Onlookers and a Conversation

Nightingale didn't notice a gaze was focused on her at this time. However, it was hardly her neglect. It came from quite a distance, not to mention high in the air. This also not counting on the account that she had her attention fully grabbed by the twins, they were urging her to tell all kind of stories.

Unknown to the girls that were going through emotional reunion, there was a young blonde girl resting on top of a tall tree. She was not trying to peep and more as she stumbled upon the scene as she looked around from above as she was looking at the surrounding scenery.

She might not hear what they heard, but with her sharp pair of eyes, she could distinctly saw there was something going on a deeper level. Her mind wandered off for a while before she snapped out of her daze. A breeze blew through the forest and chilled her body; As she trembled and about to sneeze, she finally noticed someone was calling on her from below.

The voice was very soft and considering where she currently was, it's like as if the speaker was trying their best to not let her hear. But looking back at the witches that snuggled together, she understood.

"Hello--- Are--- You--- Lightning---?"

The girl on top obviously can't hear, but she felt it was the words her caller was saying. She smiled at the clumsy attempt and after going through with her sneeze, slowly descended down. Her gaze lingered on Nightingale's side for a while.

Under the tree, there was a young girl of her age. Like what she thought, the other was really asking whether she was Lightning. It was indeed her name, however, Lightning can't recognize her face no matter how she tried to recall.

Not knowing each other even though they were staying in the same place, it was hardly a surprising matter. Remembering over forty faces of the witches in the camp in a short amount of time was tough even for an explorer like her. Considering she just joined the camp, there were still a lot of people she didn't know their names of, and perhaps that might be the case for her too.

There was also another assumption that she was like her not too long ago, she came from outside and just arrived. Yet if that was the case, knowing her name was an intriguing case.

"Hello." She gave a bright smile, her first impression of the girl was good. "I'm indeed Lightning. Do you know me?"

"It was said you have the ability to fly, so I want to take a look." The girl nodded as she explained, in a low voice. "Indeed, you can fly!"

She was exclaiming with lower volume, it was a very cute appearance. Lightning found the girl quite adorable despite their similar age and laughed. They were not actually that near to Nightingale who the girl probably concerned about, but it was understandable to not want to bother if one simply looked at them.

To make their conversation clearer, they walked some distance away so they could no longer hold back their voices.

As they talked to each other, Lightning learned of her name.

"I'm Nana, nice to meet you." Nana introduced herself in a plain manner.

Lightning decided to take the chance to inquire. "Are you a witch from the camp? Someone that just joined?"

"Neither," Nana said before abruptly stopped and looked around. Lightning felt she was selecting her words before she spoke. "I'm someone from outside."

"Outside?" A flash of surprise showed on Lightning's eyes. She had learned a few things about the camp and one of the first things she understood was just how secretive they were. If not for her ability to travel rather freely from above, she might not be able to find them even if she combed through the mountain.

It was for that reason there were still some people wary about her sudden appearance. Especially the leader, Cara always looked at her as if she was a big troublemaker and never took her words seriously.

"Are you not a witch?" Lightning asked, she was not afraid of talking to a stranger, she only afraid if she couldn't sate her curiosity.

"I am." Nana nodded and said in a conflicting tone. "My ability is not like yours, however."

"Oh?" Lightning understood that from seeing the camp's witches that some abilities might be similar, but they were usually different. She didn't feel it anything weird and directly asked. "What are yours then?"

"I can heal flesh injuries. It's a very important ability or so I was told, but for that, I need to often see blood..." Nana whimpered.

"That's indeed very useful." Lightning nodded seriously and paused as she remembered something. She stretched her right hand and pointed her wrist to Nana. "I'm still recovering from a scratch, can you heal it?"

If one looked carefully, there was a line of cut on around her wrist. It was merely a small wound, and the trace indicated it was not too long ago since she got it.

"I'm flying around and gathering fruits you see. But some trees are dense and I sometimes got scratched from it."

