Hot water trickled down Elena’s shoulders, into her cleavage. She brushed her hand through Audrey’s wet hair with a blissful face, feeling the water pour on her body. “Ah~ a hot shower after tiring out and being covered in sweat is the best! I feel so refreshed,” she mused with a smile.

“I know right?” Audrey said happily, shutting her eyes to block the shampoo. “Thanks for washing my hair. It must be great that you don’t have to.”

“Hmm, it makes my life easier, but it does feel good so I wouldn’t mind if you did it for me,” Elena replied.

“I’m fine with that. Also, where is Dred? I haven’t seen him around in the last couple of days. Is he training alone at another place in the palace?” Audrey tilted her head to the side.

“Ugh… well. He is usually close by to us, but he is alone with Cor quite a lot.”

“What happened? You can’t hide it from me.”

“...It’s just that my night habits had some ‘bad’ effects on him, it seems. But he seemed to be fine afterward. He changed again after leaving with Cor. I don’t know what happened, but this is making me rather sad.”

“Oh? Why don’t you talk to him?”

“I think that I’ll do just that. It’s no good this way.”

“Give him a kiss and he will feel better.”

“What are you blabbering?” Elena furrowed her brows.

“Haha, I was just kidding. Wait, why the serious look?” she turned around laughing, only to notice Elena’s change of expression.

“Eh? Nothing, it’s just that your idea surprised me.”

“Are you stupid? I was just joking, though it’s up to you if you really want to do it,” Audrey said with a grin on her face. Elena pulled up her nose and pulled on Audrey’s red hair.

“Ouch! Stop it!”

Her grip on her hair loosened as she started to ponder, A kiss huh? I never thought about him that way. He felt like a brother at first, but calling him that felt way too weird. I do like his personality too, except for his slight lack of confidence. Lately, he felt lacking in that. But wait, this new habit he has to ignore us feels strange.

He doesn’t really rely on us, which is the opposite of what I thought a moment ago… Hmm, if he could stay an assertive, confident man, I think that I would like him much more. Why does this feel so empty after I thought about it? Shit… Wait, why am I even thinking about how could I like him more? Am I actually looking for a way to turn him into a lover?

*ena*

ARGH! Why is he making it so hard for me? What does he even want with this distance keeping habit he started? Now I feel pissed off instead since I don’t know what I want, thanks to him! Fuck you, Dred. I’ll definitely pull out of you what are your intentions.

*lena*

“Elena! For fuck’s sake! Release my hair this instant!” Audrey’s shout interrupted her thoughts.

“Ah! Sorry!” Elena covered her mouth in exasperation.

“Ugh, my hair hurts now. What the hell were you doing, pulling out my hair?”

“No, I’m sorry again, I just got lost in my thoughts” she hung her head.

Shaking her head, Audrey stood up and pushed Elena on the small chair. “I’ll wash your hair and hopefully, your mind will be clean once again!”

“Thanks.”

After leaving the bathroom that was connected to Elena’s room, they dressed up. “I’ll go and see Jake,” Audrey winked at Elena and left her alone in the next moment.

“I’ll find Dred, in that case,” she mumbled to herself. Thanks to their strange connection, she easily sensed his location. “Dred!” she shouted behind his back, interrupting his muscle training. Standing up, he turned around with a raised brow.

A smile formed on his face upon seeing her as he said, “Yo, what’s up?”

“I need to talk to you about-” before she could finish her sentence, the loud sound of sirens went off in the whole city.

“What is this?” Dred asked, his head tilted to the side.

“For fuck’s sake! This too came at the best moment! We will talk later!” Elena stomped on the ground.

“I’m fine with that. Let’s go for now!” Dred replied, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the training ground since that’s where he sensed Hector’s and Salem’s presences.

“What happened to you?” she couldn’t help but ask while running behind him.

Turning his head, he grinned back, “I just found something interesting, new… or should I call it great?”

“And what is it?” she raised a brow.

Smirking, he replied, “You will find out when we have our talk.”

“Hahaha, I’m liking this. Alright, let’s talk later. I have a feeling that we won’t be able to do it for a good while,” she smiled back, happy to see him being so easygoing. And here I thought that I’d have a sad talk with him.

They stopped in front of Hector, still holding hands. Elena didn’t notice it, but ignored it and just shrugged her shoulders. “What’s going on?” Audrey asked, seeing that their group was present.

“One of Bethor’s soldiers came here and told us that Atelon’s army is on the way towards his city. He called for our help and as per our agreement, I’ll fulfill our part. I hope that you will really go through with your plans and help our Kingdom. The situation seems quite dire in our current state. The other kingdoms are eyeing us,” Hector replied with a frown.

“We will leave once the army is ready. It takes no more than five minutes to make our army moveable! Five minutes later, we will leave!” he shouted as more and more soldiers arrived at the training ground, hitting his hilt on the ground. Of course, only the elite soldiers were in the palace and the real military base was preparing at an outer part of the city.

When enough people got together, Elena talked loudly, her Wind Magic taking her words into everyone’s ears, “This will hurt your egos, but I ask you to not use Magic because what you know as Magic is nothing but a fart. Even the weakest person in the city could beat up your King. But don’t get demoralized for your weapons are effective against most of them! Just stay far away and fire at command.”

