I rested my palms flat against the dark oak table. “And then she shot me in the head, point blank, with an arrow.”

I heard a round of ouch and yikes go around the table. Jihyo, Nayeon and Momo absentmindedly rubbed their foreheads, as if feeling the pain themselves. 

It was the next day. We had decided to rest up because Jihyo decided it was better to do so after such a difficult time getting to the mountain. The late morning sun shone on me through the window of the inn, warming me up despite the chills I got from retelling this story.

“Dahyun and Tzuyu must’ve looted my body afterward. I remember them telling me I had an ultra rare backpack, which I had stuffed with tons of health potions. They must’ve taken that and all of its contents, because, you guys know, I was level 1. I didn’t even have any EXP to drop. I was useless for leveling up.”

Momo eyed her empty cup, probably wishing she still had something to drink so she could drown away my story. “Man, this is depressing. We had no idea about any of this, Chaeyoung. I’m so sorry.”

I took a deep breath, kinda feeling Momo. I wish I could drink and forget everything, too. I’d only told this story once, to 3Mix, but it was getting harder to do it. Reliving that arrow being shot to my head was difficult to me– I mean, that doesn’t just happen every day, and it’s definitely scarred me for life. But now I was getting into much more painful territory. I was getting to the part where I met Mina for the first time in Paracosmos, and I knew this was gonna hurt me way more, even if it was just me telling my new friends about it in a story.

“Thanks, Momo. That’s why I’m telling you guys all of this. I’m hoping that with the two of you joining us, my story can help us understand a few more things. But, for now, let’s continue. The worst part comes next…” I began, feeling Momo’s mood drop even lower. Sorry, Momo.

I told them about Mina finding me, right when I was about to be struck by a billion volts of lightning, and how at first she seemed very worried for me, but then seemingly did a whole 180 and threw me against a tree. She was nothing like the Mina that I had always known, the one that cried when commercials for abandoned animals came on. 

Finally, I paused right at the part when I remembered the storm getting worse, where Mina began her monologuing. The memories were flooding back violently, and suddenly, after a bright flash… I was there!

The hairs on my arms rose, and in this vision-like memory, the rain that managed to pass the leaf barrier of the trees pelted my back like rocks. I was cold, practically frozen to the bone, and as I looked around, I saw that I really wasn’t at the inn with 3Mix and SaMo. I was in the forest! I was on my stomach, and as I looked up, there was my beloved Mina, recounting her evil deeds, just like I remembered! She was describing all the sadistic things she had done to get to level 99, like killing people she partnered with.

Thunder rumbled above me, and when lightning flashed once more, it was like time skipped forward; I was now being held down by skeletons. They were the ones that held me down right before Mina stabbed my neck. I saw Mina wave something before my face. It was white, and sharp. You could tell just by the look of it. But what was it? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t have time to think about it, because I felt an intense, searing pain coming from my throat. 

The pain was so intense that it somehow ended this vision, or whatever it was, almost in a jolt-like way, and when I looked around, I was back at the inn. I was cold, surrounded by my friends who looked shocked. They all seemed to be freezing their asses off, too, actually. To my left was Jeongyeon, holding Jihyo’s hands as if to warm them up, and SaMo to my right were huddled so close to each other you could have thought they were joined at the hip. 

They were all staring at me, confusion dripping from their expressions.

“Is it cold in here?” I asked, very stupidly, I might add. We were all shivering.

“Yeah. Must be a draft or something. ty inn. They need to fix the holes in the roof,” Nayeon said dismissively, but not convincingly. Nobody mentioned the fact that it had been warm moments ago, or the lack of holes in the roof. “Go on, though. It doesn’t end there.”

I had to find my train of thought again. Was that a vision I just had? I wasn’t sure, but I could dwell more on that later. There was so much to talk about that this went straight to the back of my mind. 

Eventually I remembered where I left off and finished the story with Mina nearly killing me with something , challenging me to a duel if I ever found her again, 3Mix rescuing me, adopting me and then promising to train me so I could eventually beat Mina and bring her home. “So this is a time sensitive thing, guys,” I finished. “The longer we stay put, the longer Mina goes without food or drink in the real world. I want– no, not want, I need– to find her and beat her at whatever she wants. That’s the only way she’ll leave this game willingly. It’s… it’s the only way, guys. She could die!”