Lightning then pointed at a bag tied on her waist and opened it for Nana to see. She took two fruits that had not only the chicken egg in shape but also its size. It was red in colour with a tinge of green around the bottom, Lightning took one for herself and offered another to Nana.

Seeing Nana curiously touched it but didn't immediately eat it, Lightning made a small nod before she took a bite and explained while smiling. "It's delicious, and it has a lot of pulp inside and very juicy. But it grew very high on top of tall trees with dense branches and sharp leaves, so I sometimes got cut."

Nana nodded but still didn't eat it. Instead, she grabbed Lightning's hand and utilized her ability. The small wound Lightning got was healed almost immediately, even some scratches next to it that already started drying up and in proliferative phase also had its cover fell off and new skin quickly replacing it.

"Ooh, your ability is really amazing." Lightning said in amazement.

"But it also means I would need to often see blood and such. It's not very good." Nana shook her head before letting out a sigh and took a bite to the fruit. Delicious food never failed to cheer her up, she praised it to high heaven and acted as if she didn't get just depressed a second ago.

"Now that you mention it again, why is that?" Lightning noted something, Nana had mention twice that she had to keep seeing wounds because of her ability.

"Oh, the prince said so..." Nana absentmindedly answered before quickly stopped herself. She hastily covered it up. "Have you heard about our day of awakening? If you don't use your abilities often enough, you will be in a very bad time that might be life-threatening."

Lightning was curious about the prince she spoke of but similarly curious about what Nana mentioned. It was said in a passing, but in it contained a very important fact for witches. She had learned about it, yes, but never thought there was such a method to overcome the infamous demonic torture.

It was not like she didn't want to believe Nana, but the witches in the camp never said that and instead told her about the stories where some of the sisters couldn't go on and passed away from that. They told her to stay strong when the time came as there was nothing they could do.

Two conflicting stories, which one was the correct one?

Of course, her thought process was not that black and white. As someone aspiring to be a great explorer, one of the most important things she was taught of by her father was to have a broad-mindedness of a mind. She caught some clues after pondering it for a moment.

"Is this something that prince said?"

"Well..." Nana trailed off and didn't know whether she should tell Lightning about Roland. Though he never said to keep his name concealed, Nightingale and the others did. In the end, Nana neither denied nor confirmed it and instead answered the issue from another angle. "Both sister Anna and Nightingale believed it, so it must be the truth."

"That famous Nightingale, the killer in the shadows?" Lightning blinked her eyes, not expecting to hear the name.

"Sister Nightingale is a good person, you can't slander her." Nana puffed her cheeks and pouted. Her appearance, however, was not even a bit intimidating and instead made one wanted to knead her cheeks.

"Oh, sorry. It's because of her ability you see." Lightning felt apologetic and tried to calm Nana down.

"It's true that she can come and go as she wishes, becoming invisible to our eyes. But you don't need to say it like that, sister Nightingale is a very attentive and gentle person." Nana shook her head disapprovingly.

"Attentive? Gentle?" Lightning actually never meet Nightingale before, so she only heard bits about her from other witches. But the description from Nana seemed a bit different from what she gathered.

"Didn't you just see it?" Nana tilted her head before raising her hand and pointed a direction with it. "That tall and slender person is Nightingale sister. The first thing she did when she came back was to comfort those two girls, how can she be a bad person?"

Lightning followed her and sure enough, it was the scene she looked before. While the three were no longer hugging each other, they were still close to each other and seemingly continued their talking as they picked ingredients around.

"That's Nightingale?" Lightning said aloud, she didn't bother hiding her surprise.

"Yes, and she came with me together." Nana nodded and a sense of pride swelled in her tiny chest.

Lightning didn't say anything and she only looked at the distance where Nightingale was. After a while, she finally remembered something and turned to ask Nana. "Do you have something to ask for me?"

While someone might only call her because they wanted to see whether she could really fly, Lightning can tell that was not all Nana wanted from her.

"Right. I, no, we want your help." Nana said with a pleading look. "Can you help us?"