Ch. 115: Recovering while Moving

“Anyways, we’ve got to get to the ruins.”

Loren declared as he walked swiftly through the dark of night.

While there was no response from Dia, Lapis asked him with a questioning look.

“If this exam is indeed rigged, wouldn’t it be pointless to go there?”

“No, what should be there is definitely there.”

Lapis couldn’t understand why Loren could say so with such confidence, so she continued to ask him.

“If the plan is to kill Dia during the exam, wouldn’t it be pointless to ready anything?”

Lapis couldn’t help but think that readying something with no intention of giving it was pointless, but it seemed that Loren had a different opinion.

“Not really. If there wasn’t, it would raise suspicion among the other Elders.”

Loren thought that there would be no way the other Elders wouldn’t be tracking the movements of Sierra, since she was the one who made the test.

What Sierra was to give Dia if she passed it.

It was something to help Dia create her own base of operations as an Elder, but what would happen if the other Elders noticed that it wasn’t prepared?

“Let’s say she did prepare everything. What do you plan on doing?”

“Easy. We take it and go against Sierra.”

Dia looked up at him when he mentioned opposing Sierra, but Loren continued.

“So what if someone who is going to be on her own parts ways with her master? It’s a different story if you aren’t prepared, but since you are, don’t be crying about opposing her.”

“But…”

“If you like her so much, then get strong enough that she can’t hurt you. And then you can try or even force her to be friendly. Or do you think that if she thinks you’re a nuisance, you should let her kill you?”

“No, not at all…”

As Dia mumbled, Loren stuck a finger between her eyebrows.

As Dia widened in surprise, Loren twisted his finger and pushed into her head.

“Then think about what you could do. She won’t be appearing during the test anymore, anyway.”

As Loren flicked her forehead with his finger, Dia glared at him with teary eyes, but seeing her covering where he had pushed into, seemed to him that a bit of her brazenness had returned.

“You think that Sierra won’t intervene anymore?”

Lapis, who had been watching the whole thing, decided to speak up, seeing that Dia seemed to be feeling slightly better.

Although he had tried to encourage her and succeeded in doing so slightly, he knew that she needed time to collect her thoughts, so Loren decided to answer Lapis’ question.

“She won’t. If my prediction is correct.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“It’s because if Sierra really wants to kill Dia, she would take one of the many easier ways to do so.”

Sierra was Dia’s master and with Dia being very fond of her, and on top of that, she knew Dia’s True Name.

Loren thought that there would’ve been plenty of chances and methods to get rid of her without waiting for the exam.

There should’ve been a reason why she didn’t do so until now, and Loren was guessing it was appearance.

“Well, normally thinking, if a student that is more skilled than the master suddenly dies or is killed, the first to be suspected is the master.”

“That was why she hadn’t tried to kill her?”

“Yeah, and she waited for a time like this, and most likely leaked information to people who had no problem killing her.”

Although Lapis understood what Loren was talking about, there were still some things that bothered her.

“Then she could’ve just killed all of us at the beginning of the exam, no? There’s no reason to wait until now, is there?”

Loren shook his head at Lapis’ words.

“If the student is incapable, the reputation of the master drops. If she takes pride in her magical skills, having others say behind her back that she was horrible at teaching would be unbearable.”

Loren thought there had to be times where Dia shined to appeal to the other Elders watching, that the exam was still going on.

It required quite a bit of time, and it needed to make the others think that Dia was capable, and after she showed that, Sierra wouldn’t have to worry about the responsibility falling on her.

“So it probably means that the appealing time is over.”

“This is troublesome.”

“Seems like both humans and vampires are riddled with troubles.”

Loren thought that since both races had their own wills and thoughts, there wasn’t much of a difference in that sense.

The only ones who thought of things no one else would were geniuses, or someone who lived among things that were completely different than humans, and meeting such a being was rare, and from Loren knew, stories of things that exceeded human knowledge only existed in fairy tales.

“Then the Elder named Stoos that Sierra told us about that is our enemy…”

“Either Sierra played her, or she was planning on getting in Dia’s way in the first place, and Sierra joined her.”

“I starting to feel sorry for Dia now.”

“Really? I won’t sympathize though.”

To Loren, who was protecting Dia, he had no interest in what kind of being his enemy was, nor if she was being used or not.

It was because it summed up to one thing, defeating his enemy.

If he didn’t have to, it made things easier, but if he had to, it was better to do it as quickly as possible.

That’s all it was to him.

Of course, this didn’t include whether it was possible or not.

Loren understood that he didn’t stand a chance against Elders.

“In any case, all we have to do is get to our destination, clear the exam or whatever is waiting for us there, successfully help Dia be on her own, and our job is done.”

“You say it so simply, but it’s not something we could do so easily isn’t it? Stoos wouldn’t back off at this point and is sure to come back.”

If she hadn’t been found out, it wouldn’t be difficult for her to draw back after suffering a certain amount of casualties.

But in this case, they knew who she was and had launched two large attacks, so she had already suffered a large casualty.

“Even if Sierra doesn’t come, Stoos might still come to fight us if she has to. Do you have any hope of winning against an Elder?”

“Not really, but we can’t say we’re going to quit because we can’t, right?”

If they quit here, it meant abandoning Dia.”

Loren asked if she could do so, but Lapis didn’t try to answer, but instead drooped her shoulders.

In fact, she felt that she could do so very easily, but she knew that if she said that, on top of being thought of as a stereotypical demon, there was a chance of making herself look bad to Loren.

But replying something that Loren would think good of wasn’t the correct answer to her either, so she decided to stay silent and follow Loren’s lead, but there was no way she could know that Loren had realized her thought process in the short amount of time.

“So, this is a bit of self-talk that’s not much of a prediction at all.”

Since their next course of action was pretty much set, the group had started moving again.

Lapis didn’t pay attention to Loren, as if she hadn’t heard him, but Dia, who was being carried on her back, looked towards him.

“If someone you tried to kill didn’t die as planned, but instead managed to reach her goal. And on top of that, instead of thinking of how to kill her, you might think of striking a deal and getting back together.”

“That’s…”

“It depends. If there are grudges or something mixed, it would be hard to balance, but don’t you think a bit of jealousy could be kept in check and make it a profitable relationship?”

As Loren looked at Dia, she looked back at him for a moment, but eventually nodded and tapped Lapis on the shoulder, and as she caught her attention, she climbed down from her back and started walking on her own.

“Either way, nothing will start unless I become a proper Elder.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Then let’s take our time. The sun will soon rise. It’s better if we arrive at the ruins around dawn, no?”

Although they had moved from their planned campsite after the attack, they weren’t that far from their destination, so if they moved too quickly, there was a possibility they could arrive there before the sun rose.

As Dia pointed that out, Loren thought that she had finally regained some of her thoughts, as he slowed down slightly.