I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!
About the traveling; yes, it has been bought to my attention that the backtracking may be a bit much. There are currently plans for a Fast Travel Plugin, a smaller Virga Forest, and some improvements to mitigate the amount of back and forth.
For the Exploration, the Demo may be a bit lacking, but I'll keep that in mind for the Full Release to give more Rewards for exploring. Thank you for your insights!