Chapter Eighty-Nine
 
“Yuri!” The sorcerers watched one of the guys approached the only female hunter who was walking in front of them. “I think we’re at the wrong place? There’s nothing in here.”
 
“This is only place on top of the hill! Yoona said she met the mutants in here! She won’t lie to us!”
 
Yoona!
 
Sunny frowned uncontrollably when she heard that name. Yoona was that hunter who managed to nullify her icicles’ attack when she tried to kill Tiffany the other time.
 
“I’m not saying Yoona is lying to us. I’m saying we could have gone to the wrong place. There’s nothing in here!”
 
“Hey chill, let’s not get into a fight.” The last guy stepped in just as they were about to quarrel. “I don’t think we’re at the wrong place.”
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“Look at this. These are fresh markings. Don’t you think they look like they’ve been slashed across by an axe?”
 
Sunny felt a tug on her arm. It turned out to be Narsha who was nudging her. The oldest sorceress was signaling them to leave while pointing at the hunters below them, hinting dangers. Both Sunny and Nickhun understood what she meant. The tomb had already been exposed. They might be the next ones if they continued to linger around there.
 
“It is that Yoona again.” Sunny commented as soon as they were far away from the tomb. They had just teleported to some deserted area which was distance away from the hill.
 
“The one you said that managed to block your magic attacks?” Narsha asked. Sunny nodded to her question in silence. “She also seems to be the one who last saw the mutants…” She remembered the hunters were saying one of their people met the mutants in the tomb.
 
“Don’t you find it weird? First of all, she is able to immune my icicles. Then, the mutants disappeared into thin air after she came.”
 
Nickhun asked, “You mean she hid the mutants?”
 
“No.” Sunny shook her head. “What I mean is, don’t you think she may be the Princess?”
 
Dead silence.
 
“Now, don’t you think your assumption jumps a little bit too far?” Narsha’s voice was shaking as she questioned. She didn’t believe Sunny. In fact, she didn’t want to believe Sunny because she didn’t want to believe that the Princess was actually here with them.
 
“Unnie, we can’t run away from this. The Princess is really here.” It wasn’t like Sunny wanted to think this way, but the situations they had encountered these far were leading to this truth. “Do you remember the other day when you called me and asked who touched the mutants? It was Taeyeon. She was using them against the hunters. Supposedly, nobody should know about it. Even if we do noticed that she’d touched the mutants, we won’t know what she is doing with them since she never told anyone of us, but the Princess knew about it! She knew what Taeyeon was doing which is why she warned you about misusing the mutants!”
 
Narsha, still, refused to believe Sunny’s words. “You… You know how powerful the Princess is. It’s not a surprise that… that she knew what we were doing!”
 
Sunny let out a heavy sigh, “That’s my exact reaction when Taeyeon told me about it. But unnie, think about it! If the Princess knows what we are doing all the time, wouldn’t she know that we’re talking about her right now?”
 
That assumption only made Narsha even more speechless. She couldn’t find a way to tackle Sunny already.
 
“Sunny is right. We can’t rule out the possibility of the Princess being here with us.” Nickhun finally voiced out his opinion after so long. “But I have my doubt if you say the Princess is one of the hunters in Aurales. It doesn’t make sense at all.” The hunters were the ones who eliminated the mutants. There was no reason for the Princess to kill the mutants when she was the one creating them.
 
“It could be a trap.” Sunny argued. “The Princess knows we will never suspect Aurales since they are the ones killing the mutants, so she hides in it to avoid us.”
 
“But from what I understand, most of the hunters lived in Aurales since they were young. Clearly, the Princess can never grow up with them.”
 
“Well, that’s easy. We will just look for those who joined later.”
 
Narsha had given up in this argument. She knew she could never persuade Sunny once she had made up her mind. “Who’s going to do the job then?” She asked restlessly. Obviously, she was out of the question.
 
“Actually, I have a perfect person in mind. But I’m not too sure if I’m able to get hold of her.”
 
“Taeyeon?”
 
