"So you were Layn's...

" Markus raised his eyes at the girl, trying to figure out the answer just from the expression she made.

"I was his girlfriend,

" Irea replied without any hesitation. She then rolled her eyes before looking at the trio before her.

"I assume you guys are those friends from the... from his past that he sometimes spoke about, right?

"

"You are quite well informed,

" Markus scoffed before leaning his head and asking.

"How did you came up with this idea, though?

"

"Isn't it obvious?

" Irea opened her eyes wide as if the question just proved that Markus wasn't as intelligent as he appeared to be.

"This place is the end of the world. Absolutely no one comes here outside of weirdos like Layn,

" she said before shrugging her arms and smiling.

"The only ones who could just happen to appear here are those who share Layn's traits, am I right?

"

"Let her get some rest,

" Yelna interrupted the two before Irea could get any more agitated. Even with Markus's healing applied right on the spot, her health was still pretty much at risk.

"But there is one thing you are mistaken about,

" she added after a moment, breaking her own order.

"Not all three of us are Layn's friends. In fact, I believe only Markus deserves that title between the three of us,

" Yelna claimed, averting her eyes to avoiding making contact with Irea's eyes.

"What does that mean?

" Irea asked only to turn her head to the side a moment later.

"They are coming back. Come and hide with the rest of us,

" she said, tilting her chin towards the shore.

A mere moment later, the calm surface of the lake started rippling. Then, the ripples turned into waters before a new wave of monsters began to emerge from the depths of the lake.

"Wait, the rest of us?

" Markus asked, surprised by Irea's sudden revelation.

"There are more of you out here?

" he specified his question, almost forgetting to keep on his healing spell on the girl.

'Not good, I can't get distracted light that,' Markus thought to himself, pouring his focus back into his job. Bit by bit, the open wounds all over the girl's body started to close down, leaving behind a set of ugly scars on the otherwise perfectly fair skin of the girl. 'If something were to happen to her because of my mishap, I wouldn't hear the end of it from him,' he thought, ignoring the incoming wave of the monsters.

Between the attack of a horde of frenzied or evolved beasts and Layn's wrath, Markus didn't need to think for long to decide which one scared him more.

"Markus!

" Al shouted, proving that he wasn't just a silent observer of the situation.

"The earlier wave got demolished by that shockwave, but I don't think dealing with what's coming now will be as easy as it was before,

" he said, tightening his grasp over the handle of his weapon.

'This situation... It sucks balls,' Al thought, observing the front of approaching monsters. 'I can't really do much talking,' he moved his eyes to the injured girl before rolling them back towards the monsters, 'and the only thing I'm good for here is fighting,'

Al put a wry smile on his face.

"Mostly because those two didn't fight almost at all,

" he muttered the rest of his inner complaints. Then he took a step forward and placed himself between the approaching wave of magic beasts and the duo of his companions.

"It will only take a short time before they reach us!

" he shouted to warn the two, too busy catering to that strange girl to notice the approaching wave. Moreover, Markus was still the only one who understood Irea's advice, thanks to his translation spell. Yelna's lack of reaction came solely from Markus' lack of action due to the unending trust she had in him.

Because if Markus wasn't bothered by the approaching monsters, why would she?

"Guys?

" Al asked, noticing the lack of reaction of the two.

"They are getting closer, you know?

" his voice started to falter under the complete no reaction of his teammates.

'I get that they want me to be their **ing bodyguard, but isn't it a little too much?' he thought, gripping his axe even tighter.

"I don't know what you are planning, but our hideout worked as it should,

" Irea muttered in a weak voice. It appeared that her injuries finally started to catch up with her, flooding the girl's mind with both the pain.

"So stop wasting time and just get inside!

" Irea claimed the victory in the battle of her mind only to shout out in the urging tone.

"It's okay, we will go.

" not daring to do anything that would upset the girl any further out of fear that her emotional state would affect her injuries, Markus had no other choice but to raise his hands in defeat.

"Yelna, Al, there seems to be some kind of hideout in one of the hills nearby,

" Markus turned his head around, finally using his normal language rather than using the translating spell.

'The communication... it might turn out to be a slightly greater problem than what we initially expected, huh?' he thought, raising from his knees and picking up the girl.

With her injures, it would require not a healing spell but godly magic or some other kind of miracle for Irea to be able to walk on her own.

"Hideout?

" Al asked, slightly lowering the blade of his weapon.

"And here I got all up and ready for the fight,

" he sighed before putting his axe back to the special holster on his back and following Markus.

Out of the three guests to this place, it was Yelna that hesitated the longest. By the time both Markus with Irea in his hands and Al already reached the hidden doors to the dorm, she still stood in place. She stared in the distance, in the direction where that ball of light from the earlier came from.

"Well, you can't escape from me forever,

" she sighed while muttering to herself, before finally turning around and catching up with the rest of the group. Yet, the face of relaxation and peace that Yelna made when she decided to temporarily give up on pursuing Layn deteriorated when she saw the insides of the hideout.

"Is this...?

" Yelna asked while caressing the bricked wall, not daring to bring up the problem of too many people crowding in too little space. In their current situation, after all, comfort wasn't anywhere close to the top of the priority list.

"Those are the Godly Bricks,

" Markus translated the weak words of the girl. In the few short moments, they were inside the hill, the rest of the men hiding there squeezed even further, all for the sake of making enough space for the injured girl to rest comfortably.

'That's strange,' Markus thought when his emotional state finally allowed him to as much as acknowledging the presence of others in this weird place. 'We are definitely strangers, yet there is no sign of hostility coming from them?' he thought, puzzled by such a scenario.

No matter what time they ended up in, human nature roughly remained the same. It didn't matter whether one would look at the ancient times, ancestral times, or modern times. There would always be good people trying to help others and bad people trying to make use of the good and of the weak. And it was this most straightforward rule that governed every society that would, in turn, create all the other kinds of behaviors that didn't seem to change through times almost at all.

"Godly bricks? Those?

" Yelna's asked with her face twisting in disgust.

"The most they could reach is the sixth level of durability,

" she added while knocking in the bricks with her finger,

"it would take quite a lot of shamelessness to call them godly.

"

For a moment, no one inside the place dared to say anything. The people that were with the girl couldn't understand a single word Yelna, or Al would say. On the other hand, Markus was simply too busy catering to Irea's wounds to bother with translating anything.

What's more, the constant trembling of the ground and creaking of the dorm itself made it pretty awkward for anyone to speak up. After all, what would be the point of hiding underground if their voices would attract the monsters and made them properly search the place?

"Hey,

" Al moved for as little as he could in this tight space to reach Yelna's ear.

"I'm not sure if you realized,

" he whispered in her ear as if unable to understand the fact that his language has yet to form in the times they currently resided in,

"but all of them, although weak, are celestials.

"

"I know,

" Markus replied, proving that even in the state of a complete focus, he still wouldn't miss a single word said in his presence.

"But given enough time, I'm sure Layn would turn them into proper mages,

" Markus said before finally taking his hands from the body of now sleeping Irea and stretching them to the back.

"I'm not sure if you noticed this, but in terms of pure power, this girl is already stronger than me.

"