Chapter 220: That’s a long time...

After traveling quite a distance, Magna realized the camp was actually farther away than he had expected, so he made a sudden decision to turn back.

For one thing, he didn’t want to get lost again, especially since he had no idea how large the Underworld was. Sticking with those Witches seemed like a better option.

Another reason was that his stomach was practically empty, something he felt even more strongly after his mana reserves had dropped to 8%.

He felt like he hadn’t eaten anything in a decade, which wasn’t far from the truth.

He wasn’t exactly starving to death, but getting something to eat from them would be a perfect outcome.

With that in mind, he landed on the ground, turned around, and jumped again.

Unfortunately, he still wasn’t very experienced at landing gently, so when he came down, he made quite a mess, sending dust and dirt flying everywhere.

Emerging from the cloud, he found himself facing a proper fighting unit of 20 armored Shadows and 21 red-robed Witches, which made him a little nervous.

It wasn’t that he thought he would lose a fight against them. He had already seen what they were capable of, so even in the worst case, he was confident he could simply escape. Still, he didn’t want to appear suspicious.

He gave them a friendly chuckle before asking directly.

"Ah, sorry. I just came back to ask if you have anything to eat."

He wasn’t using his intimidating aura either. After all, he was only asking for food, not their lives.

Even so, the Witches and Shadows remained on guard, watching him with tense, wary eyes.

Only one of the Witches standing at the back moved, slowly making her way toward the front.

The first thing Magna noticed about the woman was the 2 golden lines on her hat, which made him guess she was probably the group’s leader.

Then, when his attention shifted to her face, he was genuinely surprised.

2 red eyes that looked like flames were burning inside them, a star-shaped red mole beneath her eye, and those familiar silver earrings decorating her ears.

There was no mistake. Magna knew this woman.

"Renna?" he asked, his voice carrying a mixture of excitement at seeing an old friend and disbelief at finding her here.

Her appearance hadn’t changed much. She looked almost exactly as he remembered, but the way she walked, the look in her eyes, and even the aura she gave off were completely different.

The fact that she was in an entirely different realm, apparently leading this group, was another unexpected discovery.

The golden light in her abdomen was also much greater than that of the other Witches, making Magna think she must now be considerably stronger than her grandmother, who had been an 11th Trial Witch when he last saw her.

It didn’t take him long to understand that time hadn’t passed only for him. While he had been sleeping, the people he knew outside had continued living their lives.

’How long have I been gone, I wonder?’

The question suddenly came to mind as he watched Renna slowly approach him.

"Are you really Magna?" Renna asked, her voice trembling slightly as her eyes began to fill with tears.

She could hardly believe how familiar the person standing before her looked.

It had been more than 12 years since she had last seen or heard from him, with the only news being that he had gone missing in the Underworld.

"Yeah, I guess?" Magna chuckled, lowering his head to look at his own body, as even he wasn’t entirely sure who he was anymore.

"How?"

Renna was standing right in front of him now, studying his face closely, almost trying to take in every little detail.

So much had happened over those 12 years, completely changing her life.

Yet there was one thing that had never changed. She had never forgotten Magna, taking every opportunity she could find to search for him.

She had always tried to take missions in the Underworld, hoping that one day she might find him. In fact, that was the very reason she had accepted the mission to fight the Devouring Desolation.

Although the monster was weaker than other Desolations after being sealed for so long, it was still a high-risk mission that every other unit had been reluctant to accept and ultimately turned down.

She had never given up hope, believing Magna wasn’t someone who would die so easily, or perhaps simply wishing that he would return someday.

Now that he was actually standing before her, however, she was having trouble believing it.

Magna could see countless emotions passing across her face. "How long has it been?" he asked with a sigh.

"12 years." Renna lowered her head, hiding her face beneath her hat.

Magna could clearly hear the slight catch in her voice, noticing the tears beginning to drip from her chin.

He hadn’t experienced the passage of those years himself, but thinking about how the people he had left behind had continued living their lives all that time gave him an unpleasant feeling.

"That’s a long time..."

He was still the same Magna, never particularly good with words. Not knowing how to comfort a crying woman, he simply asked the first thing that came to mind.

"How’s your grandmother doing?"

Unfortunately, the question only seemed to make her more sorrowful, her body trembling slightly.

"She’s gone."

Magna immediately cursed himself.

How could he have been so insensitive, so stupid, to choose possibly the worst question he could have asked?

Not wanting to open his mouth again and make things worse, he simply stepped forward and hugged her, one of the few ways he knew to comfort someone.

Magna was taller than her now, allowing him to feel her warm breath against his bare chest.

Before long, he began feeling something wet there as well. Renna’s sobs grew louder until she finally broke into tears.

It was almost like she had reached her emotional breaking point, finally releasing everything she had kept bottled up over the last 12 years.

Her mother was already gone, and after losing her grandmother, the only family she had left, she had been enduring life all alone.

Now, seeing a familiar face from those days, someone she had believed dead for so long standing before her alive and well, was the final drop that pushed her past her limit.

Meanwhile, the Witches and Shadows in her unit watched the scene with dumbfounded expressions.

The fact that their leader somehow knew this monstrous man was shocking enough. Seeing her crying so openly in his arms was something they could never have imagined.

As far as they knew, Renna had always been extremely stubborn when it came to Shadows, refusing to form a contract with any of them.

She had never been in a romantic relationship with a man either. Hell, some of them had even begun wondering whether she understood what a relationship was in the first place.

But after witnessing the scene before them, they were beginning to realize that their leader might not be the completely inexperienced virgin they had always assumed her to be.