"But why are you here? I thought you were still busy scouting the surroundings," Arin asked. Valentina remained silent for nearly three minutes, waiting for some kind of reaction from him, but Arin continued staring out over the valley without even turning toward her. He barely reacted to her presence, and the longer the silence continued, the more irritated she became. She had expected at least a little more interest from him, especially after they had not seen one another for quite some time.
"No, we were done pretty quickly with that one," Valentina finally replied. "There is nothing surrounding this location for several kilometers, which is not particularly strange in itself considering that there is a secret realm here. But there is not even any proof of life where the guards who should be guarding the portal are supposed to be." Her tone carried clear disappointment as she explained what her family had discovered. The absence of the guards was not simply unusual; it was suspicious enough that she could not ignore it.
"Not even here, where the village is. That is odd," Arin said.
He knew roughly how heavily secret realms were normally guarded. Even factions that owned their own secret realms were required by law to maintain a permanent force around them because secret realms were considered far too dangerous to leave without supervision. They were not simply unusual locations that could be ignored once discovered. A secret realm could become a serious threat if something went wrong, which was why governments had established strict requirements concerning their protection.
Many factions did not even want to waste their own manpower on guarding a secret realm. Instead, they simply paid the government for the salaries and benefits of the soldiers stationed there. That allowed the faction to deploy its own people somewhere else while still fulfilling the legal requirement to have a permanent force protecting the portal. It was an arrangement that made sense for everyone involved, especially since governments already maintained professional soldiers capable of performing the job.
That was why the complete absence of guards was so strange to Arin. There should have been people stationed around the portal even if the faction responsible for the secret realm had no interest in personally providing them. The village being empty only made the situation more suspicious, because there should have been even more people around an established settlement. Instead, there appeared to be almost nobody.
"Not even where the village is. There is no sign of the previous occupants, which is really strange," Valentina said with worry creeping into her voice. Her family had occasionally been hired by the government to test the defenses around secret realms, so they had firsthand experience with how difficult those locations were supposed to be to approach. The guards were normally well prepared, and getting anywhere near a secret realm without being noticed was considered a challenge.
Their family had tested those defenses enough times to know that the security around secret realms was not something to underestimate. Even when they were deliberately searching for weaknesses, getting close without being detected could be difficult. Seeing an apparently abandoned location with no guards, no visible inhabitants, and no obvious signs of the people who should have been there was therefore more than strange.
To Valentina, it was simply stupid.
"But not to worry. We just have to kill all the creatures inside the secret realm, and then we are good to go," Valentina said with a happy smile. Her tone was almost cheerful as she spoke, making the statement sound far more casual than it probably should have. The idea of entering a dangerous secret realm and killing everything inside it did not seem to bother her in the slightest. If anything, she sounded almost eager to get started.
"Good to hear, but don't get distracted with scouting. Don't forget why we were sent here in the first place," Arin said seriously.
"Of course I can't forget," Valentina replied in a completely normal tone.
Her answer sounded so ordinary that Arin did not question it. If he had turned around at that moment, however, he would have seen the reason her voice sounded strangely calm. Valentina was wearing an extremely cruel smile beneath her mask, and her eyes seemed to shine with an almost blood-red light through the narrow opening of her hood.
Gaia had given her family a hit list.
And they were more than happy to fulfill it.
The Assassin Family lived by assassination, and they had their own rules about who they would and would not kill. Gaia's targets did not break those rules, meaning there was no moral conflict within the family about carrying out the assignments. If anything, being given permission to target such high-value individuals was practically a dream come true for a family whose entire profession revolved around eliminating dangerous people.
Valentina was particularly pleased with the opportunity.
Arin, however, had no idea what expression she was making.
"Brrr," Arin thought as a shiver suddenly ran through his body. He tried to ignore it, assuming that it was simply some strange instinct or perhaps the result of the atmosphere around the secret realm. He did not bother turning around to investigate the source of the feeling. If he had, he might have understood exactly why his instincts were suddenly warning him.
"But Arin, how are you doing? I have not seen you in a long time," Valentina asked in a sultry tone.
"I have been doing fine. The forest expanded, so that was a big plus, but for the rest, not much has been going on," Arin answered. He spoke casually, his attention still directed away from her. His thoughts were already drifting back toward the Crimson Forest and everything that had happened there.
He had not heard the tone in Valentina's voice.
"Eugh. Stupid blockhead. Why does he not turn around?" Valentina thought. She had been hoping to see what had changed about him, and she was almost certain that she had noticed green hair. Something had definitely changed, and she wanted to see it properly. Yet Arin remained stubbornly focused on whatever he was thinking about instead of giving her the attention she wanted.
