When Last Night Didn't End

3.2

"From the scouts' report, I say we are dealing with a mid-range to large-range mission," Cavya said. "Colonies of jjangkai have been found amassing numbers deep in the forest five prinks from Gleamare, where we are."

A large-scale mission as my first one? That's nowhere near my expectations when I first landed inside this world. I turned to the other knights to catch the thoughts spilling out of their expressions. Instead, a sliver of purple burned in my periphery. I stole a glance at the spiria whose special ability was still not disclosed to us.

From the way she leaned forward, letting her hair fall over her shoulder to the passive stare of focus she was giving Cavya, there's no denying it. She was Hye-jin.

"Tomorrow, we will do a preliminary assessment of the space, just to confirm the scouting report and arm ourselves with further knowledge on how expansive the nest has become," Cavya was saying.

The spiria clicked her tongue and flicked her silver hair behind her. Then, she ran her thumb behind her earlobe. It was just so...Hye-jin, apart from the look of bewilderment that followed. It's like she was reminded of something about her ears, something that she's still getting used to.

Of course. Duh. She's just like me—transported into a world we only saw as a game. For some reason, she got spiria ears and was now having a blast. That's great.

"What are the guild ranks of your members?" Cavya turned to Heather, the break in the monotone of the words snapping my attention back to the briefing at hand.

Heather glanced at her companions. "Trink, our rear guard, is a Lower Classman, same as Revery," she pointed to the dog-headed langkoor and the blue-haired spiria. "And...Seline, here, is our initiate. But I believe if we train her properly, she'll sail straight to Noble."

Seline? Something was shaken out of my memory. It's when I first met Hye-jin and we got to talking about the new release of The Legends of Solarlume and the names we would be picking for our characters. She said something about Seline back then. Seline what?

And to think she was an initiate like me. This could only mean we joined our respective guilds and parties at almost the same time. It might just be an extreme and cruel coincidence, it might just be my confirmation bias playing me, but the details were lining up so precisely that I couldn't ignore them. Not anymore.

Somehow, Hye-jin was sitting in the same room as me, just with a different face, a different voice, and perhaps, a different disposition.

Cavya hummed, a hand playing with his whiskers. "Still too low to be of help in missions," he muttered under his breath. It was loud enough to send the scouting party bristling.

"Forgive me for speaking out of turn," Arzo, the teal-haired spiria, raised a hand. Just from the defensive tone of his first statement, what would follow wouldn't smell like flowers. "But can you tell me what your ranks are?"

Ahrian spared Arzo a glance, turning her head to one side like how our neighbor's cockatoo did when we nudged him with sunflower seeds. Instead of shying away from her literal hawk-like gaze, Arzo straightened his back. Heather's eyes flitted back and forth between her teammate and Cavya, the muscles on her shoulders tensing and her scales rising. Like her, Valren and Yaora were doing the same.

The air turned electric.

I turned to Cavya, noting how Hye-jin—I mean, Seline—watched the whole shift of mood with narrowed eyes and a disapproving curve of her lips. Instead of going ballistic and murdering everyone, Cavya's eyes pinched up when he smiled. "It's nothing sort of a sin against the Divines, scout," he said. "Let us introduce ourselves, formally this time."