Hanaele was catching her breath as she arrived at Cassius’ location. All of them stared at her presence like a walking dead people, especially those that argued against Cassius a while ago. Aided by her comrades at her back, they were the Esperer warriors that helped them fight against the monster trees. They were all exhausted and their eyes looked tired. Larch came to ponder about their situation. He didn’t expect them to get tired like this. It was rare to their perspective to see these legendary warriors in this facile appearance they had.

Cassius welcomed them with a question, “Where is Sophia?” His question made Nover bitter. He sighed, looking away and thought of negative things about them. Inside his thoughts, he already knew that they were biased to Sophia. He sensed their unfair treatment when it comes to this random girl who came from the other dimension. What a shame to the entire Pag-asa if this inappropriate act disclosed to everyone.

Hanaele looked at them one by one, and she can feel their tiredness from their eyes. She understood their situation, but at this brink of time, there is no time to explain all of their queries. Yes, Hanaele heard about their complains. She is a holder of one of the most admirable power of an Ae, the ability to hear noise between fifty meters. She knew every wailing of every squad, but she just chose to pretend she never encountered those uncertainties, especially their confusions.

“I assigned three of my colleagues to place her in the headquarter for treatment. A few moments later, they will arrive back to the center of Pag-asa,” answered Hanaele while looking closely to Cassius unreadable eyes.

Cassius nodded, and he was about to thank Hanaele from their initiative, but Nover chipped in.

“Tsk, what’s with Sophia that you guys want to protect her than us?” he surmised through a question. His eyes were looking away from anyone of them. Hanaele’s eyebrows furrowed after hearing his unexpected point of view. She became confused about what Nover was trying to point out.

Hanaele wanted to speak, but Cassius stopped her. They made an eye contact, and Cassius was like telling her to let him handle the situation. Through the conversation of their eyes, Hanaele nodded, allowing him to do his will.

Cassius cleared his throat and gradually, he stepped towards his horse where Nover seated. “If you’re just going to tell us that you didn’t expose such favoritism on her, and then better shut up,” Nover greeted his teeth. He wasn’t even afraid of the presence of those Esperers hearing his ranting.

Cherish went beside Flora and they both helped each other to lean on a huge normal tree. When they both sat down these wet grasses, Cherish’s back became weak. She couldn’t handle herself anymore which brought her to the point where she leaned her head on Flora’s shoulder. Flora carefully touched her forehead to check of she’s fine, but when Cherish didn’t react to her gestures, Flora knew that Cherish’s energy have shut down. She’s no longer opening her eyes nor breathing at normal rate.

Flora captured Larch’s attention by throwing a small rock to his leg. As soon as he noticed it, Flora pointed Cherish, asking for help. Larch quickly kneeled in front of them and tried to open Cherish’s eyes, but not matter how much he poured an effort of making her awake, Cherish did not go back to her consciousness.

“She got tired,” Larch uttered.

Flora caressed the back of Cherish’s head while observing her breathing.

Larch stood up and asked for those Esperer’s help. He approached Hanaele and told her about the situation. In a snap of the finger, Hanaele quickly assigned two Esperers to bring Cherish to their headquarter. They immediately agreed with Hanael’s words. Now that they successfully carried the unconscious body of Cherish towards the horse, Flora left slouching beside the tree. Larch slowly walked towards her direction and sat beside her.

When glancing at Flora’s half opened eyes, she was looking at nowhere. She also barely response by the time he pinched his fingers to see her reaction. Larch sighed, thinking that everyone does get tired. If these Esperers were exhausted about the encounter, how much more those that have lower ranking like them? Oh, they weren’t official members of Agila anyway.

At this point in time, Larch and Flora’s attention focused on Cassius and Nover’s burning conversation. “She isn’t the real Sophia,” Cassius revealed. And this discloser surprised all of them. Hanaele didn’t react and still maintain that unbothered expression she normally has while the rest of the Esperer’s gasped. They exchanged each other’s opinions about Sophia Codache’s real identity.

