“Are we certain we want to take Lucille with us?” Ayame questioned, glancing at the woman wryly who was busy chatting with Aurora. Our tanker being our lowest level member made her restless. It certainly wasn’t ideal.
“I wanted her to stay as well, but when she gave me the best throat job of my life I just couldn’t say no.”
“…”
Since my petite samurai was glancing at me like I was human scum, I rushed to clear my joke up; “Lucille begged me, saying that if she were to stay behind the gap between us would widen even further. I hate it too, but she was right. We will either have to get her to level up swiftly, or she will never become relevant.”
“I see… So you’re saying what she did with her mouth while kneeling between your legs played no role in her being here whatsoever.”
“…” Now it was my turn to remain silent.
Not wanting to continue talking with my rudely inquisitive samurai, I elected to walk to the front of the group, where Blossom and Seraphiel were. The location we received from the Consortium was in the middle of nowhere, at the edge of the Greenvale duchy close to the Beastkin border, thus we had to rely on my dog-kin to get us there.
“Blossom smells that we should go right.” Blossom declared. Since Winterwood County and its surroundings were still swarming with greenskins, we had to rely on her getting us to our destination without getting run down by a horde of trolls. Or that used to be the case…
“Left is the safer route.” Seraphiel decreed. “I sense serenity in the forest from that direction.”
Blossom relied on her extremely acute sense of smell, while Seraphiel was much more of a feeling/supernatural senses-based guide. She had a deeper relationship with nature and almost seemed to be able to converse with it. While she was a Healer and not a Ranger-type, as an elf she had a natural disposition towards the forests.
This was why I was slightly worried about elves randomly finding my stronghold location, and why I decided to settle closer to beastman lands. Their abilities were at least clear to understand, so I could trust in the veil’s effectiveness against them.
I suddenly found myself in a pickle. Do I trust Blossom, who had been a very good guide for us thus far, or the elf who supposedly has supernatural senses while in nature? I wanted to see how the barefooted forest-dweller would do, but I feared more for our lives due to the many monsters around us, thus for now I went with the tried and true guide; my blonde pony-tailed dog-girl.
However, I didn’t want to outright order Seraphiel to stand down, since I wanted her to feel welcome in this party.
Thus, I instead asked her to join me. “Seraphiel, can we talk a bit? There are some stuff I’m curious about.” freёweɓnovel.com
The divinely beautiful elf glanced back at me, and after a few seconds of silence nodded, stopping in her tracks to wait for me to catch up, after which we walked next to each other.
“I’m curious about your country. Why were you invading the Ravenshade duchy?”
“For territory. The High Council believes that all land of the Iskaris continent is rightfully theirs. There’s an agreement between the elven and dwarven council members that once the Alliance has conquered the continent, the pact will dissolve, with elves taking half of the land, and the dwarves the other.” She revealed.
Her mood was definitely much improved compared to our first talk in Marcus’s shop, evidenced by her repsonding with more than a curt, single sentence. Seraphiel was still the most serene woman I’ve ever met, but at least she was a bit more open.
She still had her guard up against us, especially me, but the fact that I made no moves against her last night, fed her warm food, and let her sleep in a comfy bed definitely had some effects.
The fact that she was finally in nature again after a long period of captivity only bolstered such thoughts, and her depressive state lessened slightly.
As for her answer, I found it reasonable. The three nations often led invasions into the other two’s borders. But… “Why were you there? Aren’t you just barely an adult?”
Seraphiel sighed dejectedly, and this time I could feel anger in her system for the first time since our meeting. “… The High Council conscripted me, forcibly dragging me from my home, family, and friends because the army was lacking in Healers.”
I grimaced wryly, expecting something like this to be the reason. I saw no way that this serene creature would willingly join an invading army. It didn’t fit her at all.
Before I could ask another question, she suddenly froze up.
She closed her eyes and curled her toes up as if trying to converse with the earth through her feet. A group is behind us! A mile or so, following our path. They are walking slightly faster than us.” Seraphiel suddenly stated, making all of us tense up.
*Sniff sniff sniff* Blossom jumped towards the direction our elf indicated, raised her nose towards the air, and began sniffing. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “Blossom doesn’t smell them.”
“It’s because the wind blows from us towards them.” Seraphiel said nonchalantly.
Oh. Now that makes sense. The issue with Blossom’s sensory abilities is that she relies on her nose, which in turn relies on the wind carrying the smell to her nostrils. We spent two weeks hunting greenskin scout parties in the past month before transitioning to labyrinth diving, and this did cause some issues.
Even without the wind’s help, Blossom has a strong enough sense of smell to notice when a strong monster is approaching us, but not from the distance Seraphiel did. We solved this shortcoming of hers with me having to open a [Warp Gate] to escape, because by the time my dog-girl sensed them, we couldn’t run away on our feet.
I have no reason to doubt Seraphiel’s information. “Don your masks, and helmets, ladies. From here on out until we end the Trials and return home we shall be the Ascendants.
We’ve settled on calling ourselves by a collective name, Ascendants. Otherwise, it would’ve been something general like Devil’s party. Way too lame for my tastes.
As for our individual criminal identities, I’m Devil as stated before, Ayame is Blade, and Blossom is Ghost. These three names have been used before.
Our three newcomers also needed names, and after much deliberation, we managed to settle the issue.
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Aurora is Dream… Don’t ask me. I wanted her to be Poison, referencing the dual nature of an Alchemist who could concoct much more ominous products than simple health potions, but she wanted a cute, positive name, so here we are. Naturally, it was she who chose the name and not us.
Lucille’s alias ended up being Scourge, because the more acclimated she got to the life of fighting, the more hungry she became to bring ruin to her enemies. The fact that her axe became sharper the more blood she shed also played a role. The longer time she spent on a battlefield the stronger she got, even managing to triumph over higher-level monsters.