While Aife and Trina were debating over the merits of being close or far away, Sui was walking over to her sewing cupboard and picking up a bolt of thread. Let’s go with some medium quality stuff. I’m still not really ok using high quality stuff for combat, but I can at least be ok enough with my skills that I don’t quite consider it a waste to use the decent stuff.

I mean, if I was more confident in the stability and weight bearing capabilities of some of my older or cheaper thread, I’d take that in a heartbeat but honestly, I could probably bite through them with human teeth let alone monster canines like the wolf.

Taking control of it, she forced it to wind itself into a belt around her midsection. As she was doing this, she also ran it through the centre of a second bolt so she had access to two full bolts of thread.

It didn’t take very long for Sui to sort out her thread belt, but it was still around a minute. Aife and Trina hadn’t progressed in the slightest and were stuck on what was safer for the group, while Aife was pointing out that Trina would be unlikely to protect herself if anything worse than the wolves showed up.

Not me though? I mean sure I handled the wolf and I’m not scared… I wonder if it is because Aife trusts my martial ability, my new thread skill or something else… Sui watched the two argue for another twenty seconds getting nowhere.

Why is this so hard? Just split the difference, and like stand back-to-back like we are cornered or something. That would give us the space in front of us, while keeping us near each other.

This system clearly has a purpose, it isn’t going to just end us without warning. It could have done that already, but instead we got super cool abilities. Speaking of abilities… how do I get stuff out of my inventory? “HEY” shouted Sui

Aife and Trina flinched back like they’d been hit and turned to face Sui who was geared up with her thread, and looked ready for war. “Firstly, how do I get my scissors back? Secondly, I’ve got an easy solution to the 10m rule”

Trina stared dumbly at Sui, for a few seconds, while Aife jumped in “You just picture the item you want”

Sui nodded and summoned her scissors to her. Ok, I’m all equipped now. Sui then started to leave the room, but as she walked past Trina put a hand on her shoulder. “Sui… what are you doing?”

“Um? Getting ready?” asked Sui

“Well, aren’t you going to tell us your plan?” asked Trina

Sui tilted her head “Shouldn’t I explain after you get your fighting equipment whatever that is? Plans can wait till we have everything we need”

Trina frowned “Just tell us!” she shouted.

Why is she so angry? I have my equipment and I know Aife said she wasn’t using anything but her fists… but didn’t Trina like have a knife or something? Why is she so angry?

“We just stand outside back-to-back. Then we each have space in front of us while being close enough that if we can do whatever it is together, we can” said Sui

“Oh” said Trina “That’s actually a decent plan. Let’s do that”

Sui just shook her head and made her way outside. Leaving Aife and Trina to come when they were ready. I’ve had quite enough yelling anyway. I’m glad they accepted the plan, but perhaps I should have interrupted them earlier.

Sui, wave 6 will be commencing in approximately 2:00 minutes, please ready yourself, be in an open area approximately 10m across.

Yeah… we only have a few minutes. I wonder if Aife will bother to change into the clothes I edited for her. I doubt it, we only have two minutes. Sui started to play around with the cloth on her belt and realised that she had to be cheating.

How am I able to control it? I had to touch it to start winding it off the spindle… what’s the difference? Sui tried to focus on the thread and found that she could access the whole thing quite easily.

Ok… this is weird… is it because I touched it before and my power is still in it? Or is there something I’m missing? At this Ito tapped her shoulder. Yeah Ito?

Ito then let herself walk slightly down Sui’s arm before touching the edge of her ‘dress’ several times. ‘Your dress, it’s touching your dress’

That doesn’t make any sense does it? Unless… it does? So, can I control anything touching my thread? I can chain it? Or is it because there is something special about the dress. Aife said that it reacts when I get angry but actually trying to control it with my thread control fails…

Sui’s thoughts were disrupted when Aife came out of the house carrying Trina over the shoulder. Trina was fighting back half heatedly. I wonder why they ended up like that… then again that’s actually not that strange. Aife carries Trina around all the time.

Aife walked up to Sui and carefully placed Trina down beside Sui and then put her back to the two of them. Because of Aife’s size, it was less like all three had their backs to each other and a lot more like Sui and Trina had their backs to Aife, with a slight tilt to it so they weren’t directly next to each other.

“Are you sure this is going to work” asked Trina

Sui shrugged “How can I be sure of anything. We don’t really know what is going on, and this is all very strange. How could I just know the answer”

“Can’t you at least say something reassuring like, it’ll work out, or, it won’t be too bad, or, the system doesn’t want to kill us, we’ll be fine, or just anything” asked Trina

Sui shrugged “Meh, why lie?”

Aife butted in and said “Trina. It’s going to be ok”

Trina didn’t turn to Aife or Sui, but Sui, could still feel the glare. “The moments past. It doesn’t matter anymore”

“Then why did you ask me?” asked Sui

Trina sighed. “Yup, that really is the question isn’t it”

Trina summoned the knife she put away earlier into her hand. It was just a basic steak knife, and wasn’t really built for anything else. She held it awkwardly like it was too heavy for her wrist to hold comfortably, but was making up for that by trying to squeeze the life out of the handle.

Sui held her scissors with easy grace, as she calmly waited for the next round. She was letting them swing slightly on the ends of her fingers confident that she wasn’t going to drop them, and could bring them to bear as needed.

Ito had left herself half sunk in Sui’s skin, allowing for her eyes to stick out and scan the situation while also letting her be more ready to duck back under. Also, Sui had yet to notice, but in the slit divot between her neck and shoulder Ito had pooled a decent length of spider silk, separated into three stands that she had been able to make during the 48-hour break.

Aife stood ready for anything. She had her back straight but loose and was bouncing on her feet letting her arms bounce along with her. She was careful not to bounce too high with her new strength and had shown remarkable control so far.

Sui, wave 6 will be commencing in approximately 00:30 minutes, please ready yourself be in an open area approximately 10m across. Failure to do so may result in elimination.

Interesting wording. Not death, but elimination as if this was some kind of game show… then again, I guess it could be? I mean, it’s just as crazy as any other situation… but it feels like that probably isn’t the case.

“Are you sure about this Sui…” said Trina with a shaking voice “I’d rather not be eliminated”

At least she isn’t yelling anymore. My ears needed a bit of a rest. Aife responded in Sui’s stead “We do have an open area about 10m’s across, it’s just in front of us and we aren’t in the centre. Plus, it only says MAY result in elimination so who knows”

Huh I missed that. Before Sui had longer to ponder the intricacies of the wording the system provided, a large box appeared before her eyes and fell to the floor. What… the heck…