Chapter 16: Unspoken Shadows and the Trail to the Heights

"Finally..."

The group dropped their pace to a heavy, staggered walk, their lungs burning as they put distance between themselves and the crumbling silhouette of the cathedral.

Reika leaned her hands against her knees, letting out a long, ragged exhale. "God... that was way too close."

"What on earth was that device you used to trick them back there?" Liora asked, her sharp green eyes shifting toward Ren. Nearby, Miku, Reika, and Ryu all turned their attention to him as well, waiting for an explanation.

Ren scratched the back of his neck, offering a slightly awkward smile. "Oh, you mean the thing that made the green cloud?"

"Yeah. That."

"It’s just a smoke grenade," Ren answered simply.

"A... smoke grenade?" Liora tilted her head, her brow furrowing slightly as she picked at the unfamiliar terminology.

Before Ren could elaborate, Miku threw her arm around Liora’s shoulders with unceremonious familiarity. "Ah, don’t worry about it! Get used to it—this guy’s full of strange gear you’ve never seen before."

Ryu crossed his arms, staring at Miku’s sudden display of intimacy with a quiet scoff. "Acting like best friends already..."

Miku’s head snapped toward him, her eyebrows twitching. "Hey! I heard that, Ryu!"

Liora politely adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, casually sliding out from under Miku’s arm. "So... is it magic?"

The question hung in the air. Miku, Reika, and Ryu instantly turned back to Ren, their eyes filled with quiet curiosity. ℯℯ𝑙.

"Ah... no, not really," Ren waved his hand dismissively, keeping his expression neutral. "It’s just a small survival tool I put together. Nothing fancy."

Reika stepped closer, her eyes narrowing playfully as she leaned in to inspect him. "Just how many tools are you hiding in that shirt pocket of yours anyway? It doesn’t even look like it can fit a copper coin, let alone a metal cylinder."

Feeling the heat of their suspicion, Ren bent over slightly, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath—a quick maneuver to break eye contact and redirect the flow of the conversation.

"Anyway... thanks for coming back for me," Ren breathed out, looking up at the group with a faint, relieved smile. "If you guys hadn’t shown up when you did, I would’ve been in serious trouble. How did you even figure out where I was?"

Miku let out a dry sigh, rolling her eyes as she noticed his blatant dodge. "Smooth transition, genius..."

"We didn’t even know how we got separated in the first place," Miku explained, throwing her hands up slightly. "When the portal spat us out, the three of us landed right outside a small wooden house. That’s where we ran into her." She pointed a thumb toward Liora, who stood with her arms folded silently.

"Right," Reika added, still pacing her breathing to settle her heartbeat. "When we realized you weren’t with us, Liora offered to help track you down."

Ryu adjusted the grip on his weapon, his expression turning grim. "While we were searching through the tree line, we spotted that crazy woman walking down the path with the giant beast. The monster was carrying you."

Ren blinked, pointing a finger at his own chest. "Wait... the monster was carrying me?"

All three of them nodded in unison without a moment’s hesitation.

Ren’s eye twitched slightly. The thought of being hauled around like luggage by an eight-foot-tall horror gave him a sudden skin-crawling sensation.

"That woman... Vora," Reika mused, her tone dropping into something far more serious. "She’s definitely not some ordinary wanderer."

Liora, who had been standing quietly at the edge of the group, finally spoke up. "She isn’t."

She took two slow, measured steps toward Ren, her boots clicking against the hard soil. "She isn’t just an inhabitant of this place. She is the master of this entire dimension." Her green eyes locked onto Ren’s face, scanning every detail of his reaction with razor-sharp scrutiny. "Which begs the question... why is someone like her hunting *you*?"

"Hunting Ren?" Miku rubbed her chin, processing the thought out loud. It didn’t add up. Why would an entity capable of commanding high-tier aberrations go out of her way to capture a simple porter?

"What do you mean?" Ren asked, his brow furrowing as a cold prickle of unease washed down his spine.

