One side of the battle was finally over with, but there was still much more to do. Olyahim was at large on the other side of the island, and Shaid, though Nelly had let him run away a while ago, was busy making plans of his own with the Grimhearts. The field was ripe with opportunities to strike, yet until that fateful moment did arrive, they were still just chasing each other in circles through the bushes. This being the case, they weren't the only party that had stakes on this island...

"Sheila, find anything yet?" A tired Shakram called out to her from the hospital building's entrance.

"Nah! The elder's totally gone invisible!" She hollered back from the top floor.

"Invisible!? We're through!" Shillianna clung to him in fear.

"Mngh...! She didn't mean that literally! Get off me, this is serious!" Shakram fussed, "And Schocco, stop sitting around doing nothing and help us!"

"I am doing my best." He corrected him, "The elder's not someone to hide away no matter the danger. I'm thinking we should look for more open land, instead of checking the jungle area."

Angered by this response, Shakram counted to ten before maliciously handing letting him continue with his own plan. With but a single whistle, Shakram had signaled for Sheila to get down from her vantage point. She shrugged, spread her arms like that of a swan, and jumped straight down to the bottom. Somehow, despite countless laws forbidding this exact thing from happening, she stuck the landing without sustaining even the tiniest injury. This was Sheila, the Archipelago's Eagle.

"You never fail to amaze me, Sheila!" Shillianna now stuck herself to her after Shakram's rejection, "Mn, you're a girl, and yet your muscles are super toned~! Cool!"

"Sigh, honestly..." Sheila was by this point already used to her touchy feely nature and just let it be, "I'm more surprised you're still this soft and squishy despite being last year's tournament champion."

"Ehe~, that was just luck!" Shillianna enjoyed the double compliments, "I just do some morning stretches every day to keep my body nice and limber. With my weapon of choice, it's not like I need to be that strong physically."

The four were still tirelessly looking for Olyahim after killing Lem. Though the other three were still riding the high of that day's victory, one lone bulky sweetheart could only lead them in silence.

"Of course, then we have the opposite of you in Schocco." Shakram patted him on the back, "This guy slammed that assassin's face in so hard that it left a crater the size of three men! If only your personalities matched your physiques more..."

"Aww, what?" Shillianna whimpered, though the knife she pressed under Shakram's chin made for a rather surprising contrast, "You're saying I don't fit my body? What do you mean by that? Come on, speak up."

"Ngh, I meant...!"

"You're such an airhead sometimes, girl." Sheila teased, "He called you cute, don't you know? But it's exactly because you pull these stunts that he doesn't wanna tie the knot with you."

"Absolutely not-!" Shakram began to yell, however Sheila stopped him before he could.

"You can be quite the airhead too, y'know?" She got in close, "Either play along or get your throat slit, 'cause we all know how this girl gets when she's offended!"

Here we see another bond between rivals and friends. Shakram and Sheila had in common the serious feeling that gave them both the cool leader air. They would be one another's advisors every time one of them messed up. In essence, whenever one of them gives the other advice, the other one listens without fault. They just know from experience that the advice comes from a calm, sound mind, so they don't even bother to question it.

"...Absolutely not!" Shakram surprisingly still declined Sheila's advice, "If you're gonna try getting me outta trouble with this psycho girl, then at least make up a better story! I like me a pure girl that DOESN'T have frequent daydreams of slaughtering everyone on the island!"

Schocco and Sheila already knew what was coming, so when they turned around to see a stunned Shillianna simply standing there, staring at the ground dumbfounded, they immediately stepped aside. For what it was worth, Sheila tried to protect this guy from getting his bones minced, but he declined the help and now has to deal with the consequences by himself.

"...So that's what you think of me..." Tears began to well up in Shillianna's Eyes, "You see me as some sort of monster that eats people's brains for lunch, huh!?"

"You ARE a monster. I know this 'cause you usually eat our ancestors' brains for breakfast." Shakram crossed his arms confidently, "You're perfect as a mad dog fighter, a friend and a rival, but your dark thoughts would devour anyone that tried to stay with you for more than a day straight."

"Shak..." She looked him in the Eyes from afar, her ragged breath showcasing either bloodlust, arousal, or a mix of the two, "We're childhood friends though, so I'm not gonna eat you until at least a week if we get married~!"

The cannibal girl said something quite outrageous for civil ears, but her friend group already knew her antics from head to toe, so they weren't at all fazed. The gap between her outwardly sweet demeanor and horrible unmasked true identity was sickening, but these three knew it was for the best if they just let her be. This was for one simple reason—If you tried opposing Shillianna, you had already died.

"Raaaawr!" She bit into Shakram's neck in the blink of an Eye, "Mwah! I'm gonna eatchuu~!"

"Get the hell offa' me, woman!" He tried and failed to get her to stop dishing out hickeys all over his body, "You two, help!"

"Ah, to be young..." Sheila and Schocco smirked as they stepped back.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Bastards!"

Right, if you opposed her, you'd have already died, but since the person opposing her is her dearest childhood friend, Shakram, she opted to kill him with love and affection instead. Then again, it seems Shakram would've preferred the alternative.

