Your journey to Ranville together with four new companions ends up an awkward one:

The dwarf Mori and the magician boy Cassandor keep to themselves trailing as far behind the others as possible while still keeping a line of sight;

The muscular Gorrazsh is so obviously terrified of your dire wolves that it ends up being funny;

Epsilon would have much rather enjoyed seeing the four adventurers be ripped apart by the wolves. It’s almost surprising that she still hasn’t tried orchestrating such a situation. And with each passing minute you feel the urge to remind her to know her place with a heavy dose of [Submission], but, at the same time, it is a good opportunity to test if she’ll be able to resist her natural tendencies without you having to spam that same spell every other day;

The dire wolves seem content, though you would prefer to have them feast properly on something or someone. Unfortunately, it seems that this very pack has scared off nearby wildlife. Or even more likely, it’s all the noise that your impressive party is making that is scaring off all the animals?

Alpha is a silent automaton, as always;

Elza and Lyanna ended up being the only ones able to hold a semblance of a normal conversation. You start seeing a pattern, namely that Elza has, at the very least, decent people skills. Though, it doesn’t take much to stand out from the near-constant open hostility of the battle bunnies or Ariadne's obstinacy. With each passing day, you feel the small crystal of hope of finding your sister alive erode a little more.

Feeling that you’ve been taking her for granted, or perhaps out of some sense of guilt, you approach Alpha to check on how exactly she’s holding up. No one else seems to be talking to her anyway, so why not you?

“Alpha… How are you feeling?” you ask the petite bunny girl. Not the smoothest opener, but at least you ask what you want to know directly, without beating around the bush with conversations about the weather.

“… How do you wish me to feel?” Alpha asks, without looking at you.

“I want… I want you to be honest,” you say. Are you supposed to tell her how to feel now?

“Fine,” Alpha says. Was that agreement to your demand to be honest? Or is that supposed to mean that she feels fine? Apparently, a single flat word seems an acceptable answer to Alpha. You’re not buying it, though. For one, she seems even skinnier and paler than the first time you saw her, which was at most a week ago. You start counting how many times you’ve seen the sun rise and fall and realize how hard it is to keep track of time without a phone, or a watch, or at least a calendar.

You cast your [Hellfruit] spell, which, in terms of the flat number of uses, will probably soon eclipse not only your [Submission] spell but all the other spells combined. Then you hand the fruit to Alpha and say, “Eat it. Remember that I need you at your full fighting potential at all times.”

Alpha takes the fruit and takes a small bite out of it. No gratitude or complaint. Complete disinterest.

“Could you tell me a little about yourself?” you ask her.

“What?”

“Where are you from? What are your goals? Stuff like that.”

“I’m from Rysal. My goal is to obey your orders.”

You sigh. This is getting nowhere. You watch Alpha take another small bite from the fruit and then ask, “If you no longer had to obey my orders, what would you do?”

“…” Alpha doesn’t answer.

Even if you ordered Alpha right now to stop following your orders, would that even work? For all you know, in someone as damaged as Alpha, it might cause a logic error—having to obey an order that orders not to obey orders.

Elza approaches you and says, “As we suspected, none of them have teleportation spells or items.”

“Figures,” you say, “If they had, they would’ve escaped the whole dire wolf situation on their own. We should pick up the pace. This little journey is already taking up too much time as it is.”

Eventually, you will have to rest for the night. Perhaps this time you could make camp with your companions together?