Dawn waited in a crouch, her form camouflaged with [Cliffhide Fist]. She carefully watched the ripples in the muddy water, ready to strike the moment her target made its appearance.

  Then something broke the pond’s surface with a splash.

  Dawn immediately dashed out of her hiding spot in the tall grass and smashed her fist on the crocodile’s head with all her might.

  The creature roared in pain as its armored hide cracked and immediately began thrashing around. Icicle arrows flew in from the side, punching into the reptile’s hide, but still not quite drawing blood.

  It tried to scamper back into the murky water, but Dusk came in with his [Steel Flail] and smacked it in the neck, temporarily stunning it.

  The creature let out another frustrated roar and swung its tail in Dawn’s direction as she backed away out of its reach. Unfortunately for her, the tail then shot out the huge spike at its tip straight at Dawn.

  Her eyes went wide as she realized she wouldn’t be able to dodge that.

  Then something hit her from behind and enveloped her in a glowing sphere of hexagonal plates. The moment the spike hit one of those plates, the plate popped, the spike split in two, and both halves reversed momentum and headed straight for the crocodile.

  The creature let out one last roar as one splinter punctured its back while the other skewered its head, splattering blood everywhere.

  It twitched, then stopped moving. An essence ripped itself out of its body and headed to the person behind Dawn.

  The twins turned to look at Linza – cringing away from the scene and looking mildly unwell – as the white-rimmed Common essence ◆Mud◆ forced itself into her hand.

  “...Thanks for the save.”

  “N-No problem.”

  “Not used to hunting, I take it?” Layna asked as she made her way to their dinner and began prying the armored hide off of it using her claws and a kitchen knife.

  “Y-Yeah. Not used to blood and violence.” The human chuckled as she kept her eyes away from the scene. “Maybe the hunter’s life isn’t really for me.”

  “It’s fine. You get used to it,” Layna absent-mindedly said as she tore away the armor covering its head and put it in her bag.

  “Need help?” Dusk offered.

  “Hmm… Yeah, it would be better to move this to a more solid ground. This is pretty annoying,” Layna said as a falling piece of the hide splashed mud on the exposed crocodile flesh.

  “On it!”

  Dusk stomped the ground to use [Terracotta Soldiers], careful not to splash even more mud on Layna as he did so. The soldiers made of mud quickly formed, each tinted in their usual red, green, and blue colors.

  “Grab the lizard and pull it… over there!”

  The soldiers complied and the party slowly moved to a little island nearby, while Layna handed the twins spare kitchen knives so they could also help. Once their prey had been moved, the trio got properly started on peeling the hide off.

  “Can… Can I also help somehow?” the amnesiac human asked, sneaking queasy looks at the bloodied lizard’s corpse.

  “Do you know how to dismantle a crocodile?”

  “Er, no…?”

  “Do you want to learn?”

  “…Okay.”

  Layna handed the human another knife – how many did she have? – and began guiding her. The twins listened as well, since they weren’t exactly experts on this either and Layna knew a lot of little tricks to help the task go smoother.

  Get the knife this deep, use it as a lever to pry off the hide, careful not to get cut on them… They could have used this expertise back when they’d been on the run from the cult.

  Dark thoughts aside, Linza didn’t seem to appreciate the valuable knowledge nearly as much. Going by how green her face got, the twins weren’t exactly surprised when she dropped her knife, turned around, and promptly emptied her stomach.

  Such a waste of food.

  “I think it will be better if you just watch,” Layna gently suggested without tearing her eyes off the crocodile.

  “Y-Yeah… Sorry.”

  Just how pampered had she been to be this repulsed by a simple animal corpse? Where was she really from? Had she come from some rich family in a big city?

  But then why had she had no skills? Wouldn’t rich parents load their kids with high tier essences and teach them how to make the best skills? It just didn’t add up.

  Well, not their problem. As soon as they made it to a town, this temporary party would disband.

  No need to think about the mysterious human too hard.

  * * *

  The human held her head with a groan and the twins found themselves be pretty annoyed.