Sana had been looking at the table before us very intensely when I turned to her, but she must’ve sensed my eyes on her because she looked up and gave me a pained smile. Now she knew that we were in similar situations. Momo, according to her, was acting aggressively, which was not how she normally acted at all. 

Momo stood abruptly and leaned forward on the table, a super determined expression plastered on her face. “Then what the hell are we waiting for? Let’s go! We’re wasting Chaeyoung’s time here!”

  Jihyo signaled for her to sit down, and Momo, surprisingly, did without complaint. Sana and Momo had only known Jihyo for a few hours, but already there was no question who had the authority here. Then again, it was hard to argue with Jihyo, who had giant golden armor that completely changed her sweet disposition into a commanding one.

“I know it’s necessary we act quickly, but I want to talk to you two,” she motioned at Sana and Momo, ”at least briefly. I want you guys in our guild. We don’t have any archers and you two would be a huge advantage.” Nayeon and Jeong clearly didn’t like that at all, you could see it in their expressions. But neither said anything, not even when Momo and Sana excitedly agreed to join.

“Good!” Jihyo clapped her hands and pulled up some menu I’d seen only once before. When I was added to 3Mix, Jeongyeon, ever so helpful, told me it was a menu only guild leaders had– it was where they could add and remove members and edit a few settings in regards to the guild. Jihyo selected SaMo’s usernames from a list. They received an in-game invitation shortly after and I watched as Momo and Sana accepted. Their usernames glowed a golden glow, probably signifying that they were now a part of 3Mix. No doubt mine had done the same.

“Hey, why is the guild named 3Mix?” Momo asked, and Jihyo tapped her chin.

“Well… it was because there were three of us in the beginning. But I’m thinking that we should change it now, since you, Sana and Chaeng are with us now. How about it?” She was asking Nayeon and Jeongyeon, but as neither of them wanted the raiders in the guild in the first place, Jihyo just mumbled something and edited the guild name anyway.

“6Mix. There we go! Has more of a ring to it,” Jihyo said, more to herself than us, then completed the settings and closed the menu. Her eyes landed on me as she stood up, and pointed outside. “Alright! Now that that’s over! Somewhere next to this inn there’s a training grounds. We’re all going to teach you all we can about fighting. My hopes are that you learn about some weapons and see if you seem to have a natural skill for them. You see, Chaeng, in this game, a natural ability to wield a certain weapon can indicate what class you’re in. Rogues and Assassins are experts in crossbows, Warriors and Beast Masters are good at long swords, and so on and so on.”

I nodded, a little worried about this. I had literally never been in a fight, in real life or in Paracosmos. Would everything be hard for me? Especially with heavy weapons. How long would it take me to learn how to use them?

Jeongyeon bumped me with her hip as we made our way out of the inn. “What’s up, Chaeng?” She seemed in a better mood now that we were moving– and far away from Momo and Sana. That bothered me a bit. “Looks like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“I… I mean yeah, I’m just worried.” I kicked up some dirt. How could I explain this without sounding like an idiot? “I‘ve never held a weapon. Unless you count knives, but those were just kitchen ones. How am I supposed to learn how to use them quickly? Doesn’t it take years to master the sword or something?”

Jeongyeon’s eyes had a humorous glint to them, instantly letting me know that I had definitely just said something stupid. She didn’t ridicule me, though, and patted my back. “Don’t worry about that at all. It’s not like we’re really using them the way they’re used in real life. The game makes up easier ways to use weapons.”

“Oh.” I should have figured! Damn it!

“C’mon, Chaeyoung. Did you really think that I was a skilled knife fighter in real life?” Jeongyeon let out a small laugh, which was okay, because it was Jeongyeon and she was allowed to laugh at me a little. Her teasing never stung too much. “I wouldn’t be in this damn game if I could fight like that in real life. I’d be out on the streets protecting women from creeps or something.”

I felt a little ridiculous, but Jeongyeon patted me again and said that she understood that I was way newer to this game than she was. She promised she’d explain way more things later on, things that a lot of players still didn’t know about. That made me feel a lot better. I already knew a whole lot more than I had two days ago and it was all because of Jeongyeon, so I couldn’t even imagine the fountain of knowledge she promised to drop on me.

