Layna set her wards stones down once again – from how faint they seemed, they would probably run out of power soon – while the twins made a few trips down the hill and back to get relatively dry grass as well as a couple of stones to set up a campfire.

  They’d figured camping at the top of the hill would be their only option in the wet and muddy region. Unfortunately, the hill wasn’t exactly flat. A long, almost spike-like protrusion ran up the middle. So, not ideal, but it beat the alternative.

  Given how warm the hill was, they probably didn’t even need a campfire—but they lit one anyway, since they didn’t know how cold it would get at night.

  With the grass gathered and ringed by rocks to prevent the fire from spreading, Layna pulled out a green-rimmed – Uncommon – [Crooning Flame] and pointed it at the unlit campfire. It turned into a small ball of fire and engulfed the kindling, leaving behind a gentle bonfire vaguely shaped like a face with closed eyes and open mouth.

  The party relaxed as the fire began humming, reminding the twins of the troupe mistress putting them to sleep.

  They felt their hearts clench for a moment, but refused to let the memory start another spiral. Instead, they thought about the present and the immediate future. How could they get across the largest country on the continent quickly?

  “So… a penny for your thoughts?” the human suddenly said, making the twins blink.

  “...What?”

  “Uh, I meant, what’s on your mind?”

  The twins frowned.

  “Well, we were thinking about how we were going to get to Estra Dolla.”

  “The rest of our party was headed there after that mess in Anxia and we want to reunite with them.”

  Linza looked between them with an amused smile, then her smile turned wry as she stared into the crooning fire.

  “I wish I could telepathically communicate with my sister like you two.”

  The twins froze.

  Layna chuckled.

  “Yeah, I don’t get how twins do that kind of thing. You two don’t even need to look at each other to communicate.”

  “Ah… Well, it just comes naturally to us?” Dawn replied, feeling relieved they had misunderstood.

  “What about you, Layna? What are your plans?” Dusk asked, trying to change the subject.

  The catkin went silent as she too glued her gaze to the singing fire.

  “Well… I wonder. My bakery is gone. I don’t have anywhere to return to. Everything I worked to build… destroyed. Just like that.”

  Oh…

  Way to put their feet in their mouths.

  Crap, what were they supposed to say now? They had never seen the always positive catkin this mournful.

  “Ah, well, it’s my fault for setting up in a frontier city! It happens! But it’s fine! Not like this will be my first time having to do this!” Layna suddenly said, clearly forcing her usual cheer to return.

  She could say that, but the twins could tell that she was not entirely fine. Nobody could be after losing everything.

  “You had to escape an overrun city before?!” the human asked, alarmed.

  “Oh, not that. I meant starting from scratch… Oh, right. Amnesia. You don’t know about the catkin customs, do you?”

  Linza shook her head.

  The twins themselves only knew the broad strokes of these customs, so they perked up for the incoming explanation.

  “It’s our custom to raise children to be independent and able to stand on their own two feet as soon as they can.” Layna smiled, but something about her smile seemed brittle. “Then, when they are fifteen, they are thrown out of their settlement with just the bare necessities and told to go make their mark on the world.”

  “Wait, what?! That’s horrible!” Linza gasped in horror.

  The twins grimaced. What a rough way to treat kids.

  Layna chuckled.

  “It’s not that bad. Most kids are taken to rifts and taught how to survive in the wild from an early age, so it’s not like we’re helpless.” She turned to the human and gave her a feral smile. “Don’t underestimate us catkin. Even us artisans are ferocious warriors.”

  “R-Right. Sorry, I didn’t wanna imply anything…”

  The twins snorted.

  “You seemed pretty panicked for a ‘ferocious warrior’ when we first met,” Dawn teased.

  “Urk. Well, I’ve gotten a bit rusty over the years…”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The twins chuckled and thankfully, even Layna seemed to relax at the banter.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m gonna do. Maybe I’ll just set up a new shop somewhere in Couthen. I wonder if the locals will like my bread…?”

  “I’m sure they’ll love it! You make the most delicious bread ever!” Linza shouted, full of enthusiasm.

  Layna returned the gesture with a smile, one a little more sincere than earlier.

  “Thanks.”

  The twins wholeheartedly agreed. Part of them didn’t want to part with Layna since it would mean no more bread from her.

  “That aside, we gotta come up with a plan for tomorrow,” Layna reminded everyone as she unfurled her map again. “The way I see it, we have three choices. First, we can head north—back toward Vargarott. The main downside is that we would have to travel pretty far to get to a city.”

  The twins pursed their lips, not exactly excited at the prospect of trudging through rough terrain for an extended period of time again.

  “Second option is to travel to Voss east of here… but we’d have to travel through the marshlands all the way to the forest.” She peeked up at Linza. “Voss and its neighbor Gretinol are the elf and human countries. I don’t know where your sister went, but it might be a good bet?”

  Linza paused with a small frown before shaking her head.

  “Maybe, but I somehow doubt it. The tunnel led us all the way here, right? If she got lost in those tunnels like I did… maybe she’s on the other side of the continent instead. Or maybe… Maybe she’s already dead.”

  The twins didn’t miss how the human’s fist clenched and her voice hitched at the end there.

  They didn’t envy her situation. Just thinking about being stranded from each other an entire country or two apart… At least they wouldn’t have to wonder about the other one being dead, but still.

  “I’m sure she’s okay,” Layna gently reassured her. “Heck, I bet she’s searching for you right now! You can’t give up.”

