To say everyone was on edge would have been an understatement.
The night had started okay.
Aiden, Victor, and Jax had grabbed an inn while Little Fox and Thalia found a place for them to have dinner. Selene and Liora had gone for a walk for… some reason.
Then Victor had suddenly rushed off and become a massive beast running through the road.
They saw a massive red dome form.
Victor shattered it.
Then he came back with Liora and Selene, both of whom looked shaken.
"Then he gave this ultimatum," Liora said, throwing her arms into the air, both to punctuate what she was saying and to keep her balance as the trailer continued up the mountain path. "Selene fights, and if she loses, they gang up and kill me."
The road was rocky and uneven as they traveled.
Aiden and Selene stayed in the front, while Liora, Little Fox, Thalia, Victor, and Jax stayed in the back.
The trail itself was thin, giving them only about a foot or so on either side before they hit the wall on one side or went tumbling down the slope on the other.
That, however, seemed like a moot point compared to the attack.
"Just to clarify," Thalia said, turning to Liora and Victor, "they said they would be at the games?"
Liora had an annoyed look on her face.
Probably because she had been made into the proverbial damsel in distress during the situation.
Victor, meanwhile, was bathing himself with his tongue and napping on the ballista post.
"Yeah," Liora said. "Plus, he has this whole new team together, and for some reason most of them are beastkin. Selene only fought the tiger one, but he did, like, three hundred damage with a swing of his weapon when he missed and hit the ground."
She crossed her arms.
"Plus, he regrew his arm when Selene cut it off."
Little Fox looked alarmed at that and turned to Jax.
"Wait," she asked, "people can just grow back limbs?"
Jax nodded.
They all turned back to Liora as she continued explaining what happened after Victor arrived.
Though Jax's attention was elsewhere.
Because, as it turned out, Little Fox could speak Common now because she had learned a skill and had been observing them for a time before revealing it.
In some senses, Jax understood.
In others, he could not help but feel like that was ominous.
Yet he had no room to judge, because from what Aiden had told him, Little Fox had been worried he was part of a murder plot for several days.
So while she was still hesitant to talk to him, the fact that she would talk at all was a good sign in his book.
The trailer passed over another large bump, jostling everyone and forcing them to shift back into their seats.
"There is just one thing that has me a bit worried," Jax said.
The others turned to him.
Jax silently looked up at Victor, who gave him a small smile.
It was probably intended to be polite and kind.
Instead, it seemed ominous.
"Victor," Jax said, "first, you talk about the Red Man Troupe after showing up out of nowhere to save us, then volunteer to train us."
Victor's tail swayed lazily.
"Then you save Liora and Selene while talking about Fatebound, rebellions, and betrayals. So I'm sorry if this is blunt, but why exactly are you here?"
Victor stared down at them with a Cheshire smile, as if intentionally trying to send shivers down their spines.
"Purrrrhaps you furrrrget," Victor said, "but I am saving a rrrreturn trrrrip by staying."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Has yourrrr alchemist ally not inforrrmed you of his… drrrream? The one rrrrright when I appearrred firrrst?"
Victor's tail swished again, as if he were deciding whether to fully engage with the question.
"You are all prrrrro—"
He paused.
Then his smile widened.
"Tégé. My prrrrotégés, yes. Why would I ignorrrre such clearrrr bloodthirrrst dirrrrected at you all?"
Victor had clearly stopped himself from saying something.
Pivoting away from a half-spoken word.
Part of Jax wanted to ask more questions.
The other part said there needed to be some consolidation first.
So he waited.
By the time the sun was setting and they were preparing to make camp, Jax tried his best to remain calm and unbothered.
Aiden and Selene seemed fine.
But aside from Victor, the rest of them were walking on eggshells.
Always watching Victor out of the corners of their eyes despite his own nonchalance about the topic.
To make matters worse, he suddenly vanished.
His form dissolved into dirt around the time they finished setting up the campfire.
"Crap, he's gone!" Jax barked.
He turned to Liora, Thalia, and Little Fox to see if they had spotted where Victor went.
They looked just as panicked as he was.
"Uh," Selene said, walking over as she saw them all whipping their heads around, "a-are you all looking for Victor?"
"Yes," Jax said, more panic slipping into his voice than he would have liked. "Did you see where he went?"
"Y-Yeah," Selene said. "He told Aiden and me that he was going to see if he could find a monster we could fight for training later."
Jax felt a vein on his forehead twitch.
A pang of annoyance spread through him as he briefly imagined punching Victor.
