Did you two make up?

Lucivar glanced back at the carriage with a cunning smirk plastered on his face.

'It was shockingly going smoothly, I could end it before we passed this forest if I play it right.'

Recalling Leandra's reaction, he nodded firmly before averting his gaze away.

As Lucivar focused on his surroundings, the scene unfolded with startling clarity. He found himself in a labyrinth of towering trees, their thick trunks jutting skyward like sentinels of a forgotten world.

Not to mention, their leaves were an unnatural shade of deep purple.

All of them shimmered eerily in the dim light, casting an otherworldly glow over the place.

Lucivar was looking around as if he were a kid being brought out for the first time.

He never knew that a forest could be this magical.

Looking down—the ground beneath him a stark contrast of white blanketed in purity, yet it was dotted with withered, purple leaves, that had drifted down like remnants of an ancient curse, while the pressure from his step made the ground subtly glow with a purple light.

A blend of color that created a hauntingly beautiful tapestry, one that he had never seen.

Just then, the awe of the moment was abruptly shattered as his gaze snapped.

He saw Tobias coming out of the carriage, followed closely by Nerissa.

Both of them headed to the side before noticing Lucivar.

"Is there something wrong, Tobias?" Lucivar approached and asked.

Upon hearing this, Tobias shook his head and explained, "We are at the edge of the Purple Haze Forest—and danger would spike as soon as we got into the inner area of the forest. I want us to be alert to any possible attack from beasts. No bandits here."

As opposed to having something wrong, this brief stop was a heads-up from Tobias.

Glancing to the side, Lucivar saw Ravenna coming down as well.

She was taking her weapon, a pair of daggers, and also strapping a bag of supplies on her.

"Is Ravenna going somewhere?" Lucivar asked curiously.

Tobias nodded, pivoting towards Ravenna, "Yes—she will be scouting ahead and alerting us for any potential encounter with powerful beasts. From the locals—the beast we need avoid was the Astral Snow Leopard, it's a three-star Acolyte-rank beast"

Lucivar gulped harshly when he heard this.

A three-star Acolyte-rank beast is extremely strong for their line-up.

Even Ravenna, Bob, or Darwin combined wouldn't be able to beat it.

"Don't worry about me, cutie pie, I'm going to be fine" Ravenna commented from the side.

Just then, she gave a nod to Tobias before she sprinted ahead, making a hard turn to the left and disappearing into the forest. As a Crimson Rakhsasa Hybrid, she was nimble and was no doubt able to fend for herself even if she encountered the Astral Snow Leopard.

Averting his attention from Ravenna, Tobias continued, "In a couple of hours, we would camp and let the horses rest. If we are on track—we should pass this forest tomorrow, midday." He said, checking the map in his hand.

"Oh, and also, we would be taking turns sleeping. A pair would be on the lookout" He added.

Upon hearing this, Nerissa was about to volunteer but Lucivar was faster.

"Me and Leandra would be the first to be the lookout," He said and turned.

Tobias' eyebrows were raised at the suggestion, knowing full well that Leandra and Lucivar were not getting along because of the misunderstanding—that resulted in a clash between them, he was surprised that Lucivar suggested this, "Have you asked Leandra?"

"I can accompany you. Please don't ask her, I don't want you two to fight" Nerissa added.

Not heeding her, Lucivar glanced over his shoulder and called, "Leandra!"

Both Nerissa and Tobias exchanged a look as the two knew that this would end up badly, the only one Leandra listened to was Tobias. Other than him, Leandra is basically indifferent, and even hostile, so this was definitely a ticket to a disaster.

Surprised to hear her name being called, by Lucivar nonetheless, Leandra came down.

She then approached them, totally confused as to what was going on.

On the other hand, Nerissa and Tobias felt their hearts pounding.

Nerissa, in particular, the sight of Leandra approaching made her extremely nervous.

She didn't want to see the two of them fight again, it was awful.

"What is it? Did something happen?" Leandra asked, stopping right beside Lucivar.

Upon hearing this, Nerissa smiled dryly, "U- Uh, well... it's not a big deal, really"

"I'm volunteering us both to be the first pair to be the lookout, that's fine with you, right?" In a nonchalant tone, Lucivar said truthfully about the situation, and as both, Nerissa—and Tobias feared, Leandra looked at him in surprise before that surprise turned into a frown.

Expecting Leandra to lash out at him, Nerissa prepared to separate them.

But in the next second, her eyes widened in surprise.

"Fine, I don't feel like sleeping anyway," Leandra crossed her arms, averting her gaze away.

"Eh...?"

"Oh, what's this? Did you two make up?"

Nerissa was absolutely stunned, she was not expecting Leandra to be as accepting as this.

It was the same for Tobias, he was also caught off guard by her response.

Just then, Lucivar laughed, pressing Leandra's head with his hand, "Something like that"

"Get your hands off of me!" She retaliated.