  Now, granted, walking in such terrain would have been awful considering her crappy footwear, but didn’t she know riding on ‘Jim’ all afternoon would leave her mana-fatigued?

  The twins grimaced, wanting to slap themselves. Of course, she didn’t! She had amnesia, dammit! Ugh… They had just assumed she knew her limits, but Jim was literally her very first skill.

  Okay, maybe a little bit their fault for not telling her. After all, they had experienced it plenty of times during their… early healing days, they knew about the consequences better than most.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “There, there,” Layna said with a sigh – likely getting pretty fed up with babysitting this troublesome human as well.

  They couldn’t wait to be rid of this human.

  Despite that, part of them had gotten quite attached to her by now… But that was why they had to ditch her at the earliest opportunity.

  After all, the last human they had gotten attached to had ended up dead by their own hands.

  * * *

  The twins missed the oddly warm hill. Sleeping on the cold mud hadn’t been pleasant even with Layna’s [Crooning Flame] singing them a lullaby. On top of that, they had to once again sleep separately from one another. It… wasn’t as dissonant as the first time, but that only bothered them more. They still didn’t quite know how exactly the ‘insanity’ of [Soul Split] was supposed to manifest, but after seeing Jake, they couldn’t help but worry.

  But time didn’t care for their worries. Morning soon arrived and after a quick breakfast – crocodiles were tastier than they had anticipated – the group started their second day of trudging through the marshlands. Slowly, and with frequent stops, because Linza had apparently been a pampered rich girl where she was from, because the twins couldn’t imagine any other reason why she had such low stamina and delicate skin.

  Though, even with their glacial pace, mishaps still happened. Especially now that the human wasn’t overusing her Mythical skill.

  “Gyah!” Linza squeaked as her foot suddenly sank into the ground up to her knee.

  Dawn immediately grabbed her by the collar and pulled her out. Unfortunately, her shoe had been left under the mud and even if they wanted to dig for it, Linza wouldn’t be able to wear it anyway.

  The twins sighed as the group had to stop again because of Linza.

  “...Sorry,” Linza murmured with her head down, her voice cracking.

  But they couldn’t really get mad at her. Not since she had never even once complained about any of the discomfort she had to be feeling. In fact, she kept trying to help whenever she could – even if her help didn’t amount to much – so really, the main issue was her lack of any sort of real-world experience.

  And how could they blame an amnesiac for lack of experience?

  “I kept the hide from that crocodile. We can make you shoes from that and some grass,” Layna suggested. “Want to learn how?”

  The human sniffed, wiped her face, then raised her head again.

  “Okay.”

  And anyway, her being a lost cause also meant the twins could learn a lot of weird and interesting skills from Layna, so it all evened out.

  * * *

  “Stop,” Layna suddenly barked. “You have something on your leg.”

  The party froze and Dusk held in a muffled curse as he looked down to see the slimy critter the size of a finger attached to his calf.

  How the hell had it gotten through [Iridion’s Shawl]?!

  “Crap, it’s a Mana Leech. Hold on, don’t move!” Layna cautioned as she squatted down and eyed the creature. “Crap, I don’t have my solution on me…”

  “What do we do? Can Jim help?” Linza asked, her clipped tone hiding a sea of panic beneath it.

  “Hmm, yeah that might work. Can your shadow suffocate others?”

  “Uh. Yes?”

  “Are you okay on mana?”

  “I… think so?”

  “Alright.” Layna nodded. “You’ll envelop it with your shadow and try to suffocate it. When it detaches to save itself, we need to sever the threads it attaches to its prey and then kill it.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I’ll sever the threads.” The catkin pulled out her knife and looked at Dawn. “Can you kill it?”

  Dawn nodded and prepared [Cliffhide Fist], while Dusk steeled himself for the procedure.

  “Okay, do it, Linza.”

  With a nod, Linza’s card turned into the familiar visage of a shadowy coilborn and beelined straight for the leech before fully enveloping it in its half-material form. From then on, it took a long nerve-racking minute before the leech finally detached from Dusk’s leg, yellowish threads stretching from its teeth to the wound.

