Slam!
Gust and dust flew as the paw smashed the dwarf apart.
[ You have assisted in killing the Dwarf, Borin Stornhammer. ]
Spire rose, and Ciel watched as trickling blood drenched the paw's snow-white fingers, before the arm flailed to cast it aside.
She patted that fur just now.
A glimmer of pride filled Ciel's round eyes. She wanted to pat Stripey again, no reason in particular.
Though her enhanced senses tingled again, as CIel snapped behind and aimed.
An empty scenery, bustling with only the birds' chimes, confused her for a second.
Then-
Swish. A glint of iron flashed right below Ciel's neck, tilting just in time to dodge it by the shin.
Invisibility. Ciel made her conclusion before lifting the leg to kick up. The boot crashed right between something soft, before a pained gasp tore apart the silence.
Ouch. She winced a little in sympathy, guessed the man's height from where she kicked his part, then adjusted her staff.
Blue ray blasted, and any lingering groan was silenced.
[ You have slain the Fae Wringler. ]
Ciel clasped her hands in a small apology. Rainbow colours exploded before her eyes, revealing the now unhidden corpse of another humanoid.
Sparkling powders decorated his eyes and lips, his ears pointed like those of an elf. His lips remained a menacing curve even while dead.
Coupled with his skill to turn invisible, they were all traits belonging to a mischievous fae.
She then glanced at the name. Wringler. As she expected, the fae had just as weird a sense of naming as Quia.
"So."
She glanced to her left.
The humanoid archer, with furious, shaking eyes, met Ciel's calm, deep black gaze.
"Are you going to try fighting us again?"
With the surprise element expended, Ciel was testing for another possibility.
"Tch!" He clicked his tongue while turning on his heels. "Come and dare chase me! I promise my arrow will land its mark next time, no matter what!"
He sprinted off, the grass crunching under his steps.
Unlike him, Ciel merely stood straight and watched him off, till the shade of the forest devoured his figure at a distance.
Quia, noticing something, immediately jotted up to Ciel.
"A bait?" Quia smirked. "I like this. Sometimes, a guy who tries too hard to taunt you, it becomes pathetic."
"He's trying his best." Ciel sighed before her expression grew cold. "But I suspect he is really alone now."
Quia's experience may see the man's unnecessary taunt from earlier as a bait, thereby suspecting him to belong to a larger team than the three currently.
Ciel, however, only saw the basics.
"Why?" Quia frowned. "Don't you tell me you're pitying the poor guy's act."
"No, he is acting, I'm sure." Ciel shook her head. "But look logically: the dwarf from earlier wore such a bulky armour. If they belong to a larger team, shouldn't they use more mobile vanguards to lure us?"
Ciel continued. "Besides, I know of the Fae tribe as largely uncooperative folks unless necessary, and even they were almost guaranteed to betray to obey their beastly instinct."
Or else, from these millennial she lived, the fae tribe would've been an incredible den of assassins, but the shadebeasts deemed them beneficial to let live precisely because of their unpredictable nature.
"Eh…" Quia's voice trailed off, her voice flattening. "Couldn't that guy just…well, be as stupid as how he acted?"
"Well, we'll see."
Ciel began heading towards where the guy was escaping.
She was not afraid. Her danger sense spanned thirty feet wide, so even if the guy was luring them, she and Quia could escape easily.
Quia's shoulders fell before shrugging in a 'whatever' attitude, soon following Ciel at the side, readied to shield her when needed.
—------
They pursued the archer through the West, and Ciel soon came to a realisation.
"Isn't this the place… where Miss Dragon lived?"
The abode, where she and Miss Dragon used to stay, was towards the Western side of the forest.
Ciel clutched her chin, pondering. Her danger sense, while only able to detect 'hostility', indicated no enemies from afar.
Yet her senses still flared for the archer, his 'hostility' clinging to her skin, a clear sense that his 'lure' was not a mere pointless act.
'If so…'
Ciel's eyelids began to fall.
Come to think of it, the moment she saw the team, everything felt off.
A fae, while cooperative at times, naturally elicited distrust from humans. Millennia of bias could not be erased easily from humanity, so no human would take risk to team up with a fae.
Same with the team tactic. If it were to eliminate her, it would be far better to use the bulky dwarf as a taunt and bait, then sneak-attack them with the fae assassin and himself.
So, what could the humanoid archer possibly want?
Still walking, Ciel began sinking deep into thoughts before-
"...wait."
Something clinked in Ciel, a cog attaching itself to the puzzle.
"I forgot: the possibility he was a mimic…" she mumbled aloud.
Shadebeasts, demonstrated by the blonde mimic summoning the shadehounds earlier from the cliffside, were instinctively intertwined.
While they didn't necessarily behave like a hive mind, their natures allowed them to sense each other easily.
"You mean…"
Quia let out a defeated chuckle. "Ah… now I know why he acted so poorly…"
From afar, a noise startled the air.
"Hm? That's her! The one who had a point!"
Another humanoid, this time with pointed ears, shouted from a long, long distance, despite the shadows that made it impossible to see Ciel's small wristband.
Only creatures equally attuned to the dark could observe her so easily.
A winded breath escaped from Ciel, soft and steady.
Then, from her equally attuned eyes and enhanced senses, she observed the four figures from afar.
Three hesitated, while the elf who shouted earlier continued to urge his ally, as if obsessed with taking down Ciel.
The humanoid archer, perhaps a mimic, had lured her here to possibly take on his brethren, whom he sensed from afar as well.
Now, three more innocent bystanders fell into their traps.
"What a mess…"
Ciel mumbled under her breath. With a casual whirl of her staff, she turned with Quia to face their new enemies.
Quia, in particular, seethed her teeth at the elf. Her knuckles cracked inch by inch, her knees bent as if to dash out to lash at them, even abandoning Ciel in the process.
She seemed to make the same guess as Ciel's. The only difference was their sentiment towards an 'elf' mimic.
'That worked out for us, though, in the end.'
Ciel's calm thought, at this moment, betrayed Quia's wavering rage.
She wasn't quite sure how to comfort others, after all.