Nover gave him a questioning look. His eyes were full of confusion, and he couldn’t utter his words properly. “W-What is y-you s-saying?” he asked, flabbergasted.

Cassius glanced at his side, knowing that Hanaele was there expecting him to tell them the truth. He also felt her nodding even though it was a sight from the side of his eyes.

“Sophia is also an Ae like Hanaele. She is the reincarnated version of Rosae, the flower goddess,” he spoke which made the whole crowd confused.

Nover perplexed, and a lot of questions came to his mind. “Huh? So you are saying that after all this time, Hanaele knew what goes around Sophia’s mind?” he asked.

Cassius nodded, “Yes, and that is also the reason why we are protecting her at all cost that we can. Currently, she doesn’t know who she truly is.”

On the other side of this surprising revelation, Larch realized something about Sophia’s unusual capability. It made him remember about that time when it was easy for her to do aromatic ring and difficult exhibitions during their training. No wonder why every time she moves, it seems nothing for her. Her reflexes were different from a level of being a trainee. After knowing that Sophia is the flower goddess, it made him speculate about Flora’s attachment towards her. Flora likes flowers, and her having too much attachment to Sophia made him pondered.

He was about to tell Flora about this, but when he glanced at her, Flora slept.

Also, after hearing that Sophia is the goddess Rosae, he suddenly remembered the lesson that was taught to them when he was still in fourth grade. The flash on her memory remembered about his teacher, telling the class about the powerful deity named Snaedis, the daughter of Aegir – their god, and her half-sister, Rosae. He also recalled that time when he told her grandmother about it, and she mentioned about another deity who has the capability of a fire. It was no other than, Hanaele.

Larch can feel his head aching after processing this information in his head. He couldn’t believe that this mystery will be untangled during this time!

With widened eyes, he stood up and went close to Hanaele while pointing a finger at her. The Esperers quickly protected her with their swords, but Hanaele asked them to release their weapons. Hanaele was no longer surprised seeing his frozen reaction. She was aware in the first place that there were at least some people in Pag-asa that would reveal her being a fake a human especially that their Honorable general, of that old aged, knew about her identity as the Lady of Flames. In fact, he was the one who gave a title to Cassius as the Man of Fluidity because of his fascinating reflexes, and for the people to assume that giving name titles are normal. Their Honorable wants to cover up Hanaele’s identity as possible.

“Y-You…” Larch spoke. When hearing this, Cassius turned his back away from Nover.

Cassius prepared to take his sword from his side, but Hanaele stared at him, asking him to stop making a scene.

“Speak out, Larch,” Hanaele encouraged in a manner of slightly threatening him.

“You are also a goddess…” Larch continued.

The Esperers, guarding her from him, quickly turned their heads to her as they waited for her response to his speculation. Also, they weren’t surprise about what Larch said. They already that Hanaele is a goddess, it was just that they were expecting something more to hear on Larch’s unusual claim.

“Everyone knows that I am a goddess, Larch,” Hanaele confidently replied.

“But,” Larch paused for a while, looking down to filter his words because at this very moment, he was completely dumbfounded. “You are not just an ordinary goddess! You, Snaedis, and Rosae are half-sisters!” he shouted. The Esperers froze.

“Larch stop-“

“Shut up, Cassius!”

Larch stared straight to Cassius’ eyes like a tiger. “Do you know about this?” he asked, but Cassius chose to look away. He laughed sarcastically and added, “Hah! How funny! The three goddess are the reasons why we have monster trees in this world, and now they play roles on helping us to eradicate them. Don’t you all think all of this is a trap? They just use us to clean the mess they made-“

“I said stop!” Cassius voice rose. Larch quickly stopped after being startled by him.

The atmosphere became intense, especially when Larch and Cassius glared at each other. The only thing that made the situation brightened was when the rain suddenly stopped. In a brink of the time, the sun rose up, and its rays strike towards the wholes of the tree’s swaying leaves.

All of them looked up to this aquatic, shining sky.

Nover’s jaw dropped, and asked, “What is happening?”