For a town that was above the clouds, at the peak of a tall mountain, it really was kind of underwhelming. I expected something cooler-looking, like maybe a castle town with a bustling market and tons of armorers and smiths. This? It was just the one inn we had just come out of, two houses for NPCs, a small shop where you could sell just about everything you had on you, and the training grounds. When we arrived, I tried not to look too disappointed at the training area as well.

It was small and didn’t live up to its label. There were about twenty straw dummies strategically placed around the pathetic dirt area with maybe two other smaller guilds already there, improving their own levels and techniques.

The six of us found an area where I could train, and started making plans on how to go about it. They decided to go like this: two hours with Jihyo for long sword fighting, another two with Momo and Jeong for short sword fighting, and lastly, Sana and Nayeon for crossbow training. If we had time in the day, they’d all gather around to teach me how to use a bow and arrows and maybe the knife. It wasn’t much, but those were the only weapons we had at hand.

With the schedule decided, everyone except Jihyo and I left the area, and I asked her where they were going to go. She didn’t know, but she said she hoped they wouldn’t start a fight with each other. “For once, I kind of hope they split up and stay out of each other’s ways. We need to focus on you right now.”

I hoped they’d avoid fighting too. Then I could focus on sword fighting without worrying about them clawing each other’s eyes out.

Jihyo nodded as a way to signal the start of the session and pulled out two of her swords, both of them sickeningly sharp and heavy-looking. It looked like they were so heavy, in fact, that I worried Jihyo would drop them, but she carried both as if they were mere tree branches. She handed me one, and yeah, it was really heavy. I almost fell over trying to hold mine up. “Use both hands, Chaeng. It’s a two handed sword. I’m going to see if it eventually gets lighter for you. That typically indicates that you’re a Warrior or a Beast Master and that you’re learning how to use it!”

I nodded and tried my best to hold it up. “So when we’re done training, do you think I’ll have leveled up a lot?”

“What?” Jihyo asked, unsheathing her sword and narrowing her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Practicing sword fighting! Is it going to level me up a lot? Or is it going to be a slow process?”

Jihyo shook her head. “No. You don’t level up from fighting dummies, Chaeng. They don’t die and drop experience points. Training is training, plain and simple.”

“Wait! Then why am I here? Why are we wasting time?!” I felt so tired all of a sudden. I dropped Jihyo’s heavy sword on the ground and it landed with a loud clang . “Why aren’t you taking me out to level up? Who cares about training when my friend is starving in real life?”

I was acting like a desperate, whiny child, but Jihyo kept her composure. She stepped closer and picked up her sword, then stared straight into my soul. “So I assume you know how to use a sword, then? I’m sure you do, since you’re calling all of this pointless and you’re ready for battle.”

I squirmed under her gaze. She was asking a rhetorical question; of course I didn’t know how to use a sword. Everybody could see that. I took the sword back ashamedly. Jihyo cleared and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

“Listen, Chaeng. You can’t just go out like that without training. I can assure you, none of us in 6Mix went out adventuring without being sure we actually knew the mechanics of fighting in this game. I’m surely not going to let you out into the world and watch you die in an instant just because you didn’t want to take the time to learn how to fight.” She pulled away but rested a hand on my shoulder, making me look up at her, before saying “You asked us to help you, and we are . But you have to trust us .”

Her words knocked the sense back into me. She was right, and I had no reason to act like I knew better than her. “You’re right. I’m really sorry. I’m just–“

“–In a hurry,” Jihyo finished for me, almost like she had read my mind. How did she do that? She huffed a little bit, but a smile spread across her face. “I don’t know why you’re in such of a hurry. Not too much time has passed.”

What? I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Last time I checked, I’d already slept two times in this game, meaning that around three days had passed since I entered Paracosmos. “What? It’s been three days, Jihyo! That’s a lot of time to stack on top of the whole week Mina hasn’t eaten.”

Jihyo studied her sword, a deep frown on her face. “Ah, I guess you don’t know?”

“Probably not,” I said through clenched teeth. God damn, I didn’t know anything.

“One day in this game is actually only twenty four minutes long. You said you’ve been here three days, right?” She asked me, and I nodded. “Well, alright then. Three days in this game… In real life, that’s around seventy minutes.”

