The small group traveled intermittently through the dense foliage, and as dusk rapidly approached, painting the horizon in deep shades of violet and amber, they still hadn't completely made their way out of the expansive forest. However, absolutely no one in the party was in any sort of hurry. They leisurely scanned the terrain below until they located a flat, clearing with relatively sparse vegetation, and prepared to settle down for the night.
After landing smoothly on the soft grass, Sakuya Izayoi and Hong Meiling immediately took the joint initiative to handle the physical labor of unpacking the equipment and setting up the heavy travel tents.
As for Flandre, she was currently dragging Remilia along by her sleeve, hopping up and down as she insisted on playing a round of hide and seek to pass the time. Remilia looked down at her energetic younger sister with a thoroughly helpless yet completely indulgent expression.
"Fine, fine! I will play a round with you..."
"Yay!" Flandre did a perfectly happy, synchronized somersault in mid-air, her crystal wings chiming like tiny glass bells.
Remilia turned her body around, covering her crimson eyes entirely with both of her pale hands. "I will be 'it' first. Go find a hiding spot quickly. Ten, nine, eight, seven..."
Hearing Remilia loudly begin the countdown, Flandre giggled excitedly and hurriedly ducked straight into the dense shadows of the nearby woods.
When Remilia finished counting down to zero, she didn't actually go looking for her sister immediately. Instead, she lazily dropped her hands and turned around to look back at her other companions. She saw Patchouli Knowledge staring directly at her from her levitating position with a distinct 'as expected' expression, her purple eyes clearly saying: 'You are shamelessly tricking your little sister again.'
Remilia shrugged her shoulders elegantly, silently indicating to Patchy that she hadn't technically lied to Flandre; after all, it was only natural that thoroughly finding someone in a massive forest would take a bit of time.
She first wandered around the immediate vicinity of the camp for a few minutes. Patchy and Letty were leaning against a mossy log chatting comfortably about elemental theory, while not far away, Sakuya and Meiling had already successfully pitched two complete tents and were actively working on assembling the third.
As for her hidden sister...
Remilia let out a small smile, unfolded her wings, and flew gracefully into the tree line. Before she had even traveled long, she easily spotted Flandre less than fifty meters away from the camp perimeter, hanging upside down from a thick oak branch and covertly peeking through the leaves directly back toward the campsite.
The corners of Remilia's mouth curled up into a thoroughly mischievous smile as she stealthily floated behind Flandre's blind spot. Noticing that Flandre's attention was still entirely, intensely focused on the forward clearing, Remilia gave a wicked grin and then suddenly pounced forward like a hungry tiger, hugging Flandre tight from behind.
"Caught you!"
"Wah!" Flandre threw her hands up into the air in a sudden, intense fright, her wings flaring violently before she instantly relaxed the exact microsecond she saw it was just Remilia. "Sister! How on earth did you manage to get all the way behind me so fast?!"
Flandre pouted, loudly insisting that she had been staring intently at the camp path the entire time, yet Remilia had somehow been a step ahead and ended up completely behind her without making a single sound.
"My foolish little sister, your older sister's stealth skills are as high as a three or four-story building; you won't be catching up to my level anytime soon!" Remilia declared proudly, reaching out to gently poke Flandre's forehead with a slender finger.
"I know, Elder Sister is super amazing!" Flandre blinked her ruby eyes, then suddenly wrapped her arms tightly around Remilia, rubbing her cheek vigorously against her sister's face like an affectionate kitten.
Remilia pinched Flandre's soft cheek affectionately. "Don't think this sudden display of cuteness will get you out of being 'it' for the next round. I am going to hide now. Cover your eyes tightly and count all the way to ten before you dare start looking for me."
After saying that, Remilia manually grabbed Flandre's small hands, placing them over the girl's eyes before instantly taking off into the canopy at high velocity.
"Ten, nine, eight..."
After carefully counting down ten full numbers, Flandre dropped her hands and excitedly looked around the clearing, but Remilia was already long gone without leaving a single trace or magical footprint behind.
Flandre immediately took flight, zipping through the upper branches as she began her thorough search. After completing her first wide lap around the perimeter, she found absolutely no trace of Remilia. The second, wider lap yielded completely nothing as well.
Flandre halted in mid-air, scratching her head in confusion, feeling like she desperately needed to use her brain more for this puzzle. Where on earth could Elder Sister be hiding?
Unable to find her through standard methods, Flandre had absolutely no choice but to activate her own unique cheat mode. With a bright flash of magical energy, she split her physical form into four identical clones, and the four Flandres simultaneously flew off into four entirely different directions across the forest.
Yet, even with four pairs of eyes scouring the woods, she still couldn't locate a single sign of Remilia anywhere.
Meanwhile, directly back at the campsite...
Remilia was sitting comfortably inside the primary tent, cross-legged on a soft cushion, peacefully playing a game of Gomoku against Patchouli on a portable board.
"Are you truly so completely sure that Flandre won't think to look inside the camp?" Patchouli asked, placing a black stone onto the grid.
"Don't I know exactly how my own sister's mind operates?" Remilia laughed with a sneaky, "Jie jie jie" chuckle as she placed a white stone. "The hiding range we formally agreed upon was no more than five hundred meters from the center of the camp. So she will naturally search every single tree and bush within that exact geometric radius, but she will never imagine in her wildest dreams that I am right here inside the tent."
