Celestina

"No!" I nearly cried as I came to a horrifying realization. "My first B Rank kill… Even its Lesser B Rank Monster Core completely evaporated! For shame! All that effort turned to nothing!"

"I wouldn't say that," Katherine said as she—

She 'dared' to pick me up while I was still literally flaming.

She didn't seem at all affected by my fires though, as she continued saying, "I mean, you managed to get this nifty new Skill, and..." she mumbled the rest.

"Yeah, uh… Are you sure you should be holding me? I haven't exactly figured out how to turn off the fires," I said, nervous that any sudden movement might make my evidently harmless flames not so harmless.

"This is an Incarnate Skill, right?" When I nodded at her question she continued, "Then, everything should be fine so long as you don't suddenly see me as your enemy. Plus… It's really comfortable holding you this close when you're like that," she added as an afterthought. "I'd even go as far as asking to sleep on you if I didn't need you to keep an eye out for me at night."

What am I, a fucking pillow to you?

"If it's anything like Uncle Ransel's Skill, your fires should extinguish by themselves in a couple minutes. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"As much as I'd like to ask you more about it," or read through the Skill's description for that matter, "our 'guest' is still here for some reason," I said, nodding off towards the elf.

"Don't you have a village to retreat back to? You know, to rest and recover before you're back to stalking us again?" I asked her.

I might have healed her once, but there was little to no chance that a single Heal Spell was all it would take to recover from getting her right leg completely pierced through by an Earth Spear. At best, it had been restored to the point of regenerating enough flesh to scab over and be functional. But internally, I was pretty sure the wound was a mess.

"No," she bluntly said as she cast upon me the most venomous look I'd drawn from her thus far.

Oh? Struck a nerve did I?

Interesting...

"What? Are you too tough to go back and ask to get treated? Or," I snickered, "do you expect me to finish the job for you, myself?" I might have been pushing it a bit too far, but I couldn't help myself and said, "Go on. All you have to do is ask and I won't mind helping you 'again.'"

I could see the hatred and humiliation simmer in her eyes... Yet, "Ok then, please help me," she still went through with accepting my offer in the end?

"Are you serious?" I dropped the pretentious act, genuinely curious as to why she was behaving so strangely.

Really, I'd only asked as an attempt at getting more information about the elf village while playing to her emotions. I didn't expect her to actually accept any help from two 'neutral' strangers.

"Yes..." She sighed in resignation.

"Uh, alrighty then, just… give me a minute. My Magic Reserves will need a while to recover from that last attack."

When she nodded and then took a seat right then and there on the ground, I looked to Katherine and found that she was following the elf's actions. Perhaps it was just paranoia or something else entirely, but I was not content with seeing her so quick to drop her guard. I mean, sure, Katherine was probably the best off of the three of us following the fight with the Terraccoon.

But still…

"So um, what's your name?" Katherine asked as we sat and waited. Well, they sat and I stood; it was more comfortable for me that way.

"Why do you care? It's not like we'll ever be friends," the elf snorted.

"Don't be like that! We've already been comrades in two battles together." An assertive Katherine was preferable to her usually meek and subservient demeanor.

"And that suddenly makes us friends?"

"It certainly doesn't make us enemies, right Nova?"

"I wouldn't be willing to heal an enemy," I said. "Then again, I wouldn't expect someone who's 'not' a friend to ask me to heal them either," I added as I gave the elf an odd look. "Seriously, what the hell are you doing?"

"You don't have to heal me!" She made to get up and storm off, but the fact that she had a very noticeable limp completely detracted from her show.

"Would you relax?!" I would have bonked her if I wasn't almost entirely certain that she would mistake my attack for, well… an attack. "I said I'd heal you if you asked, alright? I keep my promises." At that, she stopped and began walking back.

"It's just a bit odd, don't you think?" My words brought her to a halt again. "Just a little while ago, you directly called me a threat to your village. Yet, now instead of getting treated there, you decide to trust in me? You don't want to do something as simple as share your name, yet you'll let me cast Magic on you?"

"Hell, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're doing this because you can't get treated in your village," I nearly laughed. Though, it was a good thing I didn't because the elf's face pretty much confirmed that hail mary of a guess.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me..." The elf did nothing to retort or try to convince me of anything. All I wanted to know was, "Why?!"