Seventy minutes... “Really?! This whole time nobody bothered to tell me that time passes differently here?”

Jihyo grimaced. “Chaeyoung, it tells you in the beginning. And it’s in the instruction manual of the game.”

“I think Mina got rid of the manual, and… and I skipped the entire beginning part. I just wanted to get to the game.”

If you can stifle an eye roll, Jihyo just did that. She huffed frustratedly and nodded. “Okay. Fine. You were in a hurry. But, yes, it’s true. Time is totally different in this game. It only feels like real-life hours because you’re immersed.”

Immersed. That word took me back to the day when Mina and I went to that convention. Mina had said that this game would feel real if you allowed yourself to be immersed in it. The memory made me feel a little sick, and Jihyo noticed it.

“You okay?”

I nodded, doing my best to shove those sad feelings away. “I just…miss Mina. I want to get her back and save her.”

“I’m sorry, Chaeyoung. Let’s not waste any more of your time, then. Shall we start training?”

I nodded, feeling a little lighter now that I knew that I had been wrong about the passage of time. We actually had more time than I thought. I had actually only been in this game for seventy minutes!

Together, Jihyo and I trained for a few in-game hours. Between slashes, stabs and parries, she told me that she was sure that Tzuyu was a Beast Master. It was obvious, if you didn’t totally forget that she had a Cerberus at her command, hence the Beast Master title. That explained why she had such a huge sword, too, the one that Jeongyeon managed to take away from her before Tzuyu escaped with Dahyun. 

“It looks like a Buster sword, doesn’t it?” Jihyo asked me at one point, parrying one of my s.

“What’s that?” I asked breathlessly, not knowing the types of swords at all. 

“Buster swords? Like, from Final F– oh wait, I just remembered that you don’t play videogames.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sorry. Maybe when I finally leave this game with Mina, I can get her to teach me how to play a few. Then you can ask me about Buster swords or whatever.”

Jihyo gave me a motherly smile, all while trying her best to stab me. “Yeah. I think you’d be good at them. We could play online together sometime, if you’d like.”

I didn’t respond at the time, but I found my heart doing little somersaults. I looked forward to it. 

“Do we still have that sword? Tzuyu’s Buster sword-looking one?” I asked some time later, still breathlessly.

Jihyo grunted as she threw me to the ground, my sword flying out of my hand and onto the dirt. She straightened her back and pushed her brown hair out of her face. “Yeah. I’m thinking of selling it and getting you a weapon with the gold. I’ll talk to the guild about it. Whichever weapon you end up being good at, we can get one just for you.”

“If I end up being good at any of them,” I muttered as she helped me off the dirt. 

“Hey. Let’s be positive. You’ve still got short swords, crossbows, and bows to try out. Maybe one of them’ll be the perfect one for your class, whatever it may be.”

“Are you saying that long swords are a no go?” She was already excluding it from the list. That couldn’t be good.

Jihyo gnawed on her virtual lips. “Yeah. Sorry. I saw that you did your best, though, so kudos for that.”

I really had tried my best to follow Jihyo’s instructions, and I had been doing well while I fought the dummies. Once she felt like it was a good idea to fight one-on-one, though, it was like I had no strength to do what she wanted. I couldn’t put enough force in my blows and my breathing was too ragged too often. No wonder she wasn’t convinced by my fighting.

“Let me get Jeongyeon and Momo for you, okay? Promise me you’ll try your hardest with them and that you won’t give up…” Jihyo pouted and reached to grab my hands. She stared at me and waited until I promised to try my hardest. Her soft brown eyes gave me no choice but to do as she wished.

When the two Rangers showed up, they walked like the other had a highly contagious disease. Any onlooker wouldn’t have known that they were both in the same guild and walking toward the same person. 

“So, you wanna learn how to use the shortsword, huh?” Jeongyeon asked me when she arrived. “I’ll do my best, okay? But remember that there are a lot of different classes and maybe, when you randomized your character, it gave you a totally different class with way different weapons.”

I nodded, then remembered that Momo was supposed to be here too. It didn’t take me long to find her; she was standing off to the side awkwardly, a little hidden so that nobody gave her curious looks. I waved her over, inviting her closer to me, but she didn’t look very happy about that. “I don’t know how to use a sword, long or short, so… I’m useless to you right now. Sorry Chaeng.”

