When I woke up dad wasn't there and when I looked at Vanessa it seemed liked she was crying , I wanted to ask her but didn't . She said that dad was outside , even her voice was off .

We met up with dad and went to eat at a nearby restaurant , "So , what do you two want to eat?"

"I want a cupcake", I replied with my arms up

"I- I'll have the same as him", her voice finally seemed to be normal

"Okay , cupcake for a meal is a bit... but whatever , I'll just have curry", dad called the waiter and ordered our lunch and after a while the waiter brought our meals . The cupcakes were unbelievably huge , it was almost as big as my head , "Woah", I just watched the cupcake in awe , "Wh- Why is it so big?", dad questioned but the waiter just answered as a special for the children .

We thanked for the food and started to eat . Dad finished his curry but we were still eating , atleast I was , Vanessa just took a couple chunk off and stoped . "I don't think that you can eat it all", Vanessa said , there was still a lot of it left and I agreed as I was also full then as dad was trying to pay for the food we suddenly saw the girl from yesterday again staring at us through the window , "Wh- What is she doing?", Vanessa asked while backing from the window "I- Is she stalking us?", dad suddenly looked back  .

After dad paid for the food we came out and the girl immediately came towards us "Hey! Can you take me somewhere",

"Wh- What do you mean?", dad asked reluctantly

"M- Mt. Low , take me to Mt. Low", she said with her mask still covering her face

"What?! We're not going to that ridiculously tall mountain", dad retaliated and started to walk away

"Where's that?", Vanessa asked me while pulling away at my shirt , "I don't know", I replied

"Oh c'mon please it'll be a quick journey", the girl suddenly started to pull dad

"Wha- Don't pull me , and no it won't be a quick journey do you know how tall that mountain is", suddenly it seemed like we were the adults and they were the kids .

After some more nagging dad was still hesitant to go so he asked us if we wanted to go , Vanessa and I thought for some time but the girl looked like she would cry if we said no so at the end we agreed to go with her . 

We finally reached the base of the mountain after walking for some time , we had to get out of the Kingdom first through a hole in the walls , it was not the way we expected to come through and dad was also taken aback because he spent so much time to get us inside just to come out illegally . After that we had to cross a river and then finally we're here .

"Wow , It's so tall", Vanessa said looking at the looming mountain that was before us , the girl was also amazed and said that she had never been so close to it , "C'mon lets go , we didn't come just to watch it", dad started to push us , "O- Oh , yeah", the girl started to take the lead while we just followed her but dad was a bit slow as he was walking sloppily .

We kept on walking and admiring the view , the pathway to the top was in a spiral way and sometimes we needed go inside the mountain and come out with all the caves that it held , even after walking through so many caves we didn't come across a single monster but the girl didn't seem to care as she was still in the lead with showing no signs of slowing down , she kept on talking about some stuff but we couldn't hear her , after a bit more walking suddenly a pair of tentacls came through the ground and grabed us three , it didn't manage to grab dad as he was still a bit behind us but he must've seen us as I saw him running towards us . The monster came out of the ground with its jaw wide "Woo! What is this thing?", the girl suddenly screamed in joy for some reason while Vanessa and I were just screaming scared , the monster came closer to us , dad still didn't manage to reach us as he had gotten left behind pretty far , the monster took us even closer to its mouth , I looked at Vanessa and back at dad he was still pretty far away and when I looked at the girl she was still smiling but I suddenly saw a small figure coming out of her back , its whole body was a bit transparent it was wearing a deep blue cloak and a black tophat blocking half of its head leaving only a big grin left to be seen , it was both human-like and monster-like with its skin as pale and white as snow never letting go of its big and cunning grin , while it was comming out of her back it suddenly felt like the time around us was slowing down , at first I thought I was seeing things but as I looked around I saw everybody looking at it even the monster that was holding us turned its gaze towards it . After what felt like an eternity the figure finally came out and just floated towards the monsters' face , it just looked at the monster but it felt like it was tearing it apart then the monster suddenly put us down and went back underground it felt as if it instilled fear into each of us just by existing , both me and Vanessa were motionless until it went back into her back "Aw , the monster is gone", the girl said with disappointment then dad finally reached us even he was sweating and worried , as he was about to ask about the mysterious figure he stopped and left it .

Still shaken by the incident we decided to walk together while the girl was still cheerfully jumping ahead , after all that climbing we still had to cross through many caves , cliffs and even lava pools and with all these obstacles we managed to calm down a bit as it was nothing compared to seeing and being near that creature .

It was turning dark and we all had to stop , the girl was a bit disappointed but dad managed to convince her to rest for the night . We managed to find an open patch of dirt surrounded by luscious bushes and trees .

"Aren't you afraid?", dad asked the girl while lighting a campfire , 

"Huh?" 

"I mean aren't you a bit too young to be hanging around strangers for so long" 

"To be honest this is my first time doing something like this , I always wanted to visit this mountain for a special reason and something inside me told me that you guys were good people so you guys just don't feel like strangers to me"

"Aren't you trusting your guts a bit too much?"