"Please look me in the eyes, Arin, when I am talking to you. That is considered polite," Valentina said, with a slight hint of anger entering her voice.
"Okay, okay. Why are you always so impatient?" Arin asked as he finally turned around.
He looked directly into Valentina's eyes with a questioning expression. Until that point, he had been having a perfectly good time sitting there and thinking about the forest that was still waiting for him. Being able to spend time thinking about his home had been one of the few things making his forced assignment tolerable, so he had not exactly been eager to interrupt those thoughts.
"Oh wow. He has changed, and for the better," Valentina thought.
A pleased smile appeared on her face beneath the mask as she finally got a proper look at him. The green hair immediately caught her attention. She had not expected such a noticeable change, and she clearly liked what she saw.
"I am not impatient. It is just that you are always rude," Valentina said. "And some things have certainly changed. Just look at your hair. And when were you going to tell me that you had changed after I beat you when my family had our graduation?"
Her question referred to the tradition between their families. The Assassin Family sometimes sent their children to the Sonnenbergs so they could experience what it was like to deal with people who were better at hiding than they were. It was a way of testing their skills against another family that specialized in stealth and concealment. Naturally, the Sonnenbergs had their own pride when it came to remaining hidden in their forest.
"What? You beat me in the forest?" Arin asked.
He sounded genuinely surprised by the claim.
"What makes you so sure? Don't forget that it is my forest, and nothing escapes our eyes in there," Arin said with an incredibly predatory smile.
The moment Valentina mentioned beating him in the forest, his entire attitude changed. The forest was one of the few things Arin possessed absolute confidence in, and the idea that someone had managed to defeat him there immediately caught his attention. His expression became almost predatory as his competitive instincts surfaced.
"Yeah, sure. As if you could ever find me if I decided to hide," Valentina replied.
Her voice carried a provocative confidence as she looked at him through the narrow opening of her mask and hood. She clearly believed that her own family's abilities were enough to challenge the Sonnenbergs even within their territory. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in backing down from the challenge.
"Anywhere other than a forest, maybe. But don't forget there is a reason why your family has never changed their exam location," Arin said confidently.
He walked past Valentina as he spoke, already moving toward his workshop. He had no intention of standing around discussing the matter indefinitely. As far as Arin was concerned, the forest remained the ultimate environment for his family, and he had every reason to believe that his home-field advantage was significant.
Valentina watched as Arin jumped down the side of the barn and disappeared from her sight.
"Why are those bows more important than catching up with me? I will get him for this. I hope he drowns in those bows," she thought angrily.
She then stormed off, clearly dissatisfied with how their conversation had gone. Arin, meanwhile, had already moved on and was thinking about his workshop and the bows he could work on. The two of them had somehow managed to have completely different experiences during the same conversation.
"Well, that went well. Man, is he dense," Tom said as he took a bite from his apple.
"Well, that we already knew. But you know how he is," Bill replied with a sigh.
They had all grown up with Arin, so his behavior was hardly surprising to them. His tendency to become completely absorbed in whatever interested him had been obvious for years. Once something caught his attention, getting him to focus on anything else could become surprisingly difficult.
"That is true. He was glued to the portal for the last few days, so being ripped away from his obsession so abruptly is not going to sit well with him. He will just close himself off," Bertho said while shaking his head.
"True. That is why I don't know why Grandma made him go," Tom replied.
All of them had seen that look on their grandmother's face. It was the kind of look that made it clear there would be absolutely no arguing. Whatever reason Annemiek had for sending Arin away, she had clearly decided that it was necessary.
"I also find it strange, but they must have a plan. Otherwise, Grandma Annemiek would not have done anything," Bill said.
He paused for a moment before sighing.
"Because if Karl gave that order, there would have been hell to pay."
The three of them understood exactly what he meant. They had all grown up alongside Arin and knew him well. If Arin truly did not want to do something, there were very few things that could force him to do it. As he had grown older, he had also become much better at hiding his intentions, which made it even harder for people to control him.
Even his mother could no longer simply force him to do something he had decided against. Arin had become too good at disappearing when he wanted to avoid something, and once he hid himself somewhere in the forest, anyone trying to find him had better have been prepared for a very long search.
"Well, anyway, let's get back to work before someone catches us," Bertho said.
He stood up and walked away, with Tom and Bill following closely behind him. Whatever strange conversation had just occurred, there was still work to be done. And with Arin already heading toward his workshop, the three of them had little reason to remain there and continue discussing him.