The young man and his lady friend had left, and Cecily beat the snot out of me for having perverted thoughts. I wonder if she'd be less mad if I told her those thoughts were about her... Nah, she'd just slap me again, shouting stuff like "You idiot! This is a serious situation, and yet you're thinking about such things!"

"You idiot..." She pouted, walking in front instead of beside me.

"Told you." I chuckled at my own correct guess, "I know my wife well."

"Still have the gall to talk crap after gawking at another woman?" She glared back.

"For the last time, I wasn't gawking!" I raised my tone, if only slightly so as to not attract any attention to us, "Besides, there was a guy wearing practically the same thing as she was, but am I accusing you of gawking at him!?"

"Of..." She bit her tongue, "Of course not! I was just making sure we weren't spotted!"

"Right! In a serious mission such as this, could we have had the luxury of looking away from them even for a second!?" I laid it on thick, "We were mere meters away from potential enemies that literally said they were scouts! I was just looking at both of them to see if we had to run or not."

"That... That makes sense, sorry." She understood, finally.

Of course, just when we finally got this misunderstanding done and over with, what else do we come across first except a discarded leaf bikini just lying down by itself on a rock. Even the moonlight from the trees above illuminated it like it was some holy relic, for Prylos' sake! Due to the precarious placement of the lascivious item, I was practically forced into a position that made me gawk at it in surprise for a solid 4 seconds. But alas, that's 4 seconds too much.

"Not gawking, my ass." She readied her fists for another round as she turned to look at my face.

"Uhh... I was just thinking how perfect it'd look on you?" I put on an awkward smile as my shoulders shrugged desperately.

I expected to get beaten up for this, of course, but if there was even a 1% chance that she'd brighten my day up afterwards, then I wouldn't mind losing a tooth or few. Sadly, no such fanservicey event ever happened, and both the readers and the protagonist were left disappointed in the world.

"Leaving the jokes aside for now," I fixed my jaw up after she so brutally dislocated it, "from what I saw, these guys don't actually seem like enemies. They speak Entropic, so we shouldn't be worried about any language barriers. I say we go for it."

"What, just waltz into their camp and demand that they bring us back our daughter?" She raised an Eyebrow, "These two showed us not two minutes ago that they don't want any trespassers."

"I don't think anyone in this world or the next would want trespassers on their property." I reasoned, "Besides, it's like you have something against the Schnells on a fundamental level to be so judgmental about them. We're just gonna politely ask, and leave if they say no. If we're honest and diplomatic, then they'll obviously return in kind."

"That's what they want you to think!" She raised some kind of point, "But they're definitely conspiring with that old man that took the kids! Otherwise, he would have never told us to come here in the first place! ...Gasp! You think he might've lied on that letter to throw us on a wild goose chase!?"

"Could be, and if that's the case, Nelly died ages ago, surely." I shrugged.

"No!"

She was in total hysterics mode by now, unsure of whether to wail or lash out in a fit of rage. Both would've given our location away, so I had to stop this little prank of mine prematurely.

"Seriously, what's wrong with you?" I gave her a hug, "I was only kidding. Please use your brain, Lem was just here an hour or so ago, so Nelly can't be outside the Archipelago."

"Sniffle... Y-You jerk, say that sooner!" She wept in my embrace.

"The information was made available to the general public for a good while now, though." I spoke in a matter of fact business tone, "Now, my lady, please refrain from any rash decisions that may affect us in the coming days. Though I urge you to take a leisurely stance, I must admit that I do not condone any funny business."

"Pff, stop that!" She cracked a smile, "Fine, I'll take this seriously!"

"But not too seriously!"

"Come on, we have a daughter to find." She said, wiping away her tears with one hand as she held mine with her other.

Finally got her to calm down a bit. Ever since we got here, she's been anxious about almost every little detail. And by got here, I mean the entire Archipelago and not just the island. See, even while we were on the airbike, she kept worrying either about leaving Cene's side, or leaving the stove on, and the like. She must've gotten used to the laid back, mundane family lifestyle we've all come to love and adore. But that's only hindering us in the current situation. I really gotta wonder if it was the best idea to bring her along with us if she continues to act like this, 'cause right now she's nothing but a liability.

"Shhh!" She stopped me with her arm, "There, that looks like a path towards their village!"

"Then why'd you stop me?" I raised an Eyebrow.

With but a single rock tossed towards the ground in front of us, she revealed the hidden trap meant to capture any stray trespassers that may have come by. The rock set the trap off, leading to the ground falling beneath it and into the hole hidden by the shrubs above it.

"...Sorry for calling you a liability in my head." I bashfully muttered.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"You what!?"

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***

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"What makes me a liability?" She crossed her arms and pouted, "Who was the person that faced her fears head on just to help steer us away from crashing into the ground, then?"

