We watched as the three ran off in terror, and I had to admit, it was somewhat satisfying to watch. Not as satisfying as their blood spilling in the air would have been though.
’Gods, when did I become so sadistic?’ I shook my head with a wry smile.
Sia walked back to us, flicking her sword slightly, to get the blood off it.
"Well done miss Sia." Dpress clapped his hand smiling. "What a flawless execu..."
"Alright mister bootlicker, you can stop with the glazing, we need to move of we want to stay ahead." I ruthlessly cut him off.
His eye twitched.
"I was only stating facts." he retorted.
"Well then stop stating the obvious facts we already know." I continued. "Besides it wasn’t even all that flawless, I could definitely do better." I argued.
"Really? Dpress raised an eyebrow. "One would almost think you’re jealous of your sister."
"I’m not jealous of her, I know I can do it better than she did." I humphed. Me? jealous of her? She wish.
Just then, I felt a hand on my head, ruffling my already ruffled hair.
"You can continue with your arguments later." Sia smiled. "But for now, let’s keep moving... little brother." She seemed gleeful as she said it.
Slap!
"Get your hand off my head!" I smacked her hand off. In her Ms present disguise, Sia was a few inches taller than Anastasia, but ultimately still only stood around 5’10, so I was still taller than she was. We looked almost comical with her hand on my head.
"Tch, let’s go." I hissed taking the forward ahead of the rest of the team, with the insufferable woman following right behind me.
As Damon and Anastasia moved forward, "Something is seriously wrong with those two." Greg muttered, referring to both Damon and Sia. He had been watching them both. It was like their brain had a switch that could change their personality at any unexpected time.
Sia could be casual and smiling one moment, serious or solemn the next, or even nonchalant and indifferent. Damon too, though for him, his spiteful personality took the longest seat, followed by the sarcastic one.
"Let’s go." Dpress said, but not before taking a long look at Damon’s back. If he also thought that Damon and Sia were weird, he didn’t say it.
-------
The next ten hours were pretty exhausting. Like before, the map showed up every two hours, but thankfully, we were so far away from every other team, so we hadn’t fought any more humans. Beasts on the other hand, we encountered beasts we were forced to fight from time to time.
"Alright, I think we should camp here for the time being." I turned back towards the others as I folded the scroll.
The ten minutes allotted to showing the maps’ locations, had passed not too long ago, roughly two minutes ago specifically, and we were sufficiently far away from others. So I thought we could definitely use some rest.
"Why do you think so?" During the past ten hours, Dpress had come to take Delilah’s place at getting on my nerves. The bastard opposed me at every decision. There was this one time where I was this close to smashing his skull.
I scowled.
"Because we need rest, and we need to fill up. We might be aetherials, but we’re still mortal." I said. Though part of the reason I said we should camp here was because I couldn’t continue moving with the caked stinking blood on my body. Over the hours where we encountered the beasts, we had accumuIated more blood on our body. I didn’t know about the others, but I had to wash it off.
"What if the others get ahead of us?" Sia finally spoke. ’Hmmm, she kind of right.’ I thought of ’the tortoise and the hare’ reference. But still, it’s not like we were sleeping here.
"They won’t, it’s just until the next time the locations are displayed." I said.
"Rest it is then." she said without even hearing the opinion of the others, and they didn’t even try to object. Truly, strength was the way to go in this world. But then again, they might also want the same thing.
"Great." I said, "Give me five... no, ten minutes." I tossed the map to Sia, and turned around and walked towards an intersection.
"Where are you going?" I heard Dpress shouting. "I’m going to take a shit. What? want to come with me?" I turned to look at him. "I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t swing that way."
Almost comically, Sia, Nina, and Greg all snapped their heads towards Dpress.
"W....what nonsense are you saying?! I’m as straight as they come!" He hastily yelled, but I ignored him, and turned around to enter another.... "Wait." I suddenly froze, then made a reflection.
It wouldn’t be good if the maze shifted while i was away. So my reflection went back to stay with the team, while I found a recluse corner and began stripping off my clothes that now felt like caked grime.
I then summoned several bottles of water from my spatial storage, made another reflection, and began to diligently scrub everything off while my reflection poured me water from above.
It took almost ten minutes before I was done, after which I took out a fresh pair of clothes, and wore them.
"Hah, never felt so refreshed in my entire life." I hummed.
After all that, I walked back to the group with a bounce in my steps. I dismissed my reflection that was still there just a moment before, and retrieved a sealed bag of snacks from my spatial storage.
"What’s up people?" I flashed smile as I appeared.
"What? Where did you find enough water to take a bath?" Dpress was the first one who spoke.
"Where else? it’s from his storage ring of course." Nina nudged him.
"But still, who carries around that much amount of water?" Greg muttered in disbelief.
He was kind of right, normally no one carries this amount of water on them. But if there was one thing the Ashen Deadlands had taught me, it was that you could never be over prepared.
Right now, I had an extra spatial ring, filled only with food, and water. More than enough to last me over four months. The past few days in the first trial, everyone naturally ate and drunk water, or any equivalent they had. But from yesterday, I noticed the trio rationing their foods.
Welp, not my problem.
"So you went to take a bath?" Sia raised a brow.
"That’s a rather lukewarm reaction from someone as animated as you." I turned to her. "And for the record, you all do stink." I added.
Sia said no more. She simply stood up, and walked past me. "Where are you going?" I asked.
"Where do you think?" She said without turning back. I guess I wasn’t the only one who learnt a lesson from the Ashen Deadlands.
"Wait, she also has enough water to take a bath?" Greg’s eyes widened. "Damn, why didn’t I think of that." he muttered.
I took out a small pillow from my storage, and set it on the ground, before taking my seat. Wouldn’t want to stain my fresh clothes now would I? I also took extra care to stay away from the trio. Now that I smelt good again, they didn’t just smell bad, they smelt rancid.
I continued biting down on my snacks for the next thirty minutes or so, with no sign of Sia.
’What is taking her this long?’ I thought. I mean, it was just a bath, even with so much grime how long could it take. I was extra meticulous today which was why I had taken almost ten minutes. Normally it took me only five minutes to take a bath.
"If she doesn’t come back within the next five minutes, I’ll have to go look for her." I muttered under my breath. It wasn’t that I was worried something would happen to her or anything. Hell, I should be worried for whatever it is that she was probably facing.
’Speak of the devil and the devil appears.’ Sia suddenly came running in our direction, but didn’t stop even when she came, and then ran past us.
"Run!" was the only thing she said as she streaked past.
I was already on my feet before she even spoke. If she was running, I didn’t need her to tell me to run, before I ran. If there was one thing that had saved my life multiple times in my past life, it was that when you see someone running, run first, and ask questions later.
The other three also did the same, running after us. Since Sia wasn’t running at full speed, so I upped my speed and caught up to her.
"What’s happening?" I asked, but she didn’t get the chance to answer, because the next moment, I got an answer.
Kreeeeeee!
My head snapped backwards. There, was a swarm of insect type beasts, flying after us, and when I meant a swarm, I meant an unlimited swarm. They were so clustered that I couldn’t see anything behind them.
"Oh shit."
***********
Thanks for the support everyone. There are now five privilege advanced Chapters on webnovel. So if you want to read ahead, you’re welcome.
Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation.