"Yo, Mei."
The red-eyed woman in a hood waved at Mei with a radiant smile.
"Raven? What are you doing here?" Mei slowly walked up to her. "Did you finally die in the line of duty? Is this your memory body?"
"Come on, how could I die in the line of duty for the World Serpent? And what do you mean by 'finally'? Do you always think I'm going to die?" Raven turned her profile to Mei. "In the end, why don't you try for yourself to find out if I'm real or not?"
"Alright, at least the sarcasm is... Why are you talking to him, too?"
Mei's gaze dropped to the helmeted man, whose ten fingers were interlaced in front of him. His motionless presence in one spot often made people overlook him. If his presence, which far exceeded her own, didn't occasionally sweep over others, it would be hard to notice that someone was sitting there.
And once again, it was Lin. It was always Lin. Why was it that all the people and events she encountered recently were either related to Lin or involved talking to Lin? His appearance frequency was increasing, making Mei almost suspect this was foreshadowing a future event.
"Hmm? Lin? What is it?" Raven looked at the slightly exasperated Mei with confusion, her tone full of naturalness.
Mei patted her horned forehead: "No, it's nothing..."
"Meow~"
A cat's meow sounded at Lin's feet. Lin bent down, retrieved a note from the cat's mouth, glanced at it, stood up, and walked toward the Elysian Realm entrance.
"Oh, leaving already?" Raven asked.
"Something came up."
"Alright, talk to you next time, Lin."
Lin nodded, then walked into the entrance.
"Phew... Does his silence and solitude sometimes make people misunderstand that he hates them?" Raven stretched her legs, which had been sitting for too long, and stood up. "Alright, Miss Mei, you look like you have something to say. Ask whatever you want."
Mei pulled her gaze back from the Realm entrance. With nowhere else to look, she simply closed her eyes, then opened them steadily again.
She asked first: "Why do I feel like you two get along well?"
"Huh? Isn't Lin easy to talk to?" The question confused Raven for a moment. "He was the first person I met after entering the Realm, and he helped me quite a bit. Besides, don't you think his nature of not saying much but having a lot of experience makes him quite reliable?"
"We're talking about the same person..." Mei stopped halfway. It seemed Raven wasn't entirely wrong. Lin had indeed helped her a few times, and he did seem like a man of action and few words, but something still felt off.
Mei stacked her arms, supporting her chin with one hand: "He was the first person I met, too. They say he's always the first person to appear before a visitor. But I feel like his attitude toward you and me is quite different."
Could it be because of looks, like with Elysia?
Mei glanced at Raven's face, then compared it to the face of the "cute girl" Elysia claimed she was.
...It probably wasn't.
That man wasn't the type to show favoritism based on appearance.
"Is it because I'm a Herrscher after all?"
"What are you saying? Lin showing favoritism between you and me? Haha..." Raven laughed out loud. "I don't think so. I believe that even if you're a Herrscher, as long as you don't show him too much hostility, he's generally quite magnanimous."
"That's not it~ Lin really likes you, you know~"
The elusive Elysia appeared from behind Raven at that moment.
"You are..." Raven looked at her, utterly bewildered.
Visitors generally couldn't see all the Flame-Chasers. This was a kind of protection mechanism of the Realm. Of course, the Flame-Chasers also had the right to decide whether to appear before visitors, which involved their so-called "preferences." So Raven had never met the pink-haired girl.
Mei narrowed her eyes, looking at her: "Elysia..."
"Elysia?" Raven realized upon hearing the name. She had heard of her from other Flame-Chasers, but this was her first time meeting her. "Hello, I'm Raven."
"Hehe, another cute girl~" Elysia stared at Raven's face with interest. "Hello, I'm Elysia, second in the sequence."
Raven, slightly put off by being called a cute girl, looked back at Mei for guidance. Mei shrugged, signaling that Elysia was just like that.
"You just said Lin likes... Raven?" Mei was slightly better at grasping the key points than Raven, and she was very interested in this statement.
Raven took a step back: "...What do you mean? Why are you looking at me?"
"Not that kind of like, silly." Elysia quickly cleared up the misunderstanding. "How should I put it? It's the kind of liking where a senior assesses a junior, and the junior's performance meets the senior's expectations."
Mei contemplated: "I see. They do have some similarities in certain aspects."
Raven asked: "What aspects?"
"Their bizarre fighting style, their underhanded and cruel angles."
"...Is that supposed to be a compliment to me or to Lin?"
"And you both like to cover your faces with something. At least you haven't developed air-allergy syndrome like him."
Elysia interjected into their derailed conversation with a cheerful laugh: "Lin gives his assessment after every visitor leaves. Most of them are quite interesting, so I write them down."
You forced him to give an assessment, didn't you?
Mei silently complained in her heart.
"The highest-rated one was Raven," Elysia said, counting the number of visitors on her fingers. "I only found out after Raven left. So, this time, I waited even more attentively for Raven to arrive~"
"Then why didn't you appear last time..."
"It was an accident~"
It was clearly because Raven was wearing a hood and her face couldn't be seen, so she didn't appear because she didn't think she was a cute girl.
Mei realized her ability to complain internally was growing stronger. She supposed it was developed from spending time with Elysia and Lin.
Raven, however, believed the explanation. After all, "accident" was more convincing than "not showing up because she didn't see her face." It just went to show that Elysia's habit of judging by looks was simply too... candid.
Raven was also quite curious about what the taciturn helmeted man would say: "So, what exactly did he like about me?"
My combat? My personality? Or the final outcome?
"Would you believe me if I said it was your cuteness?"
"..."
"Just kidding! Though Lin didn't deny it, either~" Elysia laughed. "The thing Lin liked about you was your lack of deep obsession."
"What does that mean?"
"There are many people around Lin who walked down a path of no return because of an obsession."
Elysia lowered her head, speaking softly, her smile conveying an unusual sense of helplessness.