Cadmus resisted the urge to groan as Elise shook him awake. The sun had come up far too early in his opinion; his eyes still felt scratchy, and a powerful yawn bubbled in his throat—the first of many, he was sure.

It would have been a different story if he had gone to sleep on time. However, since they now had a beacon orb in their possession, Elise and Cadmus had both agreed that they needed to take turns keeping watch while the other slept.

So, with only a few sporadic hours of sleep under his belt, Cadmus painfully pulled himself to his feet, tiredly rubbing his eyes as he did so. His movement woke Alice up as well.

“I-is it time to go already?” She mumbled, still half-asleep.

“It’s fine,” Cadmus said, stroking her head with his finger, “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when something happens.”

He owed her at least this much: during the night, when it had been his turn to keep watch, he had focused on working on his magic circle, and Alice had been the one to keep watch in his place. Despite her being so much smaller than a normal human, her sleep cycle was still the same as theirs, and so she was probably just as tired as him.

Alice looked ready to protest, but Cadmus spoke first, “It will just be a waste of our resources to keep you awake right now. Go to sleep for now, and we’ll ask for your help when we need it.”

Alice’s lips curled into a frown, but the temptation of sleep combined with his assurance proved too much, and she collapsed back into his breast pocket, already fast asleep in seconds. Cadmus took a moment to make sure that her breathing was deep and even before turning his attention to more important matters.

“The beacon orb’s gotten brighter…” He noticed.

And it was a strange sort of brightness now. Where before, stowing the beacon orb in his robes was enough to dampen its bright blue light, now that very same light was somehow unnaturally bypassing the thick black cloth as though it wasn’t even there in the first place. No matter what they did, even during this sunny day, other teams would probably be able to spot its shine from a decent distance away.

“Let’s move quickly then,” Elise said, unsurprisingly already ready to go. Beside her was Orange, who already looked well-fed and watered. He had probably gone to visit the river while Cadmus had been asleep.

Cadmus would have been worried about enemy teams following Orange back to them, but, well, Orange had already proved just how adept he—along with the other animals in this forest—were at avoiding humans. So, if an enemy team found them, it most likely wouldn’t be Orange’s fault.

Cadmus stretched his limbs, producing a few satisfying pops, before nodding to Elise. After checking one last time to see if they had forgotten anything, they set off, making sure to head the way that Orange had pointed them towards.

For a while, their journey was steady but slow. Cadmus simply didn’t have the stamina to sustain a quicker pace, especially when considering the toll the past few days and his limited amount of sleep last night had taken on him.

On the bright side, thanks to their slow pace, Cadmus was able to focus on working on his magic circle. He could tell, he was approaching a finished product: he just needed a bit more time.

But, time was something they did not have. Just as Cadmus was about to test out his newest and most likely to succeed iteration of the magic circle, he noticed Orange’s head suddenly snap behind them. A rumbling, wary sort of growl left Orange’s throat, and Cadmus instantly understood its implications.

“Get ready,” he said to Elise, “Someone’s coming.”

Elise blinked, looking blindsided for a moment, before nodding and springing into action. As they had agreed the night before yesterday, the pair quickly drew the magic circles for [earth wall], and Elise drew an additional magic circle for [magic sword]. These were the countermeasures they had prepared against Zane Brycen and Tanya Louise, and though neither Cadmus nor Elise were sure that the people approaching were those two, they did know that those two were keen on hunting them down, so expecting them was as good a guess as any.

Thus, Cadmus wasn’t sure whether he could consider Elise and him lucky or not when Zane Brycen and Tanya Louise themselves came into view. The forest seemed to have left its mark on them, with Zane Brycen’s bowl cut having frayed at the edges, and Tanya Louise’s pixie cut sticking up wildly, looking like an oily mess. In contrast, their cloaks, with their dark hue of maroon, did well to hide any and all dirt stains.