I recalled Jihyo, Nayeon and Jeongyeon telling SaMo that it was a bad idea to depend on only one type of weapon for the whole game. Being balanced, like having a long range weapon and a melee weapon in your arsenal, was always the best idea if your class allowed it. I felt really bad for Momo, so I pulled her closer. “Nonsense! You’re never useless! Just learn with me! Jeongyeon can totally teach you! You already know you’re a Ranger, so this will be ten times easier for you!”

Jeongyeon, of course, looked like she’d rather throw herself into a rat-infested pit than teach Momo how to use the sword, but I chose to ignore it in favor of slinking close to my mentor. “You see, Momo, Jeongyeon is super smart. She knows how to use all sorts of weapons: small knives, like you’ve already seen, short swords, and even bizarrely large ones. I saw Jeong use that huge sword she took from Tzuyu.” Yeah, I was laying it on thick, but I was making sure to soften her up enough to the idea of teaching Momo. And I wasn’t completely lying either. I really thought Jeongyeon was a genius. Out of all the people I had seen fight, Jeongyeon had the most impressive fighting style of them all.

The sweet-talking seemed to work on her, because her steely eyes softened the slightest bit and her stance was less aggressive. “Okay, fine! Whatever! I’ll help her too!” She turned to the raider and gulped loudly. “So, uh, M-Momo… ” She hesitated in saying Momo’s name, and I realized that it was probably the first time she had addressed her by her name. My heart raced, loving this progress. “...I only have two swords. How should we divide this lesson? Should I teach you and then Chaeyoung?”

I was about to agree with the proposition when Momo made a curious face. It was like she suddenly remembered something. “Wait… I think Sana and I acquired a sword some time ago. It might still be in my bag if I haven’t sold it yet.”

“Acquired?” I asked, sure that she meant stole, and Momo’s sneaky smile confirmed it. 

“Okay, so we took it from some unattended camp. Doesn’t matter. Point is, I think it’s a short sword. Can I get it?” After Jeongyeon shrugged, Momo dashed to our horses. 

Quickly, while she was away, I poked Jeongyeon’s side to get her attention. “Hey. Thanks for agreeing to train her too. I know you don’t like her, because of what she and Sana did to Nayeon, so it means a lot to me. We’re a guild now, and we have to work together.”

Jeongyeon seemed like she wasn’t going to say anything about it, maybe ignore me to avoid a cheesy moment, but just barely above a whisper, she said “I don’t hate them, you know.”

Well, that was kind of shocking. Her actions kinda said otherwise, but still, I searched her face for an explanation as to what she meant, and she looked like she wanted to sigh, but I suppose there had been too much of that lately, because she settled on shrugging weakly instead. “I dunno. To me, it’s not as big of a deal as it is to Nayeon, the fact that they stole from her, because obviously that’s part of the game. Raids are allowed. If they weren’t, we would have reported that behavior by now. But… I guess I want to be on Nayeon’s side for once. Nobody seems to be. You’ve made it clear you sided with Sana and Momo, and Jihyo is ignoring her, for the most part. Nayeon’s still hurt about that, of course. So I’m pretending to hate those two so she won’t feel alone.”

“I see,” I said, nodding, because that was really nice of her. But… “You’re not blaming Jihyo for being upset though, right? Don’t forget that Nayeon did kiss a random girl in that castle. Just because you forgave her doesn’t mean that Jihyo did.”

I saw Jeongyeon’s eyes shift, and Momo sounded close, so I thought that was the end of it. But right before Momo was within earshot, she blinked really hard and whispered “I know, Chaeyoung. How could I forget?”

My heart felt like it dried a little bit, and I felt so guilty, because I just directly mentioned a sensitive subject. It was too late to apologize to Jeongyeon because Momo arrived with the promised short sword, though.

Wordlessly, and like I hadn’t just hurt her, Jeongyeon checked out the sword and nodded. “Great. Um, thanks, Momo. It’s perfect. Let’s get started, shall we?”

I went into this training thinking that I would have an advantage, considering I had just learned how to use a heavy sword. But it turned out, just because this sword was lighter in weight did not mean that it would be easier to use. For starters, it seemed like I was slightly better off with a long sword because those used their heaviness to deal blows, not the strength of the fighter. Short swords, on the other hand, required more muscle effort in order to do any damage. I didn’t think I could get more tired than I was when I trained with Jihyo, but boy was I wrong. 

