Try again? - Chapter 51

*tap* *tap*

”…”

*tap* *tap*  *pinch* *tap*

” Mmmmm… Fio, noooo… ”

*poke* *poke*

” Noooo… Just five minutes… ”

*poke*

” Noooo… I’m sooooo tired… Another five minutes, please… ” I pleaded and squished even harder in her embrace while covering my face to protect myself from her poking.

” Lizza, wake up. Silvia is staring at you… ”

” Hmmm!? Silvia… Silvia… What Silvia? ”

’What nonsense is she talking about while the poor me just want to sleep a little mor… Oh… Ohhhhh… Shiiiiit…’

” Did you sleep well? ”

”…”

.

.

.

Something was strange. Something was definitely not right here…

Taking another quick glance at the intruder, it wasn’t necessary to be a genius to see that something wasn’t right.

’Goddammit, she’s still staring at me with that strange smile…’

” Mmm… Oh, is something wrong? ”

’Oh, no… She saw me…’

” No. It’s nothing… ”

” Are you sure? You can tell me if something is wrong… We are just the three of us here. ” she said and approached even so slightly to me.

Of course, that movement wasn’t unnoticed by the person from my other side who for some reason was holding my hand while glaring at the intruder. Unfortunately, the glare made her smile widen even more and I had no clue why that was…

The whole strange situation started from the moment I woke up… It was already bad enough that I actually fell asleep and they saw me like that. Not to mention that if Fiona wouldn’t have been with me, the whole situation could have been turning into a tragedy.

I didn’t even know how that happened. I just closed my eyes for a moment to rest a little bit and the next thing I saw when I woke up was Silvia staring at me with a strange smile on her face.

At that moment I was just embarrassed by my carelessness and didn’t give much thought to that but strange occurrences continued to happen one after another.

Normally, our team should have been helping collect the monster corpses before heading back to their temporary camp but since things turned that way and we had to deal with the queen and stuff, we didn’t have to anymore. Not like i was against it or something…

We decided to head back to the camp and rest first, moment at which, Silvia proposed for us to go together without the other two. Frank and Elliott seemed to be surprised as well but looked too tired to even ask why.

And thus, we were here in this strange situation.

I was sure that something wasn’t right here. It couldn’t be just my imagination. I had to find out what was going on.

” Actually, is there something that you want to talk to us about, Silvia? ” I said and stopped walking to listen to whatever she wanted to say.

” Hmmm, nothing much. I was just curious about how you two looked so close to each other. Like two sisters even though you were from different races. It’s very fun to watch. ” she said and turned around to look at us with the same wide smile. I had some chills running through my spine seeing that for some reason.

’Is she messing with me? She is, isn’t she?’

I started to get a little annoyed… Whatever she wanted, I didn’t even care anymore.

” Ah, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t making fun of you two or something, on the contrary. I was so surprised seeing you two like that… I couldn’t help it… ”

I unintentionally raised an eyebrow at her statement. Somehow, I had a feeling that the situation wasn’t that simple. Fiona seemed oddly happy with what she said for some reason though…

’Are you serious, Fio? Don’t get fooled by her. Wait… What’s with that happy face?’

It seemed that I was left alone here. My trusted companion was defeated already with some underhanded methods. How despicable.

” Is this that strange? We are just… ”

” It is. I mean, for normal people it might not be, but for you two it is… I was so surprised when I saw you that I barely restrained myself. ”

” I still don’t get what do you mean… And also, I’m not an idiot. If you just wanted to talk about our good relationship, no matter how strange it is, you could have done it without casting away Frank and Elliott. Whatever you want to say, I’m listening. ” I bluntly said, already tired of waiting for her to actually speak.

Fiona had let go of my hand. At this point, she sensed that something wasn’t right as well and took a step further positioning herself between us.

” Fio, it’s fine. ” I said and grab her hand back to lessen her worries.

That didn’t seem to work too well though. Her full attention was still on Silvia, prepared to act at any moment. Partially, that was my fault. Maybe I exaggerated a little bit and made the whole situation to tense like that.

*sigh*

I tried to gently squeeze her hand to grab her attention again.

” Lizza… ”

” If she wanted to do something to us, it would be stupid to cast the others away… I’m quite tired so whatever she wants to speak with us about, let’s just listen for the moment. Okay, Fio? ”

” Mm. ”

Managing to calm Fiona for the moment, I fixed my attention back to Silvia. For some reason, she didn’t say anything and just watched us the whole time. I might have been exaggerated a little bit but she was at fault as well.

At least, she seemed more serious this time.

” Haaaa… I really didn’t want to scare you or something. Sorry about that. I got carried away a little bit… though, you were right. I wanted to talk to you about something. ”

” I was quite blunt as well so it’s not just your fault. I had my part in it. Then, why did you want to talk to us? ”

She shook her head and sighed after which looked straight at me with curious eyes. After a whole minute of agonizing silence, she decided to finally speak.

” First, I want to say that I didn’t want to hurt you or something. It’s just that, looking at you two… You don’t seem to get how unreal is what I see in front of me. ”

I just nodded and waited for her to continue. At this point, I already had a clue as to what was going on but maybe that wasn’t the case. Better to just listen for the moment.

” You’re not human, right? ” she said and narrowed her eyes, watching my reaction.

I already guessed that it might be the case but Fiona tensed a bit and looked at me with a worried face.

*sigh*

” Yeah, but how did you found out? ”

” When you ran away from the nest, probably from all that mess, some strands of hair were out of your helmet. When I came closer, I actually saw something else peeking out of there… I didn’t want the others to notice so we parted immediately. ”

” Ugh, thanks… I think… ”

Thinking back at it, my helmet got a cut on the right side when that wasp crashed in me. From all the movement, it wouldn’t be strange for something to peek out at that time. Anyway, that didn’t change the fact that my luck was shit…

” I didn’t tell the others either. I wanted to speak with you first. ”

” I see. Thanks again… Though, I don’t think that it is that big of a deal… I mean, for you to… Oh… ” my eyes widened as the realization hit me.

” Mm. I think you got it now… ” she said and waited for me to say something. Though, I didn’t know what to say…

” Lizza… ” Fiona seemed to get impatient since she didn’t get what we were talking about.

As I was looking at her unsure of what to say, Silvia decided to save me from the awkward situation but that dropped another bomb on my head.

” I didn’t meet an elf till now but Frank did in the past. ”

” Ugh… So? ”

” Well, there’s a lot of rumors around your race, some might be exaggerations or even made up completely. What Frank managed to confirm at that time was that your race isn’t that fond of the rest of us… Sure, that was just one, and there might be exceptions but I didn’t hear of anything even remotely close to what I see at you two… ” she said and resumed her stare on us again. It felt like I got caught doing something wrong even though I didn’t.

’Actually, why the hell I’m even worried? The rest of them could just go to hell. I already said that I’ll live how I want.’

” So… What’s about it? ” I said back to her. So what if she didn’t hear of anyone like me until now? That wasn’t her business to being with…

” What’s about it? ”

” Y-Yeah… ”

For some reason, her strange smile bloomed back on her face even wider than before. My bravery from a moment ago crumbled in an instant. Maybe it wasn’t too good of an idea to answer like that. Thinking back at it, in the end, I didn’t know what she wanted to accomplish with all of this…

’Eh, why are you approaching? Nope… Stay right there… Don’t come closer…’

” Just wait for Rebecca to see you… Mufufu… ”

’Wait… What? Who’s Rebecca? What the hell is going on here…’