‘Livid’ was a good description of Charlie’s face when Kesstel and I showed up at the camp the next day in our armor.

She narrowed her eyes at us and her face turned red. “We are a team,” she gritted out. “In order to ensure everyone’s safety, we need to work together as a team. That includes following orders. Noble, please do not up and vanish in the middle of a planning meeting. You are just as responsible as I am when it comes to coming up with a plan for the expedition.”

I glanced at him in shock. He seriously bailed on that?

Kesstel didn’t look bothered at all. He glanced down at me and shrugged. “You didn’t respond fast enough.”

If I wasn’t getting the stink eye from Charlie, I might have slapped my palm on my forehead.

Charlie’s face flushed redder but she didn’t blow her lid. It wouldn’t have done her any good when it came to Kesstel anyway. She must have realized that because she took a breath and her complexion mellowed out a bit. “Miss Devhro, you were given bodyguards for your safety. There are a lot of dangerous monsters out there, and it was decided for your safety that Alex and Mona were the best Hunters to take care of your safety.”

I glanced at the two Hunters standing just behind her with clouded faces. Every time Charlie said ‘safety,’ their glowering deepened.

“They spent six hours running around, looking for you,” Charlie stressed, her face flushing redder again. “We thought you were dead. It wasn’t until we met up with Noble after 6 pm that we found out you were, in fact, alive.”

I pursed my lips and glanced down, feeling a little guilty. I didn’t think they would waste that much time looking for me. I thought they’d give up after a while and just do the expedition job. It might be possible that I killed more monsters than they did yesterday.

Charlie took another deep breath and the redness on her face chilled out a bit. “And then, neither of you returned for camp last night.” Her narrow eyes flicked between the two of us. “Noble can handle himself, I’m fully aware. And I understand that as long as you two are together, neither of you will be injured. I understand that. But the Association has decided that we will all camp together to make sure that everyone is safe. This isn’t a pleasure trip or a honeymoon. This is real life, where mistakes make dead people. To ensure the safety of all our families back in Eden, we need to follow the rules set down by the Association.”

And that’s why Charlie was the leader of team four, and not Kesstel. She cared about rules and Kesstel honestly looked like he didn’t give a damn about what she was saying. In fact, he might have already wandered off if I wasn’t standing here. He might not be the best teammate for the expedition, but as my Partner, he took the punishment with me.

Then again, I was just as bad of a teammate, since I ran off to do my own thing yesterday too. And I was going to do it again. The System didn’t give me a Daily Task today, but I was going to be on the lookout for a Red Orc. Of course, that meant I was going to travel back to the site where the Dust Mephits were and look for the clues there.

Charlie rubbed her brows and sighed. Apparently she’d finally gotten it all out of her system because her face smoothed back to her normal, cool expression. “Now, we’re going to try this again. Kesstel, you did a wonderful job yesterday. Please do the same today. Miss Dehvro, stick to Alex and Mona today. It would save all of us a lot of effort and running around. Especially now that we’re going deeper into the city. The monsters are going to be getting harder from here on out. Mr. Wilks was very clear on the conditions you are supposed to return to Eden in. We plan to make sure that happens.”

My mouth twitched. “I would think Mr. Wilks is far enough away that he shouldn’t have much say over what we do.” Even if he was right next to me, I still wouldn’t care.

Charlie rubbed her face wearily. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” She shook her head and walked away. “How did I get the hard ones?” she muttered, apparently forgetting that Hunters have good hearing.

I glanced at Kesstel. “You seriously walked out of a planning meeting?”

He shrugged. “They didn’t need me there anyway. And I knew there had to be a reason for you to not answer me immediately. It was getting late and it was time to call it a day. I wasn’t wrong either. They were getting hostile with you.” He paused. “Maybe I should make them —”

“No,” I said firmly, cutting him off. My eyes narrowed as anger settled in my chest. “I don’t want you to fight my battles. I can do it.”

Kesstel took in my sharp eyes and nodded. “Alright.” He reached out and brushed his hands through my hair. “Then I’ll see you later. If you delay on PMing me, I’ll come find you again,” he warned and walked away between the buildings.

As soon as he was gone, Alex and Mona walked up to me.

“Where did you go?” Alex demanded, his face tight.

I shook my head and motioned to the east. “That way. I thought it was a good place to look for monsters I could handle.”

He shook his head. “You need to stay with us. We’ll take care of everything.”

Mona folded her arms over her chest. “Well, what do you have to say?” Mona demanded.

I opened my mouth and paused. “I’m sorry I stressed you out yesterday. In the future, if I disappear again, just keep going. I’ll catch up later.”

Alex gaped at me while Mona blinked in shock.

I smiled at them. “Well, now that we said what we wanted to say, we should go.” I pointed to the east. “That way.” With that, I turned and started walking. If they wanted to stick with me, they could. But I wasn’t going to deviate from my plan.