When Jeongyeon stopped the training for a small break, I dropped to the ground like a rag doll. “Can I just stay like this forever?” I asked Momo, who smiled and rolled her eyes.

“C’mon Chaeyoung, Jeongyeon won’t let you just give up like that. You gotta keep trying!”

I drew a little figure on the dirt. “I dunno. I’m not very good at this. I think short swords are actually harder to use, and way more dangerous for me.”

Jeongyeon was leaning on a dummy nearby, close enough to listen to Momo and I talk. She hadn't said much to me during training, which was understandable, since I had said something that hurt her, but I guess she was in better spirits now after a long session, because she smiled at me, here eyes crinkling in the corners. “I guess it is. I’m sorry Chaeyoung, I totally forgot how much more dangerous they could be for you.”

It wasn’t her fault, obviously. She was strong, and could handle herself with a short sword. That made it easy to forget that the short sword was, as the name suggests, a short sword, meaning it had the disadvantage of forcing you closer to the enemy. Me, being the weakling that I was, would probably die instantly. 

“But Momo is doing pretty good, don’t you think?” I wanted to change the subject, not just to keep me from getting discouraged, but also to see what Jeongyeon thought about Momo’s sword fighting. Now that I could see that Jeongyeon harbored no hard feelings against me, I easily worked up the courage to ask her.

Jeongyeon’s eyes narrowed at me. She knew what I was trying to do. She shook her head and gave me a half-grin. “Yeah. Momo is pretty good. I’m actually pretty impressed.” Directly addressing Momo this time, she said “If you told someone that you just now learned how to use the short sword, they probably wouldn’t believe you. Awesome – uh – job. We can train some more as we travel, since there are things that are better learned when using them against real enemies.”

I watched Momo’s lips quirk up. She really seemed to like the praise. Inwardly, I was jumping up and down with excitement. Was this actual progress I was seeing? Jeongyeon and Momo training together without looking like they wanted to rip each other’s teeth out? Miracles could happen, apparently.

Maybe things were going too well. Maybe things needed to balance out a little bit, a little bit of bad to keep the good from tipping the scales, because a few minutes later, when we were about to restart training, I heard two familiar voices shouting in the distance. I sat up and searched for the source. It didn’t take too long to find it, either, because other players nearby were watching the two voices argue. All I had to do was follow their gazes.

I cursed under my breath. It was Nayeon and Sana.

Jeongyeon and Momo both seemed to hear their respective friends at the same time, because both jumped to their feet and looked at each other worriedly.

“Is that–?” Momo asked, and both Jeongyeon and I nodded.

“Chaeyoung. Go find Jihyo,” Jeongyeon ordered, and when I asked what they were going to do meanwhile, she responded solemnly, hopefully already formulating some kind of plan to calm those two. “Momo and I are gonna make sure they don’t kill each other.”

Okay, so she didn't have a plan. That gave me enough reason to run as fast as I could along the edge of the training area in search of Jihyo, hoping that our leader would come up with something on the fly. 

I spotted her talking to another player, probably a fellow Warrior, judging by the armor. When Jihyo caught sight of me, she waved me over happily, most likely to introduce me to the other person. I didn’t give her time, though, knowing that the longer it took for Jihyo to arrive, the worse it would get between Nayeon and Sana.

“Jihyo! Sorry! No time! Nayeon and Sana are causing a commotion!” I spared a moment to glance at the other Warrior. Her username was seungmong and she was level 49. I felt really, really bad about interrupting her and Jihyo’s conversation, because it seemed to have to do with the maps they had spread out on the table, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

“Sorry, Seungyeon,” Jihyo said, an embarrassed smile spreading across her face, ”We can talk later. Hopefully. Thanks for the help you've given me so far. Gotta go.” Immediately after, she put on a more serious face and asked me to lead her to Nayeon and Sana. 

I took Jihyo about halfway there when I found that she wouldn’t really need me to lead her anymore; just follow the shrill screaming and you’d find them!

“Aw, damn it, Nayeon,” Jihyo muttered and ran faster. When she finally reached them, she stood between them as they ignored her and continued arguing over her shoulder.

