The quartet of people sat around in the middle of the tunnel, Layna’s ward stones placed around them – she still had those from her stint in the Bellowing Jungle rift. Layna also provided the bread to munch on and drinks to wash it down with. Truly, the most valuable member of their ragtag group.

  The same couldn’t be said about the other person they’d picked up.

  As they filled their stomachs, the twins had their focus stolen entirely by the extremely suspicious human currently admiring her Mythical essence as she nibbled on some moonlight bread.

  “They are called soul cards. You get essence for killing something… or someone,” Layna explained. “There’s several Rarities and Mythical is one of the highest.”

  “I see… But where did this come from…?” the human murmured.

  At least she seemed like she truly didn’t know. Which made it even weirder. How did one just randomly get a high rarity essence like that?

  “As far as we know, you can only get Mythicals from difficult rift Bosses.” Dawn paused. “...Or maybe shepherds?”

  “Shepherds?”

  The twins held in a sigh, instead opting to take another bite of their food.

  Why did they have to explain everything to this human? Well, luckily, Layna was here, so they didn’t actually have to be the ones to explain everything, but still.

  “Do you remember anything from before you woke up in this tunnel?” the catkin eventually asked.

  “I…” The human paused mid-way through taking a bite, as if considering something. Then she suddenly sat up ramrod. “Sherry!”

  The others startled.

  “What?”

  “My sister! Sherry! I was with her when th– Uh…” The human wilted when she saw the look the twins were giving her.

  “Amnesia, huh?”

  “I-I guess I still remember some things?” She shook her head. “Never mind! My sister! Did you see someone else in these tunnels? She looks like me, but is three years younger. She, uh, wears a different uniform. Hers is dark blue with a red ribbon…”

  The twins and Layna exchanged a brief look before looking back.

  “Sorry, we haven’t seen anyone.”

  The human wilted.

  “…I see.”

  They had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, anyone could tell how clearly distraught she was about her situation – no matter how much of what she’d said was true.

  On the other hand, they had enough experience with humans to know better than to blindly trust them.

  But in the end, they still wanted to help, no matter how naive it may be.

  “We’ll help you find her.”

  The human turned her wide eyes to them.

  “Or at least help you get to a town. It’s the least we can do.”

  The human’s expression slowly turned into a small smile.

  “But! I still don’t like how you’re hiding things,” Dawn said with narrowed eyes. “You remember your name and your sister. You probably remember even more, don’t you?”

  The girl froze, then looked to the side.

  “I… Well… It’s all blurry… I only remember patches.”

  The twins pursed their lips.

  She still refused to say anything concrete. They didn’t like that one bit.

  What if whatever she was hiding turned out to be a massive problem down the road? Something that might even get them killed?

  The twins wanted to interrogate her about what she’d almost said, but decided to hold off on it for now. With how these tunnels kept going, they would have plenty of time to grill her about what she really remembered, after all. They could leave her to eat in peace for now.

  And, well, she already looked distraught enough and they didn’t want to keep adding to that. No matter their mood and feelings, they refused to act like… like Jake.

  “What do you remember then?” Layna asked, surprising the twins. “If you tell us more, finding your sister would get easier.”

  The human paused, clearly weighing her options.

  “I…” She swallowed as something flickered in her eyes. “I was out shopping with Sherry when there was this earthquake.”

  The twins’ gaze sharpened.

  They had felt some tremors soon after entering the tunnels. They had thought it to be hunters fighting off the Bosses and Elites, but maybe there was more to it than they thought?

  “Then it felt like something broke around us. Not… the ground, but something else?” She shook her head. “It looked like a crack in space. Reality just crumbled and before I knew it, we were falling through a kaleidoscope of colors. And then… I think we hit something. And then I woke up… here.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The human… Linza, peeked up at the trio, somehow looking even more vulnerable than back when she’d broken down crying.

  The twins had no idea what to make of her story. Cracks in space? Reality crumbling? Falling through… what?

  “What’s a kaleidoscope…?” Dawn asked.

  Linza tensed.

  “Uh… it’s like this… wild mix of colorful shapes, I guess?”

  Dawn hummed, still no idea what to make of this.

  “...That sounds like some kind of teleportation skill,” Layna slowly murmured. “Maybe someone tried to kidnap you with teleportation but messed up?”

  Dusk blinked, surprised a baker knew what a teleportation skill looked like. But then again, the catkin were known for their battle-oriented mindset.

  Linza looked startled by the idea.

  “K-Kidnap? But why? I’m a nobody!”

  “Maybe it was an accident?” Dawn suggested. “A teleportation skill gone wrong? Who knows what kind of skills the S-ranks had?”

  The human stared at them with wide eyes, then wilted again.

  “And I don’t suppose I could have them send me back, huh?”

  Dawn grimaced.

  “Not a good idea. You’ll die out there searching for them. But does it matter? You can just walk back after you find your sister. Where are you from, anyway? Voss or Gretinol? Not Vargarott I’m guessing?”

  Once again, the human averted her gaze and they knew to brace for a lie before she even opened her mouth.

  “I… don’t remember. Probably neither?”

  The twins pursed their lips, annoyed that she’d gone back to lying. Although…

  “You don’t recognize any of these countries, do you?”

  Linza winced.

  “...No.”

  The twins sighed once more while Layna gave the human a concerned look. Luckily, she had a map in that convenient relic of hers and promptly pulled it out to show Linza.

  Dusk did not like the lack of recognition in the human’s eyes as she stared at the world map.

  Maybe she wasn’t lying about the partial amnesia then? Or maybe nobody had ever shown her a map?

