I'm trying to update faster, hooray!

Thank you for the reviews, I find them very encouraging.

The title of this chapter comes from the song by Peer Gynt.

Onward!

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

In the Hall of the Mountain King

The nations were hiking through the Korean mountains, looking for Korea. Again. They'd been at this for over a week.

"Weeeeeeeest, carry meeeeeeee," Prussia whined. He was trying to get a chestnut out of his hair without pricking himself on the spines. They all had a number of thorns caught in their skin or clothing.

"Prussia-kun, I'm fairly certain you'd hit tree branches if anyone tried to carry you."

"Dude! Check out this flower!" America called. The aforementioned flower was a bright magenta in color and had many very thin petals. It was a very attractive flower and was on a rather boring, shrubby looking plant. America reached out to touch it. Not pick, just touch.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" the vast majority of other nations screamed.

"What? I'm not going to hurt it!"

"America, you bloody idiot, that's nettle!"

"Oh," He knew what nettle was and what would happen if he touched it, he'd just never seen it before. Well, not in a long time, anyway.

They continued trudging through the mountains, why did this have to happen? Why couldn't Korean mountains be easier to get through?

Oh right, Korea got tired of putting up with their shit. That wasn't too surprising, actually. The mountains were just really convenient for him.

"Ve~ I think it's going to rain."

Well there was no real shelter, so the trees would have to do. They'd get wet, but it was better than nothing.

Wet leaves and vegetation would make moving on noticeably harder, though. This really just wasn't their day, was it? A godawful hike in mountains that were a lot harder to get through than they should've been and now it was going to rain.

That was just wonderful.

In their defense: how were they to know something like this would happen? Sure, giving Korea a nosebleed was a bit much, but he'd surely notice if they started tip toeing around him!

How could they know that beneath the act, there was a man who was quicker to snarl than to smile? He was a very convincing actor, even after Japan saw him with the sword. They could almost believe it never happened.

And that was why they were going through these thrice damned mountains when it was going to rain soon.

It went from a light drizzle to pouring buckets a lot faster than they thought it would.

This was miserable. Who in all of heaven and hell would want this? How the hell was Korea living here? How could anyone live here?

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Korea was sitting just outside a cave as the sun rose. Last night's rain made the air feel cleaner, fresher.

It was morning, and he was calm. He hadn't been awake long enough for the rage and resentment bubble to the surface.

He sat with his eyes closed as sunlight started filtering through the trees, listening to the soft, distant sound of the underground river that had carved the caverns behind him.

He heard a branch break, so he slowly opened one eye.

It was a fox. It had an air of intelligence about it. More than some humans did.

"Well, hello there."

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

The nations were panting as they climbed. This was a fresh new hell. Sleeping had been uncomfortable as shit last light, probably because they had been sleeping on the ground.

Another day had gone by, and the sun was setting. They were all miserable and they ran out of food eight hours ago. It took three hours to make America shut up about it.

Not to mention the mountain had gotten much steeper.

"I think I hear water, aru!"

"Like, a river?"

"Maybe, but I think it's underground. Sounds far off, aru."

"The awesome me has found a cave!" Prussia called. They followed his snake-like laughing and found him on a cave floor. By the looks of it, finding it was unintentional.

"Good job, da?"

They slowly started coming in, careful not to bump their heads on the rocks.

"Hey, panda bastard, there's light deeper in," Romano said, pointing deeper into the cave. Lo and behold! There was!

"Let's go, aru!"

They walked quickly towards the light, they didn't run because the cave floor was somewhat wet and they didn't want to slip.

They entered a large cavern with a bigass fire burning off to the side. What caught their attention was Korea, sitting on a large rock with a pretty, well dressed woman, eating dried meat.

He looked at them, slightly irritated.

"What?"

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Not as long as the last one, but we're getting somewhere.

Reviews remain appreciated, but I won't insist you do so.

Anyway, that's it for now.