Most importantly though, they already had their magic circles activated, and were using them to hold a large mass of writhing vines behind them, meaning that defeating them before they could even prepare themselves was out of the question.

Zane laughed when he noticed their team, and turned to Tanya with a smug look on his face, “Ha! I told you we’d be able to catch up to them!”

Tanya nodded grudgingly, “Guess you were right.”

“How did you find us?” Cadmus asked.

Zane shot Cadmus a smirk, “It wasn’t easy. Neither of us are trackers, so following your footprints was harder than expected—but, we managed all the same. Then, we saw that light from your beacon orb, and following it easily allowed us to close the distance between us.”

“We won’t let you run away again, you coward!” Tanya snarled, “I’ll make sure to see you defeated this time, for Mark’s sake!”

Then, she blushed, “Th-that sounded like something a girlfriend would say, right?”

Cadmus and Elise shared a confused look. Honestly, he couldn’t understand why she was even blushing. She’d made her desires pretty clear in their last encounter, and what she’d said back then had sounded far more embarrassing to Cadmus. Then again, he was really bad at this kind of stuff, so maybe this was normal?

“As I said last time, Tempor wants to face me himself. So, can you please leave us be for now?” Cadmus asked, moving past Tanya’s question and making one last attempt for a peaceful resolution.

Zane’s eyes narrowed, “Even if he faces you later on, he’ll only be disappointed. It’s better to just take you out now!”

He pointed his magic circle at Cadmus, which caused the writhing mass of vines behind him to shoot towards Cadmus as though they were intending to pierce through him through sheer speed alone. Elise reacted instantly, and jammed her [earth wall] magic circle against the ground, causing—as the name suggested—a tall wall of rough, hardened earth to spring from the ground, blocking Mark’s vines.

“You—!” Cadmus heard Zane yell frustratedly as his vines separated, trying to move around the wall. Unfortunately for him, Cadmus had received enough time to spring into action as well, allowing him to create an [earth wall] to the right of Elise’s [earth wall] as Elise moved in tandem with him and created another [earth wall] to its left.

“ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS AGAIN, NECROMANCER?” Zane yelled, from behind the wall, “ARE YOU JUST GOING TO TRY AND RUN AGAIN?”

Cadmus ignored him and passed Elise the magic circle he had been working on before Zane and Tanya had shown up.

“Use this on the vines,” he said, “I would use it myself, but I remember from our battle in Lorem forest that your accuracy is far greater than mine.”

Elise took the magic circle and fired it experimentally at the ground. A light blue projectile the size of a small pebble shot out from the circle and splashed harmlessly against the dirt.

“This is… that same spell Everett Preasse used,” Elise realized.

“A modified version of it—it’s what I’ve been working on all this time,” Cadmus said, “As far as I can tell, Everett’s spell was designed to suck the moisture out of the body part it would make contact with. Though I don’t remember the full formula, I recreated it based on what made sense, and modified it so that it’ll steal the moisture from the vines.”

Elise looked stunned—though they didn’t have time for that right now.

“Don’t lose focus,” Cadmus said, “Keep your eyes on the corners. Zane can’t target us because he can’t see us from the other side of the walls, and having Tanya defend them both together may have cost them their mobility, but he’s bound to come attack us soon enough.”

Elise nodded and took a few steps back to let her vision expand to the point where she could see both corners of the wall. Cadmus followed her, taking his place behind her. She was the one with the weapon to face their enemy, so it only made sense for her to stand in front.

After a few second Zane and Tanya came into view as they sidestepped the trio of [earth wall]’s profiles. This was the weakness that Cadmus had identified of Zane and Tanya’s strategy: Their method of attack and defense was very well balanced, with Zane handling the attack with vines, and Tanya defending them both with her own vines, but that all came at the cost of mobility. Zane had to stick to Tanya, or their defense wouldn’t be as effective, and that meant that they couldn’t move wherever they wanted nearly as easily as their opponents.

