By the way, as I address the plot hole of Liohime's stab wound casually not being brought up after the first Paradisus Legion Tower conflict, I just gotta say…

…Tezukumo-sensei's kinda…not smart these days, you know? Lay off him for a bit.

Let's just say that Shihon can administer a healing effect to her Master as long as they are both in an extremely close proximity, which helped Liohime to heal up during their sleep together the night before they entered the second layer.

There, happy now? No? Good.

Anyway…

It had nearly been two whole hours of trekking through this dense, enormous scope of land.

Danger loomed at almost every corner, but Liohime Kitagami did not even have to lift a finger.

Rather, I should say that he was not even given a chance to do anything.

Have you ever had the hellish experience of having to sit through a lecture and the teacher asks anyone to voice the answer to a question, but before you could even raise your hand, the teacher's pet starts to yap, not allowing anyone to do anything?

Well, sure, it might be a weird comparison, but that was a close similarity to this scenario that Liohime found himself in…although, he did not mind the lack of assistance that he had to carry out.

He had been exposed to so many things during his time with the Piglet Squad, which is the name that he assigned to them in his mind.

Magical Beasts ran rampant, attacking with absolute hatred, as if they were never supposed to be contracted with humans in the first place. Liohime was a bit surprised that there were fewer of them than what he had expected, but as he remembered that the Piglet Squad's base were nearby, it would not be stupid to believe that their colonization of this land and constant wars with these beasts scattered most of them to the other regions of the second layer.

Despite the harsh variety of monstrous creatures that they encountered, Koro, Poly and Melty always ended the fight briefly with such synergy that Liohime could not believe his eyes.

His second plan of aiming to escape while the trio had been worn out and tired from taking on the rogue Magical Beasts while travelling to their base had also been canned as he remained resigned to being their hostage.

Then…there was the topic of running into other tribe members. Or wait, should I call them cultists instead? Eh, tribe members sound good enough.

With two tribes occupying this Lost Forest, they would often run into each other.

Now, they both did not have any major disagreements with each other, but with The Piglet Squad's tribe being more merciful to outsiders (not by a fine margin, though), a bit of verbal conflicts began to spread as many Shinigami Soldiers had been caught and captured by both.

Liohime and the Piglet Squad had now run into two members from the other tribe, who named themselves Dalquestis. They exchanged glances while thor hostages did the same.

Liohime eyed another Shinigami Soldier who had been captured by the two men who stood ahead of them. The hostage's unfamiliar facial features and presence notified Liohime that she wasn't from the Polar Town or Hallory Circuit, therefore confirming that she was part of the other three groups who had travelled along with him.

She's really scared. I can tell. She's trembling.

Then, Poly, the most outspoken and confident of the trio that accompanied him, teasingly mocked the duo and their hostage.

"What, are you gonna continue to copy us like this?"

"Copy you?" one of the men repeated and chuckled with a light-hearted tone. "We'd never take in these guys and make them our slaves."

"Yeah, you're right. You'd rather kill them and loot all of their stuff."

"Correct! We're not like you pacifist assholes. We've killed nearly fourteen so far, and we'll keep searching for more so that nobody dares to mess with the heart of our Paradisus Legion again."

Hearing this, Liohime shuddered.

Fourteen…? No, that's gotta be a lie.

From nighttime till now, the Dalquestisis had gone into a genocidal movement, aiming to rid all Shinigami Soldiers off of the second layer, while the Piglet Squad's tribe had been capturing them and bartering their lives for their possessions, after which they made them work severely for them.

Fourteen…gone, just like that.

It surely left Liohime in a daze, questioning the safety of his coworkers of Polar Town.

Leah, Ophiel, Bica, Harvey and Jolene.

Please be okay…

The next statement from the other man of the Dalquestisis had interrupted his thoughts.

"You Killcounts can't even live up to your name when it's time to save your own land. You have an entire leader whose entire main goal is to protect the heart of Paradisus. Still, you choose not to eradicate the threats that are before you. Anyway, if you excuse us…we have to get back to our executions, for Kinen."

"For Kinen," replied the other man and tugged the Shinigami Soldier away as they exited the scene.

Liohime took a step forward, but-

"If you take even a few more steps contrary to where we are heading, you will end up like her."

--Koro did not hold back when setting her demanding instructions to him, disallowing him to save the person.

Liohime exhaled with frustration and nodded slightly, while the trio exchanged glances.

"A-Anyway! Let's keep going! Right, Koro, Poly?"

"Yeah."

"Oink."

Everyone went back to a silent stroll, but something in that recent conversation with the Dalquestisis wouldn't leave Liohime's mind.

((

You have an entire leader whose entire main goal is to protect the heart of Paradisus. Still, you choose not to eradicate the threats that are before you.

))

Protect 'the heart of Paradisus', they say? That wouldn't mean the Magical Beast egg that we've been trying to secure, right? Also…

He narrowed his eyes and he pondered on the next statement.

((

Anyway, if you excuse us…we have to get back to our executions, for Kinen."

"For Kinen."

))

Kinen…?

He had no idea who or what Kinen was. Could Kinen be the Dalquestisis's leader, or someone (sore something) else?

He kept those words close to his heart as he was now eager to know the answers to those troubling questions that lingered on.

And soon enough, those questions would be answered not even a few hours later.

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