I can’t believe the military would toss us out like that without a care in the world. “Is it just me or is this how everyone thinks?” I asked Eris for some insight.

“Maybe they hated your act-” Eris paused before speaking again. “The military would always do their best to help civilians. Something important must be happening for them to act this way.”

“You were about to say something sarcastic again weren’t you! Hey, don’t ignore me!” Eris turned her head away keeping silent. “Well, whatever. Let’s go find out what they are up to! Hop on.” I squatted down enough, waiting for Eris to get on.

Eris jumped onto my back and we ventured up the mountain albeit at a slower pace now that my boots sunk, over a foot deep into the snow. We both noticed something strange several minutes into our hike, it was still way too silent and the previous barrage of monster attacks didn’t occur. “At this rate, it’s going to be dark before we figure anything out. I’m still curious about what happened to the tiger. Eris, can you do something about the snow on the ground or something to help us move faster?”

Eris nodded as her fingers shot magic at my boots. Snow pulsed away from my boots as if the snow and my boots were two polar opposite magnets.

“Whoa, how did you do that?” I stepped around in place watching her magic in action.

“I made barriers on your shoes to repel only snow. It should work.” Eris replied confidently.

It should? I picked up the pace and eventually ran at full speed as the thought of something awful happening to my feet lingered in the back of my mind. I wondered what others would think if they saw me passing by. I was a high-speed snowblower beelining for the peak of the mountain. I stopped another thirty minutes up and realized we only traversed roughly a tenth of the mountain. We weren’t prepared to camp a night out in the wild and I really didn’t want to head back empty-handed today.

Looking back, I could see where the outpost would be, and even farther in the distance the sight of a few skyscrapers in Avalon. Eris had been communicating with Tessa the whole time via ring. She mentioned that Veera had dropped by again to hand off the payment for all the monster parts. The entire haul this time came out to a little over ten million gold, so I imagine Alexa was handed ten ruby coins and a couple of diamond ones.

The renovations were underway for the rest of our home and I allowed Alexa to use extra funds as necessary now that we had money. Veera ended up staying over to help the girls with settling in, even while against their intentions of not bothering her. We also knew the exact time and right now it was five minutes past three.

“Eris, hold on tight. We’re going to see how far up we can get in one hour. We’ll head back home if we don’t find anything.”

Eris grabbed on tight and that was my sign to rush forth. We ended up having to zig-zag more often because of the increasing incline the higher we went up.

“Stop!” Eris’s hand tapped my chest and got off my back after I slowed down.

“What is it? Found something?” I watched Eris staring at the side of the mountain cliff wall to our right. As she was thinking, something in the corner of my eye caught my attention.

“There’s something here.”

“You noticed it as well? Something’s following us!” Eris gave me a puzzled look and turned to where I had my sights on, only to see nothing. “Catch up when you can.” I lunged immediately at the suspected spot.

Snow started to kick up at the location and help with identifying what we were up against. It was an invisible figure and their magic seemed to flicker on and off as they tried to escape. The opponent was visible enough to tackle onto the ground. Without carrying Eris on my back, my speed nearly doubled and easily closed the distance. I felt the form of a person underneath as the invisibility sporadically shuddered off.

“Who are you and why are you following us!” I pushed on the back of their shoulder to keep them pinned down.

“Oww Ow! Stop, you’re hurting me!” The high-pitched voice startled me, but I didn’t ease up the pressure and with my other hand removed the headgear.

“I’m Specialist Mia Grey. Someone ordered me to track your movements until you got back to the outpost and report anything suspicious.” Her pink hair unraveled from a bun spreading across the snow.

I eased my grip and stood, allowing her to turn over and prop herself upright. The full black body armor looked really similar to those Hunter Corps soldiers from the camp.