The girls were completely lost in thought. Silence, thick as a veil of dust, settled over the cave, broken only by the flickering glow of Naty's lantern and the steady breathing of Madame at the entrance. Each of them was already sorting through everything they had learned, trying to piece together the unstable Fragment like a puzzle whose image kept shifting. Still, Kenzo felt he had to break the silence before it grew too heavy.
— « I'm guessing you've already started coming up with theories… » he said calmly. « It'd be nice if you told us what happened on your side too. »
His remark pulled Naty out of her thoughts. She blinked, almost caught off guard by how deeply she had drifted into them.
— « Oh, right, sorry. » she replied with a faint smile that softened her usually serious face. « Well, on my side, it was less eventful than for the rest of you. I appeared not too far from here, and the only truly extraordinary thing I did was fight Treacherous Traitors over and over while running away. That was before I understood they had to be killed at the same time. »
Kenzo nodded. He remembered their shared fight very well, and he now understood just how dangerous that mechanic was for anyone who did not know it beforehand.
Naty continued.
— « Their number can vary from two to four at most. The only time I ever saw more than four was the twelve we killed together earlier… which is honestly surprising, since none of them was a Deviant. And once… I ran into a Deviant. »
Lucian nearly jumped. Even Kenzo felt the air tighten. A Treacherous Traitor Deviant… he could barely imagine what that would even look like. What kind of deviation could a creature like that develop?
Naty went on, her voice a little lower now, as if the memory itself had made the cave heavier.
— « At that point, I had only just met Ophelia. There were four Treacherous Traitors… except after we killed them, their corpses fused together and formed a much larger, much more dangerous specter. »
She paused for a moment, replaying the scene in her mind. Kenzo imagined a creature born from four shadows merging into one, something warped and powerful, and the image alone almost gave him chills.
— « It was anything but easy. It was tough, fast, and capable of dealing serious damage. Even with the two of us, it took a lot to bring it down. It was a Condemned Unconscious, Kenzo, just like the Deviant you fought, so it makes sense that Ophelia is suspicious. After all… you look weaker than we do, Kenzo. »
He took the remark without visibly reacting, even though it stung his pride. He had no intention of explaining that the Young Shoot had nearly killed him in a single blow, or that his victory had depended on a miracle, some absurd mixture of instinct, luck, and desperation. He knew too that revealing too much would be a mistake: sooner or later, they would start looking at him as something dangerous. So he stayed silent and answered only with a steady look. If Ophelia wanted to believe he had some hidden trump card, then fine. That changed nothing.
Naty kept going.
— « I also think that the more Treacherous Traitors there are, the less resilient and dangerous they become. After all, the only time a single one of those specters managed to land a hit on either Ophélia or me… was with the Deviant. »
That confirmed what Kenzo had already begun to suspect: Deviant versions were not merely creatures with unusual traits. They were far more terrifying anomalies than the norm. A Deviant Treacherous Traitor… a fusion of four… and still only Condemned rank. This Fragment seemed saturated with that kind of threat.
Naty then rested a hand on her green armor, the one she had mentioned earlier.
— « That's the armor you recognized. It's called Watchers of the Minor Trees, and its description says this: »
She recited it in a soft, almost ceremonial voice:
[Lost upon distant summits, each one standing in its lonely watch.They could do nothing but witness, isolated in the wind that never ceased.Scattered witnesses to the fall that consumed their ancient refuge,They watched corruption rise, ring after ring, until it reached the heart of their wounded world.]
Kenzo felt something jolt inside him. So the skeletons he had found… those still figures frozen at the tops of the trees… were not random dead. They had been watchers. Guardians. The last witnesses of what this forest had once been before the catastrophe.
— « Ophelia killed the Deviant, » Naty continued, « but I needed armor, and she already had one, so she let me keep it. Other than that… that's it. We didn't go through anything else. Eventually we saw Lucian's smoke, and on the way there we ran into the twelve specters. »
She finished simply, without embellishment. At once, every gaze in the cave shifted toward Ophelia.
Ophelia lifted her eyes toward the cave ceiling, as though she already expected to have to explain something she personally did not consider important.
— « Don't expect some crazy story. » she said. « I landed in an area where there were almost no trees left. I sensed danger, so I headed straight for the forest. Didn't run into a single Void Creature. Then the next day I found Naty. »
She shrugged, as if that was all there was to it. But Kenzo found that detail strange. An area without trees? In the middle of this immense forest? And more importantly, no Void Creatures for an entire day? He himself had not encountered any on his first day either, but he had been forced to flee a living fog. What, exactly, could count as "danger" to Ophelia, someone who looked fully capable of facing a Condemned Unconscious head-on and without tricks?
The question lingered in the air for a while, but no one voiced it. Kenzo already knew he wanted more answers. But this was neither the time nor the place.
Naty clapped her hands softly, restarting the conversation.
— « Alright. Now, ready to share your theories? »
Her sarcastic tone made it clear she was not expecting anything comforting. There was something tense beneath it, a shared awareness that no matter what theory they came up with… they were in serious trouble. Very serious trouble.
A chill ran down Kenzo's spine, not from the cold, but from the shape the truth was beginning to take in their collective silence.
— « This is where the real problems begin. » he murmured, almost to himself.