Talio almost instantly regretted his decision as the female archer shot daggers at him, and he could feel her glare even if the X covering her face hid the expression itself.
"Why should I?"
Talio smiled, and for some reason the image of a wild cat flashed through his mind cornered and tense, but still dangerous.
"Well, we both seem to be outcasts in our group. So, we outcasts should stick together and help each other out. And between you and me, I think we should whisper to each other."
A stunned look, at least the posture of one, showed on the female archer's features. Talio's gut twisted, but it told him the approach would work.
She sighed and, in a hushed tone, asked:
"What do you want to know?"
Now it was Talio's turn to be taken aback; he expected to need far more persuasion. Without giving her a moment to question his reaction, he replied:
"Could I know how you got separated from your group?"
Silence followed… then another shift in her facial feature, to that of a sorrowful one, though Talio couldn't see it which prompted him to bluntly repeat:
"Erm… what happened?"
The archer girl turned toward him, her body language asking how could you be so insincere then sighed. Talio kept quiet, hiding his thoughts behind a stoic mask.
"Our team was quite strong. We were meant to be one of the main vanguards alongside Leah's group."
A painful expression sprawled across her features, Talio couldn't see it, but the way her shoulders tensed made it obvious. This time he took the hint and remained silent, his expression unchanged. A question nagged at him, and he debated asking it.
'Well since I've started it, I might as well keep up this act of a cold-hearted person.'
"Are you some sort of noble?"
Her head dipped slightly toward the ground. Talio already suspected the answer, and her next words confirmed it. In an even quieter tone than before, he only caught two faintly whispered words:
"Fallen… noble."
He looked at her, saying nothing, but a knot tightened in his stomach. Hearing it directly from her hit harder than he expected, and guilt stirred for forcing the question. He let the silence linger between them before asking another:
"What's your name?"
The archer girl stared at him while he intentionally looked toward the other members of the group, avoiding her gaze.
'I don't like this conversation at all, it feels like I'm interrogating her.'
Then something entirely unexpected happened. She laughed. Talio, who had been trying to avoid eye contact, snapped his head toward her with a surprised expression.
"Sorry about that. It's just funny that you ask my name now, again. You know, you're a lot kinder than I gave you credit for."
A slight scowl appeared on his face as she took a deep breath and continued:
"Hmm. I think I'll tell you if we both make it out alive."
Talio winced.
"You've most definitely jinxed us."
She smiled, though it slowly twisted into something regretful. The archer girl clenched her fist as she whispered:
"I will get revenge for my parents. Those greedy bastard nobles—and especially those damn Kings."
Talio continued staring into the distance without replying, prompting her to ask:
"Are you not going to try to stop me? My close friends all tried to persuade me to stop, but you haven't said anything."
A brief moment of silence stretched between them before Talio smiled faintly and answered:
"I won't encourage it. After all, revenge is never a good life goal. However, I have no right to stop you, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite."
Questions flooded the archer's mind; he could tell from the brief silence in the air, but he quickly cut her off.
"So are you going to continue? You've only told me that your group was a strong one, not how they died."
He tried to read her expression and failed, eventually returning to staring off into the cavern. Realizing he intended to steer the conversation away from her questions, she continued:
"We met… a horrifying monster."
Talio raised an eyebrow.
"So you guys got killed by a single monster?"
"No… we killed each other. Not because we were controlled, but of our own choice."
Another pause followed, tension thickening around them. Talio was left alone with his thoughts.
'Why is she pausing so much? Is it to add suspense? But… what she did say was concerning.'
"We met an unconscious young girl who was injured. Obviously our group was skeptical about a girl being in this dungeon. However, none of us were cold-hearted enough to leave her, so we took her with us. The next day she was still with us but… one of our members could not see her."
"What? You mean she disappeared or that only they could not see her?"
Without skipping a beat, she answered instantly, unlike before, as if she wanted to end the story as quickly as possible.
"He could not sense her at all. We tried to list possible reasons, but nothing was solid. We debated leaving the girl behind since things didn't add up, but the others were convinced she was human, and because that opinion came from a former doctor, we believed him."
Talio held his breath for the briefest moment.
'This is going to take a dark turn…'
"We progressed like normal. The girl eventually woke up, she seemed scared but sane. Unfortunately, I noticed the man who couldn't see her didn't help us fight any monsters. When I confronted him, he seemed confused and thought we were just training, since he didn't see anything attacking us. In the end, we concluded he went insane from the pressure, but we didn't rule out an external influence."
"Was he not infected?"
The girl shook her head and continued:
"No. He didn't sustain any injuries, he was quite strong, Adeptus ranked and his personality stayed the same until about a day ago. Then unexpectedly and with no warning he snapped. He lunged at the girl and tried to kill her. Our other members stopped him, and a fight broke out. Myself and a close friend remained in front of the girl to protect whilst the other two went to go fight him. They tried not to kill him until he killed one of us, which pushed the other into a rage. He killed him whilst his guard was down killing the other member. But before he died, he said the girl was a monster wearing human skin."
She smiled faintly, though her posture slumped. Talio noticed the change and asked:
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just think he was wrong about the girl being a monster."
"Why's that?"
Her smile twisted into something so remorseful that even Talio could feel it.
"It's because she was never there to begin with."
Unease coiled around Talio's body as he hesitantly asked:
"What do you mean by that?"
Another pause.
"She never interacted with anything. She never ate food. She barely made a sound. But what I found most concerning was that she never looked directly at our faces. It seemed we were too busy worrying about our teammate's sanity to notice anything else."
She sighed.
"After the death of two of our squad, the last member slowly walked toward us. My close friend tried to grab the girl's hand, but she suddenly froze in place. Then she unsheathed a dagger and cut the girl's head clean off. I was rooted to the spot scared, anxious, confused, as I watched my friend and our remaining member fight. She kept repeating to herself that she saw a monster in the girl. I couldn't bring myself to take a step forward as I watched my friend die to the last member. He looked at me tired, but still ready to fight if necessary. But then we both looked at the girl's body… and it was gone."
"You don't have to carry on anymore, you know."
Talio said it as he saw her body shiver and twitch from the memories. Even so, she persisted.
"In the end he committed suicide, unable to bear the guilt of killing his comrades for no reason. And there I was, the coward who somehow became the last person standing, left alone..."