She didn’t want to move, but she knew she had to. Lily was sure the moment she let go of Sunica, her mind would start racing in bad directions again. Right now, she felt grounded. Safe. But the creeping dread was waiting just below the surface to grab her again.

“I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?”

“I know you’re having a bad time too, and I’m leaning on you. I just–”

“Shut up. You’re fine. I just want you to feel okay.”

“I’m going to be okay.”

She hated how easily she lied. But, there was no time for that thought right now. It was time to let go. So, she did. She looked Sunica in the eyes and gave her a nervous smile. The tears had dried already.

“All better, see? You were totally right. If this was dangerous, it’d have gotten me already. It’s just… unsettling.”

“Yeah. I mean, you can ask Adelina about it more right? Maybe she’ll be able to figure it out.”

“You’re going to be okay? She was being very mean to you. I– I want you to know that I’m trying to make it better. I’m sorry if I–”

“Shut it. C’mon. Please. I’m not good at stuff like this. You’re fine, I promise I’m not pissed.”

Lily frowned, but nodded anyway. They’d have plenty of time to talk it out when Adelina left for the night. Assuming she did. Besides, Lily was pretty sure she could make some real progress with the girl. She didn’t seem like a bad person, and getting her to see her sister as another human being– well, another… balaur being? How did that language shake out? Well, whatever. She thought that if she could get Adelina to see what her Sister’s day to day was actually like, they might be able to build a more positive relationship. Maybe. At least friendly enough that it would solve some immediate problems.

That was her secret motivation behind dragging herself and Adelina out with Sunica. Humanize, er, balaurize(?) Sunica a bit in Adelina’s mind. Maybe then she’d be more likely to argue in favor of Sunica coming along to Avezare.

“I’m such a little weasel…”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing. So, off to the next stop?”

“Yeah. Hey Adelina!”

Sunica raised her voice to call for her sister.

“We’re heading out. Come back!”

“You two uh… done?”

Lily called out to answer.

“Yeah! Sorry about that. I’m okay now.”

Adelina approached carefully. She looked a little embarrassed.

“I should be the one apologizing. I really thought you knew about it. Hells, I thought you cast it! I just had questions and… I’d have brought it up differently if I knew.”

Lily shook her head as the fear built up in her chest again.

“Let’s not talk about it right now. I need to… not think about it directly for a bit. Can you just tell me one thing?”

“Sure. What’cha wanna know?”

“You said my magic looks pretty different than yours right? Does this look more like mine or yours?”

Adelina sighed and sort of squinted at Lily.

“Honestly, it’s so complex it’s way above my head. But, if I had to guess it’s something that came from your style of doing things. But, take that with a hint of doubt, ‘cause it could just be so far above me that I think it’s strange, and your magic is also a mystery to me. Basically, I’m biased, but I think it’s yours. That’s why I thought you cast it yourself.”

“Okay. Well. If you’re right about that, that narrows it down a little. Thanks.”

“If you want to talk about what it could be–”

“No. No I really, really do not. Please. Let’s talk about anything else.”

Sunica broke in, pointing further into the forest.

“I uh, still have two traps to check. Let’s get going?”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Lily’s mind continued to race, despite trying not to think about it. It was her style of magic? Is it because she was a copy? Was the spell holding her together? Or was it on her before the basement? Maybe it came from letting too much mana flow through her, like the scars? That seemed unlikely. The scars weren’t ordered. They didn’t look like a spell. They looked like damage. Why couldn’t she sense the spell on herself? Not even now that she knew it was there? If it didn’t come from the basement spell or an accident, how did it get there? Why? Was it the reason she didn’t disappear with everyone else? She had to get out of her head. This was not a good place to be while trying to navigate a delicate social situation.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“What the fuck…”

Sunica’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. They’d come to the second trap, and just like the first it looked broken.

“Something got this one too?”

“Looks like it. I don’t see any other animal tracks though. It’s not like I never lose prey, but usually I can at least tell what went wrong.”

“What’s wrong Sis, never heard of a bird before?”

Sunica rolled her eyes.

“I’m not an idiot. If it was a bird, there’d be some sign too. Even a big bird would struggle to pull the prey out of this trap in one swoop. There’d be feathers, claw marks, something! But there’s just blood where the trap snapped, and an empty trap. No tracks. Nothing!”

Lily tuned out the half hearted argument. This was a problem that she could focus on. The empty traps. If a large animal had broken into them, Sunica said there would be tracks or something. If a bird had gotten them, there would be feathers and other signs. What then? Clearly something had happened. Once was a strange coincidence, twice was a pattern.