  Yeah, probably the former.

  “We’re in Vargarott right now. Over here is Anxia and… Well, they aren’t on the map, but there are several underground tunnels leading out of the city and we’re in one of them right now.”

  The twins ignored the rest of the impromptu geography lesson and instead had their attention stolen by a specific city on the map – Estra Dolla.

  They couldn’t help but worry about their party and whether they’d actually made it out or not. Had they arrived in Estra Dolla yet? Was Minn alright? Had they found a good enough healer for her arm?

  Too many questions and the lack of answers made them jittery.

  They continued to nibble on their shiny bread as they stewed in it.

  “So… About this ‘essence’,” the human asked, drawing their attention back to her. “What exactly does it do? Besides glowing, I mean.”

  “You can combine essences to make skills,” Dawn helpfully supplied.

  “Oh… So I need one more.” The human frowned, somehow looking disappointed to have only one Mythical essence.

  “Two. You need to combine three essences. Combining just two gets you a Fractional skill. And those are useless.”

  “Huh… Okay, so two more. Hmm… You said I need to… kill something? Like a monster?”

  “Ideally, yeah.”

  Her shoulders dropped as she let out a sigh.

  “I need to kill two monsters with my bare hands to get my first spell…?” she murmured.

  Dusk rolled his eyes.

  “You don’t need to kill anything. You can buy the essences.”

  “...Right.”

  “...Don’t tell me you have no money.”

  The human twitched.

  “Well, I do, but not much? And, uh… I can’t really buy any right here, can I?”

  The twins pursed their lips.

  The main issue was that Linza somehow didn’t have any skills. If they were to run into more monsters right now, she would be dead weight. She needed to make some kind of skill, but they also didn’t want to give away their good essences to a random human.

  Although… They did have a bunch of essences they never planned on using, didn’t they? It would be kind of mean of them to give her those, but…

  “Well. We could give you some essences for free,” Dawn said, her tone sly.

  The human paused, then gave them a leery look.

  “...You would?”

  Dawn huffed.

  “Well, here’s the thing. When someone killed the shepherd in the Saltglass Fortress and everything blew up, the monsters started to drop these… really weird essences. We still don’t know what they do, but… look. They flicker. And also glow? Kind of like your–”

  The moment Dawn pulled out the messed-up Legendary she’d gotten from the Brine Colossus Elite, she paused as she felt something tug at the essence.

  Her eyes snapped to the human’s glowing one. Sure enough, the pink light seemed to suddenly flow from the Mythical card to the one Dawn held.

  They expected something to happen. An explosion, a flash, the essence getting shredded… but nothing.

  “...Kind of like your essence. Okay, what is this?”

  “I… don’t know?” The human said for what had to be the thousandth time today. “It feels like my card is trying to… do something to yours?”

  Dawn quickly put the essence back into her soul pocket and the odd lightshow ended.

  The others stared as nothing drastic happened.

  Dawn pulled it back out and the Mythical’s light latched onto it once more.

  “This is… weird. But it’s not doing anything?”

  Dawn paused, weighing her choices, then shuffled closer to the human and reached out with her strange card toward the Mythical one.

  Sure enough, the closer she got, the more the light converged and seemed to seep into her card.

  She locked eyes with Linza. An understanding passed between them, and the human nodded, holding her own card out.

  They tapped the cards together.

  The moment they touched, Dawn felt the Mythical light seep into her own card and start changing it – repairing it, perhaps?

  The essence began shifting and flickering faster and faster until neither the title nor the art was legible. Letters and pictures whirled together into nonsense as the card underwent its metamorphosis.

  Everyone balked as the rim of the card changed from the golden laurel leaf of Legendaries to the purple lattice pattern of Epics and its title and art finally stabilized.

  ◆Core◆

  A picture of a shiny orb surrounded by a blob of gelatin.

  Dawn stared at the card, expecting it to flicker or change again, but it never happened. The messed up Legendary had just turned into a completely normal Epic.

  “What?” she intelligently asked before looking up to see the others also staring in confusion and disbelief.

  Then an idea struck them and Dusk pulled out his messed up Legendary as well. Just as expected, Linza’s Mythical essence latched onto it as well.

  “...Okay? So your essence can… What, fix these essences? How does that work?”

  “Maybe that’s just how it happens? You just need a higher rarity essence to fix those?” Layna theorized, her sharp gaze flicking between ◆Core◆ and ◆Liminal◆.

  “Well, that’s… good, right?” the human hedged, putting on a careful smile. “I can fix your essences for you!”

  Before the twins could come up with a reply, Linza shuffled closer to Dusk and bopped the essence he was holding with hers, startling him.

  Even as the essence absorbed the light and began its transformation – identical to the first one – the twins stared in disbelief at the human.

  Weren’t humans supposed to be greedy? Why would she freely do what amounted to giving them an Epic essence?

  They pursed their lips, torn on what to think about this.

  In the meantime, the essence finished its transformation, and to their surprise, the result differed from the first time around.

  ◆Bastion◆

  The art reminded them of ◆Fortification◆ – a castle with extra thick walls fending off arrows and blasts of energy.

  “...Thanks,” Dusk murmured.

  The twins then frowned and exchanged a glance. After a moment of debating it, they came to a decision with a nod.

  “Okay. Let’s make a deal then. You’ll fix up our messed-up essences and in exchange, we’ll give you half of them.”

  The human’s eyes positively sparkled at this suggestion.

  “Yeah! Alright! Sounds good!”

  The sheer innocence she radiated almost washed away the memories of all their bad experiences with humans.

  Almost.