Chapter Forty-Three

While Taeyeon was gone, Sunny quickly made use of this chance to re-affirm the information she had gathered from Aurales’ database two days ago. When the screen of her device revealed a last minute change on the log, it almost blew her off the top. She couldn’t restrain herself and cursed out loud.

“God damn it!”

“Sunny! Someone was here.”

“Now I got to stay longer.” She mumbled to herself, completely oblivious to Taeyeon’s existence.

Taeyeon was at the bottom of the stairs when she heard Sunny cursing at her device, but due to their distance, she couldn’t make up what her friend said afterwards. Frown naturally found its way to Taeyeon’s forehead as she stomped to her friend. “Sunny, did you hear me? I said someone was here!” She nudged the sorceress on her shoulder.

Sunny then noticed Taeyeon’s existence, “I’m sorry, what did you just say? Someone was here? Did you catch him?” She bolted up from her sitting position and scanned the room out of reflex.

“What do you think?” Taeyeon plopped on the couch. Her expression implied nothing but unpleasant. “The intruder was clearly here when I was held up by the four of you! How am I supposed to catch him?! But count yourself lucky Sunny. You guys are lucky that nothing had gone missing from my house, or else I’m not going to let any of you off so easily!” Now, not only that she looked unpleasant, her eyes were murderous.

Sunny gasped unconsciously, “Taeyeon, I told you we didn’t mean to. We are just worried that you may become berserk and hurt yourself.”

Taeyeon wasn’t going to buy her excuses. She glared at her friend, “Whatever. This shall be my first and last warning to the four of you, don’t ever nullify my magic again!”

Sunny huffed unwillingly, “Fine.” She sat down again and played with her device.

Taeyeon took a quick glance at her screen. She wasn’t going to bother Sunny and her business, but the picture of Tiffany’s partner caught her attention.

Kwon Yuri?

“What’s that?”

Her eyebrow twitched upon the question. Sunny cursed herself inwardly for forgetting to keep her device. “These are the data collected from Aurales’ system.” Never mind, as long as Taeyeon didn’t find out her intention, there was no harm even if she saw it.

“What data?” Taeyeon asked again. She shifted herself closer to Sunny and peeked at the screen.

“The Aurales sends different batches of hunters, each grouped in two, everyday for patrolling. The one you see on the screen now is one of the batches who are going for patrolling today.” Sunny purposely hit the next page and read the information of the other batches.

“Hold on,” Taeyeon stopped her. “Go back to the previous page.” She thought she saw someone else’s photo rather than Tiffany’s.

Sunny frowned at her friend’s request. However, she did not say anything and did as what Taeyeon instructed.

The screen showed a brief information of the location where Yuri and her partner would be visiting today. Taeyeon took the device over from Sunny’s hands and scrolled through the page.

“Isn’t Kwon Yuri Tiffany’s partner?” Why is the screen showing a short hair girl?

Sunny leaned over and rested her arm against Taeyeon’s shoulder. When she saw the photos on the screen, she couldn’t help but cursed again in her head. With a heavy sigh, Sunny replied, “That is what I thought too. But I think they did a last minute change for the patrols.” So much for the change and now she had to stay till god knows when.

“You sound unhappy to me.” Taeyeon eyed her suspiciously.

Craps!

Sunny moved herself away from Taeyeon and leaned against the couch instead. She tried to make herself looked as natural as possible. “Of course I am. Their last minute change almost made me thought my device went wrong. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for me to hack into their system and collect this information? I can’t afford to have it goes wrong.”

Taeyeon withdrew her suspicious gaze from Sunny and focused on the screen again. She asked, “What’s the purpose of getting this information anyway?” She scrolled the page to where it stated the location of where Yuri and Sooyoung were going to patrol later.

“There is no definite purpose in it. But I’m sure the information will be of great use in the future. Here, lend it to me for a second.” Sunny took her device away from Taeyeon without waiting for the latter’s consent. Then, she tapped the screen a few times and handed the device back to Taeyeon. “This is the blueprint of Aurales’ headquarters.” She explained. “Aurales is our ultimate target and they are not as easy to deal with as what we have thought.” Sunny leaned over and tapped the screen again. The window zoomed in to where her finger last touched and a small box popped out at the top left corner with brief details written within it. There were also a few blinking blue dots moving around the screen. “This is just a small part of Aurales, those blue dots are the people who are inside there now.”

“Cool.” Taeyeon was extremely amazed by the fact how this piece of junk metal could provide such confidential information.

Unlike Sunny, who never stopped herself from learning any new stuffs wherever she goes, Taeyeon only focused on improving her magic and nothing else. To her, nothing was as important as owning supreme powers that could save oneself and eliminate anyone who dared to offend her. In other words, she could also be considered as an illiterate to anything else besides magic.

“But what do we need this for?”

“The Princess said she wants energies from all humans in this dimension remember? But the people from Aurales don’t usually come out from their base… if you exclude the hunters.”

“So you’re saying we have to sneak in?”

“Bingo!” Sunny snapped her fingers. “But I haven’t found a solution to that yet. Their security system is ridiculously advanced. Even if we teleport into their base, we may not be able to come back out intact. I need more time to come out with a solution in order to crush it down.”

Taeyeon arched an eyebrow at her and sneered, “And I thought you were a genius.”

Sunny slapped Taeyeon on her shoulder, “Yah! I only started on technology two years ago. You should be glad that I managed to collect whatever information that is in your hands now!” She stood up, hands on her hips and glared at the sitting Taeyeon. “Be content!”