Patchouli rolled her eyes dramatically at her childhood friend; this aristocratic vampire certainly didn't hold back when it came to playfully messing with her own younger sister.
Flandre had been circling around the upper canopy for a very long time without finding a single clue when Sakuya Izayoi gently approached her position.
"Second Miss, dinner is completely ready. Please come down to the camp and eat!"
"But I haven't successfully found Sister yet!" Flandre complained, her lower lip trembling with unwillingness as her four clones merged back into one.
"How about we all eat a warm dinner first, and then you can continue to look for her after we are entirely finished?" Sakuya persuaded her with immense, gentle patience.
"But..." Flandre still desperately wanted to find her sister first to prove her tracking skills.
"The Eldest Miss will be deeply unhappy with you if you skip your dinner!" Sakuya deployed her absolute finishing move with a calm expression.
Hearing this unanswerible argument, Flandre's shoulders immediately slumped, and she finally flew back down to the campsite alongside the maid. When she reached the center of the clearing, she found Remilia already sitting there perfectly composed, sipping her tea.
Flandre flew over, dropping down to sit right beside her. "Sister is so incredibly amazing! Flandre looked for so long and couldn't find your hiding spot at all!"
Remilia glanced out of the corner of her eye at Patchouli and Letty, who were currently desperately stifling their laughter behind their hands, and then looked back down at Flandre with an intensely serious, dramatic face.
"Little Flandre, you still have much to learn and master before you can truly stand on your own two feet and share your older sister's heavy aristocratic burdens."
Flandre immediately put on an intensely determined, serious expression, pumping her small fist. "Flandre will definitely work extra hard!"
"As a direct punishment for failing to find me this time, your favorite dessert pudding for tonight is formally confiscated!" Remilia's commanding voice rang out again.
"No way! Anything but the pudding!" Flandre cried out in horror, her hands instantly shooting forward to grab Remilia's 'evil' hand just as it reached toward the dessert plate.
Then, the two sisters began a chaotic, laughing physical scuffle over the food on the rug, while the rest of the group watched the display with thoroughly speechless, amused expressions.
"Is it always this incredibly lively and chaotic at your Scarlet Devil Mansion?" Letty remarked with a slight smirk, having witnessed the entire theatrical scene unfold.
"Uh, generally not this often," Patchouli clarified softly, turning a page of her book. "Remi is simply in an exceptionally good mood today, so she is actually willing to drop her guard and play along with Flandre for a bit."
One had to fundamentally know that Remilia took her own personal noble dignity and majestic vampire reputation very seriously. If she heard Letty's casual comment labeling her as childish, she would probably be quite depressed for the rest of the night.
After playing around for a while longer, the group finished their meals and prepared to settle in to rest. Just then, a strange, low rustling sound echoed from the dark brush, and they looked up at their primitive surroundings.
Dozens of glowing, predatory eyes slowly emerged from the dense shadows. A massive, coordinated pack of native infected beasts appeared from all directions, completely surrounding Remilia's group in the absolute center of the clearing.
"My, there sure are a lot of wild beasts roaming around this frontier," Remilia noted with complete composure, calmly taking a slow sip of hot black tea from her porcelain cup without moving an inch.
"It is entirely normal; most vast sectors of this planet are completely uninhabited by civilized societies," Patchouli explained, pushing up her glasses as she shared her academic perspective. "Areas left completely devoid of humans will naturally be fully occupied by wild beasts. Furthermore, given the frequent natural Catastrophes ripping across the land, only species possessing exceptionally high fertility rates and survival instincts are qualified to pass on their genetic legacy. These wolf-like lifeforms are indeed a species very well-suited for brutal survival."
Sakuya smoothly drew several silver throwing knives between her fingers, the metal gleaming in the firelight. "Do they need to be completely annihilated, Mistress?"
"These poor creatures already have an incredibly hard time surviving in a harsh world like this, and the heavens above possess the virtue of loving life. Leave them to me!" Hong Meiling stepped forward with a confident grin, reaching out to press down on Sakuya's raised knives.
Looking directly at the snarling, approaching infected beasts, the gatekeeper spread both of her hands wide, and a powerful, dense wave of invisible 'Qi' energy instantly diffused into the surrounding atmosphere like a crushing spiritual shockwave.
The exact microsecond they came into physical contact with Meiling's intense 'Qi,' the predatory beasts that had been acting so fierce and bloodthirsty just a single moment prior instantly locked up. They acted as if they had suddenly encountered their ultimate, ancient natural enemy, whining and whimpering in sheer terror as they turned on their heels and fled in all directions into the panic-stricken dark woods.
Having cleanly finished the task without spilling a single drop of blood, Hong Meiling withdrew her hands and dusted them off. "Done!"
Flandre immediately hovered over to her side, her eyes sparkling. "Wow, Meiling, you are so incredibly amazing! How on earth did you do that just now?!"
Hong Meiling's mouth curled up into a thoroughly smug, heroic protagonist grin as she crossed her arms proudly. "It's simple, Second Miss; even the wild creatures of this foreign world understand the concept of a natural hierarchy!"