Sunny glanced at Nickhun before letting out a breathless sigh.
 
“Bingo.”
 
*
 
Moonlight poured into the dark room and laid its brightness on the couple who was sleeping soundly on bed. It was hours ago when they checked into the room, and their only activity was to shower their loves all over one another until both became exhausted and ran out of energy, only then they dropped dead on the bed and fell into deep sleep… that was supposed to be the case.
 
Taeyeon woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t return to sleep. Her body was used to a few hours of sleep and it was simply not her habit to sleep more than once in a day.
 
The sorceress turned her body slightly to face her lover who was in deep sleep.
 
Tiffany was sleeping soundly by her side. Part of her hair had fallen and covered her face. Taeyeon tried to brush them away as gently as possible, careful not to wake Tiffany up, to get a better view of Tiffany’s face.
 
The hunter looked unusually peaceful in her sleep. It was a great contrast to the image she held when she was awake. She looked kind of adorable too. There was this sweet little smile tracing over her lips. Taeyeon wondered what was exactly happening in Tiffany’s dream which allowed her to smile like that.
 
“I hope you’re dreaming about me…” The sorceress whispered to no one in particular and her lover’s nose playfully, causing Tiffany to scrunch in her sleep and turned away from her.
 
Taeyeon pouted at the back view of her lover. “Sleepyhead!” How could she get tired so easily when she was a hunter?
 
Bored, Taeyeon decided to ditch the bed and go for a quick shower. Tiffany was still fast asleep when she came out of the bathroom, so she decided to grab a seat on the couch in case she woke Tiffany up if she returned to the bed.
 
Taeyeon rummaged through her belongings and found her phone near the bottom of her bag. She pulled it out without using much effort and looked at its dark screen.
 
Right, she had switched off her phone when she decided to leave with Tiffany and she hadn’t turned it on since then.
 
“Sunny is so going to kill me.” Taeyeon mumbled to herself as she pushed the silent button on her phone before switching it on.
 
Indeed, just like what she had expected, her phone vibrated non-stop for at least two minutes after the light came back on. Even without looking at the screen, Taeyeon knew it must be Sunny’s doing.
 
Fourteen missed calls and twenty-two unread messages. One word, great.
 
She began to read through the messages. Their contents were all about the same. Most of them were asking where she was and etcetera. Those which were sent at later time were basically wishing her to be happy with Tiffany.
 
A smile was spread across her face.
 
Her sudden departure was just another kind of betrayal to her friends in her eyes. They were supposed to be a team, advancing and retreating together, but she chose to abandon them and run away without a word with the one she loved.
 
Sunny should be mad at her. Narsha, Nickhun and Jonghyun as well. But they didn’t. They only hoped for her to be happier and mentioned nothing regarding their tasks.
 
These are true friends, who never blame and only wish for her happiness.
 
If only they weren’t under the Princess’s control and behind the mutants’ attack, Taeyeon would proudly hold Tiffany’s hand and announced their relationship to everyone, rather than running away like an irresponsible coward.
 
“Why are you crying?” A gentle voice broke her train of thought.
 
Taeyeon didn’t realize her face was covered in tears until she looked up and found her vision blurry.
 
She felt the couch sank a little and someone sat next to her. A warm hand caressed her face and it wiped off the wetness on her cheeks.
 
“Is it Sunny?”
 
Surprised? Or maybe not. The number of her friends was lesser than the number of fingers in one hand. She shouldn’t be surprised by Tiffany’s question.
 
“Yeah.” Taeyeon nodded and inhaled deeply, hoping it would help in holding back her tears. “She gave her blessing to us and I’m really touched by it. I thought she will be mad or something.”
 
Taeyeon felt Tiffany resting her head on her shoulder. “Sunny isn’t someone like that.”
 
“I… know… I’m just surprised that she’s not angry with me, not even for a bit. She is easily pissed off nowadays, so I thought I will be receiving another round of scolding from her.” Taeyeon snorted at herself. “I guess I don’t understand my friends well enough like how they do to me.”
 