  The others acted in quick succession—Layna slashed the threads and a moment later, Dawn grabbed the leech trying to slither away before crushing it in her hands.

  Gross.

  Dusk let out a sigh of relief and palmed [Hallowed Embrace] to patch up the puncture wound left by the parasite.

  Linza also let out a huge sigh of relief, as if that had been her leg. It made the twins feel a bit awkward, realizing just how much she apparently cared about their well-being.

  “Good job, everyone!” Layna praised. “These things are very nasty. Even if you get them off, they continue to leech your mana. That’s why you have to cut the strings.”

  “This place is so nasty,” the human said with a tired sigh. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “You and me both,” Dusk murmured, feeling grateful to the human, despite himself.

  * * *

  The next day, they finally came across something other than more mud, water, or tall grass.

  An elevated wooden walkway cut through the swamp like a road between cities. Some of it looked chipped and broken, but most of it seemed solid.

  “Are we saved?” Dawn gasped in wonder as the group made their way closer to the man-made oddity in this muddy wasteland – though they had to take a detour to do so.

  “This is probably the road leading to the border checkpoint!” Layna excitedly pointed out. “Great! We basically made it! Just gotta follow it and we’ll be out of here in no time!”

  The twins smiled but didn’t relax quite yet. By now, they knew better than to let their guard down before getting to safety for real.

  Luckily, they made it all the way to the platform without any issues and after checking it wouldn’t crumble under their feet, they vaulted themselves up on it, one by one.

  “Oh, solid ground, how I missed you,” Dawn murmured as her feet hit the wood.

  Rather than immediately pressing on, the party stood there for a moment, admiring their wooden savior. Then, without another word, the group continued toward Couthen, feeling much safer with stable ground under their feet.

  “I wonder how this was built,” Linza murmured. “Must have been quite the project.”

  “The coilborns probably built it,” Layna said. To Linza’s questioning look, she further explained, “Coilborns are people with a long tail instead of legs—like their ancestors, snakes.”

  “Ahh. Makes sense. Still, how far does this thing even go? Do you think it crosses the entire marsh?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, yeah. It looks really old too, I’m surprised it’s so stable. I bet it was built all the way back when the wild tear first appeared.”

  “Wild tear?”

  The twins tuned out the following impromptu history lesson and let themselves sink into their thoughts once more.

  They could probably use this walkway to get back to Vargarott once they stocked up on supplies in Couthen. But again, the problem was that walking all the way to Estra Dolla would take way too long. What if they fetched a ride on a Felibeast? No, that would still take too long. Maybe they could find a teleporter service somewhere in Couthen? Probably no way they could afford that though…

  Snap.

  Dusk screamed in surprise as the wood under his foot broke and swallowed his leg whole. He flung his arms out and caught himself before falling into the muddy doom completely, but in this awkward position, he couldn’t–

  Something grabbed him around the waist, lifted him, and deposited him back on solid planks.

  He blinked at the shadowy tendril unfurling from his midsection and looked up to Linza giving him an awkward smile.

  “...Thanks,” he murmured, feeling weird about how their roles had reversed from yesterday.

  “No problem!” she said brightly.

  Without thinking, for the first time since they’d begun travelling together, he showed her a smile. Then he smoothed out his expression and instead took a look at the hole in the platform.

  “...So, this isn’t as durable as we thought.”

  “Yeah, it could use some maintenance,” Layna agreed as she crouched by the hole and inspected the damage. “This part was rotten. Hmm, I guess we just need to pay more attention, but otherwise, this should still be fine.”

  “Right. Well, still better than walking on mud.” Dusk shrugged as he eyed Linza’s wobbling legs. “So, how about we take a short break before the last stretch?”

  Linza’s eyebrows rose at the suggestion.

  “Hmm, sure. Why not?” Layna agreed.

  Linza’s surprise then turned into an appreciative smile.

  “Okay.”