“Seriously? Get over it, Nayeon! We’re in the same guild now! We can’t be arguing like this anymore!” Sana shouted, one hand on the hilt of her knife. It seemed to be in self-defense, because Nayeon looked ready to pounce on her.

“Get over it? Are you serious? You got me when I was at my weakest!” Nayeon’s eyes seemed to be on fire. She directed that fire at Jihyo next. “Jihyo, tell her! Tell her how ed up that was!”

“Stop. I’m not going to do anything you ask me to, Nayeon. You’re making a commotion and you’re embarrassing all of us.” There was en edge to Jihyo's voice, the kind that under normal circumstances would have made everything stop. But these were not normal circumstances. Nayeon's anger was blinding her, not letting her see reason.

It only seemed to make Nayeon even worse. She rubbed her temples and ran a hand through her black hair. “Embarrassing? Is that what I am to you? God, I’m so sorry, okay? Do you think of me like that because of my mistake? Because I’ve apologized, Hyo. I made it clear that I regret it with all of my heart.” Tears began to well in her eyes.

I didn’t think this was the place to be mentioning that incident in such a public place, and clearly, neither did Jihyo and Jeongyeon. Jihyo’s frown deepened and, threateningly, she stepped closer to Nayeon. “Don’t, Nayeon. Don't you dare.”

“Is it? Are you always siding with everyone else besides me because of what I did in that castle?”

Jeongyeon had to step in at this point and grip Nayeon’s arm tightly to get her attention. “Nayeon. Not here. If you want to talk about it, let’s do it in private.”

Jihyo's jaw tightened. She didn’t wait for Nayeon's answer, just her heel and headed straight for the inn. Wordlessly, we trailed after her, knowing that Jihyo's word - or action, in this case - was final. Next to me, I heard Sana and Momo whispering to each other, both not knowing what kind of twist this argument had led to.

I wondered if the three girlfriends would tell SaMo about their relationship and how it was strained, only because we were all in the same guild and they were now directly involved with all of us.

I was the last one in the line to the inn, left to look around at the crowd that Nayeon and Sana had attracted. Lots of faces looked amused, confused, annoyed and worried. I completely understood. They came here to train, not to catch two girls fighting each other.

As I was turning my head to face forward again, I spotted something – or someone – that made my blood freeze. I stopped in my tracks and turned to look for her again. There were so many people that it was hard to find her. But as people walked away to continue their training, it became easier and easier.

And there she was.

Mina stood behind a dummy, leaning to the side to see past it. She had replaced her dark cape with a green one, making her seem less threatening, and she was smiling, not evilly, like the way I remembered her, but kind of excitedly, childishly. She seemed to want to talk to me. Her demeanor made that obvious. 

My legs moved of their own accord. Without thinking of the consequences, I rushed to her, heart in my stomach and tears in my eyes.

“Interesting,” Mina said, standing over the bonfire. She stared deeply into the flames, as if trying to find something in them. “Well, now I’m glad I didn’t fry you, DugunDubuDugun.”

Dahyun swallowed thickly, glancing at the tent behind her, where Tzuyu slept– unaware of this conversation, unaware of Mina’s presence– and briefly wondered how angry her best friend would be if she found out about the dangerous deal she had just made with Mina.

“So... when do we do this?”

Mina’s eyes flicked away from the flames for a second, just long enough to give Dahyun an annoyed look. “I already told you: after I pay Chaeyoung a visit. I want to see some old pals, even if it’s just a glance.”

The way Mina said ‘old pals’ sent a chill down Dahyun’s spine. In cartoons, such a phrase meant nefarious things, like old enemies, or ex-friends-turned-enemies, which, in Dahyun’s opinion, was much worse. She wondered which one it was. “Old pals?”

The tent shook a little bit, causing Mina and Dahyun to freeze. It seemed like Tzuyu was just tossing and turning, though, so they resumed the conversation.

“Yep,” Mina breathed, feeling like she should leave soon. She turned away from Tzuyu and Dahyun’s camp. “From what you’ve told me, it turns out Chaeyoung’s made friends with people I’ve met before. Fun,” she said, in a not-fun tone. “Now, I have a question for you, Dahyun. Can you act?”