They took her advice and took a short nap. Charlotte stayed awake to keep the watch and Leila chatted with her to keep herself from falling asleep.

“Have you tested out your affinity yet?”

“No. we usually do it when we enter the academy. I heard you had to place your palm over a crystal ball and it tells you which element you can use.”

“Oh…” so the fact that she did it by trying out a basic spell of each element was weird, if not abnormal. Hmn, it was a good idea to tell Professor Karin that she just accidentally found out after all.

Currently, Leila was 11 years old, so next year she would enroll into the academy. Terence and Leo were already students there, but they were currently on their vacation and would officially start next week.

“But…I wish I knew how to use magic. That way, I would be able to help you guys instead of being dead weight.” Leila hugged her knees as she buried her face.

Charlotte glanced at her and patted her back “Don’t worry. Since that guy loves you so head over heels, there is no way he would think that…if he ever does, do tell me and I will teach him a lesson.”

The things she said with that serious tone made Leila unable to resist laughing. A tear rolled out of her eye and she smiled at charlotte “Thank you very much Lotte. …apart from those two, you’re the first female friend I ever made. Even my own sister hates me.”

“Apart from Iris and Lilly, I guess you’re also the first female friend I made in this noble society.”

After an hour or so, Charlotte judged that they had rested long enough and went to wake them up.

“Ow! Can you not wake us up in a gentle manner!?”

Of course, she did so with a kick.

“Apologies, I am afraid I do not know how to do so.”

Terence’s eyes were red and he gritted his teeth while pointing at Leila “Then how the heck did you wake her up!?”

“By tickling her. Doing that with the opposite sex feels weird, so pleas deal with it or just wake up before my feet touches you.”

“That’s sexism!”

Charlotte covered her ears with her palms and frowned “Need I remind you not to make loud noises?”

Ah, this girl was driving him insane!

“Leo calm down will you? And Lotte….act a little nicer please.”

“I’m sorry your highness, but I’m afraid that is not possible.”

He sighed. She was as unpredictable as ever too. At some point, she would be fuming with rage, another, she would smile as if nothing was wrong, at another, she would act so formally even while speaking words that didn’t fit her way of speaking.

“Anyway, what should we do now? It’s not like we’ll stay here forever, right?”

“Yes.”

“….”

“…..”

“…..”

“…I was joking.” She had already sent Puff Puff her location, so all they needed to do was wait for rescue to come “But we don’t know if we’ll be found by our rescuers first or our enemies, so we should keep moving while keeping a low profile. Terence, you keep a watch at the back while Leo is the vanguard. Leila will stay in the middle as she has no way to defend herself.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll act as a scout to make sure the path we take is safe. If anything happens, I can just quickly escape, that is if I am on my own.”

There were no objections. No matter how much the two looked at it again, it was the safest plan they could go with.

Terence had a lot higher sense for danger when compared to Leo, so if something were to approach them from behind he could quickly react. As the most defenseless, Leila stayed in the middle where it was the safest and Leo who had trained to some extend could deal with anything that might have escaped Charlotte’s eyes.

It was just that, Charlotte had taken on the most dangerous task of being the scout. But, with the speed and skills she had previously displayed, they couldn’t convince her otherwise.

They took a few sips from the lake to lessen their hunger (thirst) for the moment and moved on. Sometimes, they would come across small monsters such as goblins or kobolds, but they were easily killed off with charlotte’s sneak attacks from their blind spot and then burned till nothing was left by Terence’s flames so as not to attract other monsters with their blood.

Things were progressing smoothly to the point where Leo and Terence felt uneasy. Was this [a calm before the storm] or just thanks to Charlotte’s skill that they had yet to come across any life threatening danger? This was after all the 4th floor!

It was openly known that within dungeons, the deeper you went in, the more dangerous it becomes. From what they were taught at the academy, from the second floor further, it would be crawling with monsters. Not to mention the 4th floor!

After the [night vision] spell had worn out, Charlotte recasted the spell. The change was just too drastic that they were so thankful to have her with them.

As they advanced deeper, they came across skeletons. Charlotte picked up anything that might seem useful without the slightest hesitation. It made Leo and Terence feel ashamed of themselves that they were afraid of skeletons while Charlotte, a girl two years their junior, was casually rummaging through their ‘corpses’.