So narrow were the footpaths that they had no choice but to walk in single file, with Makhus in the front, Zelsys just behind him, Zefaris behind her and Sigmund at the very back. It only took a few dozen steps down the path before Makhus unsheathed his blade and began hacking away at the vegetation that stood in their way, carving a path through the greenery with inhumanly fast, precise cuts.

Five of the smaller and one of the larger seal-bottles dangled off the swordsman’s backpack, jingling against one another as the liquid within sloshed about from the motion of his swings.

“Why not store all the bottles?” she questioned, as much to get an answer as she did to break the silence.

“We’ll drink at least two of these during the hike, the cocksuckers at the checkpoint will confiscate the rest,” he answered resentfully, visibly channelling his anger into the next cleave, in which he caused a large branch to thunk to the ground. It was clear he had certain expectations of how the border crossing would go, ones rooted deeply in some sort of negative past experience. What that could be, Zelsys didn’t know - perhaps mere corruption among the border guards, or some petty discrimination based on superficial traits.

They walked as such for some time, the only sounds to keep them company being those of their footfalls, those of the trees, and those of Makhus’s impeccable bladesmanship being used to carve through weeds and saplings. Over the course of the trek, Zelsys felt her instinct going off every once in a while - each time the feeling came, she began to pay more attention to her surroundings, and each time without fail, she caught a double-pupiled eye staring from behind.

Each time, she did nothing to make it clear she had noticed - it didn’t bother her, if anything Zefaris’s gaze was a welcome distraction from the mind-numbing tedium of trekking through the woods. This phenomenon drew her attention to something far more concerning - despite the forest’s lushness and supernaturally fast growth, there were no birds. Not a sparrow, or an owl, or a woodpecker to be found anywhere.

Minutes turned to hours as they walked, a couple kilometers turned to tens, and the sun rose high into the sky as they made their way through the forest. Her appreciation of Makhus’s skill with a sword only grew every time he carved a path through a particularly nasty bramble. Wherever a large enough clearing could be found, they used the opportunity to take a break and pass around a bottle of Liquid Vigor.

One after another, they emptied three of the five smaller bottles. During the second of these small breaks, Zelsys took the time to slide the Tablet between her arm-cannon’s trigger lever and her forearm, tying it to her forearm with some of the loose bandages she had used to wrap her forearm previously. It was in part out of convenience, and in part because she wished to at least marginally conceal the weapon.