"I'll give you that, but..."

"Not to mention the entire reason behind the fire was because you and Issei made the damn thing super shoddy! It was bound to explode eventually!" She continued, "A health hazard! No, a total violation of health and safety in general!"

"That's going a bit too far now. We have no idea what could have caused it, maybe it was another thing entirely."

"Point is, if I'm nothing but a liability, then you're the one putting all of us in danger!" She hissed, "If you don't want my help, then fine, I'm not warning you about any future traps from now on! See how you like-!"

It, is probably how she wanted to end that sentence, however she quickly found herself ensnared in a net trap. How ironic, in fact I felt more sad for her than anything. Going off so loud and proud about how you're amazing, only to get ensnared must feel like crap. Ah, she's crying now.

"H-Hey, it's okay! It happens to the best of us." I tried untying her, only to get caught in a similar net trap just moments after her, "Gah!"

"Nice, caught both of you, amigos!" A funny sounding voice appeared from the bushes.

"Stop, we mean no harm!" Cecily quickly fixed up her emotions to try and strike a deal with the person, "We're just looking for our daughter, if you have her, please let her go with us and we'll leave!"

"Oh yeah? Well sorry, amigos, but I'm not from here either so I don't have your daughter." The dark haired man that sported a fashionable goatee stepped out of the shadows, "You did however set off my traps I had made specifically for a certain target, so I do feel it was deserved."

Oh good, the man seems to be on our side. Well, "our side". But at least he's not an enemy, as was made immediately clear by him undoing the nets and letting us drop back down on our butts.

"Sorry, I saw the traps ahead of time, but I wanted to trap this bonehead here just to teach him a lesson." Cecily lowered her head to apologize, "I didn't think they were meant for someone else, I'm sorry."

"Oi, what do you mean you saw them ahead of time?" I raised a suspicious Eyebrow.

"Did you really think I'd miss such an obvious trap?" She kicked the net on the ground, "You'd have to be incredibly dumb to not see it."

"Amigo, your lady has a sharp tongue." The dude glanced over to me, "She somehow offended both of our asses at the same time, man."

"Yep, that just about describes her well enough." I shrugged, after which I put my hand out, "I'm Lune, by the way."

"Ah, Cecily." She also remembered to exchange handshakes, "And you are?"

"Shaid, but you can just call me Shai." He said with a smile.

Immediately, alarms began to set off repeatedly in my head. That name, I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. The Lair that housed my darkest memories and traumas within it bore that name, and yet here comes a man with the exact same one. Only a select few people know of Shaid's Lair, and from what I know, that name is a super ancient one as well.

"Dear, that name..." Cecily looked over to me, equally as worried.

"What? I think it's a good name." Shaid smirked.

"...A-Ah, no, sorry." I shook my worries off, "There's no way you're the same person, Shaid's Lair must be thousands of years old by now."

"Yooo! I haven't heard that name in a while, amigo!" He swung my hand around giddily as he recalled with much nostalgia, "Right, Shaid's Lair, so he DID leave that name after me!"

"He?" Cecily furrowed her brows.

"My friend, Olya!" He grinned.

Olya!

"Man, that takes me back!" He continued as we anxiously finished hearing him out, "It was my 22nd birthday when we found the place. Since I called dibs on it first, it got named after yours truly."

"And when was this, exactly?" I asked.

"Uhh, like 160 something." He added nonchalantly, "By the way, what year is it currently?"

"...1034."

This guy's for real. Olyahim did look extremely old, but to think he was this old. I didn't know humans could age this much, but I guess he must have used the Book of Fortune somehow. And this Shaid guy, he and Olya were friends even back then. Is it a coincidence, or something more?

"How are you alive, even?" Cecily asked.

"Got revived by him. Olya, that is." He revealed, "Then he killed me. But I survived!"

"I'm confused." I scratched my head, "So are you currently dead or alive?"

"Until proven by way of observation, I'm both dead and alive, I guess." He shrugged.

So Olya killed him? Wait, does that mean these tras were meant for him? Are these two in cahoots after all?

"So is Olya with you right now?" Cecily asked, her hands hidden beneath her cloak so as not to reveal the knives she probably held at the ready.

"Nah, we're kind of on bad terms." He shook his head, "A ginger haired girl revived me and told me to leave the island, but I just couldn't do that without understanding what had made my friend do such a thing."

"Ginger haired girl!" We both shouted, "That's Nelly!"

What the hell? Nelly can revive people now!? This is like the second most astonishing news today, the first being that my brave wife was too scared to put on the leaf bikini. Dammit, it would've fit her so well, too...! Gah, I'm still mad about it! She could've at least tried it on for me!