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***

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"Sniff, sniff..." Schocco stopped them as they entered a rather large clearing in the jungle, "He's here."

"The elder? No way, you can sense evil, Schocco?" Shillianna raised both Eyebrows in astonishment.

"Nah, but there's this lingering stench of dandruff and farts." Schocco shrugged, "I'd be surprised if anyone else in the world stank this badly, much less our island."

"Hey, I take offense to that!" Olyahim, the old man, fell from a tree on the opposite side of the clearing as he shouted, "Ack! Damned neck, always breaking n' shiet!"

"Elder, you're here." Shakram asked, "Why were you hiding up there?"

"I wanted to make a cool entrance." Olya revealed, "Me and my buddies from back in the old days had this thing where we'd climb a tree and jump down on the enemies. Heh, that's how yours truly slayed a Bjorn!"

"The hell is that?" They asked.

"Like a bear, but bigger."

"Bear?"

Obviously, none of them have ever been away from the island, so they have no clue what either a bear or a Bjorn look like. They know of monkeys, tigers and a whole slew of fish, but not much else. Oh, and bugs too.

"Yeowch." Olya got stung by a mosquito while he was down, "Hey, Shak. Be a dear and help me get up."

"Oh, sure..." He went to duck down, but Schocco stopped him.

"Before that, mind answering a few questions about that kid we fought?" He asked.

"Ah, so you did fight Lem!" Olya smiled back innocently, "Yeah, he's a tough nut I tell ya', but if you all work together, I'm sure you'll get him next time, buds!"

The four warriors merely blinked at the old man in unison. It appears Olya was severely underestimating their strengths, for he saw them standing before him after their fight with Lem and immediately came to the conclusion that they lost to him.

"What do you mean, we'll get him next time?" Sheila glared down at him, "We killed him."

"...Come again?"

"Yeah, chopped him up into a billion bite sized pieces~!" Shillianna jumped for joy.

"Stop trying to take credit for other people's hard work." Shakram shut her down almost immediately, "Elder, it was Schocco's fist that dealt the finishing blow. That child didn't stand a chance against the four of us."

"Nah, you guys are messing with me!" Olya guffawed, choking on his own spit while lying on the floor, "By the way, Lem's the same age as you guys."

"Eh!? He's 20!?" Everyone jolted.

Surprisingly, they seemed to care more about Lem's misleadingly tiny stature and actual age than the fact they had killed him in such a gruesome way. In fact, some of the members even breathed a sigh of relief once they realized they hadn't killed such a young child. The morals of this Archipelago sure do differ from those of the rest of the world...

"Kid or not, we did kill him, elder." Schocco explained, "What we wanted to ask you though was-"

"There's no way he's dead, though!" Olya screamed, "That guy's got like the strongest Iro Ability of them all, not to mention he's a total fighting genius! Hell, I would've died like a hundred times over was I not immortal!"

"Elder, please let me finish..." Schocco meekly replied.

"You!? He died to a big ass wimp like you!?" Olya then pointed his frustration at the gentle giant, "You wouldn't hurt a fly, shiet! Nah, either you all smoked the best leaves of your life and hallucinated it, or he knocked you out so hard you dreamt it! I refuse to believe a threat like him is just... dealt with!"

"But he is, though!" Shillianna stomped her foot on the ground.

"...For real?"

"For real real." They nodded.

"And you're sure we're talking about the same guy?" Olya asked just to make sure.

"Orange hair, Yellow Eyes, annoying ass glare." Sheila named off all of Lem's qualities.

"Don't forget to add overly smug to that list." Shakram also added.

"No way, he's really... Pfft!" Olya began to laugh maniacally upon realizing this was the truth, "Phahahahaha! He's dead, seriously!? Well what the hell, then! Without him, those clowns won't be able to do shiet! I kinda just panicked and called everyone from the island to stall him while I repositioned myself, but then you actually went ahead and killed him! Bravo, my kids! Good job!"

He clapped and praised them endlessly as he kept lying on the ground with a broken neck. The gruesome sight made them shutter, but they knew he'd be fine in a few minutes after getting up. That being the case, Schocco still didn't lift him up.

"Elder, who was that boy?" He asked seriously this time, "And why are those "clowns" you speak of going after you?"

"Schocco my boy, it's gonna be fine. Don't worry and help me get back up-"

"Elder." He loomed over the old man, "Tell us honestly—Is our island under attack? Because if one teen can harm almost half of our island's residents, then how can I not worry about a potential army of such menaces threatening us?"

"So you're not gonna be kind to your elders..." Olya grabbed his neck and twisted, the horrifying crackling sounds echoing throughout as he picked himself back up, "Tsk tsk, Schocco. You're never gonna be a good doctor with such a nasty attitude."

"We just wanna know if we can trust you." They readied themselves into a fighting stance, "Cause that Lem kid had to have had a reason to come all the way here just to end you."

"Gods, why must you keep punishing me like this?" Olya looked up in anguish, "A shepherd has no use of sentient sheep!"