"I found something interesting," Debby mentioned as soon as they left the throne room.

"What?"

"Remember when we first came here? I noticed two groups, right? Well, I think the group of two that I noticed first isn't part of this group here.

I don't know the specifics, but ever since we entered, they stayed close enough to the walls that I could still feel them. Thanks to that, I noticed another group getting close to the two and surrounding them. And after a while, the two simply disappeared. Though I can't tell if it was some kind of stealth or they teleported out of my range," Debby explained.

"Now, that is very interesting indeed," Alice said, adding another piece to the puzzle building in her mind.

"Why are you saying it like that?" Debby's husband asked.

"Because there is a fifty-fifty chance that his majesty was talking bullshit," Alice answered.

"In what regard?" Harry asked this time.

"The people we are looking for. A piece of his soul seems to be attached to every single one of his subordinates, and I assume that's how his Skills work. When he supposedly checked for the people we were looking for, I noticed a kind of ripple going through his soul, but only after I told him Sarah's and Angelica's names," Alice gave them a simplified explanation.

"And you mean it's fifty-fifty because that ripple could be either a positive reaction to a 'search', which would explain why it only happened once. Or, it is a result of the search itself, which would mean he didn't even bother to check if those five were actually with them. Right?" Daniel put Alice's idea into words.

"Exactly," she confirmed.

"But that's stupid. What would he do if we ran into one of the people we are looking for or noticed them in the distance?" Daniel argued against the worst case.

"But didn't you think it was weird how he specifically asked who and how we knew they were in this camp?" Ava gave her own counterargument.

"The problem is, he might simply have a Skill that allows him to get away with shit like that. Large numbers of buffs, the taxes, assigning people with different ranks, being able to look them up, that Aura he gave off, that mantle and crown. Not to mention the throne room and the goddamn city wall.

All of his Skills are powerful and largescale to a very concerning degree. And depending on the specifics, he might have a minimum of eight to eleven Skills. And that are only the ones we heard of or saw in passing.

That's why, when we get out of this place, I think we should try and find the duo Debby had been talking about. If we are lucky and they aren't being pursued because they are some kind of murderous maniacs, then they might be able to give us a different perspective of the situation," Alice explained her thoughts.

While they had been talking, Patty had led them already back out of the building, immediately turning right towards one of the fields Alice had already seen from up on the walls. Three times, they passed by other people, and three times, those people took a quick look at Alice's group and hurried along.

Now that Alice knew what to look for, she quickly found the sliver of foreign soul-stuff on each of their own. However, since she was focusing on that, it was only with the third person that she noticed their face. It wasn't like there were signs of them being mistreated, but they definitely didn't look happy either.

Of course, that might simply be due to the apocalypse or any of the other all-around bad things that were happening everywhere. But Alice had a felt that, while those things wouldn't leave most in the best of moods, but they would quickly come to accept that nothing could be done about it. It might give someone a depressed background feeling, but what Alice saw in the man's eyes appeared to her more present. More immediate.

"Ah, she is over there," Alice pointed to one of the people working on the field. It was a strange feeling. Despite never having met her in person, Alice recognized her crouching form from far away.

"Hey, Sarah," Alice called out to the blonde girl once they got closer.

Recognition turned into confusion and into a frown in moments as the girl turned around. Being called with so much familiarity, only to realize the other person is a complete stranger, could have that kind of effect.

"What do you want?" she asked, the frown not going away.

"My name is Alice. My group and I are from a different base of survivors. I wanted to have a talk with you," Alice introduced them.

"Sure, but I'm busy, so make it quick," was the reply she got.

"Mind if we talk somewhere a bit more private?"

"Fuck. Bad news, I guess. Sure," Sarah answered, the frown deepening as she picked up the small shovel. Taking the small packet of sees, she folded the top several times to make sure none fell out and put it inside her pocket.

"Is there somewhere where we can get a bit of privacy?" Alice asked in Patty's direction.

"If you don't mind, you can talk inside the warehouse," he suggested, pointing at a small stone building close by. It was completely made using magic.

Silently, they walked over. The interior was dimly lit, light only falling through the open entrance and a set of small windows along the ceiling, barely bigger than Alice's palm.

"Do you mind?" Alice asked Patty and the others in her group.

"Ah, sorry," he quickly realized what she meant, and everyone left the warehouse again, waiting outside. Only Ava stayed behind, giving her hand a little squeeze before letting go.

