Unfamiliar Territory

Evona snored in a cell within a damp, mysterious place that resembled an underground prison.

“GAHHH!! Evona's awake!” Evona yelled out to nobody.

As she looked around, she quickly realized she had been imprisoned and was once again split up from the crew. Even though she had just woken up, she was full of energy and aimed to retaliate against being falsely imprisoned.

“YOU CAN’T KEEP ME IN HERE!!!” Evona’s voice echoed through the halls of the prison.

She ran up and pounced onto the prison door’s bars, but to her surprise, the door was unlocked. With her momentum, the door slowly swung open as she clung to it.

“Oh, it’s open…” Evona said, awkwardly realizing she was yelling for nothing.

In order to find the others, Evona continued to wander through the prison’s halls. As she explored, she eventually came to a larger room with a woman sitting and humming in the center of it. Surrounding the woman was a patch of vibrant greenery, even though nothing like that would be able to grow in a place like this.

“Isn’t that another one of the Hero Knight’s allies?” Evona quietly mentioned to herself, but the empty prison once again caused her voice to echo, catching the woman’s attention.

“Oh dear, I didn’t expect you to wake up so quickly,” the woman said in a slight shock. “No need to be shy. My name is Yumi. Feel free to come out so I can see you.”

The woman sounded very gentle and kind, but Evona was skeptical of her because of what Kaede, the woman’s supposed ally, did to them.

She remained partially hidden and responded. “Evona does not trust you. You could do mean things like the Lady Kaede did.”

“Oh, that Kaede,” the woman named Yumi started ranting to herself. “I can’t believe she wanted to torture you all for the relic. To think she calls herself a lady.”

Evona was appalled, knowing that someone she looked up to had a disturbing, evil side. Now Evona knew she had to get away from the woman.

She attempted to ignore and run past her to get to the next room, but Yumi blocked her escape by making a large plant wall.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot let you leave this area,” Yumi informed Evona.

Evona’s attention being directed towards Yumi, retaliated, “If you won’t let Evona leave, then Evona will have to defeat you first!”

In Evona’s retaliation, she jumped at Yumi.

Yumi, with a nurturing aura to her, activated some skill that blossomed a thicket of flowers between her and Evona. When Evona landed in the thicket, she lost all will to fight. Evona had mellowed out and started relaxing right in the face of her enemy.

“Let’s calm down, shall we?” Yumi suggested as she brought Evona towards her to nurture her in her lap.

____________________________________________________________________________

The unconscious Rina woke up in a different area of the same prison. Just like Evona, Rina was all alone, but unlike Evona, she was still tied up in webs.

Not batting an eye, Rina activated a skill to slash the webs, freeing herself from being tied up. She then got up, dusted herself off, and began to analyze.

She sighed, “We’re split up again right after we just got back together, I see,” Rina annoyingly deduced.

Rina left her cell, which had its door already open. As she began to walk through the halls, she specifically recognized that there were tons of webs everywhere. There was no way it was natural. Rina recognized Kaede might be in the area.

After a bit of walking, Rina started hearing people talking. Following the sound, she came to a similar room to the one Evona found Yumi in, but in this room, Kaede was talking with another blonde gentleman who had a long, crystalline sword.

“Why are you like this?” the gentleman brutally said to Kaede. “You say things all proper, but behind that voice, you’re completely crazy. If you just defeated the boss and got the relic instead of watching them explore the dungeon, we wouldn’t be in this weird situation.”

“Don’t be so stuck up, Henry,” Kaede rebutted to the gentleman. “You need to allow the opposition to struggle before you claim what you want. It’s not fun if you just complete everything so orderly.”

“Well, I hope you’re happy because now everything is disorderly!” the man, Kaede referred to as Henry, clapped back. “Now Kouki is going to get involved. All these poor adventurers are probably going to be killed, reincarnated, or not.”

“Oh, I am happy!” Kaede responded with a malicious smile. “Before Kouki gets here, I’m going to torture that strong bitch and make her submit to me.”

“Your true colors are showing, Kaede,” Henry stated.

“Oh, shut up already!” Kaede ordered Henry, reverting her devious smile. “Just because you keep safe our relic doesn’t mean you’re in charge here. Go guard that hooded kid like you’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t kill her,” Henry replied as he began leaving the room.

“Oh, I will— I mean won’t!” Kaede corrected herself as she happily waved until Henry was far away from the room. “Now to deal with the fly in the room. You might as well come out. I know you’ve been listening from my webs.”

Rina, knowing that she had been found, came out from hiding.