Leandra grabbed Lucivar's hand and twisted it, putting him in an arm lock.

"You know that there are ways to react to being embarrassed other than violence, right?"

"Who said I'm embarrassed? I'm only teaching you to not touch me lightly"

"Oh, please... does that mean your tomato face earlier was also you not being embarrassed?"

"Shut up! I have a mild fever from the cold, that's all!"

Under the surprising revelation that Leandra accepted Lucivar's one-sided decision—Tobias let the two be the first one to be on the lookout. Both of them didn't seem to be sleepy, thus giving them this task should be perfect.

Meanwhile, Nerissa went back to the carriage, she was experiencing an error in her mind.

"Both of them tried to kill each other... Now they are close... Kill... Close... Kill... Clo-"

"Well, I'll be sleeping then, wake me up if something happens"

Both Lucivar and Leandra nodded as Tobias went inside the carriage.

As soon as Tobias was out of their view, Leandra turned around.

"I'm going to take my jacket, I'll take yours too. Yours is the black one, right?" She asked.

Lucivar nodded before Leandra went to the carriage.

It was only then that Lucivar glanced over his shoulder, smiling inwardly, 'He saw that alright,'

Moments later, the night was extremely silent with only the occasional howl in the distance.

Even though it was snowing, there were some predators that were still lurking around.

Ditching hibernation, favoring more hunting than reserving their energy.

Striding at the left side of the carriages—Lucivar glanced to the right and saw Leandra was walking on the opposite side, away from him. Realizing that he was looking at her, Leandra, rolled her eyes and went further ahead, letting the carriage barring Lucivar's gaze.

Lucivar smiled wryly at this as it was his fault.

He was being touchy with Leandra in the past hour using all kinds of reasons.

Because of that, Leandra was now keeping her distance from him.

'Going more than this would probably make me act too suspicious, I should be content with this much' Lucivar pondered—looking at the glowing green energy, swirling on his hand. He has been using his new ability, the Greedy Grasp on Leandra.

Due to her emotions being a mess, she didn't realize that Lucivar was absorbing her energy.

Alas, Lucivar was absorbing little by little so that she wouldn't notice.

And surprisingly enough, it worked, he could feel that the versatile energy was half full.

It would be better if he could absorb her energy through other means—but the ability could only work if he was touching the target, there's no other way, at least not now, 'The Greedy Grasp used fifteen ego points, that's more than twice than the absorption technique Delilah taught me so it must be really strong. But I don't know if this was enough...'

Lucivar wanted more in order to be safe, but he could gain more than this.

Going to absorb Mirel's or Bakar's energy would've been too suspicious.

Both of them should be really alert after the incident with Delilah.

One touch and they would definitely wake up.

'I know how powerful the ability was but I haven't really tested it that much. I only tried using the versatile energy a bit to lift the carriage a little earlier—but that only used a strand of the versatile energy' Lucivar pondered, deliberating his next move.

At this moment, he has three strands of versatile energy.

One strand is enough to double his strength.

But that was it, Lucvar only knew up until that point, he hadn't tried using more than that.

Not that he didn't want to but he never had the chance to use that much.

Gaining strands of versatile energy through the Greedy Grasp ability is hard to do.

Just then, however, Lucivar's attention was pulled to the left, seeing something moving.

He squinted, his gaze narrowing as the bushes to his left rustled, swaying back and forth.

Instinctively out of sheer preservation, his hand moved to the hilt of his dagger, ready in case something struck out of the bushes. As he searched for the cause of the rustling bushes—he caught sight a pair of animalistic eyes peering from the thicket.

For a brief moment, their gazes locked.

But the eyes vanished as quickly as they appeared, causing the bushes to rustle once again.

A smirk tugged at the corner of Lucivar's lips at the sight of this.

Not hesitating, he gazed over to the carriages, ensuring the others were still asleep.

Satisfied—no sign of the others being awake, Lucivar slipped around to the other side where Leandra stood on watch. She was rubbing her arms with her hands because of the cold, that bites through the jacket she was wearing.

"I'm going to check on something, I'll be back" Lucivar whispered.

He already turned to leave before Leandra could process what he said to her.

Upon realizing what Lucivar just said, Leandra swiftly went over and saw him going into the dense bushes, "Lucivar!" She called whisperingly. But Lucivar ignored her, and disappeared from view. 

Stopping at the front of the bushes, Leandra's brow furrowed with suspicion.

"If this is one of your annoying ploys, stop it, I'm not going to fall for it" She said, annoyed.

But even after waiting for a brief moment, Lucivar didn't answer.

At this point, Leandra gritted her teeth anxiously.

As someone stronger, it would be reckless to let him go alone, she wouldn't have a reason, to tell Tobias if something would've happened to him. With a resigned sigh she followed Lucivar into the bushes.

Oblivious to her, there was someone watching her from the front carriage.

From the gaze the person was giving, hate and fury were palpable.