  “...Yeah. You’re right. I just–” The human’s gaze fell back into the [Crooning Flame]. “I just don’t know how I’m even going to find her.” She deflated, looking completely lost.

  They wanted nothing to do with humans, but seeing her like this… the twins just couldn’t help but feel pity. Maybe they would come to regret trying to help a human – again – but surely, some advice wouldn’t hurt?

  “You could become a rift hunter,” Dawn suggested. “Hunters tend to travel a lot. You’ll be more likely to find her.”

  “But on the flipside, it’s dangerous. You can easily die in a rift,” her twin cautioned, remembering the mess that had been the Saltglass Fortress rift.

  Linza only glanced at them as they spoke, but quickly went back staring at the fire, brows narrowed and eyes far away.

  “Rift hunter, huh? I guess I still haven’t come to terms with…” She sighed, cutting herself off. “Um, rifts are like… places with monsters?”

  “Well, monster rifts are. But there are different types of rifts.”

  “What are the types?”

  “Monster rifts, dream rifts, challenge rifts, and world rifts,” Dawn counted out on her fingers. “But yeah, monster rifts are the most common.”

  Linza paused, clearly wanting to ask about the other types, but instead shook her head.

  “I… I guess I could? I’ll have to think about it.”

  “You have time. It’s not like you have to decide immediately,” Layna chimed in. “That aside, we got a bit sidetracked. As I was saying, we can either go north toward Vargarott, west toward Voss, or our third option—south to Couthen. According to this map, there is actually a rift city pretty close to the border.”

  “Rift city?”

  “A city built around a rift.”

  “...Right.”

  “It’s the closest city from here and we should be able to make it there in a couple of days. Personally, I think it’s our best option if we want to get out of this swamp quickly.”

  The twins didn’t like going further from Estra Dolla, but they liked trudging through swamp for weeks even less. They just had to trust their party to wait for them.

  Dawn begrudgingly agreed with Layna’s suggestion and Dusk echoed her. Linza agreed as well, probably because her own judgement wasn’t worth a whole lot with that amnesia.

  * * *

  With their course of action decided, the group decided to sleep for the night.

  Unfortunately, sleeping out in the wilderness meant a rotating watch. And because the twins had no good excuse to do otherwise, that meant they would have to once again endure the discomfort of being awake with one body while the other slept.

  Dusk ended up doing the first watch while the others went to sleep. No blankets, but the hill provided enough warmth that they didn’t even have to try to create makeshift beds with grass.

  The watch started out very quietly as the girls fell asleep. Unfortunately, the twins spent a good while trying to figure out how to fall asleep with one body while the other stayed awake. They eventually succeeded, but it sure had been more difficult than it had any right to be.

  With Dawn asleep and Dusk having two simultaneous trains of thought just like back in the rift, he decided to occupy himself by pulling out the essences Linza had fixed and thinking about the various options they now had.

  Three ◆Shard◆, two ◆Needle◆, and ◆Barrage◆ for the Very Rares, as well as ◆Core◆ and ◆Bastion◆ for the Epics. Then they had the cleansed Legendary ◆Umbrage◆ and one more ◆Corrosion◆ from the Brine sludge before the rift had gone crazy.

  He played around with the various ideas for quite a while, until something shifted.

  Dusk paused as his other thought process vanished and he gained an odd outsider’s view of someone’s dream.

  Dawn’s dream, obviously.

  It didn’t make much sense at first, but after a moment, Dusk grimaced at the imagery the dream pulled out. Apparently, their subconscious mind went straight for a mishmash recreation of both the Anxia fiasco and the night when their troupe had been massacred.

  He couldn’t help but look at Dawn’s tense body as it tossed and turned.

  Led by his sense of compassion, he leaned in and gently grabbed her hand.

  Bit by bit she, calmed down and her dreams now featured a new figure – him – helping her fight the cultists and the rift’s monsters alike.

  “...This is so weird,” he murmured.

  Almost as if they were two separate people entirely. But that couldn’t be right. Sure, they talked to each other all the time, but everyone talked to themselves from time to time, right?

  He glanced at the other girls and found them fast asleep. With that assurance, he pulled out his [Soul Split] card and looked at it for the first time since crafting it.

  Creepy as ever. Two screaming faces stuck together trying to rip themselves back apart. Moving, writhing.

  Dusk sighed as he put it back into his soul pocket.

  They needed to find more information about negative and prime skills.

  Because what if it wasn’t just a name? What if they really were gradually splitting in two?

  He shook his head.

  “Stop thinking about stuff like that,” he muttered to himself. “There are more important things to–”

  Something moved.

  The hill did.

  Dusk let go of Dawn’s hand and bolted to his feet to look for the cause, already breathing in to shout for the others to wake up.

  Then he saw it—a giant reptilian eye in the hillside looking up at him.

  He froze as thousands of thoughts ran through his head.

  This hill was a living creature.

  A titan.

  Iridion.

  It had to b–

  Dusk blinked, then slowly exhaled.

  What had he been doing again? Since when had he been standing up?

  Dusk looked around the hill, searching for threats.

  He only found a bunch of frogs ribbiting away near a puddle.

  Dusk sighed.

  “Must have been my imagination.”

  He shook his head and grabbed his twin’s hand again.

  “No need to get worked up like that.”

  The latter half of his watch went by without any excitement.

  Just like the first half.