“So you all are evil,” Rina announced her conclusion.

“What makes you say that?” Kaede jokingly questioned Rina. “All we want is the relic.”

Rina knew she could not clarify, as she’d be giving away that they have a benefactor. Instead, she led her off the trail.

“How you’ve treated me and my friends is enough for me to count you as my enemy, you hag,” Rina responded.

“Do you really want your last words to be so cliché?” Kaede responded seriously, not liking her insult, “Because now I’m making sure you’re not getting out of here alive.”

“I don’t think you’re qualified to make that claim,” Rina taunted once more, getting ready for their impending fight.

After a bit of silence, Kaede initiated their fight, “I hope you like pain!”

Rushing towards Rina, Kaede aimed to jab Rina with her sharp-looking fingers, but Rina backed off, not wanting to take any chances.

Rina was ready to counterattack, but when she went to swing her sword, it was stuck in a web. Even though Rina slightly looked to see what her sword was stuck on, Kaede still managed to capitalize.

Kaede punched Rina in her stomach so hard that spit came out of her mouth. Rina, stomaching the pain, activated her Cutting Edge skill, which was the same skill she used to free herself before. It creates blade slashes around the user regardless of the state the user is in.

Recognizing Rina was using a skill, Kaede backed off to a safe distance.

Being freed from Kaede’s web, Rina chased after her, aiming a slash at her large lower half. Though despite Kaede’s size, she could move fast. She swiftly jumped to the ceiling, landing upon it. She then utilized a web thread as a lasso, grabbing Rina and throwing her towards a wall.

Rina adjusted her balance mid-air, aiming to jump off the wall in retaliation, but Kaede used her webs to stop Rina again, preventing her from jumping off the wall. With Rina’s legs stuck on the wall, she was once again forced to use her Cutting Edge skill.

Rina could notice the pattern. If she made any drastic movements, they’d be stopped by Kaede’s webs. Adapting, Rina approached Kaede and focused on close-quarters combat, not giving her time to hinder Rina’s movements.

Fighting up close, the two were evenly matched. Blows were traded between Rina’s sword and Kaede’s front set of legs. Rina was getting into the rhythm of things and created an opening. Rina readied her sword for a direct attack, but another web stopped her arm. Rina anticipated this and swapped her sword to her other, unstuck arm. Kaede was still close enough for the attack to land, and Rina went for it.

Rina swung her blade downwards, but right before it hit Kaede’s face, the webs halted her attack.

Kaede yawned. “This is getting boring. Do you really think you stand a chance at this rate? You’re getting nowhere.”

Rina, still stuck in her offensive pose, responded, “I suppose you’re right… Constantly using my skills to get free will end in my loss.”

As Rina opened her Inventory skill, a unique-looking blade dropped from it, cleanly slashing the webs binding her, which her usual sword struggled to do. This was Rina’s special weapon.

This alarmed Kaede, so she gained some distance from the now freed Rina.

“Unfortunately, I’ll be needing this to clean things up here,” Rina stated, grabbing and pointing her special weapon towards Kaede.

Activating her special weapon, a flurry of air surrounded Rina. Kaede felt intimidated. She started taking the battle more seriously.

Rina used her weapon to slash towards Keade, creating a large air blade. Keade, in response, wrapped her front set of legs with her dense webs and blocked the frontal attack with them, but the attack was so strong that it still managed to cut the webs and crack her leg’s exoskeleton.

Kaede put down her legs to get ready to attack back, but Rina disappeared from her line of sight. The alarmed Kaede unleashed her webs all over the room to help sense where Rina was. She was able to sense where Rina was, but when she looked in the direction she sensed Rina, she was already gone.

Rina was moving too fast for Kaede to locate.

As Kaede sporadically looked around the room, trying to track Rina, she suddenly appeared behind her and put her all into slashing Kaede’s back. Rina’s successful attack sent Kaede flying into the wall so hard that her purple blood was splattered at her impact point.

The barely conscious Kaede looked towards Rina, “How is this possible?”

Rina looked down at the injured Kaede, floating in the air from her weapon’s power. Rina then deactivated and stored her weapon back in her inventory as she didn’t deem Kaede as a threat anymore.

“I know you weren’t giving it your all. You wanted to play games,” Rina mocked Kaede. “This is what you get for underestimating me.”

Rina knew she’d done enough to incapacitate Kaede, so she left her injured in the room as she ran off to reunite and escape with everyone else.

“I’ll get you back for this!” Kaede yelled out as Rina escaped.