Enri The Wonderer

"This is my first time seeing someone so weird like her. I guess there's no sane person in Syndicate," Enri remarked.

Her twin elbowed her stomach.

"Don't say that."

Enri sneered. "Why not? She's a bad guy, anyway."

The group moved stealthily, avoiding the pack leader that might lurked nearby. A dozen or so minutes later, they spotted the leader.

Not wanting to be spotted, they moved even more silently than earlier with Nihila's chosen Trace. Their steps didn't produce any sound, and they also emitted no odor, completely concealing their presence.

The twins deliberately held their breath under intense pressure when trying to pass the pack leader's territory. Meanwhile, Sorath, Fred, and Nihila looked very calm despite that.

There was a moment when the Burning Wolf's leader looked in their direction as though it noticed something. Its gazes lasted for dozens of minutes. At that time, the group stopped moving.

After the staring contest finished, the leader suddenly moved to stand on four legs, startling the group. 

Among them, only Enri exaggerated her reaction. She stumbled behind, her back lay flat on the ground. Everyone's breath at that moment was suddenly stopped, even Enri, who was about to rise again.

Slowly, they turned to look at the Burning Wolf's leader, whose size was about the size of a small house, expecting it to notice their presence because of Enri. Fortunately, they were safe.

The pack's leader not only did not notice the group, but it also walked away from its territory after staring in the direction of where the battle against the cubs happened earlier.

Seeing the pack leader disappear into the woods, the group could finally let out the breath they had been holding. Everyone except Nihila.

Receiving piercing gazes from her teammates, except Nihila (again), Enri bowed down apologetically.

"I'm sorry... I was just surprised."

With the pack leader out of the area, they could finally continue their travel to another region. But that didn't mean it would be easy. They still had to do it in stealth.

At some point, after escaping countless monsters' sight, both small and large, weak and strong, Enri finally came to talk about what she had been thinking for the last two days, even way back to the beginning of the sixth trial.

It was Atri who she talked to first.

"I've been thinking about this since the beginning. Why are we avoiding the monsters when they could give us material, even better equipment that we can bring along to the real world?"

"I honestly don't know," Atri shook her head. "Maybe... he wants to play it safe. Which do you think is more important between equipment that we don't know what quality the monsters would drop and a Transcendent-rank Trace?"

Enri rested her hand under her chin, thinking. Her gaze locked on Sorath.

"He wants to play safe, but he seeks the tree monster with annoying abilities? I don't understand."

Atri followed her gaze.

"Maybe he has a plan," Atri said. "He always has a plan. I trust him."

Sighing, Enri massaged her forehead.

"You're hopeless, Atri. All this just because he sacrificed for you once. That reminds me. Do you really love him, or do you do it because of debt?"

Atri was silent for a moment. She broke her gaze from Sorath, closing her eyes.

"I... do not know... I'm... confused."

Enri sighed again, patting her twin's shoulder and smiling. "Seems like mother's teaching has an effect on you."

After that, her face turned serious.

"Listen, sister. You do you, okay? We're not in training anymore. We are finally free!"

Appreciating her twin's effort, Atri nodded. "I... will try. Thank you, sister."

After talking to her twin sister, Enri proceeded with the next person in the group. This time, it was Fred- Luke. 

She approached him when they were taking a break from the travel.

Luke was sitting alone at a considerable distance from the group, away from disturbing chatter among the group members. 

"Hey," Enri called him as she approached the trunk where Luke sat. "Can I talk to you?"

Surprised by the sudden company, Luke coughed and covered his mouth panickedly. He threw his face away momentarily as though trying to hide something in his mouth.

"Uhh. Are you okay?"

Luke swept his mouth with his sleeve before turning to Enri.

"Yeah. A bit surprised," Luke said casually. "What is it? What do you want to talk about?"

"What do you think about our group's approach to surviving this Trial?"

"It's efficient. There are so many strong monsters that can track and kill us in the blink of an eye, but he was able to avoid all of them. That's a great navigating skill he has, almost on par with the elves."

"Elves?" Enri raised her eyebrow. "You mean those human-like but more angelic and beautiful creatures in books and novels?"

Luke cleared his throat.

"...yes. I've heard- I mean read about them in books that they are a skillful navigator, also a master of magic, and the dweller of the forest."

"More importantly, they, especially the male elves, are all handsome!" Enri said excitedly.

Luke almost chugged out when he heard her say that with a dreamy face, much like a fan when she daydreamed about marrying her idol. That was not only the reason. He also found it funny that she was excited over an elf who was incredibly racist toward the other races in his world.

Luke wanted to tell her that, but he didn't want to ruin her expectation of the Elves. One could only imagine how brokenhearted she would be when knowing the truth.

Coming to her senses, Enri shook her head and wiped the drool on her lips.

"Ah!" she flushed. "Sorry... that was... uhh..." she was troubled finding words for clarification. 

So, instead of looking for words to clarify her action, she was pressing her palms together over her bigger-than-her-twin chest, winking one of her eyes, and sticking out her tongue.

"Forget it, please?"

Luke chuckled and smiled. "Okay."

At that moment, in Enri's eyes, Luke was unusually attractive and handsome, just like the elves in book illustrations. Looking at him like that, Enri couldn't help but blush and look away.

Her heart beat even faster, and she couldn't control it. She couldn't control her emotions. Her mother's teaching was going to crumble because of a smile from a member of her twin's fiance branch family.

But no way she would let it crumble! Enri calmly breathed, letting go of all the images of that damned smile out of her head.

When she finally composed, she went for another talk that had gone out of topic.

She cleared her throat before saying:

"Back to the topic. You said that it's efficient to maintain an approach like this. But wouldn't it be better if we hunted some monsters on our way to the tree monster? The random drop they gave would greatly help us fight against the tree."

Luke raised an eyebrow. 

"By random drop," he searched his clothes. "Do you mean something that suddenly popped up in front of you after you killed a monster?"

He pulled a red sphere from his clothes.

"Something like this?"