The fact that they would have to lessen the effectiveness of their defense if they wanted to increase their speed and range of movement made running away from them a thoroughly simple task, but conversely, that very same defense is what made facing them head-on so difficult.

If this was even just yesterday, Cadmus would have chosen to retreat. But, now that he had developed a spell to combat their vines, there was no need to run away—especially since Zane and Tanya had made it clear that they would stop at nothing to hunt Cadmus down.

“Let’s do this properly, Necromancer!” Zane exclaimed, “Show me that you’re actually worth your title!”

He commanded his vines to charge forward, and Elise cooly responded by unleashing a barrage of Everett’s modified spell upon them. Each tiny blue projectile striking the thin green vines with pinpoint accuracy.

The struck vines suddenly writhed uncontrollably in the air, and they were afflicted by a strange, intense vibration.

“Wh-wha—?” Zane stuttered.

But, just as suddenly as the vines had lost control, they froze for a split second before charging at Cadmus and Elise again. Cadmus, having realized that something was wrong, quickly created an [earth wall] in front of Elise, once again blocking Zane’s vines. Elise caught on quick and created another [earth wall] to its left.

“AGAIN? YOU—” Cadmus heard Zane yell from the other side of the wall. Then Zane quieted for a moment, “Oh… I see now. You’re trying to get us to break our formation, aren’t you? Well, you won’t get your wish! You’ll have to face us like this, no matter what!”

“What happened?” Elise asked Cadmus, “I thought your spell would render those vines useless!”

Cadmus frowned, “I thought so as well. Looks like I wasn’t able to recreate and modify Everett’s spell properly.”

He took another look at the magic circle he’d created, and his frown deepened. Everything had fit together so well too…

Elise grimaced, “Of course you wouldn’t be able to just modify a spell you saw only once. There’s a reason mages aren’t afraid to show their magic circles to each other. It’s because it’s not so easy to just copy another person’s formula!”

Cadmus stayed silent, still wondering where he had gone wrong. The spell had clearly had some effect on the vines, but it hadn’t been enough. Why? What part of the formula—

“In any case, what now?” Elise asked, interrupting his thoughts, “If they keep trying to outflank us, and we keep creating [earth walls], we’ll only box ourselves in. And we can’t fight them head-on either…”

“Then we run away,” Cadmus said, already beginning to drawn a new magic circle to assist them in doing so.

Elise stared at him for a second, before nodding, “Yes… that may be the only option left to us now.”

Cadmus smiled slightly, “Glad we’re in agreement then.”

He punctuated his sentence by firing his newly created magic circle, which caused a geyser of white mist to erupt from it. Like last time, the mist rapidly filled the area, veiling it in a heavy white.

“M-mist…?” Cadmus heard Zane say, “Are you planning on running again, Necromancer? You don’t deserve your fame! You don’t deserve to overshadow Mark! You’re a sham, Guiles! A coward who does nothing but run away! But, it won’t work this time! Your beacon orb will always lead us to you! We’ll catch you sooner or later!”

Elise winced slightly as they began jogging the other way from Zane’s voice, with Orange following after them, “He’s right, the light from the beacon orb…”

“The mist isn’t there to just cover our retreat,” Cadmus, said, drawing yet another magic circle. Once he was done, he pressed it against the ground behind him and pushed mana through it. The circle glowed, and a small jet of bright white energy appeared in the ground for an instant before it transformed into a cluster of hardened spikes made of rock. He'd put in less mana than usual, so the spikes were small, reaching only up to his feet.

“There’s an advantage to broadcasting our position: we know which way they’ll head towards most of the time,” he explained, “And that’s how we’ll retreat, by using these traps to stop them from rushing in towards us blindly.”

“…And you’re sure this will work?” Elise asked. She must have noticed that he was already panting more heavily than usual.

Cadmus shrugged, firing another shot of [ground spikes] behind him,

“Only one way to find out.”