"I mean it was right , wasn't it? I still remember your face while running towards us earlier", she suddenly started giggling,

"Speaking of that , what was that? The thing that came out of you"

The girl suddenly turned away making a bad poker face "I- I don't know what you're talking about"

"Hey don't lie , well I guess you must have your reasons"

After eating the berries from the surrounding bushes dad made a blanket for each of us , "Woah! How did you do that?", the girl asked in awe

"Just a talent that I was gifted", dad replied while handing out the blankets

"So cool!", she said while immediately wraped herself with the blanket

We all slept leaning against the log we were sitting on while it was a bit uncomfortable it was better than sleeping on the ground . 1 more day left before the announcement .

We woke up early the next day and cleaned all the mess that we had made yesterday , the girl was a bit of a sleep walker and kind of made a mess . We still had a bit to walk to get to the top and while we were walking the girl who was again leading suddenly fell into a pithole trap "Ahh!" we all got worried but... we still didn't know her name which left us in a bit of a predicament , we went over to check if she was okay "Are you okay?" , we looked down but didn't see her ,

"Tsk , I missed", that was a voice that we didn't know , it was clearly a guys' , we looked behind to see a guy wearing just a black cloak from his neck still revealing a part of his well defined body and black pants carrying the girl in his arms , he had strange blue marks in both of his cheeks and long messy light-purple hair with deep red eyes .

"Who are you!?", dad asked hurriedly

"Me? Don't tell me you already forgot", he said not letting go of the girl

"What do you mean by that?", dad asked worried

"Don't play games master or , should I call you... Dad?", a big grin appeared in his face that instilled fear in us

"Dad?", me and Vanessa stared at each other in shock

"Umm... before anything co-could you let me down", the girl asked tugging away at his cloak but the man immediately replied "No" with a straight face , the girl as well as we were quite dumbfounded "Wh- What do you mean no?", the girl asked "You're gonna be the hostage", the guy said while backing off "I don't think that's a good idea I mean I bearly know them-", "Let her go", dad suddenly interrupted with a serious look "Huh? What was that?", the guy asked mockingly with a grin in his face ,

"I said let her go , Adolph"

The guy , Adolph suddenly started to grin even bigger "So the old man hasn't gone senile huh"

"Adolph?", Vanessa suddenly let out

"Do you also know him?", I asked with surprise

"N- No , but I feel like I have heard of him before"

Suddenly Adolph created a water bubble and put the girl inside it "H- Hey! What are you-", as soon as she went inside the bubble we couldn't hear her voice anymore , she started to bang onto the bubble but nothing happened "You either fight me or I kill her" both Vanessa and I got worried by the word kill "We have no reason to fight , let her go", dad replied not breaking his look of seriousness "Oh we do , I'm not letting you ruin childrens' lives anymore" Vanessa suddenly went behind me " Wh- What does he mean by that?" I was also startled by what he had just said but I tried to act though , "I'm gonna kill you right here , right now", Adolph suddenly lunged at dad while I and Vanessa quickly ran back "You two stay back!", dad shouted .

Adolph punched dad even though dad was able to block it he still went flying , dad did a couple of flips and stopped right at the edge of a cliff by grabing onto the ground "Don't worry I won't hurt you kids , you should just stay back", Adolph was suddenly speaking to us with a kind tone "B- But you said you will kill her", Vanessa replied still hiding behind my back "Oh that was just-", suddenly dad came flying with a dropkick to Adolphs' chest which pushed him back a couple feet but he had caught dads' legs and wouldn't let go , as he was gasping for air he suddenly breathe fire from his mouth which engulfed dad whole , we all were shocked and tried to reach for him but a kick suddenly came out from the fire that landed on Adolphs' neck which made him cough viciously making him stop breathing fire and his whole body wobbeled , as he was trying to grab his neck a punch suddenly came from the smoke hitting him straight on the face which made him fall down but he did a backflip and managed to crouch down . Dad came out of the smoke and started to clean himself , blood started to flow from Adolphs' nose "You really are a monster huh" his eyes suddenly started to glow red and also the marks on his cheek started to glow and spread throughout his face more , as he was getting up a noise suddenly came from his right hand *DIZZ* *DIZZ* he looked at his arm and it was coming from his middle finger where there was a number 3 blinking "Tsk , Why now of all times" he looked back at dad frustrated "This isn't over" he suddenly reached out his right arm summoning a skeleton horse that he flew away on . As soon as he left the bubble that he used to trap the girl also popped and the girl was released , we quickly went to check on her and saw that she was fine , he had made her able to breathe even inside the bubble of water "Who was he?", we asked dad "Somewhat of an old friend", he replied but suddenly Vanessa screamed "Adolph!" which startled us a bit "He is known famous for taking bounty quests in community guild but why did he call you dad?", dad suddenly turned to look to the sky with a mixed look of relief and grief "Dad? huh , I'll tell you guys when the time is right" he suddenly looked back at us with a warm smile .