The room fell into silence.

"Who is it? The one that died?" Sarah finally asked after a while.

"Your... Father. I'm sorry, I'm not used to this kind of thing, so I don't know what to say. Angelica, your mother, she..." Alice fell silent again.

"Dead," was all Sarah said, the frown deepening, even more, anger evident in her eyes.

"I see. Your father, he was a good man. At the first chance, he came on an expedition. He was scared like nothing else, but he still came with us because of the faint hope he could find you two. He had scouting abilities," Alice's words were a jumbled mess. She didn't know what more to say.

"I see, it doesn't matter anymore," the blonde girl turned to the door, about to go back to her work.

"Wait," Alice held her back, "I know he isn't with us anymore, but I wanted to ask if you would like to come with us to our base? We... couldn't bring back his body, but we did make him a gravestone."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"No, it doesn't matter anymore," she repeated, more aggressively this time.

"Sarah," Alice addressed the girl directly, "this might sound strange, but because of one of your father's Skills, I inherited a lot of his memories, so even if you don't know me, to me, you are... I don't know what the appropriate term would be. I guess something like a sister.

That's why I can tell that something is bothering you. Would you... mind telling me?"

"Yes! I have to get back," Sarah rejected Alice angrily, walking to the door.

"Are you sure? Your fath..." Ava tried,

"YES!" Sarah interrupted her, annoyance and frustration in her voice, leaving to go back to her fieldwork.

Alice sighed. She didn't know what to do. For all that she prided herself on being adaptable, that only helped her to get along with people, but not when delivering the news of a family member's death. Only the feeling of her girlfriend's hand in her own helped center her mind again.

"No luck?" Patty asked, his tone far too indifferent for Alice's taste.

"What does it look like?" Alice asked, annoyed. Securing her helmet back onto her head, she continued, "We are leaving. There are still places we need to take a look at."

"It's already getting late, you know? I could organize you a room to stay, and you could go back out tomorrow," the man suggested.

"Thanks for the offer, but there is still a chance we might find someone out there," Alice immediately rejected him.

"Sure, your decision. Come, I will show you the exit," Patty said, leading them to the same wall they had entered from.

Patty was right. It was already late in the afternoon. However, Alice didn't trust them enough to stay in their territory overnight. Standing atop the wall, Alice took a last look around.

Inside the wall, two hundred people were walking around, carrying heavy loads from one place to another, others fusing and forming masses of stone and other materials to build structures that would have been impossible before or making plants grow at impossible speeds.

Outside the wall, there would be monsters, hidden inside and behind the buildings, in the air and underground, ready to kill them at any moment if they made a mistake.

The fact that she felt safer outside made Alice sick to her core. She thought about it. Maybe, it was all just a giant misunderstanding. Maybe, modern media had poisoned her mind, making her distrust these people completely undeservedly. Maybe, Andy was just not perfect at his job, Sarah was simply depressed after both her parents died, and everything would be perfectly fine.

Alice took a deep breath to calm her nerves and stepped onto the elevator platform.

On the off chance that the worst-case scenario became a reality, they had to leave now.

Maybe, Alice thought, I'm better at this whole leadership thing than I thought. Just wish I could leave this whole shit for someone else to deal with. 'With great power comes great responsibility' and all that shit, I guess. I could have gladly done without either, but that's not how this world works anymore.

"Debby, is that duo in your range?"

"Yes, just about."

"Good, lead us to them, but not directly in case they are watching us somehow. If we meet them, it has to look like an accident. Also, pay attention just in case someone follows us."

With a creak, the wooden elevator platform set down on the ground outside the wall, allowing them to step back into the outside world. They performed one final check, making sure that they still had all their equipment in their correct places and counting who still had how much ammunition and for what kind of weapons. Not just in the sense of guns and bullets, but also Mana and Skills. Following Debby's instructions, they quickly got moving in a direction somewhere between the mysterious duo's location and one of their secondary targets.

It didn't take long before they passed from area A2 where the university was into area A1.

As they moved through the dilapidated streets, houses passing by, broken by both monsters and humans alike, that Alice regained some confidence. Out here, there were no tricks or manipulation. No one knew much more than the rest, and everyone was about as likely to die as anyone else, and Alice didn't even think that that would change a lot if one grew stronger.