Then he remembered the massive beast form thing Victor had done.
Jax politely filed the punching plan away under Bad Ideas that Would End With My Skeleton Outside My Body department, or B.I.W.E.W.M.S.O.M.B for short, yes the name is up for later change.
They finished setting up the campfire and sat down to eat the dinners they had brought.
Jax made sure to sit next to Aiden.
They ate in silence for a moment.
Jax wanted Aiden to be done with his food so he could not pretend to be eating in order to stall answering.
Luckily, Aiden seemed rather hungry and devoured his dinner at an almost record speed.
Jax gave him a moment to digest.
Then he turned to him and asked, "Aiden, level with me here. What exactly happened that day at the duke's party?"
Aiden paused with his waterskin halfway to his lips.
Then he shrugged and said in a nonchalant tone, "What is there to know? One moment I was standing there, the next I woke up in bed, and we had apparently been saved three days before."
Jax stared him down.
He thought through the ramifications of what he was about to do.
Then he took a breath to center himself and said, "You're lying. Something happened. You need to tell us what you saw."
Around them, everyone paused and turned.
Liora and Thalia seemed curious.
Selene looked worried.
Like she knew what Jax had just done.
Aiden turned to him with a serious look.
"What made you so convinced I'm lying?"
Jax met Aiden's gaze.
"Victor told us you saw something," he said. "The entire reason he is even here helping us is because of it. And as a party, we have a right to know."
Aiden took a moment.
Then he placed his elbows on his knees.
"It's not anything you want to know," Aiden said. "Can we leave it at that?"
Jax stood.
"No," he said sharply. "We need to know what happened."
Aiden took in a sharp hiss of breath.
"Jax, I'm not withholding it because of greed," he said. "I'm doing it because it's knowledge that is inherently dangerous to know."
Jax stepped forward.
"Fine," he said. "We acknowledge the risk and are willing to take it. So tell us what happened."
A flash of anger crossed Aiden's face as he jumped to his feet.
"Damn it, I'm not hiding it because I want to!" Aiden yelled. "The knowledge actively has a curse, and I'm trying to avoid activating it!"
Jax stared him down.
Part of him told him to shut up, take that knowledge, and let it simmer.
But the other part would not let him.
Adventurers, as a profession, were known to run into strange and obscure situations. It was why people joked that Murphy's Law had been made by an adventurer named Murphy.
And in the past month, they had been exposed to nobility, seen Red himself, gone through perils far beyond the norm, and witnessed things they could not explain.
Be it the looming death threat over their heads or the curiosity boiling together with everything else, Jax stepped forward and got in Aiden's face.
"We are a team," Jax said. "You're supposed to trust us here."
Aiden threw his hands into the air.
"Fine!" he yelled. "You want the truth? The truth is that we are nothing more than entertainment for th—"
A silent hand covered Aiden's mouth.
Aiden froze.
So did everyone else.
The figure behind him was a tall woman wearing worn cargo pants and a wrapping of bandages, or something similar, over her chest in place of a shirt.
A sword hung from a sheath at her side.
Her skin was covered in dozens of scars, and a length of straight purple hair flowed down her back.
Yet despite all of that, what was truly terrifying was her presence.
The feeling of natural power coming from her was unlike anything Jax had felt from an actual system user.
If anything, she felt closer to a powerful monster.
"We can't have you saying that, alchemist," the woman said, her voice carrying power with it. "You could have gotten everyone here killed."
No one moved.
"Everyone here," said another voice from behind her. "Everyone from where you have been. Just pretty much…"
The speaker paused.
"Well. Too many people."
They all turned toward the voice as a young-looking boy stepped out.
He could not have been taller than five feet.
Several bandages wrapped different points of his body, some only partially hiding what seemed like burn scars.
His voice was meek and timid, like that of a child unsure if he should be speaking before adults.
And yet, it carried a weight of power that almost dared anyone to interrupt.
As they stared, his gaze moved over them.
Not timidly.
Not worriedly.
Precisely.
Like a doctor assessing damage on a patient before beginning treatment.
And despite it being only a glance, it felt like this young boy could delay death itself if he reached a wound in time.
"W-Who are you?" Selene asked after taking a moment to work up the courage.
The two strangers stood before them.
No one had even guessed they had been there.
For who knew how long.
"We are…" the boy said.
He hesitated, glancing toward the woman.
"Well, it's not really that simple. Just know we are here to help."
He looked toward the fire.
"Got a spot by the fire?"