“If you can do that much, we will be fine. Oh, and no friendly fire if possible. If you can break their magicians’ barriers, that’s already good. Are you ready to murder?!” she shouted with excitement, but in the heat of the moment, nobody noticed how excited she was and just went with the flow.

“YEEEEAAAAA!”

Turning around, she said in a low voice to Hector, “Hold a morale speech if you see fit. I’ll go ahead.”

Nodding his head, he started speaking. Dred transformed into his Wyvern form and everyone got on his back.

Fat chance. They still had to hold his legs…

“Why is this any different in your mind than sitting on your back!” Audrey shouted, her eyes shut high up in the air.

“Because this is fun!” Dred laughed at their miserable positions. When he reached the portal, he spun in the air once before flying upwards with full speed. They appeared on the other side above the forest, which they hadn’t seen for a long while. At least, that’s how they felt.

Dred spun once again to take an impetus and bolted off towards the city with a loud roar. It took only a few seconds to reach it, but they found two thousand people in front of the city, in an orderly manner. “What should we do?” Elena leaned forward and whispered into Dred’s ear.

“We will stay outside. We could sneak into the city in our Shadow Forms, but what good would we get from it? They are thinking that Bethor had no time to set up his plans, so they won’t watch their backs too much. If we can attack from the back, we can pick off the weakling scouts and the Magicians.”

“Hmm, indeed. But it will be a real danger zone too since if either of the scouts notices us and notifies the army, we will have to run. And there is no guarantee that neither of them knows some Space Magic like Void Magic. Not even our shadow forms would save us in that case,” Elena replied, finding her mouth bittersweet.

“We can only try.”

Chuckling, she nodded her head and sat back up. She looked around at the scenery, the sight of snow covered mountains taking away her breath. The sun was going down, casting long shadows towards the city. “Bruh, it’s fucking cold here!” she shouted, feeling the cold wind blowing on her skin.

“Yeah, there must be some difference in the time we spend at the two planets or maybe it’s just a difference in the seasons, but it seems to be winter here,” Dred replied, not bothered by it. Not in his monster form.

“It’s good that we’ve got these armors,” Elena replied with another shudder.

“I’ll go down and land in the forest!” Dred shouted before spinning once and diving towards the ground, akin to a bolt of lightning. Since they were still quite far away from the army, nobody noticed them.

“Audrey, can you use Supernova on them? They are so nicely packed up and away from the city. We won’t kill ‘innocent’ people this way, so maybe we could finish this early.” Elena asked with a grin on her face, looking through the bushes.

Shaking her head, she replied, “I could try but if somebody had a skill that could cancel my spell, it would turn pointless and our position would be found out too. Should we risk it?”

Frowning slightly, Elena shook her head, “No. This is a Magic Academy. Arcane Mages surely aren’t the only ones who have canceling spells. From two thousand people, I bet that there are at least five with that kind of ability. Right, it was stupid of me to even think of this kind of ‘simple’ solution.”

“Well, in a normal case, I could cast it again unless their spell had a blocking effect too and I could blow them up. But in this case, I might have to use it five times before it would have any effects. Just a group coming for us would be enough and I wouldn’t be able to cast it for the sixth time, so once again, it is pointless to try. It’s great if it’s a surprise spell on a city, though.”

“Haha, you are right-” she said with a laugh but upon turning back, she was left with a dumbfounded face. The sound of a horn resounded in the area and the Magicians started to bombard the city walls with all kinds of colorful spells. The walls crumbled in a moment and in the next, the warriors were already in the city.

“What the fuck?!” she cursed out loudly. Loud shouts could be heard even from so far away. Three heads caught her eyes, which were thrust on poles and struck into the ground in front of the walls. They must have been the students who came to organize a competition, she thought, looking at the blonde haired boys, and the brown-haired girl. They don’t have much hair left. Bethor did a good job, haha.

A huge fireball, the size of half of the city flew through the air and exploded in the air, right above Atelon’s army. A large piece of land appeared at the same time, turning the fire into magma. It flew towards the army, hitting a few of the people who were the slowest to react, while the rest used barriers and spells to block it.

“It seems like the fun has started,” Elena muttered, looking one last time at the sun and the fading light. Showing a grin, she stood up from her squat and stretched her body. “Mhh- Let’s have some fun for this cold evening, shall we?” she asked with a grin.

Eight Elementals appeared around Audrey, while Jake got covered in a dark purple shell, called Void Armor. Cor activated his battle form, while Dred turned into his demon form. “I’ll send these weak demons at first,” he replied, summoning thousands of those small critter Imps around them.

“Two hundred and sixty-third level… that’s really low for this war, but we will see what we can do,” Dred shook his head with a long sigh.

“Elena, your face is crazed and ugly again,” Audrey remarked with a snort.

“...”

“I’d call that captivating instead,” Dred said with a smile, surprising the group. Her face slightly red, Elena cleared her throat, “Let’s shower in the blood of our enemies!” she shouted.

But at that moment, a huge line of yellow light struck the city and blew up the city, shaking the whole area. Debris flew through the air, flying even as far as Elena and her group. A man flew down from the sky in golden robes and a high-class sword in his hands. “Are we done here?” he shouted, seeing nothing but a huge dust cloud in place of the city.

Holding her breath, Elena waited for a reply, but it didn’t seem to come…