Liora slowly turned, pacing back and forth with her arms crossed over her chest. "I don’t know her exact motives yet. But make no mistake—her target is undeniably you."

Ren felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A persistent, nagging doubt began to form in the back of his mind. There was something deeply wrong with this situation—something tied directly to this body, to its past, and to the terrifying obsession held by the woman named Vora.

Shaking off the cold sensation, Ren shifted his gaze back to Liora. "What about you? What are you doing in a place like this?"

"Ah, right," Miku chimed in eagerly. "We came here looking for Princess Evelyn. We tracked her footprints straight into the portal."

Liora paused mid-step. Her brow furrowed sharply, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing her features. "A portal?"

Ryu, Reika, and Miku all nodded. Ryu watched Liora closely, his sharp instincts picking up on the subtle anomaly in her reaction. She looked less like someone receiving new information and more like someone hearing a completely illogical statement.

"A portal..." Liora repeated, her voice dripping with skepticism as she turned fully toward them. "Where exactly did you find a portal leading into this realm?"

The group exchanged brief glances before Ryu spoke up. "In a cavern not far from the Starlight Kingdom. Just outside the eastern border wall."

"A cavern...?"

The word trailed off. Liora stared at them, her expression unsettled, as if the very existence of an entrance near the kingdom breached some fundamental law she knew to be absolute.

"Is something wrong?" Ren asked, narrowing his eyes as he watched the shift in her demeanor.

Liora closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, giving a slight shake of her head as if sweeping away an inconvenient thought. "No... it’s nothing."

She turned away from them, her back facing the group as her silver hair caught the dim, eerie light of the dimension. "So, your sole objective here is to find Princess Evelyn."

"That’s right," Ryu replied firmly.

Ren stepped forward, his eyes locked onto her back. "Wait a minute. If we’re here to find the Princess... what’s *your* goal in this place?"

Liora froze.

For a single frame of a second, her shoulders tensed, caught entirely off guard by the directness of the question.

She glanced back over her shoulder, her voice dropping into a quiet, strangely detached register. "My goal...? I don’t have one anymore."

The tone carried no anger or bitterness—only a flat, hollow weight that sounded eerily like total surrender.

"What?" Miku muttered, her eyebrows drawing together.

"What do you mean by that?" Ren pressed, taking another step closer. "How did you end up trapped in Vora’s domain in the first place?"

Silence descended upon the group.

Liora didn’t answer right away. She offered a small, quiet smile, her eyes shimmering with a faint moisture that she immediately fought back, masking it behind a wall of calm composure.

"Never mind that," she said smoothly, turning back to face them with an expression that looked entirely composed. "My reasons don’t matter right now."

Her mouth curved into a bright, pleasant smile—an expression so sudden and flawless that it felt almost artificial. "Isn’t the priority getting out of here and rescuing Princess Evelyn?"

Ren stared at her, his brow furrowing deeper. Behind him, Reika, Miku, and Ryu remained silent, but the sudden shift in atmosphere was unmissable.

Her smile was delicate and beautiful, yet it carried an unmistakable hollowness—like a carefully painted porcelain mask meant to cover a well of quiet, unuttered grief. The sudden transition from distant and hollow to brightly cooperative felt wrong, a defense mechanism thrown up the moment her motivations were touched upon.

"As it happens," Liora continued, pointing her hand toward a jagged, dark mountain range that cut high into the gloom ahead, "I know where Princess Evelyn is."

The group perked up instantly.

"Shortly before I met you three," Liora said, her tone businesslike once more, "I caught a glimpse of her heading up toward those cliffs."

Reika gripped the hilt of her blade, her eyes lighting up. "Then we don’t have time to waste. We need to move right now."

Ryu and Miku nodded in agreement, their focus immediately returning to the mission.

"Follow me," Liora said, turning toward the steep, winding path leading toward the highlands. She cast a brief glance over her shoulder at the four of them as they fell into step behind her. "Stay alert. The path ahead won’t be anywhere near as quiet as you hope."