"Shouldn't we make a hideout or something? You know, in case those guys really come to attack us..."

Murray ignored Mir's persistent inquiry for quite a while, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Yeah. Since you seem to think that a transcender might be sent to attack you, making a hideout should be your first priority," Reno chipped in his support.

Groaning, Murray turned to look at the two of them, eyeing Mir in particular rather venomously.

"I have a plan. And hiding isn't included in any part of it. You can't hide from transcenders who've been specifically deployed to track you, idiot. Only those with the required skill set would be chosen for the task. You can only keep running."

"Do I need to run too...? Because I'm not sure why somebody's chasing you two, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with me," Reno said, sounding hesitant.

Mir and Murray simultaneously looked at him with strange smiles on their faces.

"If you don't want to turn into blackmail material, you better run. I won't be making compromises if they take you hostage to get to us," Murray replied flatly, making Reno gulp.

"Of course, you can also just leave. You know, leave this team, go back to the gateway station to join a new team, return to the sacred ground like you have no connection to us...Sounds like a safe option for you, right? We wouldn’t hold that against you. It's not like you'd be contributing much to the team either way."

Despite Murray's provocative insults, Reno didn’t appear to be disturbed. He surprised both of them a bit by saying, "I'd much rather explore the sacred ground at the side of people I can trust."

Mir exchanged a brief, involuntary look of suspicion with Murray.

"What's our escape route, then?" Reno inquired, realizing that Murray didn’t plan to make a rebuttal.

"The stream. We'll make a raft using the bamboo from the clusters that have grown along the bank of the stream. The water is deep enough in the middle to float using rafts, and once you go a bit deeper into the sacred ground, the stream eventually merges with other similar bodies of water, forming a small river. We can change our routes frequently there to avoid direct trackers. And it's not going to be easy for them to cross the river unnoticed while chasing us. All in all, this strategy is our best bet if we want to play it safe."

Mir and Reno nodded along, realizing that Murray's plan was indeed thought out well. Only, there was one basic issue that he had forgotten to address, and Reno didn’t miss that.

"How long do you plan to keep escaping from them, big brother?" He said pointedly. "If you cannot defeat them, how long do you think you'd be able to run? If you indeed have transcender-tier superhumans as your enemies...you need to plan for the worst outcome, right?"

Murray laughed sinisterly at that question.

"Oh, don’t worry. Running isn’t the only thing we'll be doing. Let's not dive too deep into details when our very premise of the plan hasn’t been realized, okay? First, Mir needs to try and form a contract with the newly groomed Purplevein Bee Queen. And you, little brother, need to figure out how you're going to keep up with him while escaping if they attack!"

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Reno snorted. "How are YOU going to keep up with your brother if he manages to form the contract? He might be able to ward off his opponents by using the queen bee, but what about you? I wouldn’t be the only guy without a card to play at that time, would I?"

Murray swiftly pulled out his wooden shield from a bag, thrusting it at Reno's face.

"I have my card right here."

Inwardly, Mir was cursing at both of them.

On one hand, Reno's behavior was growing more and more suspicious. Firstly, his motive for coming to the sacred ground was still not quite clear. He had contradicted himself almost immediately by refusing to consume his share of the contaminated honey. How would he establish a contract with a creature if he didn’t train his mind beforehand?

His story didn’t add up, and to add to that, now he had just attempted to learn what Murray's secret trump card might be through the argument. This made both Mir and Murray feel that the plausibility of his collusion with the Ravensworth family was pretty high.

On the other hand, Murray was definitely trying to bait Reno into thinking that this sacred artifact was his only trump card. The reason behind this baiting was obvious. Murray suspected Reno, as did Mir, of colluding with their enemies. If their enemy had sent Reno as the scout to spy on them, then it would certainly be very convenient for them if the reports this scout sent back to the enemy camp were wrong.

But this raised another question Mir had been pondering for quite some time now.

What was Murray's real trump card? What was he relying on that gave him such confidence in being able to evade and defeat their enemies and powerful mutant creatures?

It surely wasn’t experience. And it might not be a mutant creature, either, judging by how defeated Murray had sounded when he had admitted that he hadn’t formed a contract with any creature till now.

Both the boys seemed like they were arguing hot-headedly. But both of them were actually calculating the impact of each sentence that came out of their mouth, testing and laying traps for the other party.

"Well? Nothing to say to that?" Murray taunted Reno, shaking the shield like a toy to tease a child. Reno didn’t seem keen on replying.

"Let the matter rest. This isn’t the time for arguments," Mir said, inserting himself between them. "We should be focusing on our current goal right now, which is to build a raft."

Murray nodded and backed down, attaching the shield to his back using the leather straps.

Cautiously, all three of them made their way to the other side of the grassland by walking around it through the thick jungle. Mir recognized the area immediately upon reaching the bank of the stream.

"That place, that's where the tentacle fi- I mean, the octopus got me." He pointed out the clump of emergent vegetation peeking out of the surface of the water, appearing as harmless as any plant on land. Only he understood the dangers those aquatic plants were hiding.

Murray looked wary as he surveyed the stream.

"Water is much more dangerous as a medium of traveling than the solid ground, especially here in a place like the sacred ground. If I had a better option in my hand, I would not have chosen this route. It's too hard to tell whether you're in danger or not when you're afloat."

"Agreed. Any moment, a tentacle might lunge out of the water to drag you down to a waiting maw..." Mir trailed off, not finishing the sentence.

"I'd really appreciate it if you kept those horrific imaginations of yours to yourself," Reno complained in a shaky tone.

"Imagination? It literally happened to me! This is where the tentacles gripped me! Look!" Mir began to pull his trousers up, only to be stopped by him.

"Do you want me to run away? Because I'm feeling tempted to do so right now. Stop talking about tentacles!"

"Feel free to run away. We won't stop you," Murray interjected.

"...For some reason, I feel like you want me to leave the team not just because I'm weak," Reno remarked in a sharp tone.

"What other motives could we possibly have?" Mir spread his arms wide and shrugged. Reno couldn’t come up with an answer.

"Guys, come here. I found the perfectly sized bamboos for the raft," Murray shouted from ahead, choosing a really good time to distract him.