NOVEL NEXT Ch 2.95: Counting
The sun rose. Elaina ignored it.
Carly and Flora were talking. Tira and Prisma were absent from the sound of it. Elaina wanted nothing more right then than to sleep. It wouldn’t come.
“Should we wake her up?” Flora said.
“I don’t know. She didn’t sleep well, really. Tossed and turned all night.” Elaina supposed that meant she had eventually fallen asleep. It didn’t feel like it.
“I didn’t really mean to hear, didn’t hear the beginning, but they were so loud at the end…”
“Yeah, I wasn’t awake for the whole thing either…” Elaina finally realized they were whispering. The probably thought she couldn’t hear even if she was awake. Her earing had gotten marginally better since Level 3 happened though.
The door opened. Tira’s boots, not Prisma’s, walked across the wood floor. “What the fuck, Flora? Did you stay up all night?”
“It’s not hard for me, just a little mana to push away the drowsiness.”
“Where’s the bitch? I wanted to have a word with her.”
“Don’t say that!” Carly said.
“She’s not with you?”
“No.” The one chair in the room scraped across the floor. That meant Tira was the one sitting in it. “I remember her getting up, figured she was going to the bathroom, but then I fell back asleep. She was gone when I woke up.”
“Must’ve gone back to school,” Carly said.
“In the middle of the night?” Tira asked.
“She broke up with your illustrious leader,” a new voice said. Who? Shein. Right. “They had a falling out over the dumbest things it sounded like, and then she stormed off.”
“Hmmph!” Tira said. “Maybe she has more sense than I thought. If she’s gone though, that’s fine enough for me. Good riddance.”
Elaina shuffled under the sheets. She didn’t want to hear Tira talk like that right now. She didn’t want to wake up to stop her either.
The rest of the room was silent for a moment. “Should we wake her?” Tira eventually asked.
“Already had that conversation. Carly says she didn’t sleep well, so we were gonna let her be for a bit.”
“Well, we can’t really let Shein go without Elaina up to make sure she doesn’t try anything.”
“You know that I’m not going to do that, right? Again, if I wanted you dead, I could have done it anytime before I collapsed yesterday. Even drugged, I could’ve had Mille or someone else try it while I made them invisible to you.”
“You know more now., could’ve just been waiting for information. I still think Elaina and Flora are wrong to trust you.”
“And that’s why I didn’t trust you to make a watch shift!”
“I’m the one you can trust! Elaina made a decision, and I’ll follow her, even if I don’t agree.”
“Oh, but not about the Fireguard girl?” Shein asked.
“That’s different.”
Elaina had had enough. “Morning,” she said, rising up, pressing the sheets to her chest still.
“Oh, uhm, good morning,” Carly said, turning her head away. She really wasn’t good about hiding guilt.
Elaina waved her hand at Shein, creating a blindfold over the woman’s head and causing her to shake violently. “Hey, what gives!”
“Don’t want you watching me get dressed,” Elaina said, standing up and conjuring her class gear back to her.
“I’ve seen everything already, you know,” Shein said with a smirk. “But I suppose I haven’t seen you put clothes back on, so you can keep that bit of modesty, I guess.”
“Hmm,” Elaina said, letting the blindfold disappear, realizing that she apparently considered a blindfold a type of restraint. Makes sense. “I’m untying you as well, but the bracelets are staying on.”
“Right, right,” Shein said as the ropes uncoiled around her.
“So, how do we send her back?” Tira said.
“I’ll lock her bracelets on her with enough mana to last an hour or so,” Elaina said. “They’re not big, so that’s not that bad. Then I guess we just send her off while we go catch our ride.”
“Sounds good to me!” Flora said. “Is she eating breakfast with us?”
Elaina thought Tira’s eyes might actually fall out of her head with how far they popped out at that question. “I could go for some coffee, honestly,” Shein said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Elaina said with a shrug. “Why not.”
Tira and Carly packed up the rest of their stuff as Elaina stretched, Flora still keeping an eye on Shein before they all went down together.
“Morning, Able!” Flora said as they walked down.
“Morning, girls,” he said. He seemed surprisingly composed for how drunk and how up late he was the night before. He had to have gotten less sleep than them, but was probably just used to it.
The inn’s sitting area was mostly empty, just two people drinking some hot drink in the corner. Most sane people are asleep right now.
“I thought I remembered hearing something about someone extra staying with you,” Able said as he came out with five steaming mugs, a dark liquid Elaina wasn’t really familiar with inside.
“Coffee!” Shein said, taking one of the cups and immediately bringing it to her lips, no doubt scalding her throat. “Thank the gods, and you, Able.”
“Don’t mention it! I’ll let my wife know to have food out in just a bit. And no worries about the extra person, your room fee covers it.”
“You sure?” Carly asked, reaching for her purse. “It’s really fine.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Carly looked like she wanted to protest more, but he was already gone.
“I’ll just leave a few copper on the table,” she said.
“Hmmph!” Shein said. “You lot really aren’t like the Endrin brats I’m used to.”
Breakfast was mostly a silent affair after that, aside from Able’s trips backs for refills and small talk. Elaina ignored that, focused instead on the hole inside her stomach. Coffee was interesting, a little more bitter than tea, but very palatable once their porridge topped with an egg and bacon came out, the creaminess helping temper the sting of the coffee. And for some reason, by the time they finished eating, Elaina was feeling more awake.
“Alright, let’s go ahead and get this over with,” Shein said. “Since you’re all kicking me out so unceremoniously.”
“We fed you breakfast, for gods’ sake!” Tira said as they all stood up. Elaina couldn’t help but notice Carly putting five whole copper pieces on the table as they walked out. That was way more than what breakfast for one would be, surely, but there was no reason to mention it really.
“So, I just walk home, and in an hour I can take off my bracelets?” Shein asked as they stepped outside.
“Yep,” Elaina said, making the quick thought in her mind, locking some of her mana into the bracelets.
Shein sighed. “Fine, then. You’ll be in touch, I presume?”
“We’ll be watching,” Tira said. “And we’ll contact you when and if we need to.”
“Ooh, ominous! Ta ta for now, darlings,” Shein said as she walked away, hips shaking in… Gods, even without her “made up” face and body, the woman was still attractive.
“Alright,” Elaina said, trying to purge that though from her mind. “Let’s get walking.”
“You sure this is going to work?” Tira said.
“I told you, Carly and I did it once before. And Temmie says she can do it again, basically whenever we get a new subcore.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t long before they reached their predetermined spot, a thin alley on a small street, not much traffic on one of the weekend days. “Coast is clear, Temmie. Go ahead.”
“Affirmative.”
It still caught Elaina by surprise, the suction-like feeling of being ripped off of the ground, through the air. It was over quickly though, a flash of light as they were suddenly back in the grove’s cave just on the outskirts of the school grounds.
“That was awesome!” Flora said, looking around and feeling herself, as if she wasn’t sure her own body was real.
“I’m going to vomit,” Tira replied, dropping to one knee.
“Oh, I’ll make sure you’re fine!” Carly said, rushing over and placing her hands on Tira’s back.
Elaina let out a sigh. It was a lot, but they were back. As she turned to the bag they’d left in the cave with their spare uniforms in it though, swirling crystal dust started spinning around her, like she was putting on her class gear. But she was already wearing that, so what was this?