"Oi, wake up! Wake up, Augus- Woah!"

Auguste leaped out of bed, hand clutching his shortsword, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. His drowsy eyes opened wide and scanned the room, searching for any signs of movements even as the lights flood into waking eyes.

One moment passed... And then another... Ultimately, nothing happened. When clarity finally came to both his mind and sight, Auguste came to the understanding that there was no immediate danger. Breathing in a deep breath and exhaling a sigh, Auguste turned his eyes towards a startled Henrietta by the corner, trying to not move as to not make herself a target for a half-awake Auguste.

"What's the matter, Henri? Something the matter? Yelling at me and shaking me like that..."

"Everything's the matter!" Henrietta sprung from the floor. "Can't ya see for yerself!? They're gone! Everybody's gone!?"

Auguste frowned, not at all liking the implication of what he was being told. Once more he scanned the room, this time with a clear mind and sight, and indeed, it was true, not a soul was present aside from Henrietta and himself.

"They're gone... They're actually gone."

Auguste could hardly believe the situation. His disbelief kept him from immediately panicking but he could feel it rising from him.

The first thing he did was check their beds. Their belongings were still there, armor, weapons, Morganna had left behind her staff and even her hat, the symbol of a witch's pride as far as Auguste could understand. By the hat, there was a single jar filled with a body of liquid, it was the same jar that Auguste had brought the Slime back with. Needless to say, the liquid within was the Slime.

Perhaps we could get the Slime to sniff her out, Auguste thought to himself, a thought that was quickly dismissed. Nah, it's not like it's a dog.

"W-w-what are we going to do? If there are some freaky creatures down here with us, we're screwed! We can't deal with that with just us two alone."

Even as Henrietta blabbered on in the background, Auguste kept his mind focused on trying to understand what was going on. It seemed that Henrietta got mad about how she's being ignored, but she wasn't helping at the moment. It was hard enough to keep himself calm, Auguste simply did not have the emotional leeway to deal with her.

Carefully examining the room, Auguste found not a single sign of struggle, not in the slightest. In other words, there was no fighting. Did they leave on their own accord? In that case, why would they leave their things behind? Perhaps they planned to come right on back after they're done with their business. But do they need all four of them for whatever they're doing? And why didn't they say anything to him and Henrietta if that were the case? It's all too strange.

"Stay here, I'll go look around."

In the end, Auguste decided that the best thing he could do is to find them and ask them himself, if he could even manage to find a trace of them, that is. Henrietta will stay behind, in case they came back, or so Auguste planned, but-

"No!"

Unexpectedly, Auguste was caught in an iron tight grip, Henrietta's short arms had shockingly managed to wrapped around his waist and kept him from leaving. It would seem that Henrietta's arms weren't as short as Auguste had initially thought.

"Henri?"

"Don't leave me behind!"

Henrietta's arms were shaking and Auguste could feel something warm and wet seeping into his back.

"I know... I know I'm not... not very useful," Henrietta tried to speak in between her sniffing. "But I'm trying... trying my best. So don't... don't leave me behind!"

Auguste had always thought that Henrietta was a crybaby, but not like this. She would cry and complain all the time, but never like this. Right at this moment, she wasn't complaining, she was pleading.

"I'm not leaving you behind. I don't think you're useless either."

Thinking about it once again, if he didn't know how or why the rest of the party just up and vanished, then there's no assurance that even this room was safe. Perhaps he ought to take Henrietta with him after all.

"Liar! Even back at the elevator, you... you......"

Not even finishing her sentence, Henrietta just began sobbing.

Elaine did mention that Henrietta seemed tired, didn't she? Could it be possible that she's also stressed out? Though Henrietta hadn't said anything about it, she might not even be aware of it herself. Day in and day out, danger after danger, even if they took some short breaks in-between, there's no guarantee that the stress won't start building up. Auguste himself could somewhat bear it, he was used to burying his feelings deep down, but that's not necessarily true for the rest. Even when it came to himself, if he doesn't take care of it one way or the other, one day it might just burst out when he is least ready for it.

"Don't be stupid. I was in the elevator with you, wasn't I? Heck, I only had you in there because you were the only one who could operate it aside from Gladiolus."

"Isn't that the same as saying that I'm less important than Gladiolus!?"

