddenly completely disappeared below a steep cliff in the water. “This is the worst!”

  After the cliff, they were able to look down a few hundred meters and spotted some fish here and there, but it eventually turned hazy before everything turned dark. It was so deep that the sunlight eventually wasn't able to penetrate the water any further. Details and fish became fuzzy-looking before they faded away entirely after a while. They were more or less floating over a massive and pitch-black pit of nothingness.

  “Okay, I’m inclined to agree with you now.” Ari also took another look at the water below them and shuddered a little. “This is creepily eerie.”

  “Ohh, I think it’s pretty cool, though!” Anna shifted her attention away from the conversation and looked down the abyss. “Wait, I think I saw something sparkle just now!” Apparently, it stared back, too.

  “STOP THAT!” The cat-girl only panicked more in return. “You’re just messing around, right?!”

  “No, she’s right.” Doma agreed with the princess. “We’ve observed the sparkle in the depth multiple times in the past. However, we were unable to identify it because of the depth. Our leading theory is that it's just some minerals reflecting bits of light that made it that far down.”

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  “Oh, that makes a lot of sense!” Ari was relieved that it seemed relatively harmless.

  “Actually,” Looking slightly surprised, Sophia looked at a specific area in the depth below them while squinting her eyes and scratching her cheek.

  “If you finish your sentence and tell me what’s down there, I’LL BREAK UP WITH YOU!” The cat-girl was properly terrified by her odd reaction alone.

  “You are so cute when you’re scared!” As Sophia preferred to keep her girlfriend, she opted against telling her. “Fine.”

  “How does breaking with an individual inside a group work?” Doma got interested in the logistics of it.

  “We aren’t a group in that regard!” The jaguar glared at him.

  “Ah, right, I forgot about that narrative.” Judging by the sarcasm in his voice, the horned man still didn't believe her.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to know what’s down there?” Ignoring them, Anna looked at Maya with a questioning expression. “Like, doesn’t not knowing make it even scarier?”

  “If I don’t know, I can more easily pretend that it doesn’t exist!”

  “But it does exist, though?”

  “Without Sophia telling you what’s down there, you have no proof!”

  “But isn’t that the proof…?” The princess only got more confused.

  “Listen,” The cat-girl stared at her. “We don’t do logical and sound arguments in this group, so shut up already.” She was so nervous that her tail got all puffy while it twitched and darted all over the place behind her back.

  "You are right. She is cute when she’s scared.” Letting out a small chuckle, she turned to Sophia and gave her a slight nod.

  “So very true!” Sophia reacted with a thumbs up in her direction.

  “Urgh, I should’ve stayed home.” Maya wasn’t a fan of her current situation. “For many reasons, that is.”

  “No, we love to have you here right now.” The tigers and Ari disagreed with her.

  “I hate all of you.”

  “We love you dearly, though.” The girls enjoyed the current scaredy cat.

  “See?” Doma suddenly faced Ari again. “You can publicly deny that you’re all dating each other however much you want, but the truth is obvious to everyone around you. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, so there's no need for the denial, is there?”

  "A-Ah.” The jaguar awkwardly scratched her cheek. “We, uhh, do make it seem like it is the case at times, don’t we…?” She then looked at the others.

  “Well…” The two tigers also had little to say in their defense.

  “And I have to break up with all of you!” Maya still didn’t like the situation she was in.

  “Not helping!” Ari glared at her.

  “You aren’t helping me, either!” The cat-girl’s glare was even stronger.

  “Alright, should we try to find out how deep this lake is already?” Not paying more attention to the topic, Sophia looked at Doma.

  “I would greatly appreciate that.” He nodded. “I’m too old to keep up with your conversations.”

  “Fair.” The blonde couldn’t blame him for that. “Though, I wonder if you can keep up with this any better.” Saying so, she opened a small portal linked to her storage and pulled out a few fist-sized stones.

  “HUH?!” Naturally, Doma instantly got loud. “What just happened?!”

  “Listening to the love talk of a bunch of girls was easier, huh?” She felt a little sorry for him.

  “What was that sparkly stuff?! Where did those stones come from?!”

  “Magic~.” Sophia put the stones on the floor of the boat in front of her and gave the horned man a thumbs up. “I’ve told you that magic can do much more than simply controlling elements. What you just saw was me using magic to store things.” It wasn't exactly the case as she used it to access her domain, but it was close enough in a way, and she didn't feel like explaining it in detail.

  “Ha.” He needed a minute to process this information. “It appears that I’ve been in this village for too long because it seems like the outside world has progressed at a tremendous pace without me noticing.”

  “It happens.” She smiled at him while nodding a few times.

  “Don’t let her fool you.” Ari slowly shook her head while looking at Doma. “She’s just special.”

  “That’s actually quite relieving to hear.” His expression turned softer. “Then again, all of you have magic powers far beyond everything I’ve ever felt before, so I’m not sure if I can believe you there, either.” He developed some trust issues regarding the jaguar’s claims.

  “…” She gave up.

  “To be fair, she’s not entirely wrong.” Sophia tried to help Ari out a little. “This is some rather advanced magic only a small handful of people can do.”

  “I see.” The horned man simply nodded along.

  “Anyway, can you feel the magic radiating from this stone?” The blonde grabbed one of the stones on the boat’s floor in front of her and held it up before Doma.

  “Hmm.” He concentrated on it for a moment. “Yes, I can feel a faint power in it. What use does it have, though?”

  “Well, the important part right now is that I put some of my magic in there, and I can track it. It won’t be exact down to a single meter, but it will reliably tell me how far away it is from me at all times.”

  “I won’t pretend that I understand it, but I get it.”

  “Good enough.” Sophia smiled at him. "I'll throw a couple of stones at once to make sure at least one of them reaches the deepest point of the lake. After all, we want to avoid it accidentally getting stuck on a ledge and giving us a false reading."

  “That makes sense.”

  “Speaking of avoiding, I have to make REALLY sure not to get close to the area that sparkled earlier.” The blonde scratched her cheek. “Hitting that would be EXTREMELY bad.”

  “WHY WOULD IT BE BAD?!” Maya instantly began to panic again.

  “I would need to tell you what it is to answer that.”

  “NEVER MIND!” She didn’t want to know, after all.

  “Alright, let’s go!” Saying so, the blonde took the five stones she took out of her portal and threw them into the lake in different positions.

  Once that was taken care of, the girls, and Doma, took a small break while waiting for the stones to reach the bottom and enjoying their relaxing boat trip.