“Well, you got to get that fixed then.” Tiffany got up from the couch and stood in front of Taeyeon. She looked at her lover with a face filled with mixture of emotion and flashed an indescribable smile at her, “Put more trust and faith in the people around you. There are people who are true to you and it may hurt them when they know you’re doubting them instead. Anyway, I’m going to get a wash up. We shall continue with our journey once I’m done~” She pinched Taeyeon on the nose and left for the bathroom.
 
Taeyeon couldn’t move her gaze away from Tiffany, even after she entered the bathroom, Taeyeon allowed her gaze to linger on the closed door.
 
For some reason, Taeyeon thought there was a meaning behind Tiffany’s message. It was like she was saying this to her, but telling her another thing. That smile as well. The restrained sorrow in her eyes was so obvious that no matter how high her lips had curved, it only implied sadness to Taeyeon.
 
Is Tiffany… in pain?
 
“We can go now!”
 
Tiffany came out of the bathroom in her usual black outfit. Taeyeon couldn’t help but scowl at the sight of that.
 
“We need to shop when the stores open.”
 
“Hmm?” Tiffany didn’t get what she meant.
 
“We shall change you out of these clothes.” Taeyeon switched off the phone and threw it back into her bag. She stood up from the couch and approached Tiffany, observing her from head to toes. “Your clothes is nothing but gloomy. I want you to dress in brighter clothing.”
 
Tiffany didn’t say anything but smirked at her.
 
“What?” Tiffany’s reaction was scaring her.
 
The ex-hunter burst out laughing when she saw her lover’s timid look. “Aye aye Sir~! We will do as what you said and…” She leaned in suddenly and whispered into Taeyeon’s ear. “You’re allowed to choose my clothes for me… including lingerie~” The sentence was ended with giggles and Taeyeon could only freeze on her spot, watching Tiffany hopped away while shaking her from side to side exaggeratingly.
 
She never knew that her girl was so naughty!
 
*
 
It had been a tiring night for the three of them, considering how far they had travelled within a few hours and were panicking for the Princess’s whereabouts.
 
“I’m going to book the bathroom. My body is so sticky because of the sweats.” Narsha announced grumpily as they made their way back to their base.  Their surroundings were simply not helping her condition at all with the amount of mosquitoes lurking around them.
 
“You could have teleported instead of running.” Nickhun commented casually. He sweated the least out of the three of them.
 
The casual remark only increased Narsha’s displeasing mood. She clutched her hand into a fist and pointed a finger at Nickhun, “Man will never understand woman, so shut up, Nickhun.”
 
“Tsk Nickhun, stop annoying unnie.” Sunny stepped in and helped Narsha.
 
“Women.” Nickhun shook his head and sighed. “Thank god, I still have Jonghyun with me.”
 
The trio continued to babble around until they reached the entrance of their base. Sunny, who was walking ahead of the other two, was going to chant and unlock the so-called door to their base when she noticed the lights in their base could be seen from the outside.
 
“Unnie! Something’s wrong!” She quickly informed her comrades and brought a halt to their conversation.
 
Both Narsha and Nickhun immediately quickened their paces and stopped right beside Sunny. From this distance, it was easy to notice the unusual sight of their base.
 
“Why is the gate open?”
 
“Could it be Jonghyun?” The only other guy appeared in Nickhun’s mind. “He’s the only one at home.” It only made sense if Jonghyun was the one who opened it. It was near impossible for Taeyeon to be back when she was with Tiffany now.
 
Sunny disagreed with Nickhun’s suggestion. “But Jonghyun will never––Crap! We should check it out!” Jonghyun was never a careless person. Besides, it wasn’t their first time to leave him alone at home too. The only explanation for this unusual occurrence was that they had guest.
 
The older two only realized the seriousness of the situation upon Sunny’s exclamation. They quickly followed the smaller sorceress into their base and were welcomed by a scene which they had never expected to see.
 
“JONGHYUN!”
 
Narsha’s cries rang loudly in their ears.
 
The youngest member of their group was lying in a pool of blood on the ground.