"You… You wouldn't be able to understand," when she finished, her voice was almost a whisper.

"Really? You just watched me kill a Lesser B Rank Monster as a Standard C Rank Monster myself. I think there's a lot of bullshit others would find impossible that I'd believe." Granted, the Terraccoon was hit pretty hard by one of her arrows. But there's no denying that the reason it died was because I incinerated it under meters of molten magma.

For a time, the elf remained at an impasse. She had this look of uncertainty on her face, like she was trying to come to a resolution through a fierce internal debate. Eventually, though, so much time had passed that I gave up on her being the first to speak.

"You know what? Don't tell me. It doesn't matter either way," I said as I took my time in forming a Tier 4 Regeneration Spell. "Even if you continue stalking us, we'll forget about each other eventually. Having already taken down a Lesser B Rank Monster, soon enough my partner and I will be out of your hair for good."

With the Regeneration Spell cast, it would only take another two or three Heals to fully restore the elf's legs back to where they were prior to our fight with the Terraccoon. Regeneration alone would probably have been enough for her to be fine on her own and fully recover by this time tomorrow. But, her adamance in being so closed off had annoyed me into outright healing her so she would leave as soon as possible.

"I… I won't continue trying to spy on you," the elf muttered. "But that doesn't mean I'll stop openly watching you."

"Great," I rolled my eyes.

"We'll be seeing each other more often," she said as she looked between Katherine and I. "So, I suppose it would be fine if going forward you referred to me as Celestina."

From there, I finished healing her before she left without another word and for the rest of that day, I didn't catch her trying to spy on us again.

…

The very next day, however, when Celestina sauntered over to us without a care in the world, I asked, "You weren't kidding about openly watching us yesterday?"

"I don't 'kid,'" she snorted. "I have a duty to the village to keep an eye out for potential threats and yesterday's showing only proved to me how big of a threat you actually are. As a neutral party, though, I guess I can give you the courtesy of not hiding my intentions; not like you couldn't see through them, to begin with..."

"So, what? We just pretend you're not around while we go about our training?"

"I don't suppose you'd let me join, would you?"

"Are you offering?"

"It would be ideal, yes… To keep me aware of your growth, while also sharpening my own skills in the meantime."

Despite her honesty, I looked at Katherine to get her opinion on the matter. I'd personally be thrilled to gain the elf as a third party member. She had proven herself to be at, or maybe even slightly above, our current level.

With her around, I could afford to spare a great deal of energy on keeping an eye on our surroundings. We would also be better equipped to deal with more enemies that were also stronger. Not to mention, the fact that her addition would increase the number of Monsters we hunted.

The more Monsters we killed, the more carcasses and Monster Cores I would be able to feed on. It would directly increase how fast I Leveled Up as well as how often I could restore the party's Magic to continue a death-march-like routine.

All that aside, I couldn't make the decision to add Celestina, if temporarily, to the party by myself. I might have been leading our group thus far, but for things to remain functional I needed Katherine to sign off on accepting a new party member.

It only takes a single discordant note to turn a harmonious symphony into pure chaos, and the same principle applies to matters of a party. After all, once we went out on a hunt we would take with us any unresolved issues. Anyone and everyone in a party puts their lives in the hands of their party mates and they expect the others to do everything in their power to guard it.

I don't know about Katherine, but I could personally extend the slightest bit of trust to Celestina. I mean, to get anywhere in life and to build relationships, you had to open yourself up to some degree, right? I'd done so with Katherine in the past, so I could do so now with Celestina.

This time, at least I had some safeguards in place. This time, I could mitigate some of the damage I could only hope would never come to fruition; like they hadn't with Katherine so far, anyway.

"Sure..." Katherine said as she looked back at me. She quickly changed her tune when she flashed Celestina a smile and said, "It'd be nice to have another girl around to talk to."

"You—" My eye twitched, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"It means, I'd like to talk to more than just you for extended periods of time. Hey, don't look at me like that," she actually tried to cover her mouth as she giggled, "It's not you. I mean, I'd probably feel the same way if I were stuck for a whole month with just my best friend to talk to."

"So long as the two of you don't plan on starting some shit behind my back..." I snorted.