Finally finishing the hut, I was about to head back to the others when-

"AAAHHH!"

-a scream of agony entered my ears.

Without a moment's hesitation, I rushed off to the source of the sound.

“What the-!?”

It seemed the sound was coming from the campsite.

Running over, I saw Ella and Roy sitting in their hut. Ears covered. While Flynn seemed to be off somewhere.

Reaching the source of the sound, I found Xara lying in her hut. Screaming to herself while flinging her arms all over the place.

“NO! STAY AWAY! NO! STOP IT!”

She looked like she was suffering.

Stepping close, I tried calling out to her.

“Xara!”

“STOP IT!”

Xara!”

“NOOO!”

“XARA!”

I tried reaching out to grab her shoulder but she smacked it away. Making it clear I couldn't be hesitant in this situation. So, not knowing what else to do, I jumped onto Xara and hugged her tightly.

She tried escaping from my grasp, but I clung on as hard as I could.

“Xara. It’s okay. Shhh. It’s okay.”

Not sure how to console her, I tried doing what my parents always did in order to calm me down. It was all I had to work with.

“Shhh. It’s okay. Just calm down. I’m here for you.”

I began patting her head gently, and after about five minutes, Xara began to calm down. Her crying turned to sniffles, and her screams turned to whimpers.

I continued telling her it was okay and petted her head until she finally stopped crying and fell asleep in my embrace.

A few minutes later, Flynn returned.

“So she’s finally calmed down.”

As he said that, he looked at her lying calmly in my arms. Then he let a smile slip onto his face.

“What is it?”

“...Nothing.”

Going silent, Flynn sat down by the fire which had been fully set up, and laid on the ground before closing his eyes.

"Why did he smile like that?” I muttered before looking down at Xara.

“...Wait a minute!”

It was only then that I realized just how close the two of us were and my cheeks immediately felt a lot warmer.

Wanting to leave before she woke up, I tried moving away only to be immediately pulled back in. She didn’t want to let me go.

“Crap. This is a bit awkward.”

It seemed I was stuck like this for tonight. Though I guess I don’t mind.

Before long, morning came. And to my relief, Xara let me explain myself as I used water magic to put out the fireball that she started to cast in her hand.

Thankfully, Xara tried her best to move past it. However, one look at her told me she was probably really embarrassed about the whole thing.

Or at least, that was the case at the start. However, before long, I noticed a concerned expression starting to appear on her face.

But moving past that, the teacher came by and handed each of us a slip of paper with the tasks our group had to complete over the course of this week.

I looked over them and…

“Why are these so easy?”

I wasn’t even joking. They were just the basics of survival. These weren’t even a challenge.

This list looked like the following:

* Hunt and cook an animal

* Make a map of your campsite

* Find a nearby cave and search for rare materials

* Pet a wild animal

* Complete a challenge as a team

Other than the last thing which would be a real pain, all of these could probably be completed within a two-day time period or less!

“Who made these tasks so ea-”

“Why are these all so difficult!?”

I turned to find Ella and Roy looking over their papers.

“There’s no way a noble could ever touch a filthy animal! Especially someone of high standing like me!” shouted Ella.

“No kidding! I may have a lot of strength, but half this stuff is impossible!”

I looked at them with a dumbfounded expression.

“What’s that look for commoner!?”

Ella gave me an angry glare.

Rubbing my eyes, I couldn’t help but groan.

“How are you all this hopeless? You’re completely pathetic,” I grumbled.

“What’d you say!?”

Roy already looked ready to pick a fight. To which I pulled up the paper and tapped on the list with my finger.

“These tasks a way too simple. If they really needed to be this dumbed down, I’m scared just how helpless you nobles really are.”

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Gritting his teeth, Roy stared down at me. His stance giving a rather ape-like feel.

That’s when someone else spoke up.

“Savoncho is right,” Flynn stated standing next to Roy.

In response, Roy glared at him.

“So you’re still taking the commoner's side huh?”

Flynn shrugged.

“To people like us nobles, these seem like difficult tasks to accomplish. But if you actually think about it, they should be quite easy. Just think about them for a moment and you realize it.”

Roy was about to say something but stopped himself. Thinking thing's over.

To his frustration, Flynn was right.

Closing his mouth, Roy backed down.

“You’re just gonna take that!?”

Ella seemed completely dumbstruck. Roy clenched his fists.

“I hate to admit it, but they do have a point. As long as we just think about the tasks themselves and ignore our standings, they’re quite simple and could be accomplished pretty quickly.”

It seemed like Ella couldn’t believe her ears.

“You must be joking!”

Instead of replying to her words, Roy clenched his fists tighter and turned to me.

“From what you said before, I assume that means you know what to do. Correct?”

I nodded.

“Drawing up maps isn’t exactly my forte, but everything else should be doable. However, I can only accomplish them with other’s support.”

After that, I explained how we'd do this and, after hearing what I had to say, Roy nodded in understanding.

He then turned to Flynn with a look of determination.

”Sir Fonroin, didn’t you say before the school trip that you were a skilled artist?”

Flynn nodded.

“Yes. I’m actually one of the best artists in the school according to my peers”

“I see.”

Roy turned back to me.

“In that case, I think Sir Fonroin should be in charge of taking care of drawing a map of the campsite.”

I nodded in agreement.

“If he’s in charge of that, can I rely on you and Xara to help me with some of the other tasks? We can worry about anything we can’t accomplish later.”