Auguste almost regretted his wording as soon as he said it. Henrietta had a point, the way he said it, he made it sound like Henrietta wasn't as important as Gladiolus. Though, to be brutally honest, when it came to the party's continual survival, that wasn't untrue. In fact, back at that moment, when trying to figure out if there was a trap in the elevator or not, Auguste volunteered himself because he thought that it'd make the least impact on the party if something were to happen to him. He picked Henrietta with that very same reasoning. Finn was strong and he's getting stronger, as the main frontliner, he was indispensable. Then there's Elaine, even though she can't fight, she did the important jobs outside of combat. Not to mention, if anything were to happen to Elaine, Finn probably won't be able to keep going. Gladiolus was out of the question, he was the most experienced of them there and they still had much to learn from him. And who could forget Morganna and her magic? She's the reason why they were able to handle large encounters with their relatively small numbers. By the process of elimination, it had to be Auguste and Henrietta. While losing Auguste might still impact the party in some way, perhaps it's not that far a stretch to say that Henrietta was unimportant to the party, when it came to their fighting capabilities anyways. However, that wasn't it, that wasn't what Auguste was trying to say. Even so, what could he say? Even he didn't know what he wanted to tell her.

"Come to think of it, we haven't even had breakfast yet, have we?"

He's going to have to slow down before it all goes out of control, perhaps it's best to stop and rethink what he's going to do. While it's true that this might be an emergency, that's all the more reason to get a hold of oneself.

"What do you say, Henri? We'll eat first, and then decide about what we're going to do later."

That's right, rather than trying to decide everything himself, perhaps it's better to decide it together. Elaine got mad at him about it too didn't she? Back when he decided all by himself that he was going to be testing out the elevator for traps.

Auguste twisted his body to meet Henrietta's eyes, finding there a face full of tears and snot gazing up at him. To think that such a face was pressed into his back not a moment ago, Auguste tried his darndest to not look disgusted.

"So, what do you say?"

As if afraid to let go, Henrietta remained still for a moment, before replying with a silent nod after and releasing Auguste from her grasp.

With only dried meat and stale bread to munch, breakfast wasn't all that appetizing. They've already gone through their supply of nuts and dried fruits too, so there's no escape from this slow death of the taste buds. In silence, they munched away, and though Auguste said that they'll discuss this over breakfast, not a word was said well after they were done.

Henrietta's situation was a delicate one, even Auguste knew that. Were they in town or any other places that were not a Dungeon, he wouldn't be all that worried. Heck, if Elaine was here, then he'd just leave it to her. She was far better at reading people than he was. However, Elaine wasn't here and this was indeed within a Dungeon. More capable parties had met their ends due to members falling out, much less when there remained only two of them.

"Henri, are you mad that I forced you onto the elevator?"

He decided to start there. Likely, that wasn't the crux of it, but since Henrietta had mentioned it, might as well begin the conversation there.

"Not in particular..." said Henrietta, looking away, "I get it, alright. It's the only proper way down so someone has got to check it out."

"Right? And it's not like I left you alone in there, did I?"

"No... No you didn't. You went in with me."

Henrietta shrank into herself as she spoke, causing Auguste to feel like his tone might have been too reproachful. However, he was on a good track, this might just work out.

"I wasn't going to leave you behind. I just thought it might be better for someone to stay here just in case the others come back."

To Auguste's words, Henrietta silently nodded. She understood, she saw the logic in that, yet somehow, there was unease in her heart and it's not so easily persuaded away by something like logic. In the end, a person is an emotional being first and rational second. Things such as logic and rational thinking held little sway against more primordial emotional responses. To convince the mind, one had to first go for the heart.

"Well, I guess we can always leave a note," said Auguste. "From this point onwards, we're going to stick together until we find the others. Worst case scenario, if we're wound up being the only ones left, then..."

"Then...?"

Realizing that he had let the most negative of his thoughts slip, Auguste quickly wanted to take it back.

"No, it's too soon to talk about that I guess. For now, let's just keep going together."

Pragmatically, speaking, it's definitely easier to scout around without dragging Henrietta behind him. However, that's just for the short term, if they can't find the rest of their party any time soon, then leaving Henrietta alone probably wasn't going to do well for her mental well-being. Even Auguste himself would probably start falling apart if he had to spend an extended amount of time alone searching through this ruin of a 'ship'.

"I'm counting on you to watch my back, alright, Henri?"

"...... Yeah, leave it to me."

There's still something lingering in the air. Like somehow, this was left at an unsatisfactory conclusion. But, this will have to do for now. There's work to do.

***

End of Chapter 71