Juliana stared at Vince for a long second.

Then she looked around the circle, her piercing blue eyes lingering on each of us in turn. On the fire. On our empty hands. On our hollow cheeks and tired smiles.

Finally, she did something none of us expected at that point.

She laughed.

And I meant an actual, real, breathy laugh. Not the soft heh she'd once given to Ray before.

Sure, it was short and faded far too quickly for my liking, but the damage was already done.

Vince's eyebrows shot up. "Holy shit. Did you guys hear that?"

"Okay, this might just be my hunger talking, but that," Lily gestured vaguely at her, "was beautiful!"

"I'll take your word for it," said Alexia.

"Someone should've recorded this historical event," Kang muttered.

"Way ahead of you!" Ray declared with his phone camera already pointed at us.

Juliana shot them both a glare sharp enough to cut stone. "Delete it."

Ray folded immediately. He didn't even try to put up an argument and deleted the footage within moments.

She leaned back in quiet satisfaction, but didn't return to her usual icy indifference. Instead, she exhaled slowly and looked down at her hands.

"…I don't like my birthday," she said. "It reminds me of everything I've lost."

Her fingers curled slightly.

"But," she continued with her voice growing softer, "this non-celebration is… acceptable."

And that was the extent of her approval, yet it carried more weight than any heartfelt speech I'd ever heard.

Kevin chirped softly and hopped closer, nudging her knee with his beak. She stiffened for a fraction of a second, then, after a pause, allowed it.

She even rested her hand on his head.

We sat like that for a while.

Then I smirked. "Coming from you, that's high praise. I'll treasure it forever."

She squinted at me. "I hear a lot of sarcasm in that tone, and I don't like it, Young Master. Remember, I'm older than you now. In fact, I'm older than all of you. You should show some respect."

I quickly raised my hands in surrender. "Please forgive my youthful insolence, Senior Juli. Would you like me to kowtow ten times before you as a show of respect?"

Juliana's lips twitched into an imperceptible smile.

Ray chimed in just then. "Actually, I'm the oldest here. My birthday was in May, which makes Julia the second oldest. So technically, you all still owe me respect."

Before I could comment on that, Vince coughed.

"Actually… I'm the second oldest," he said it like he was ashamed to admit it.

We all frowned at him.

"Wait, what?" Juliana blinked. "When was your birthday?"

"Twenty-one days ago," he replied. "July twenty-fourth."

Silence fell over the whole circle for a heartbeat… then it shattered into chaos.

"What?!" Lily screamed, nearly bouncing off the ground. "You didn't tell us?!"

"Dude, twenty-one days? That's almost a month!" Ray exclaimed, flailing his arms like he was about to combust. "You hid it? From us?!"

Vince swallowed nervously, suddenly looking very small under the combined weight of our outrage.

"I… I didn't think it mattered," he mumbled.

"Didn't think it mattered?!" Michael hissed. "Vince! How could it not matter? You—" He stopped himself, realizing he was about to unleash a three-hour lecture, and muttered, "Unbelievable."

"How did I forget?" I wondered aloud, rubbing my chin. "I was sure I remembered it."

Juliana looked at me flatly. "You're the type to forget your own birthday. How do you expect to remember someone else's?"

I bristled. "Hey, I remember mine!"

"Okay. When is it?"

"Six November."

"Close," she said, deadpan. "It's November twenty-ninth."

I paused, then immediately deflected. "I can't believe you didn't tell us, Vince!"

Vince buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Michael groaned, but then decided to convince everyone to let go, because otherwise, the outburst would have killed him on the spot.

"Whatever. We're celebrating your birthday, and Julia's, the day we get back to the Academy," Ray declared in a tone that was split between both a threat and a promise.

I gasped at that. "Whoa! Whoa! Don't do that, Ray! Don't make promises before a big boss battle! You'll jinx us!"

Alexia waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, Sam. You worry too much. Don't. Because this is going to be our odyssey. People will talk about our journey in legends."

My eyes widened so much that they nearly popped out of my skull. "What the fuck! Do you even know what odyssey means, Alexia?!"

She looked at me like I was an idiot. "Of course. It means a long journey."

"Yes! But it's a word derived from the long journey of a guy named Odysseus!" I exclaimed. "Because he was the only one who survived that journey! Do you want us to die like his friends, Alexia?! Do you want us to die for your character development?!"

"Calm down, Sam," Michael tsked. "You overreact too much. Anyway, guys, after this journey is over, there's something important I want to tell all of you."

I threw my hands up. "Are you fucking serious?! What is *wrong* with you people?! Why are you raising so many death flags—" Then it dawned on me. "Oh… Oh, you fuckers. You're messing with me."

They all held my gaze for a few long seconds, then started laughing uncontrollably.

I rolled my eyes. These motherfuc—

•••

After a decent night's rest, I was the first to wake up. Well, first to wake up after Kevin. That thing never slept.

One by one, the others also stirred and started moving sluggishly as the day crawled on, preparing themselves for the coming battle.

Everyone had grown close over the course of this journey. The girls were tight-knit. Ray and Vince were inseparable. Kang and Michael shared a solid bond.

So, they were all lifting each other's morale.

And I had… Kevin.

I chose to ignore him and rest a little longer once my own preparations were done.

A few interesting things happened around camp.

At one point, Juliana approached Vince to return his gloves.

He stared at them, confused, then looked back at her. "Julia, I don't want them back—"

"I'll take them back when this is over. So don't die," she said, turning away. "If you do, I'll take them from your corpse. And I'll take your shoes."

God, she really was dead set on his boots.

Later, Alexia asked Kang to teach her how to fight with a dagger, since it was his secondary weapon.

Unfortunately, Kang was too mesmerized by her to teach anything at all and just kept nodding stupidly at whatever she did.

At some point, he then approached me. Or so I thought. In reality, he stopped a few steps short of me, awkwardly grunted and growled a few times, then walked away.

…I had no idea what the hell was wrong with that mutt.

Eventually, Michael gathered Lily and Juliana around to hand each of them a Card he'd acquired from slaying some beasts in the Dark Region.

"Lily, you'll surely be targeted. You need proper defense. So this Spell Card will allow you to create illusions of yourself to distract the enemy," he said before turning. "Julia, you shift between frontline and midline quickly. Your role is critical. This is a Summoning Card. It will let you manifest a shadowy, jellyfish-like creature that can stun and blind an enemy for a few seconds on hit."

Juliana's eyes shone. And so did mine.

Summoning Cards were rare. Very rare! Was this idiot really going to give one away for free?

I paused. No, no. Let's not curse his generosity.

After all, it was because of him that I still had a weapon to fight with, or else I'd be going into this battle empty-handed because my Divine fucking Sword was still AWOL.

•••

When everyone was finally ready, no one bothered with a long speech.

Michael just looked at us and shrugged. "In the last few months, we've faced an army of immortal Solbraiths, crossed a hellish jungle infested with overgrown insects, fought and fled from more Lesser and Greater beasts than I care to count, and were shown our worst nightmares. Yet, here we are, still standing alive. So how bad could a Demonic-rank creature be?"

"Bad."

"Much worse."

"Awful."

"You suck!"

Those were some of the replies.

Michael didn't even try. "Good! That's the spirit! Now let's go."

And so we did.

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