Carefully feeling into the surrounding buildings with her Soul sense, Alice secured their path, warning her teammates of the surrounding monster population. There were comparatively few in this area, an occurrence Alice thought was due to the slight Aura the City wall was giving off. She hadn't noticed it before but could now tell that it had a similar feel to it as the one projected by the King himself.

Being far more spread and probably not targeted at her directly, Alice wasn't surprised that they had missed it. But Alice had no doubt that to most monster's the area around the base would appear to be claimed already.

It was when they had come about a hundred and fifty meters far that Debby noticed a single person leaving the confines of the wall, keeping their distance too consistently to be doing anything but following their group.

Considering the distance compared to her own Soul sense, Alice had no doubt that they thought their group would notice them that far away. At the same time, it got Alice thinking. Thinking about the logic behind their Skills and the specific numbers.

Alice Soul sense had a range of ten meters per level, while Debby's ability to detect minds had a range many times larger. What Alice wondered was whether it was a matter of 'balance', because Debby's perception was a lot more restricted, thus increasing the range, or if the answer lay in the mechanics of the ability itself.

Then again, even if she wanted to figure that out, she couldn't do that for the time being for many reasons.

It wasn't much later that they finally reached the closest position to the mysterious duo on their path. Sadly, they didn't seem to notice their group, so having them meet up naturally wasn't possible anymore.

"Debby, can you contact those two? Though, if they agree to meet up, tell them honestly that we are being followed and ask them to make it look like they found us."

"Sure, give me a second..." Debby said, going silent for a while after.

"Apparently, the one following us is Kate. And if what they told me is right, then that's actually true."

"Wait, wouldn't you have known if it's Kate?" Alice asked, surprised.

"Apparently, she has some kind of transformation Skill. And now that I know it, the person does feel just different enough that I mistook her for someone else. But there definitely are a lot of similarities."

"Well, that's good to know, but what about it?"

"According to them, Kate doesn't have any long-range detection capabilities but uses more conventional tracking. Which means, they can help us get away from her, though we would have to trust them."

"Trust them how?"

"One of them is apparently specialized in teleportation," Debby answered, leaving the rest unsaid.

For a few moments, Alice thought about what would be best.

First, she considered the worst outcome if they didn't trust the duo, which was that they bumble around in the dark, missing important pieces of information. And information was currently the thing they needed the most. If Alice was honest with herself, she had no idea what could be the consequences. Not to mention, that duo might become an enemy, which would be pretty bad if one of them was truly specialized in teleportation. Besides teleporting monsters into the middle of their base or forcefully splitting up their group in the middle of a fight, Alice had no idea what kind of shenanigans someone like that could get up to.

Of course, the best outcome, if they didn't trust them, would be if everything turned out to be a giant misunderstanding, and Andy and his group were genuinely nice people.

Then, there was the worst-case that could happen if they did trust the duo. The most obvious direct consequence would be either getting killed by some kind of Skill, either directly by teleporting them only in parts, or by getting thrown into a horde of monsters. Or less directly, by immediately becoming enemies of Andy's people since they seem to be hunting the duo.

Finally, there was the best case of trusting the two. It was pretty straightforward. Gaining very valuable allies and information.

"Right, did you ask them their names?" Alice realized that she had forgotten to ask.

"It's Jake Sumner and Nathan Chambers," Debby answered a few moments later.

"Hey, Ava, how likely do you think it is that those two turned into psychopathic murderers over the last few days?"

"I highly doubt it," the answer came immediately.

"Debby, you were the one who talked with them. What do you think?"

"I think we can trust them. If they don't turn out to be some kind of masters at deceiving telepathy, then I think we can trust them."

"Okay, tell them to come over so we can talk face to face," Alice made her decision.

"They refused. I don't quite understand it, but apparently, there is something about their Skill that would make it difficult. Instead, they said to keep close together and stay in physical contact. Apparently, the Skill they are going to use doesn't give them much time."

"... Fine. Give the go-ahead."

Quickly, the group got into position, each grabbing onto each other while still making sure that they would be able to defend themselves.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, a soul suddenly appeared in Alice Soul sense, only a few meters away.

"Hi!" they greeted before coming over.

Turning towards the voice, Alice recognized the man. He reminded her of the morning just before the monsters came, when she and Ava had talked about him.

He was tall, even taller than Alice herself, and had short, black hair.

"Now, let's get going," he said as he grabbed onto Harry's shoulder.

Then, the world blurred for a moment before snapping back into focus.