An animal that Sunica’s not familiar with? Or a magical creature she’s not encountered before? No. Trust Sunica. She’s a professional and knows what she’s doing. So, what then? What would be outside of Sunica’s purview? Nothing to do with animals. Magic? Lily closed her eyes and tried to feel out any magic nearby. She wasn’t sure she’d even pick up on this world’s magic, but it was worth a try.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she sensed the huge amount of mana nearby. A deep well of it. Way more than she was expecting. Lily opened her eyes and turned in that direction only to see… Adelina.

Of course. She slapped her forehead. Another mage would be the most obvious source of mana around. How strong was Adelina exactly? As young as she was, Lily doubted she was very powerful on a world scale. But, locally would she be one of the more powerful people in the region? Something to think about. If not, and her magic was on the weaker side, there might be some truly terrifying casters in this world.

Lily shook her head. No. Focus. If not magic, what else might Sunica have overlooked? Maybe sabotage? Did the people around here look down on her so much they’d stoop to that? If so, what kind of evidence would they leave?

Would they even have bothered to hide it though? If it was just sabotage, wouldn’t letting her know about it be part of the harassment? God, people were the worst. Guessing motives became a lot harder when thinking about humans. Er, people. Lily was really going to have to work on her lexicon now that sentient races included more than humans.

She scanned the forest floor. Snow. She didn’t see anything immediately obvious. What would people leave that Sunica’s animal expertise wouldn’t notice? Lily paced around the edges of the clearing, looking carefully. There ought to be some sign. Of something. Anything. The traps didn’t just break themselves.

Then, she saw it. A track. Not an animal track. It looked like… a human foot? It was around the same size as Lily’s foot, in fact. There were three steps, and then the tracks stopped. Lily thought about it. Some balaur had human-like feet. So it wasn’t necessarily a human. It seemed to be a bit of a toss up which parts of an average balaur were more dragon or more human. Lily wondered if there were any interesting correlations there. But then dropped that train of thought.

“Hey! I found something!”

She stood up and turned back to the two sisters who were still bickering. It took two more times calling out to them before they finally took notice and came over.

“Look. I found tracks. People tracks.”

“Huuuh? Why didn’t your Skill pick that up Sunica?”

“Shut up already! My skill detects animal tracks. I guess I didn’t think to look around manually for people. Who would steal from my traps though?”

Lily cleared her throat to break into the conversation quickly getting started around her.

“More importantly, why are they barefoot?”

Adelina looked at Lily like she was an idiot.

“Because all the balaur that live here are resistant to ice? I could take my shoes off too you know. I just don’t want to get my feet dirty. Or do humans wander around in the mud and soil without shoes on all the time?”

Lily felt the blood rushing to her face.

“Oh. Right. Well, okay. Fine, smart girl. Why are there only three tracks?”

“They probably used some means of covering them up. Maybe a skill? Or some other technique. Whoever they were, they were trying to be sneaky. But who cares? It’s just a single animal. Why go through all the trouble?”

Sunica broke into the conversation hurriedly.

“Wait, these tracks are headed towards the third trap! We might be able to catch them!”

With that, she started to run. Adelina was hot on her heels. Lily started after them, and suddenly was very aware of how clumsy her movements were in snow compared to the sisters who had lived here their entire lives. She was moving as fast as she could, but the deep steps into snow and her naturally not being athletic meant that they were out of sight in moments.

“Shit, shit, shit, stupid slow legs!”

Lily huffed as she ran after them. Was she even going to be able to run the whole way? Or for that matter, find them? Well, finding them wasn’t too hard. The tracks in the snow were pretty simple to follow.

Wait… Weren’t there too many sets of footprints…?

As Lily rounded a tree and saw Sunica and Adelina up ahead, she nearly bumped into someone. Several people in fact. Green skin. Slightly shorter than her. Red eyes. Fur and leather clothing. Lily yelped in surprise. So did the person she almost ran into.

They looked at each other, shocked for a second before the person in front of her yelled.

“H-Human! It’s a human! What do we do?”

Another elbowed the first.

“Get her before she gets us!”

The group of strangers started fumbling for weapons. Oh no. This was not good.

“Wait! I’m friendly!”

All of them froze and stared at her in complete bewilderment. For about five seconds time froze as the group of green skinned people and Lily stared each other down. But the momentary peace was broken by a shout from up ahead.

“[Ice Lance]!”

A spear of ice pierced one of the stranger’s heads in an instant, dropping them.

Then, it was chaos.