Chapter 1599: Estra’s Circumstances
ROOOARR!
Scores and scores of monsters followed closely behind her, and they could tell she was already wounded and was just pushing herself to her limits.
"Well, obviously, this is not the time to be catching up."
They dealt with the mob Estra brought. They were primarily level 20s and a few in the mid-level 20s, but their quantity presented quite a challenge.
Fortunately, they were in the forest, which was Sean’s home ground.
Vines appeared and grabbed several legs. "Attack as quickly as you can," Sean instructed. "Don’t hold back."
Because Sean wasn’t overwhelmingly strong compared to the monsters, he also had to be strategic in choosing which monsters to inhibit. He chose some of the monsters up front, and specific monsters in the middle, causing imbalance amidst the dense crowd of monsters.
This limited the monsters’ movements even for just a few seconds, making them easier to deal with, especially since they were going all-out to end this quickly before more monsters arrived.
Immediately, Sean and the others used different abilities to push the monsters back, and then proceeded to attack.
Estra, who was panting and injured, was pulled to the side by Veronica, and they used a large rock as a cover while their guards cleaned up the mess she brought.
The battle lasted about half an hour, resulting in a few injuries. Fortunately, none of them was lethal.
Well, none of the physical wounds were lethal.
Psychologically, it might not be true. After all, none of their delicious barbecue and instant noodles survived that fight!
Sean and the others looked physically in pain while looking at the waste! Those were the last Alterran products they had!
Urgh, how annoying!
Of course, they couldn’t be so blatant in blaming the person who just wanted to save her life, but her likability definitely dipped down even further.
Veronica sighed, sitting next to Estra. "What are you doing here?"
"I... I wanted to come with you..." she mumbled.
This made Veronica and the rest of them frown and maybe even anxious.
"Why?"
"I..."
She couldn’t answer for a while and they watched the guys finish off their enemies and gather loot.
Sean used his ability to pull away the corpses from their camping site while the rest took some meat to replenish their stock with them.
However, they could not stay here for long for obvious reasons, so they had no choice but to pack up what was left again.
Estra followed Veronica, but Sean and Vaughn looked at her, the latter making her blush a bit.
"What happened and how did you find us?"
"I... we encountered a small group of Level 30, and my guards had to deal with it. A few mobs arrived and we had no choice but to run, heading towards the place in the map where the map shows you."
Their eyebrows rose, but they didn’t interrupt her.
"I got separated from them in all the chaos. I hired mercenaries so they probably wouldn’t be looking for me after that."
Mercenaries could be reliable, but when their lives were threatened, not even the system would stop them.
All this time, Vaughn’s eyes were narrowed as he stared at her, and then they widened at the realization.
He immediately patted down his own body, eventually finding a pinky-sized rock snug on his epaulet.
"You put a tracker on me?!"
Estra looked down in shame while Sean and a few Alterrans blinked, looking at the pebble curiously.
A tracker?
The wood user, while tension was high between the aborigines, even grabbed it to study and a small group of Alterrans formed at the side, looking at the new tool with interest.
"A tracker..."
"Cool."
"It apparently syncs with the system map? Is it automatic?"
"I wonder if we can reproduce this..."
While there was an atmosphere of wander in one area, another area was very tense.
Vaughn, Veronica, and their guards stood still as they stared at Estra, who could not meet their eyes.
"Why?" Vaughn asked. As the heir to a territory, his way of thinking was naturally cynical. "Do you believe we have something to do with what happened earlier?"
"It’s not that! I— I just wanted to follow you."
"This is too much Estra, it’s hard to believe you went all the way here just to follow."
Even if it was pure admiration, Vaughn felt uncomfortable with it. He only felt it was off-putting.
He then narrowed his eyes on her.
"Do you have a tracker on you?"
Estra shook her head. "It’s a rare tool. I... I borrowed it from our library."
Translation: Stole.
Veronica sighed, knowing this was going nowhere. "We’ll bring you back."
"NO!"
"We can’t take you, what if they think we kidnapped you?"
"They won’t! I... I left a discreet letter that will take a bit to find."
"Why are you going so far to do this?"
"I..."
"Tell us the truth, or we’ll leave you behind."
Estra bit her lips. In truth... her parents had been trying to sell her off to an annoying man from another noble family from Hassen City.
Her family, the Trions, had always followed the Lord’s lead. He had made a partnership with Hassen, so Trion wanted to as well.
They made a rash decision to give her to Leccher, but now that ’scandal’ had spread, her family knew that no good noble family in Bleulle would want her anymore. So...they found one in another City instead.
Even if the nobles in Hassen have a lot less influence than the ones in Bleulle, Hassen was far older and more influential than Bleulle.
She was the perfect candidate to sell off.
She had heard about this for days, which was one of the reasons she stuck with the siblings. She liked Vaughn, and she wanted to marry him. However, she had learned from her experience from Otto, so she decided to be a bit more subtle.
Well...subtle in her standards, anyway.
She had been wanting to broach the subject or get closer to them, but there always seemed to be a wall between them. But then they had to leave, and she knew she could no longer stop them—at least not without destroying the little bit of relationship that they had.
So...here she was, trying to extend her time with them, as well as running away from a fate that would surely bring her misery.