"So? How exactly do we get to the 'Tierre Path' without getting mauled to death the moment we step out?"
While detesting the idea of working with these two, she also could not afford any more time to be wasted on trivial emotions.
Am spoke with an idea sprouting out of his mouth.
"First, we will wait until the platys is old and weak, then we move ou-"
"Rejected"
Iye said blatantly to their face.
"This damn―!"
The Oksi was inches away from hurling insults even the devil would take notes of but was stopped by Am.
"Why?"
He only calmly asked what was the problem.
"I am too pressed for time to waste hours on waiting"
Veins bulged on the Oksi.
"This impatient dog! Brother, I say we kill her and stake her as a distraction for the platys!"
The Oksi kept on criticizing, offering extremist solutions to a problem that could be fixed with a little communication.
"She will not be of help to us with that always disagreeing attitude!"
Iye, slowly raised a fist to where her mouth is supposed to be and kissed on it.
"A clean punch that rearranges your insides is all I need you know?"
The Oksi instinctively took a step back, coward plastered all over his features.
"Chicken"
"....."
Silence filled the room, insects burrowed into their nests, the lights above lit and shadowed the figures who kept their silent stance, until the one who broke the mold was Iye.
"To answer your question..."
She faced Am.
"You do not need to know noble"
But she didn't think once about giving him an actual answer.
'Telling him means giving him a weakness to exploit'
If they still pressed on, then oh well, she would be forced to tell them a partial truth.
The answer she got however, was...surprising?
"Fine, we will leave in a few minutes"
Am....accepted her impatience? This made Iye confused, but nonetheless, she acknowledged the outcome. The Oksi had a shocked expression stretched onto its furry head, Iye ignored the dumbfounded expression and spoke the obvious.
"And how will we do that?"
"Through a secret passage we 'dug' ourselves"
Iye staggered slightly to the answer her ears invited.
'Hold on, the Ohrn tree is highly resistant to physical attacks, how the hell did they dig anything in here?'
"Let's leave, go pick up your partner and I will pick up the other o―"
"Wait my brother"
The Oksi at the side raised his hand in protest.
"I can't let you burden yourself with something as trivial as this"
A pout wed itself on her face, but in secrecy.
'Ain't he awfully polite when talking to his brother'
Iye wanted to comment on it for the sake of it, but held herself back knowing it wouldn't come to serve anything and only quietly picked the cold body of Cale up―The cold chill relaxed her to the bone.
'It's like the cold side of a pillow~'
Her intangible face melted with a sudden calm gripping her racing heart.
She followed right behind the Oksi she dismantled in just a few seconds of fighting.
"Famu"
".....?"
"That is my noble name"
"....Hah?"
"What?"
"No, it's just..."
She avoided Famu's gaze.
'H-he's also a noble?!'
It made sense for Am to be one, he had an elegant air wafting off of him and a commanding calm tone. But who would have guessed that the Oksi extra was also a noble...
"You should get some muscle in, also revisit the education you received on fighting"
"....Blatantly insulting me aren't ya? uh! side dish!"
Iye turned silent, her clothing tilted to face the Oksi that for some unknown reason had a noble title.
"Speak informally to me again..."
She leaned in close. Her breath whispered a warm threat.
"And I will mess you up so badly"
Her voice whispered against the ears, soft breaths nibbled at the sensitive spots.
"You turn into a monk"
"....."
Famu turned silent at the open threat to his daily life.
'W-what, the hell is that supposed to mean???'
"Got it?"
".....Yeah"
He weakly replied
'The chief always said to always avoid crazy women...Is this what he meant?'
Famu smirked.
'Too bad'
He grinned further.
'I am even crazier woman!'
"Kuk"
He pursed his lips together, long claws at his hips, he glanced to his right.
"..huh, where did she go?"
The woman had disappeared from his sight.
"Damn, a manhole?"
"Took a long time, but it was worth it"
Iye was right next to Am, leaning forward to the manhole.
"How do we deal with the poison mist?"
"You don't know?"
They kept chatting, as if they weren't at each other's necks just a few moments prior and suddenly became friendly buddies. Well, it wasn't like they could afford to quarrel when their lives were on the line here, so this level of friendliness should be acceptable.
"I thought you would know if you knew that the lamps above were actually the seeds of the Ohrn tree"
"No, no, that was kind of a fluke, I only realized that the inside of the Ohrn tree was flammable unlike the outside and deducted the trigger of why it closes up"
"And you guessed the seeds were the reason it closed up, am I getting that correctly?"
"Well, the seeds of the Ohrn can't really grow without the sun, isn't that why they hang down till the sun hits them? The Ohrn tree then shoots out the ready to sprout seeds out in those very small holes that lead to its branches and they are either planted, or are burned from the inferno"
Am caressed his chin.
"Well, it doesn't really 'shoot' them out, but it is an accurate example, plus are there even many plants that can live without photosynthesis?"
Iye raised her chin up.
"True, but aren't there like underground plants or plants that can solely survive off of heat alone?"
"What kind of plant are you even talking about?"
"It exists"
"Show me"
"One day"
"That kind of trick doesn't work on me"
"What trick, dumbass?"
"Can't you speak more beautifully? It would be less insulting to your face"
"How do you know I am beautiful?"
"All women have the potential to be most beautiful if they put the effort to keep their appearance neat and their body fit"
"My eye spies a flirt, yeah?"
Famu watched the exchange with eyes that wanted to tear apart Iye out of the sheer distraction she caused with just her talking.
"Hey! You damn woman!"
Famu snapped at Iye? the two of them glanced at him.
"Aren't we going to leave? You said you wanted to leave fast yet you are the one delaying us? Choose damn it! And why the hell are you acting all buddy buddy with us?!"