The two Hunters caught up to me.

“What’s over here?” Mona asked, looking at all the desolate shops on both sides of the street.

My eyes narrowed. “A mystery I need to solve.”

They gave me odd looks.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mona objected.

I snorted and shook my head. “A lot of my life doesn’t. If you think about it, monsters from another dimension and the Hunters that kill them don’t make sense. If you told someone twenty-five years ago this is how Earth would be today, they’d lock you up in a padded room.” I waved a casual hand. “Try explaining that to me first, and then we can talk about my random actions.”

Now they looked at me like I actually needed a padded room.

Alex motioned to the west. “We should head that direction. We’re getting too close to the Redding section.”

I shook my head. “I’m going to start over there and then see where I end up next.” That sentence was in no way whatsoever a game plan, but it was all I had to go off of. Maybe one of these two actually knew how I tracked. Before I could open my mouth to ask, Alex grabbed my arm.

“Hey, you need to listen to me,” he said, an annoyed edge to his words. “Didn’t you hear Charlie? This isn’t a pleasure trip. I’m not here to sightsee or spend all day looking for you. We have a job to do. So stop screwing around and messing it up.” His hand tightened painfully on my arm. Whether or not he meant it, his aura flickered out. If I was a real E, I would have collapsed.

I frowned at him. I got where he was coming from. I was being a horrible teammate and I wasn’t following the teamlead’s orders. I knew that. But what I was doing was just as important. I tried to pull my arm away, but his hand only tightened more.

Mona grabbed his arm. “Hey, be careful. She’s not like you and me. You’ll hurt her.”

Alex let go of me like I was made of fire. He scowled and looked away in frustration.

I refused to rub the bruise I could feel forming on my left arm bracer. I wasn’t going to show him that weakness. I frowned and glanced in the direction I wanted to go. “I doubt you’d believe me, but I found a lead to the Portal yesterday. At least, I’m ninety percent certain it’s a lead to the Portal. That’s why I want to go back and check it out now that it’s day again.”

Mona looked at me in surprise. “You think the Portal is over there? Why didn’t you say something to Charlie?”

I shook my head. “It’s not over there. But I think clues over there could lead to the Portal.” How was I going to convince them that I needed to look for Orc footprints to lead me to a Portal? And that I knew what Portal that Orc belonged to? That sounded as outlandish as everything else I’d said. And it wasn’t like I could admit that I’d been in the Portal the Orcs were in and ‘survived,’ either. They wouldn’t believe that.

Like I said, a lot of things in my life didn't make sense.

I paused. “Do either of you have any tracking ability?” That Orc sword couldn’t have just landed there by accident. An Orc had to have been in that location and dropped it. If we could find where that Orc had come from, we’d be able to find the direction the Portal was in.

Mona shook her head.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Some.”

Good, that was all I needed.

Alex opened his mouth, still looking bad tempered.

Mona cut him off. “We’ll go look over there, like you want,” she said to me. “But if there’s nothing over there, no more making our lives difficult. Understand?” She looked between Alex and me. “That way we’re both compromising and we can start working, instead of standing here in the middle of nowhere.”

I nodded. “Deal.” What were they going to do when I was right?

We started working our way over, with me sandwiched between the two of them. Since this area had already been cleared, we only ran into a couple spiders like the ones in the apartment duplex yesterday. Like yesterday, they made me sit back and watch all the EXP that I could have gotten die in front of my eyes.

It sucked. Bad. God, I really missed Emma and her team. At least they attempted to treat me like an equal.

“These things are everywhere,” Mona huffed and stood up when the last one was dead. “It’s not like they’re hard, they’re just constant.”

“Hm, I didn’t notice any of them yesterday,” I muttered, thinking. “Do you think there’s a big nest somewhere and they’re traveling from there?”

“I wouldn’t know how monsters think,” Alex said darkly.

Yeah, the shithead still hated me. Unfortunately for him, I could handle that. In fact, it was people who were nice to me without reason that I had more problems with. He didn’t have to like me, he just couldn’t obstruct me. The moment he did, I was out of here. I didn’t mind letting them see what I was doing until then. And if they stayed long enough to be converted over to my cause, that would be ideal. Sadly, I wasn’t expecting it.

“They want to spread out and eat humans,” I said evenly, looking at the dozens of giant spider carcasses on the ground. “That’s all they can think about.” That’s what the energy crystals mindlessly drove them to do. Fill up the world with energy crystals and destroy the ‘current intelligent species.’

So, how were the Red Orcs able to function as a society and have a language? The Nixies had a bit of social structure, like a pack of wolves, but they were still driven to maim and kill by the energy crystals, and they had no definite language, just screeching and whatnot. They were both monsters controlled by the parasitic planet.

So why were the Red Orcs different?

*****