“Understood.”

I turned my head to Ella who scoffed at me.

“Heh. Guess working as a team will be quite a hard thing to accomplish,” joked Flynn.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Well, even if that might be a problem, we were finally starting to get moving and before long, we got to work on completing the tasks.

To start, Xara, Roy, and I made our way into the woods with the goal of completing the hunting, petting, and cave tasks before the end of the day. Meanwhile, Ella and Flynn stayed behind with Flynn looking around the campsite in order to draw it as accurately as he could.

Splitting the tasks three ways, each member of our team went off in different directions in order to complete what we needed to do.

Leaving Axel and Roy behind, I made my way through the forest. Axel was supposed to hunt down the animal we needed to cook, and Roy was taking care of finding the cave and retrieving a rare material of some kind. At least, rare in the sense that it normally can’t be found anywhere but here. As for me, I was tasked with petting a wild animal. I didn’t know why this was one of the things we had to complete, but I figured it was easy enough for me to do.

As I continued walking, I spotted another campsite. It must’ve been another group stationed not too far from us.

Deciding to leave it be, I went up a hill and wound up going farther than I thought I would. Turns out finding a wild animal to pet wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped.

Before I knew it, four hours had passed. It was probably close to two in the afternoon at this point. Knowing Axel, he probably already finished his task.

With a sigh, I continued walking. But even as I did so, my thoughts wandered back to what Axel had told me this morning. Apparently, I was screaming in my sleep and he had to keep me company in order to try and calm me down.

Hearing that reminded me of all the horrible nightmares I’ve been having since entering this school. Almost every night I’d be stuck dealing with terrifying voices that were pouring awful thoughts into my head.

Though oddly enough, last night wasn’t that bad. Sure it started terribly, but after a bit, a strange calming sensation felt like it was washing over my body. Was that Axel calming me down? I honestly don’t know. Still, he was kind enough to console me when I was dealing with that nightmare so he has my thanks.

With a smile growing on my face, I thought back to the pleasant calming sensation I had during that nightmare.

Knowing Axel was the one who did that, it was actually kinda nice.

Feeling happy, I let out a small chuckle.

“As strange as it sounds, his kindness almost reminds me of Ri-”

I stopped my sentence there. No…there was no one as kind as Riko. With a soul as sweet and kind as Riko’s, no one else compared. He’d never betray me, never think less of me, and always stays by my side. And that’s something no one else can do.

Another hour passed without any success.

“Hm?”

But then, something off to the side caught my eye.

Turning my head, I saw a deer glancing at me before running away.

“Hey! Wait a minute!”

Without thinking, I spread my wings and flew after the deer. But despite my speed, I was still struggling to keep up with it.

I was almost ready to give up when I noticed it was starting to slow down. No doubt that was happening because it was running out of stamina.

I began closing in on it and reached out my hand to touch it when…

“Huh!?”

I felt something tug at my wings and a sharp pain hit my back.

My body shook for a moment before it came to a complete stop.

Confused, I looked behind me. It turned out that I went too fast and my wings had dug into some trees. Completely immobilizing them.

“Aw come on!”

Frustrated, I tried to shake my wings free to no avail. With a sigh, I looked around in hopes that someone was nearby to help. But there was no one in sight.

And with how far off the ground I was, unless someone was there to catch me, I’d no doubt break something.

So with nothing else I could do, I waited there…in complete silence.

Before I knew it, night had come. The stars shined in the sky and the darkness made it almost impossible to see anything.

With how late it was getting, I began feeling myself nodding off.

“Kill them. Kill all humans.”

My eyes immediately shot open.

“What!? Who said that!?”

There was no one there. Don’t tell me the voices were already back!

“Humans are evil! They don’t care about us! They’re vile!”

“No! You’re wrong!”

I knew that wasn’t true!

“Not all humans are evil! I know there are some who care about us! I know Riko cares about me!”

I knew that was true. Why else would he fight to protect me when he thought Axel was trying to mess with me!?

“He doesn’t care about you. He only sees you as an object.”

“Th-That’s not true.”

I felt my words weakening. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I couldn’t ignore these voices

“Riko cares about me…I know he does…he’ll save me from you…I know it.”

I was positive about that.

Just then, I heard some rustling nearby. Turning my head, I saw someone I’d been waiting for all this time. It was him.

“Riko! Help me! Riko! Ri…ko?”

It indeed was Riko…with a woman walking beside him. He didn’t even see me. He wasn’t too far away, but he still didn’t see me…and he seemed way happier talking with that woman than he did when he was with me.

“Riko…”

“Kill them all. Kill all humans. They’re scum. They don’t care about us. Kill the humans.”

Those voices slowly started growing louder and louder.

At this point, I didn’t even care. Seeing how happy Riko looked, I couldn’t help but lose my will to fight back.

My vision started growing red, but I didn’t care. I was losing consciousness, but I didn’t care. It all felt pointless. And as my eyes started to close, Axel’s words echoed through my mind.

“Have you ever thought about doing anything by yourself since coming here?”

Now that I think about it, all I ever really did was hang out with Riko. Never doing anything on my own. No ambitions, no goals. All that mattered was spending time with Riko. So maybe giving in to these emotions was for the best. After all, I can’t think of doing anything without Riko.

...I really am a pathetic person.

And with that last thought, a single, ear-piercing screech echoed from my throat. And then, everything went dark.