Taeyeon looked at her and shrugged innocently. She flashed an obvious forceful smile at Sunny before turning back to the device and explored on her own.

“Tsk.” She should have known what kind of person Taeyeon was than telling her stuffs like that. Sunny dropped her arms and headed to the stairs.

“I’m going to take a bath. Do you still have my clothes here?”

“Yeah, they’re all in the guest room.” Taeyeon replied without looking up. Then, something struck her mind. “How long are you going to stay here for?” She retrieved her gaze and stared at her friend who was halfway up the stairs.

She never liked accompaniment. Even if Sunny was her best friend since they were kids, she never liked the idea of staying with another person under the same roof. It just made her felt uncomfortable…

Only Stephanie’s presence made her felt otherwise.

“Unnie said I have to stay and look after you until I think you’re alright to be alone. We don’t want Jang Wooyoung to lose his life, you see.”

Taeyeon snorted, “I told you I won’t kill him.”

“It is not that I don’t want to believe you, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.” Sunny smiled and shrugged innocently, just like how Taeyeon did to her just minutes ago. And she turned away, continuing with her way up the stairs.

Taeyeon snorted again and shifted her attention back to the device again, randomly hitting on various arrows. After a few minutes of struggles, she finally reached the page where it stated the details of Yuri and Sooyoung’s patrol for today.

A smirk crept onto her face.

Sunny was in the middle of rubbing the shampoo on her hair when she felt someone exited the barrier she secretly set up before entering Taeyeon’s house. She rushed out of the shower immediately, without bothering to wash off the bubbles on her hair, and grabbed a towel to cover herself before teleporting to the first floor’s living room.

When the view of an empty living room welcomed her, Sunny gritted her teeth and stomped her foot uncontrollably.

“Kim Taeyeon!” She screamed out loud. She couldn’t believe her friend would actually sneak out when she was in the middle of her shower!

A piece of paper on the table caught her attention. Sunny picked it up and read aloud, “I’m going out for a stroll. P.S.: No one’s going to die – Taeyeon.”

Sunny crushed the paper and threw it away.

“You’re so going to be that no one Kim Taeyeon!”

*

Yuri and Sooyoung had been exploring this place for about an hour. They were now walking on a wide dirty sand road, with both of its side surrounded by trees, tall grasses, large bushes and nothing else. The place, which they were walking on right now, was a rather deserted area about three hours away from Aurales’ headquarters. According to the details given, there used to be a village somewhere around here, but it was abandoned after the outbreak of the mutants.

“Yuri-ah!” Sooyoung stopped suddenly and approached one of the trees. She removed the large axe from her back and rested it on the ground. She leaned against the tree and said to her current partner, “I’m tired. Let’s take a break.”

Yuri stopped walking too when she heard her friend calling her. Spinning around, her eyes immediately caught the tall shikshin leading against one of the trees behind her. Automatically, Yuri shot her a despise glare.

How is it that her stamina is so weak when she is a hunter and part of Hunter S?

“Yah,” Yuri walked to Sooyoung. “How did you even became a hunter with such a weak body?” She folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at Sooyoung.

Sooyoung lifted up her large axe and slammed it on the ground nearer to Yuri. The end of its handle easily went deeply into the soil. It was clearly understood that her weapon weighed beyond common weapons like Tiffany’s blades or Yoona’s katana. “Try carrying this thing and walk around. I bet you’ll be worse than me!” Sooyoung shot a glare back at Yuri.

Yuri reached to her back, where her guns were kept. She flashed a sweet (but annoying in Sooyoung’s eyes) grin at Sooyoung, “You’re the one who chose this as your weapon, not me. There is no need for me to carry it.” She pulled out one of her guns and placed it near her lips. “Muack! I know I’ve made the right choice by choosing you, babe!”

Sooyoung rolled her eyes at Yuri’s sarcasm, idiot.

“So, did you enjoy yourself with Jessica last night? Was it fun?” Laugh, Kwon Yuri, laugh! No one stays as a winner forever!

“W… WHAT? I don’t understand you!” Yuri blushed at the thought of the kiss which almost happened last night.

“Yeah, right…” Her blushes did not escape Sooyoung’s eyes. Sooyoung pushed herself away from the tree and took a step closer towards Yuri. She grinned evilly, “Who’s the one who keep calling ‘Sica’ ‘Sica’ ‘Sica’ in her dream this morning?”

Yuri stammered, “Yah… I… I didn’t––”

“Yes, you did.” Sooyoung nodded like a wise professor. “And your lips were like this,” Sooyoung pursed her lips outwards, holding them like a puffer fish. “As if you were trying to kiss somebody. I almost puked out last night’s dinner when I saw you doing that.”

“Yah!” Yuri pushed Sooyoung by her shoulder, feeling slightly embarrassed. However, she tried to keep her composure and continued to argue with her, “No one asked you to peek on me!”

“Peek? Ugh.” Sooyoung drew a disgusted expression on her face. “You’re not even a percent attractive to the snacks I kept in my room. Why would I want to look at you and make myself suffer?”

“You––” Yuri was about to retort when an unusual smell entered her nose. “You smell that?” Yuri darted her head towards the forest maze behind Sooyoung.

Sooyoung tightened her grip on her weapon and turned her head to face the patch of darkness behind her too.

She squinted and answered while pulling her weapon out of the ground, “Mutants.”