"What? want to me to push your brother out of personal spite then?"
"That..."
'Yeah, that's what I thought, he is definitely a bastard child of the noble Famu with that level of stupidity'
"...."
Chuckling to herself. Iye glanced one last look at Cale, an eyebrow was slowly raised.
'Wait a minute..."
"...!?"
'You are kidding! How the hell?!'
Cale's body faded in an out, like a flickering light on its last legs.
'At this rate, the physical body is going to disappear in just less of 9 hours!'
She looked back at Am. Her voice controlled and calm, a stark contrast to the churning inside of her.
"How do we handle the poison mist?"
"You don't"
"...."
"My brother, which you killed had an insight that allowed him to create a field where poison had no effect"
Iye's heart dropped and dragged her stomach along with it, to the depths of the underworld.
"But I have a solution"
"...Which is?"
It couldn't possibly be easy to pull off, so it was the most logical question she could ask currently.
Am raised a claw.
"By using my insight, we could leap across and far away, before we breath in any of the paralytic poison"
"..So we still have to hold in our breaths right?"
"Yes"
"Is it impossible to avoid detection from the platys?"
"...It is a sensory type"
"....I see"
This information lowered their chances of survival to the abysmal percentage of trash.
Am readied himself, breath held tightly close to his lungs. He jumped into the manhole.
Iye followed right behind.
Famu squirmed for a bit before also jumping in.
Tak!
Am landed gently, Iye following the same gentle land, Famu scraped against the walls but also silently landed on the ground.
Instantly, the fog threatened to penetrate through them.
They covered their noses with their hands, slowly treading through the narrow passage of the Ohrn tree.
Their feet rocked hollow against the roots, the sound loud enough to scrape against their minds.
There was no light, it was only a dark veiled road with smoke blinding a sense of direction.
Each echoing step felt like a blaring siren announcing free meat to all predators 50 feet away.
The silence kept dragging, fog pressed from every single corner it could find, burdening their every step to be quiet.
Ha
Rustle
A breath softly rang out, movement rattled against the dead branches and leaves that fell down.
'This, it's a goddamn den'
Am and Famu didn't carve anything out, they only used what was here beforehand.
'Fucking liar'
She glared fiercely, but then made another realm-breaking realization.
'Wait, is that how you were originally supposed to climb an Ohrn tree?'
Her thoughts came to a crushing halt when Am silently stopped, she bumped into him, she was about to ask why he stopped. Almost forgetting completely that they can't draw a single breath in.
"...."
She soon realized why Am stopped.
Thump!
A sharp thump recoiled against the arched walls and reached Iye's ears.
What her vision met with at the end of the not-so narrow passage was a malformed creature.
It had small wings sprouting from its back, close to where the pelvis would normally be for an ordinary human or animal.
Jaw so contorted and twisted that spikes started curling upwards like a beard, its eyes larger than a human head, its body resembled a gryphon or at least attempted to resemble one.
Thump
Its padded feet softly yet prominently revered its existence to the three of them.
They kept holding onto their breaths, each millisecond that passed tortured their desperate lungs.
Iye, having slung Cale over her shoulder, considered throwing him as bait, but barely stopped herself.
'Iye, calm. Remember the reason you are here'
She needed to figure out a way to get rid of that thing, even if it meant using her ability to escape it, if needed.
Her decision didn't take long to be finalized, she rushed outwards and her right wounded hand vibrated against the air for a while before releasing a harmonic hum that scratched the brain just in the right place.
"..!"
But, her hand was stuck in place by an unknown force.
She glanced back, it was Am that stopped her.
Before she could even force any word out, almost forgetting again that the poisonous mist was still heavily pressing down on them, Am only motioned her with his chin to look ahead.
Am only when she looked ahead did he let go of her hand, it slowly fell and rested back on her lips.
Famu, was rushing ahead, eating away at the distance between him and the gryphon wannabe like a professional eater.
The gryphon noticed him, as it was about to roar, Famu rested his leg on a translucent foothold, the moment his leg pressed on the sudden foothold, like a spring.
Whoosh~!
His body launched ahead, covering the distance between him and the gryphon in one fell swoop.
His other leg arched back, and as if kicking a ball, his foot stabbed right through its throat.
Prick
The small thorn on his foot stabbed it in its artery, the poison injected right into its system had an almost immediate effect.
KAAAAAA!!!!!
It screamed out, crashing into the walls and almost running over Iye, Am and Famu. However―
CRASH!
Its body crashed with full force into an invisible wall, it pressed on the wall, and like a spring.
Wham!
It was launched like a ball kicked from a professional football player.
Its body crashed into many other walls before finally leaving the naked eye.
Drip!
At the same time. Something dripped, something right next to Iye.
Drip!
It dripped again, steady yet haunting to the ear.
Iye looked back.
Am was bleeding, not from his nose or ears like a character from a novel that used too much of his power in the fight that his body started to be wounded internally.
He was injured from head to toe.
Fingers snapped, claws destroyed, his arm was bent unnaturally.
His appearance was a bloody mess, as if a wet towel thrown in a bloodbath.
Taking in the sight, Iye was reminded of something in the past, something so distant and forgotten that it was a miracle she could remember something like this.
The strings in her heart unknowingly choked it.
She knew what it was, and she regretted ever forgetting a moment similar to this even though it was hammered into her being.
Did she care what happened to Am? No, she couldn't give a rat's ass what happened to him.
But the scene that unfolded right before her, the bloody appearance of Am, the broken bones in his body sparked and lit old memories to resurface like burning aged incense.
And her breath for the first time.
"Ha...."
Turned ragged with nightmares.